Day of Discovery: Close-Knit Family of 7 Earth-Size Planets
Five years ago, astronomers revealed a spectacular collection of other worlds: the TRAPPIST-1 system. Newspapers around the world printed the discovery on their front pages:…
Exoplanet News
A “Hot Jupiter’s” Dark Side Is Revealed: Iron Clouds, Titanium Rain, and Extreme Winds
The planet’s night side likely hosts iron clouds, titanium rain, and winds that dwarf Earth’s jetstream. MIT astronomers have obtained the clearest view yet of…
New Planet Discovered Next Door – Orbiting Proxima Centauri
In August of 2016, astronomers with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced that they had discovered an exoplanet orbiting in neighboring Proxima Centauri. Based on…
Planetary Bodies – Where Water and Life Could Exist – Observed for First Time in Habitable Zone of Dead Star
A ring of planetary debris studded with moon-sized structures has been observed orbiting close to a white dwarf star, hinting at a nearby planet in…
New Planet Detected Nearby – Orbiting Around Star Closest to the Sun
A team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile have found evidence of another planet orbiting Proxima Centauri,…
A Sun-Like Star Blasted Out a Massive Flare That Would Be Devastating for Life on Earth
In the search for “potentially-habitable” extrasolar planets, one of the main things scientists look at is stellar activity. Whereas stars like our own, a G-type…
A Jupiter-Like Rogue Planet Wanders Alone in the Dark of Space
This artist’s conception illustrates a Jupiter-like planet alone in the dark of space, floating freely without a parent star. Thousands of planets have been discovered…
Webb Space Telescope Provides New Tools To Search for the Building Blocks of Life on Distant Planets
How NASA in Silicon Valley Will Use Webb to Study Distant Worlds NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is getting ready to give us the best…
Worlds Can Change: Puffy Planets Lose Atmospheres & Become Super-Earths
Worlds Around Other Stars Can Change Their Classification If our solar system were a hobbyist kit, it would come boxed up with four rocky terrestrial…
Hot Jupiter Exoplanet Provides New Insights Into Seasons on a Planet Outside Our Solar System
Observations of a hot Jupiter may also advance our understanding of planet origins and evolution. Imagine being in a place where the winds are so…
Extreme Alien World: Strange Exoplanet Has a Complex and Exotic Atmosphere
An international team including researchers from the University of Bern and the University of Geneva as well as the National Centre of Competence in Research…
Discovery Alert: Water Vapor Detected on “Super Neptune” Exoplanet
The discovery: Water vapor in the atmosphere of planet TOI-674 b. Key facts: This recently discovered planet, a bit bigger than Neptune and orbiting a…
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…
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…