ScienceDaily: Space & Time News

NASA and other U.S. agencies and space science institutions, along with international partners, will participate in a 'tabletop exercise' that will play out a realistic -- but fictional -- scenario for an asteroid on an impact trajectory with Earth.

The discoveries of thousands of planets orbiting stars outside our solar system has made questions about the potential for life to form on these planets. Fundamentally important for the habitability of a planet is whether or not it can hold onto an atmosphere. A new study by has shown that young stars can rapidly destroy the atmospheres of Earth-like planets, which is a significant additional difficulty for the formation of life outside our solar system.

NASA's Mars InSight lander has measured and recorded for the first time ever a likely 'marsquake'. This is the first recorded trembling that appears to have come from inside the planet, as opposed to being caused by forces above the surface, such as wind.