"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 ...

Tidal heating is the major source of heat in the outer Solar System. Because of its strong tidal interaction with Jupiter and the other Galilean Satellites, Io is incredibly volcanically active. We ...

The Nature Index 2025 Research Leaders — previously known as Annual Tables — reveal the leading institutions and countries/territories in the natural and health sciences, according to their output in ...

Astronomers searching for rocky planets that could support life in other solar systems should look outside, as well as within, the so-called “habitable zone,” University of Arizona planetary ...

Some white dwarfs in rapid binary orbits are far hotter and larger than theory predicts. Researchers found that powerful tidal forces between them generate enough heat to inflate their sizes and ...

Artist's impression of what the Moon looked like during the tidal-heating event. There would have been intense volcanic activity everywhere. The early Earth would have loomed much larger in the sky ...

Cross-sections of plausible interior structure models for Charon (a) and Pluto (b). In (a) and (b), the thicknesses of the silicate parts (and therefore also of the ice layers) range from 395–430 km ...

Excess heat is flowing from the north pole of Enceladus, hinting at a careful energy balance deep that may have kept the subsurface ocean stable over geologically significant timescales, boosting its ...

Impression of the 6.9 minute double white dwarf binary J1539+5027, composed of a tidally heated white dwarf (yellow) and its more compact companion (blue). It is about to start mass transferring.

What is the habitability potential on Saturn’s moon, Enceladus? This is what a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated a ...

Existence of subsurface oceans on the satellites of the giant planets and Trans-Neptunian objects has been predicted for some time. Oceans on icy worlds exert a considerable influence on the dynamics ...