ScienceDaily: Space & Time News

Planets outside our solar system may be more hospitable to life than thought, research suggests Posted: 15 Jan 2015 01:35 PM PST Astrophysicists suggest that exoplanets are more likely to have liquid water and be more habitable than once thought. If correct, there would be no permanent, cold night side on exoplanets causing water to remain trapped in a gigantic ice sheet. Whether this new understanding of exoplanets' climate increases the ability of these planets to develop life, however, remains an open question.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft begins first stages of Pluto encounter Posted: 15 Jan 2015 01:34 PM PST NASA's New Horizons spacecraft recently began its long-awaited, historic encounter with Pluto. The spacecraft is entering the first of several approach phases that culminate July 14 with the first close-up flyby of the dwarf planet, 4.67 billion miles (7.5 billion kilometers) from Earth.

Space station worms’ research potential is anything but flat Posted: 15 Jan 2015 01:31 PM PST For years, it was assumed the world was flat. Now, we have a laboratory that orbits our big, blue marble. So, it's funny to think of returning to flatness aboard the International Space Station, but this outpost currently houses flatworms for research. The study of these creatures has the potential to be rather robust in implications for regenerative medicine, an area of treatment for repairing or replacing human cells, tissues or organs on Earth to restore normal function. A new study launched aboard SpaceX's fifth commercial resupply services (CRS) mission to the space station examines the reparative processes of flatworms in microgravity.

Trans-Neptunian objects suggest that there are more dwarf planets in our solar system Posted: 15 Jan 2015 05:30 AM PST There could be at least two unknown dwarf planets hidden well beyond Pluto, whose gravitational influence determines the orbits and strange distribution of objects observed beyond Neptune. This has been revealed by numerical calculations. If confirmed, this hypothesis would revolutionize solar system models. Astronomers have spent decades debating whether some dark trans-Plutonian planet remains to be discovered within the solar system. According to scientists not only one, but at least two planets must exist to explain the orbital behavior of extreme trans-Neptunian objects.