What exactly makes an exoplanet ‘habitable’?
Astronomers have been on the hunt for habitable planets outside of our own solar system for decades -- but what exactly counts as habitable?.....»»
Life on Earth uses water as a solvent. What are some other options for life as we don"t know it?
There is a vast menagerie of potentially habitable worlds in the cosmos, which means the universe could be home to a diversity of life beyond what we can imagine. Creatures built on silicon rather than carbon, or organisms that breathe hydrogen inste.....»»
Scientists want your help to search for black holes
Black Hole Hunter invites members of the public to search through data collected by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite to look for signs of a black hole......»»
TESS discovers nine new "hot Jupiters"
Using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has discovered nine new "hot Jupiter" exoplanets. One of the newly detected alien worlds is almost four times more massive than Jupiter. The finding was p.....»»
Big planets don"t necessarily mean big moons
Does the size of an exomoon help determine if life could form on an exoplanet it's orbiting? This is something a February 2022 study published in Nature Communications hoped to address as a team of researchers investigated the potential for large exo.....»»
Astronomers discover extremely hot exoplanet with ‘lava hemisphere’
An Earth-sized orbits a star similar to our sun, but much, much closer - meaning it has surface temperatures of nearly 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit......»»
Astronomers found ultra-hot, Earth-sized exoplanet with a lava hemisphere
Also: A separate team found a small, cold exoplanet with a massive outer companion. Enlarge / Like Kepler-10 b, illustrated above, newly discovered exoplanet HD 63433 d is a small, rocky planet in a tight orbit of its star. (cre.....»»
A Jupiter-sized planet has been hiding a big secret: A 350,000-mile-long tail
WASP-69b is having a hot girl summer that never ends. The huge gaseous exoplanet, roughly the size of Jupiter and approximately 160 light years from Earth, orbits its searing host star so closely that its atmosphere is boiling away at a rate of 200,0.....»»
Secrets of a hot Saturn and its spotted star unlocked
A team of astronomers including McGill Professor Nicolas Cowan has unraveled the enigmatic atmosphere of the exoplanet HAT-P-18 b, shedding light on its intriguing blend of gases, clouds, and even the effects of its star's activity.....»»
Gliese 367 b is a dark and hot sub-Earth with no atmosphere, study finds
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have investigated a nearby sub-Earth exoplanet known as Gliese 367 b. The obtained results indicate that this alien world is dark, hot and lacks a detectable atmosphere. The new findings were p.....»»
Seeking another Earth? Look for low carbon dioxide
In our own Solar System, Earth has far lower CO2 concentrations than its neighbors. Enlarge (credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech) What do we need to find if we want to discover another Earth? If an exoplanet is too far away for eve.....»»
See the weather patterns on a wild, super hot exoplanet
Planet WASP-121 b has a surface temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which researchers predict would lead to some wild weather phenomena......»»
TRAPPIST-1c isn"t the exo-Venus we were hoping for, but don"t blame the star
A recent study posted to the arXiv preprint server and accepted to The Astrophysical Journal uses computer models to investigate why the exoplanet, TRAPPIST-1c, could not possess a thick carbon dioxide (CO2) atmosphere despite it receiving the same a.....»»
The atmosphere of an exoplanet reveals secrets about its surface
As astronomers have begun to gather data on the atmospheres of planets, we're learning about their compositions and evolution. Thick atmospheres are the easiest to study, but these same thick atmospheres can hide the surface of a planet from view. A.....»»
Researchers argue back and forth about whether we’ve spotted an exomoon
Years after Kepler shut down, people are arguing over whether it spotted exomoons. Enlarge (credit: NASA) In 2017, the astronomy world was abuzz at the announcement that exoplanet Kepler-1625b potentially had its own moo.....»»
People once lived in a vast region in north-western Australia—and it had an inland sea
For much of the 65,000 years of Australia's human history, the now-submerged northwest continental shelf connected the Kimberley and western Arnhem Land. This vast, habitable realm covered nearly 390,000 square kilometers, an area one-and-a-half time.....»»
Researchers use VLT exoplanet hunter to study Jupiter"s winds
For the first time, an instrument to find planets light years away was used on an object in the solar system, in a study on Jupiter's winds......»»
Astronomers scan hundreds of stars for "anomalous transits"
Telescopes have been collecting copious amounts of data on exoplanets in recent years. One of the most common datasets tracks what are known as transits, when an exoplanet crosses in front of its host star and dims the star's light slightly as it doe.....»»
Exoplanets" climate: It takes nothing to switch from habitable to hell, say researchers
The Earth is a wonderful blue and green dot covered with oceans and life, while Venus is a yellowish sterile sphere that is not only inhospitable but also sterile. However, the difference between the two is only a few degrees in temperature. A team o.....»»
Some icy exoplanets may have habitable oceans and geysers
A NASA study expands the search for life beyond our solar system by indicating that 17 exoplanets (worlds outside our solar system) could have oceans of liquid water, an essential ingredient for life, beneath icy shells. Water from these oceans could.....»»
Astronomers calculate which exoplanets are most likely to have water
Astronomers know of about 60 rocky exoplanets orbiting in the habitable zones of their stars. When they try to determine how habitable these planets might be, detecting water in their atmospheres plays a huge role. But what if there was another way o.....»»