Exoplanets
JWST Sees Four Exoplanets in a Single System
When the JWST activated its penetrating infrared eyes in July 2022, it faced a massive wish-list of targets compiled by…
What’s the Best Way to Find Planets in the Habitable Zone?
Despite the fact that we've discovered thousands of them, exoplanets are hard to find. And some types are harder to…
An Exo-Neptune Beat the Odds and Kept its Atmosphere
As planet-hunting scientists find more and more planets, they've encountered some puzzles. One of them concerns the lack of Neptune-size…
Do Red Dwarfs or Sunlike Stars Have More Earth-Sized Worlds?
Earth is our only example of a habitable planet, so it makes sense to search for Earth-size worlds when we're…
An Exoplanet so Hot it has Clouds Made of Quartz
A recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters used data obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Mid-Infrared…
What Would It Take to See Exoplanet Volcanoes?
Even with the clearest image from the best telescope in the world, astronomers still won't know what they're looking at.…
Old Stars Don't Have Hot Jupiters
Hot jupiters are giant planets that orbit extremely close to their stars, completing an orbit in a few days or…
Is it Life, or is it Volcanoes?
Astronomers are working hard to understand biosignatures and how they indicate life's presence on an exoplanet. But each planet we…
How Do Lava Worlds Become Earth-Like, Living Planets?
Earth was once entirely molten. Planetary scientists call this phase in a planet's evolution a magma ocean, and Earth may…
Gaia is Now Finding Planets. Could it Find Another Earth?
The ESA launched Gaia in 2013 with one overarching goal: to map more than one billion stars in the Milky…