Kepler Data Used to Identify 41 New Transiting Planets
Using data from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, scientists have verified 41 new transiting planets in 20 star systems, ranging from Earth-size to more than seven…
Planets
Astronomers Discover a Fifth Moon Orbiting Pluto
Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers discovered a fifth moon, designated P5, orbiting Pluto that is irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across….
Tidal Heating Suggests Less Habitable Planets
Tidal heating, which is basically gravitational heating of a planet via tides, suggests that the number of habitable planets could be roughly half of what…
Revealing Data from Super-Earth 55 Cancri e
Sitting 40 million light-years away, researchers were able to gain a better understand of 55 Cancri e and its environment. Using observations from NASA’s Spitzer…
Can Jupiter-Like Planets Lead to Earth-Like Planets?
Scientists are searching for Earth-like planets by searching near Jupiter-like planets. Using data from NASA’s Kepler mission, scientists have identified 63 candidate hot Jupiter systems,…
Schumann Resonance Could Help Reveal the Solar System’s Origins
In 2011 researchers realized that they could use NASA’s Vector Electric Field Instrument aboard the Air Force’s Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System satellite to detect Schumann…
Saturn’s Moon Phoebe has Planet-Like Qualities
More than 60 moons orbit Saturn and by combining data from NASA’s Cassini mission with modeling techniques, scientists have so far been able to identify…
Three Earthlike Planets Could be Hospitable to Life
As NASA’s Kepler Mission continues to supply important data and continuously monitors stars for transit signals, astronomers from Cornell University focused on 80 M dwarf…
Earth in Motion and the Galaxies Around it
Once scientists realized that their understanding of the distribution of galaxies was incorrect, researchers began studying the large scale structure of the universe to better…
Rogue Planets Captured by Stars
According to a new study set to be published this week, rogue planets might not be alone forever. The study details how rogue planets are…
Runaway Planets at 30 Million MPH
It’s hard to imagine planets that zip around at 30 million mph, but it was only a few years ago that astronomers found a “flying…
Simulations Show Jupiter’s Core is Liquefying
Scientists now have a better understanding about gas giant exoplanets and what is going on in their cores. By studying computer simulations, scientists believe that…
MESSENGER Reveals New Data about Mercury
There is more to Mercury than scientists previously thought. MESSENGER, the first ever probe to enter orbit around Mercury, has collected more than four million…
Researchers Analyze Earthshine for Life in the Universe
By analyzing earthshine and observing the Moon using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, researchers are using Earth as a benchmark for future discoveries of life elsewhere…
KIPAC Study Suggests Large Number of “Nomad Planets”
A recent study by researchers at the Kavli Institute for Particle Physics and Cosmology (KIPAC) suggests that for every typical star in our galaxy, there…
Researchers Examine Phase Changes for Insight to Planet Formation
Researchers have gained a deeper insight into planet formation by studying the phase changes between different types of melts. Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory…
Juno Spacecraft Completes First Trajectory Correction Maneuver
The solar-powered Juno spacecraft that was launched in 2011 to improve our understanding of Jupiter’s formation and evolution just completed the mission’s first trajectory correction…
Team of International Scientists Discover New Super-Earth
Using public data from the European Southern Observatory with measurements from the Keck Observatory’s High Resolution Echelle Spectrograph and the Carnegie Planet Finder Spectrograph at…