The majority of groundbreaking astronomical discoveries are completely unexpected. With a multitude of next-generation telescope surveys being planned or under construction, how can we maximize our chances of coming across these serendipitous finds?
Spinning stars can potentially double the number of seasons that a planet experiences due to surface temperature variations on the stellar surface.
Early in its history, cloudy weather could have helped Mars retain enough heat for liquid water to exist on its surface.
The dense environments in the center of globular clusters lead to an abundance of binary black hole mergers, potentially detectable by LIGO.
Simple physical models can yield useful insights into the structure of planets in the outer Solar System.