Ironing out the interiors of exoplanets
The discovery of more than 4,500 extra-solar planets has created a need for modelling their interior structure and dynamics. As it turns out, iron plays a key role......»»
Why Werner Herzog thinks human space colonization “will inevitably fail”
Herzog and son discuss their new Discovery+ documentary, Last Exit: Space. Could humans eventually fly to exoplanets on massive "generational" spaceships? Last Exit: Space explores such a hypothesis with intriguing and sometimes darkly hil.....»»
Astronomers scan 800 pulsars to see if any of them have planets
Astronomers discovered the first exoplanets in 1992. They found a pair of them orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12 about 2,300 light-years from the Sun. Two years later they discovered the third planet in the system......»»
What"s happening in the depths of distant worlds?
The physics and chemistry that take place deep inside our planet are fundamental to the existence of life as we know it. But what forces are at work in the interiors of distant worlds, and how do these conditions affect their potential for habitabili.....»»
Astronomers spot a new planet orbiting our neighboring star
Astronomers have found a new planet orbiting our neighboring star Proxima Centauri, and it's one of the lightest exoplanets ever found......»»
Mini-Neptunes and Super-Earths: How puffy planets could be the missing link
When astronomers look at planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets, often they have only minimal information they can use to classify them. Two key factors they often do know are the planets’ size and their mass, from which they can d.....»»
NASA’s TESS has discovered 5,000 exoplanet candidates
NASA's planet-hunting satellite, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, has passed an impressive milestone, having identified 5,000 potential exoplanets......»»
This weird exoplanet is shaped like a rugby ball
Exoplanets come in many sizes, and sometimes they also come in unusual shapes - like this planet the shape of a rugby ball......»»
Giant Lasers Simulate Exoplanet Cores, Prove They"re More Likely to Have Life
Slashdot reader vikingo9 writes, "By smashing a piece of iron to insanely high pressures, using a laser the size of a football stadium, a team of scientists led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have discovered that exoplanets 4-6 times large.....»»
Rogue planets: How wandering bodies in interstellar space ended up on their own
We now know of almost 5,000 planets outside the Solar System. If you were to picture what it would be like on one of these distant worlds, or exoplanets, your mental image would probably include a parent star—or more than one, especially if you're.....»»
Water vapor detected on a "super Neptune"
The recently discovered planet TOI-674 b, a bit bigger than Neptune and orbiting a red-dwarf star about 150 light-years away, is a member of an exclusive club: Exoplanets, or planets around other stars, known to have water vapor in their atmospheres......»»
Ironing out the interiors of exoplanets
The discovery of more than 4,500 extra-solar planets has created a need for modelling their interior structure and dynamics. As it turns out, iron plays a key role......»»
Pandora mission to study stars and exoplanets continues toward flight
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 planets outside our solar system, or exoplanets......»»
The James Webb Space Telescope will map the atmosphere of exoplanets
Exoplanets, planets that orbit stars other than the sun, are found at distances very far from Earth. For example, the closest exoplanet to us, Proxima Centauri b, is 4.2 light years away, or 265,000 times the distance between the Earth and the sun......»»
To Study the Next Earth, NASA May Need to Throw Some Shade
The agency wants to hunt exoplanets, so it’s designing star shades and coronagraphs that block out starlight and give telescopes a clear view......»»
Astronomers find mysterious dusty object orbiting a star
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, TESS, was launched in 2018 with the goal of discovering small planets around the sun's nearest neighbor stars. TESS has so far discovered 172 confirmed exoplanets and compiled a list of 4703 candidate exopla.....»»
The James Webb Space Telescope is about to supercharge our hunt for exoplanets
The James Webb Space Telescope is set to launch in the coming months, and when it does, it will completely revolutionize how we hunt for habitable planets......»»
Bringing space inside the lab: Researchers replicate the climates of exoplanets to help find extraterrestrial life
Scientists do not need to travel light-years away to chart the atmospheres of exoplanets, thanks to research happening in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering with scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)......»»
Four new giant exoplanets detected
An international team of astronomers reports the detection of four new giant alien worlds as part of the HATSouth photometric survey. The newfound exoplanets are the size of Jupiter and received designations HATS-74Ab, HATS-75b, HATS-76b and HATS-77b.....»»
"Would you like a little ice with your exoplanet?" For Earth-like worlds, that may be a tall order
Exoplanets are experiencing a stratospheric rise. In the three decades since the first confirmed planet orbiting another star, scientists have catalogued more than 4,000 of them. As the list grows, so too does the desire to find Earth-like exoplanets.....»»
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: more than about a quarter of all main-sequence stars have debris disks and, since th.....»»