Building blocks of life such as amino acids are able to form in dark interstellar clouds long before the areas of gas and dust turn into stars and planets, new study reveals. An international team of scientists, led by experts from Queen Mary University of London, simulated the conditions found within dark interstellar clouds of dust. They … Read more
There are around 300 million planets that exist outside our Solar System but within the Milky Way which could potentially harbour life, according to NASA. Four of them are within just 30 light-years from Earth, with the closest just 20 light-years away, the space agency states. Researchers arrived at the 300 million figure based on … Read more
WWF’s poignant Christmas advert tells the magical story of a girl following an imaginary elephant through her urban hometown to raise awareness of devastating habitat destruction WWF launched Christmas advert highlighting vulnerability of planet’s wildlife Tells story of a girl following trail of imaginary elephant through her hometown However, it is an urban city centre miles … Read more
Earth is the only planet we know that has sentient life – but astronomers have found two dozen exoplanets that may have better conditions for life than our home world. A team led by Washington State University identified 24 ‘superhabitable’ planets out of more than 4,500 known exoplanets that could be a good candidate for … Read more
A ‘hot Jupiter’ exoplanet with a surface temperature hot enough to vaporise iron has been dubbed ‘one of the most extreme planets in the universe’ by astronomers. Using data from the European Space Agency CHEOPS space telescope, astronomers from the University of Bern studied the orbit, size and temperature of WASP-189b. The planet, 322 light … Read more
The Prince of Wales has warned that we will need ‘four planets like earth to survive or provide enough for everybody’. Speaking today for Climate Week 2020, His Royal Highness urged companies to focus on ‘the green recovery’ following coronavirus, adding that ‘there is a better world out there’. Prince Charles said: ‘We’ve so degraded natural … Read more
Traces of phosphine gas detected in the clouds above Venus could be an indication that the planet supports microbial life, a study has concluded. On Earth, phosphine — a colourless gas that smells like garlic, or decaying fish — is naturally produced mainly by certain microorganisms in the absence of oxygen. It can also be … Read more
NASA speculates there are hundreds of rogue planets hiding all across the galaxy and may actually outnumber the hundreds of billions of stars. These free-floating orbs travel around space unattached to a larger star and an orbital telescope set to launch in 2025 aims to uncover their existence. According to researchers, the $4 billion Nancy … Read more
Citizen scientists found more than 1,500 brown dwarves — ‘cool worlds’ that are more massive than planets but lighter than stars — in our galactic neighbourhood. The discoveries were part of ‘Backyard Worlds: Planet 9’, a project which recruited more than 100,000 people to scour astronomical data for new ‘nearby’ objects. Some of the brown … Read more
What Planet are they on? Blue Planet’s creators ‘made millions from adverts for plastic bottles that clog up oceans’ Alastair Fothergill made adverts for biggest bottled water manufacturer in China Nongfu Spring bottles are found polluting oceans and shores worldwide Decision came despite work on BBC’s Blue Planet and Netflix’s Our Planet By Tom Kelly … Read more