On the Edge of Destruction: These Newly-Discovered Planets Are Doomed
Astronomers have spied three more exoplanets. But the discovery might not last long. Each planet is in a separate solar system, and each orbits perilously…
Exoplanet
Doubling Planets: TESS Science Office at MIT Hits Milestone of 5,000 Exoplanet Candidates
Catalog of planet candidates nearly doubles in size during 2020-21. The catalog of planet candidates found with NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) recently passed…
Webb Space Telescope: Uncovering Hidden Parts of Our Solar System
The James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) is designed to answer fundamental questions about the Universe. One of Webb’s key science goals is to study the…
Unusual Team Finds Gigantic Planet Hidden in Plain Sight – Much Closer to Earth Than Others Like It
A UC Riverside astronomer and a group of eagle-eyed citizen scientists have discovered a giant gas planet hidden from view by typical stargazing tools. The…
Danger Close: Newly-Discovered Planets Will Be “Swallowed” by Their Stars
Astronomers at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) are part of a team that recently discovered three planets orbiting dangerously close to stars…
Strange Deformed Planet With Mysterious Motion Detected by Exoplanet Mission Cheops
ESA’s exoplanet mission Cheops has revealed that an exoplanet orbiting its host star within a day has a deformed shape more like that of a…
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope Illuminates Exoplanets
The infrared observatory may help answer questions about planets outside our solar system, or exoplanets, including how they form and what drives weather in their…
Ironing Out the Interiors of Super-Earth Exoplanets
The discovery of more than 4,500 extra-solar planets has created a need for modeling their interior structure and dynamics. As it turns out, iron plays…
Next-Generation Planet Hunting Mission Gets Green Light for Development
Plato, ESA’s next-generation planet-hunting mission, has been given the green light to continue with its development after the critical milestone review concluded successfully on January…
Citizen Scientists Discover Giant Jupiter-Like Planet in NASA TESS Data
Tom Jacobs of Bellevue, Washington, loves treasure hunts. Since 2010, the former U.S. naval officer has participated in online volunteer projects that allow anyone who…
Pandora Mission To Study Stars and Exoplanets Passes Crucial Step
The Pandora mission, co-led by a national laboratory and a NASA flight center, has passed a crucial step on its path to study stars and…
Astronomers Discover Evidence of Super-Sized Moon Orbiting a Jupiter-Sized Planet Beyond Our Solar System
An exomoon signal found in archival data hints at the possibility of more discoveries to come. Astronomers have reported a second, super-sized moon orbiting a…
Eccentric Exoplanet Discovered: Sub-Neptune Planet Orbiting in “Habitable Zone” of Red Dwarf Star
Led by the University of Bern, an international research team has discovered a sub-Neptune exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf star. The discovery was also made…
Finding Exoplanets in Debris Disks
Debris disks around main-sequence stars are tenuous belts of dust thought to be produced when asteroids or other planetesimals collide and fragment. They are common:…
“Field Guide” to Mysterious Exoplanets Known As Hot Jupiters
By combining Hubble Space Telescope observations with theoretical models, a team of astronomers has gained insights into the chemical and physical makeup of a variety…
Is Earth an Oddball? One of the Strangest Things in the Cosmos Might Be – Us
One of the strangest things in the cosmos might be – us. Among the thousands of planets confirmed to be in orbit around other stars,…
Astronomers Detect First Signature of Magnetic Field on a Planet Outside of Our Solar System
Researchers have identified the first signature of a magnetic field surrounding a planet outside of our solar system. Earth’s magnetic field acts as a shield…
At Least 70 Free-Floating Planets Discovered in a Nearby Region of the Milky Way
The more than 70 sunless worlds are each roughly the mass of Jupiter. Using observations and archival data from several of NSF’s NOIRLab’s observatories, together…