By Paul Scott Anderson, on April 9th, 2016
Artist’s conception of the possible Planet Nine, orbiting much farther from the Sun than even Pluto. The Cassini spacecraft may be able to help find it. Image Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)
The Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn for many years now, studying the massive planet and its moons in unprecedented detail. Now, […]
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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 […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on February 9th, 2016
The Kuiper Belt is a massive collection of dwarf planet- and asteroid-sized worlds orbiting far past Neptune. Is the hypothetical Planet 9 really a second such belt? Image Credit: T. Pyle (SSC)/JPL-Caltech/NASA
The announcement of a possible large ninth planet in our Solar System way beyond Neptune last month caused a lot of […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on January 21st, 2016
Artist’s conception of Planet Nine. The new evidence is the best so far that a massive planet exists far past Neptune in the outer Solar System. Image Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)
For a long time now, there have been theories and rumors regarding the possible existence of another planet in our Solar System, […]
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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 […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on April 17th, 2015 Illustration depicting the life cycle of Sun-like stars. Billions of years from now, our own Sun will expand into a red giant star, scorching any life that exists. Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Researchers at Cornell University are taking a new approach to the search for alien life: looking for habitable planets older than […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on March 30th, 2015 Artist’s conception of the Alpha Centauri binary star system and the exoplanet Alpha Centauri Bb. Our own Sun is also shown in the distance. Image Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/N. Risinger
The closest star system to our own Sun may have two Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting it, a new study has shown based on observations by […]
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By Leonidas Papadopoulos, on March 28th, 2015 A montage of Jupiter and its volcanic moon Io, as seen by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on its way to Pluto. The results of a new study indicate that the massive gas giant fundamentally altered the evolution of the early Solar System, by destroying any “Super-Earth”-type planets that may have formed, while opening […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on January 8th, 2015 Illustration of the eight newly verified exoplanets which are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit within their stars’ habitable zones. Image Credit: NASA/JPL
Even after problems threatened to end the Kepler space telescope’s mission for good last year, the planet-hunting observatory has continued to help astronomers discover thousands of exoplanets […]
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By Paul Scott Anderson, on December 18th, 2014 Artist’s conception of super-Earth HIP 116454b. Image Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA)
The Kepler space telescope has found its first new exoplanet, a “super-Earth,” of its secondary mission phase. The discovery adds to a current tally of 996 confirmed exoplanets and 4,183 planetary candidates already found by the revolutionary planet-hunting telescope.
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