Here on Earth, we take gravity so for granted that it took an apple falling from a tree to trigger Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation. But gravity, which draws objects together in proportion to their mass, is about much more than fallen fruit. Read on for some of the strangest facts ...
Gliese 581g, an exoplanet 20 light-years from Earth, is considered the prime candidate for human re-colonization should Earth's resources be expended.Locked in orbit around a red dwarf star known as Gliese, one side of the planet reaches temperatures as cold as the North Pole while the oth...
That is the 1 million Euro question. We are currently just exploring what processes drive the formation and evolution of other solar systems, and what we can learn from this about our own solar systems (and Earth’s!) history. We think that many other stars have exoplanets around them but ...
aScientists have found facts to explain life and nature and thereby reshape ideas. Examples are plenty-- discoveries such as the earth going around the sun by Galileo, the principles of gravity by Newton, the evolution of species by Darwin, to name only a few. As a result, society has wi...
Earth’sgravitational field(seegravitation) ismanifestedas the attractive force acting on a free body at rest, causing it to accelerate in the general direction of the centre of the planet. Departures from the spherical shape and the effect of Earth’s rotation cause gravity to vary with latitud...
Earthquakes are caused by the sudden release ofenergywithin some limited region of the rocks of theEarth. The energy can be released byelastic strain, gravity, chemical reactions, or even the motion of massive bodies. Of all these the release of elastic strain is the most important cause, bec...
It is large enough for its owngravityto mould it into a spherical shape, and its orbit doesn’t have other small objects around it. Can you see Neptune by looking into the sky? No, you can’t actually see Neptune with the naked eye because it is so far from earth. But as we said...
Moon, Earth’s sole natural satellite and nearest celestial body. Known since prehistoric times, it is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun. Its name in English, like that of Earth, is of Germanic and Old English derivation.
Quizzes Astronomy and Space Quiz Space Odyssey Planets and the Earth’s Moon Brightest Star in the Solar System All About Astronomy Related Questions Why is it difficult to observe Mercury? What are the planets in the solar system? How did the solar system form?
Dwarf planet, body, other than a natural satellite (moon), that orbits the Sun and that is, for practical purposes, smaller than the planet Mercury yet large enough for its own gravity to have rounded its shape substantially. Learn more about dwarf plane