By Paul Scott Anderson, on January 9th, 2020
TESS Mission’s First Earth-size World in Star’s Habitable-Zone. Video Credit: NASA Goddard
NASA’s newest exoplanet-hunting space telescope, TESS, has already been making some exciting discoveries, and now two more have just been announced: its first Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of its star and its first planet orbiting two stars.
[…]
Like this:Like Loading...
By Paul Scott Anderson, on February 22nd, 2017
Artist’s conception of standing on the surface of exoplanet TRAPPIST-1f. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The search for exoplanets – planets orbiting other stars – has been one of the most exciting developments in astronomy and space science in recent years. The first couple exoplanets were found in 1992, and now over 3,400 have been […]
Like this:Like Loading...
By Paul Scott Anderson, on November 22nd, 2016
View of Sputnik Planitia on Pluto. This vast region of nitrogen ice provides clues that a subsurface ocean of liquid water exists on Pluto. Photo Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Pluto, a tiny frigid world in the distant outskirts of the Solar System, has been full of surprises, as first revealed by the New Horizons spacecraft […]
Like this:Like Loading...
By Paul Scott Anderson, on August 24th, 2016
Artist’s conception of what Proxima b might look like. It is just slightly more massive than Earth and orbits in its star’s habitable zone. Temperatures might allow liquid water to exist on its surface. A potentially habitable world, it is also now the closest known exoplanet. Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Astronomers today announced […]
Like this:Like Loading...
By Paul Scott Anderson, on July 12th, 2016
Artist’s conception of the star system HD 131399, with the planet HD 131399Ab in the foreground. Image Credit:ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser
Over the past couple decades, astronomers have been discovering a seemingly endless variety of exoplanets orbiting other stars. Some are rather similar to planets in our own Solar System, while others are more […]
Like this:Like Loading...
By Paul Scott Anderson, on May 10th, 2016
Artist’s conception of the many different exoplanets that have been discovered by Kepler so far. Image Credit: NASA/W. Stenzel
For several years now the Kepler Space Telescope, as well as other telescopes, has been discovering an increasing number of exoplanets, with over 2,000 such confirmed worlds found so far (and nearly 5,000 candidates). […]
Like this:Like Loading...
By Paul Scott Anderson, on February 18th, 2016
Artist’s conception of 55 Cancri e, a searingly hot, carbon-rich world. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser
Exoplanets are now being discovered by the thousands, but most are so far away that determining anything specific about their composition or atmosphere is currently very difficult. But technology keeps advancing, and scientists are now starting to […]
Like this:Like Loading...
By Paul Scott Anderson, on November 11th, 2015
Artist’s conception of GJ 1132b, an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a nearby star. Conditions on this world, however, are probably more like Venus than Earth. Image Credit: Dana Berry
Astronomers have discovered another Earth-sized exoplanet that is the closest one to our own Solar System found so far, but it might not be a […]
Like this:Like Loading...
By Paul Scott Anderson, on July 24th, 2015 Artist’s conception of Kepler-452b, the first near-Earth-sized exoplanet discovered orbiting in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star. Image Credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
One of the primary goals in the search for exoplanets is to, hopefully, find an Earth analog or “Earth twin,” an alien world similar to our own. That search is […]
Like this:Like Loading...
By Leonidas Papadopoulos, on May 24th, 2015 An artist’s concept of Kepler-47, which was the first-ever planetary system to be discovered orbiting a binary star. A new research that was based on data taken with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope provides stringest limits to the potential habitablity of exoplanets in several such systems. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
One defining scientific revolution […]
Like this:Like Loading...
|
|