In a cosmic case of “now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t,” a brilliant disk of dust around a Sun-like star has suddenly vanished, and the scientists who observed the disappearance aren’t sure about what happened. Typically, the kind of dusty haloes that circle stars have the makings of rocky planets like Earth, according to Ben Zuckerman, one of a […]
Mercury’s close-up shows lava flows and ”hollows”
Mercury may have a lot in common with Earth, but close-up images and data captured by NASA’S MESSENGER probe this year show it’s still a bit of a planetary weirdo. Just like Earth, Mercury has lava flows. But these are deep flows that smoothly cover the small planet’s northern polar region, with no Earth-type volcanoes […]