Liquid water is considered essential for life. Surprisingly, however, stable conditions that are conducive to life could exist far from any sun. A research team from the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS at ...

It's been a rough couple of decades for Pluto. After over a decade of discussion about whether or not it should be considered a planet, the big ball of ice and rock was officially demoted in 2006, and ...

"Tidal heating plays an important role in the heating and orbital evolution of celestial bodies," said Alex Hayes, professor of astronomy. "It provides the warmth necessary to form and sustain ...

At a young age, we're told how the sun warms Earth and makes life possible. That idea sticks with most of us for life. But when we want to understand things more thoroughly and we dig more deeply, we ...

A previously little-considered heating effect could shrink estimates of the habitable zone of the Milky Way’s most numerous class of stars — ‘M’ or red dwarfs — by up to one half, says Rory Barnes, an ...

Alien planets might experience tidal forces powerful enough to remove all their water, leaving behind hot, dry worlds like Venus, researchers said. These findings might significantly affect searches ...

A new study from the University of Arizona indicates that Jupiter's four largest moons are as warm as they are thanks to tidal forces caused by the moons' gravitational fields tugging on one another.

Gravity is the force of attraction between two objects. Its effects play an interesting role between a giant planet such as Jupiter or Saturn and their numerous moons — for instance, the Galilean ...

The shape of the moon deviates from a simple sphere in ways that scientists have struggled to explain. A new study by researchers at UC Santa Cruz shows that most of the moon's overall shape can be ...