Unveiling the Fate of Ultra-Short Period Exoplanets
The last decades of “exoplanet hunting” – the search for planets orbiting stars other than the Sun – have allowed us to better understand the…
Exoplanet
NASA Searching for Free-Floating Planets Using Artificial Intelligence and Gravitational Microlensing
Exoplanet hunters have found thousands of planets, most orbiting close to their host stars, but relatively few alien worlds have been detected that float freely…
Extreme Exoplanet – An Ultra-Hot Jupiter Where It Rains Iron – Even More Exotic Than Originally Thought
Considered an ultra-hot Jupiter – a place where iron gets vaporized, condenses on the night side and then falls from the sky like rain –…
Stellar Winds, Magnetic Activity, and Evaporating Exoplanet Atmospheres
Most stars including the Sun generate magnetic activity that drives a fast-moving, ionized wind and also produces X-ray and ultraviolet emission (often referred to as…
Exploring Alien Planets: New Cereal Box-Sized Spacecraft Has Mighty Goals
A new miniature satellite designed and built at CU Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) is providing proof that “cute” things can take on…
Astrophysicists Spot an Exoplanet With the Potential To Form Moons
New high-resolution observations clearly show a moon-forming region around exoplanet PDS 70c. The observations have allowed astronomers to determine the ring-shaped region’s size and mass…
Cold Planets Exist Throughout the Milky Way – Even in the Galactic Bulge
Researchers led by Osaka University and NASA find that the distribution of cold planets in the Milky Way is not strongly dependent on the distance…
A Big Step Forward in the Search for Alien Life: New Class of Exoplanet Very Different to Our Own
A new class of exoplanet very different to our own, but which could support life, has been identified by astronomers, which could greatly accelerate the…
Exoplanet-Hunting Satellite CHEOPS Unexpectedly Detects a Strange Planet “Without a Known Equivalent”
The exoplanet satellite hunter CHEOPS of the European Space Agency (ESA), in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is participating along with other…
Discovery Alert: A “Cool” Neptune-Like Planet – With Plenty of Atmosphere?
The planet: TOI-1231 b The discovery: A planet some 90 light-years away from Earth is oddly reminiscent of our own Neptune – that is, a…
Astronomers Find Small Rocky Planet – Just Half the Mass of Venus
A team of astronomers has used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile to shed new light on planets around a…
Massive COCONUTS Exoplanet Discovery: Giant Planet Just 35 Light Years From Earth
Astronomers have discovered thousands of exoplanets — planets beyond our solar system — but few have been directly imaged, because they are extremely difficult to…
From the Sun to the Stars: A New Journey of Exoplanet Discovery Begins With the NEID Spectrometer
The NEID spectrometer, a new tool for the discovery of planets outside of our solar system, has now started its scientific mission at the WIYN…
Unique Planet “With No Known Equivalent” Photobombs Exoplanet-Hunting Satellite
While exploring two exoplanets in a bright nearby star system, ESA’s exoplanet-hunting Cheops satellite has unexpectedly spotted the system’s third known planet crossing the face…
First Measurement of Isotopes in the Atmosphere of an Exoplanet
A Potential New Tracer of Exoplanet Formation An international team of astronomers, including scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, have become the first…
First Clear Detection of a Moon-Forming Disc Around a Planet Outside Our Solar System
Using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, astronomers have unambiguously detected the presence of a…
Worlds Beyond Our Solar System: NASA’s TESS Discovers Stellar Siblings Host “Teenage” Exoplanets
Thanks to data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international collaboration of astronomers has identified four exoplanets, worlds beyond our solar system, orbiting…
Golden Target: Unique Exoplanet Photobombs CHEOPS Study of Nearby Star System
Photobombs — when something or someone unexpectedly enters a camera’s field of sight during the taking of a photograph — happen every day. Sometimes it…