Exoplanets
A Planet So Hot Its Atmosphere Contains the Raw Material for Rocks
In the annals of "strange new worlds", the ultra-hot Jupiter planet WASP-76b ranks right up there as a very unusual…
Is it Time for a New Definition of “Habitable?”
Things tend to move from the simple to the complex when you're trying to understand something new. This is the…
JWST Scans an Ultra-Hot Jupiter’s Atmosphere
When astronomers discovered WASP-18b in 2009, they uncovered one of the most unusual planets ever found. It's ten times as…
The Kepler Mission’s Final Three Planets?
NASA's Kepler spacecraft ended its observations in October 2018 after nine and a half years, a solid six years beyond…
A Third of Planets Orbiting Red Dwarf Stars Could be in the Habitable Zone
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a pair of researchers from the University…
A New Place to Search for Habitable Planets: “The Soot Line.”
The habitable zone is the region around a star where planets can maintain liquid water on their surface. It's axiomatic…
Two Super-Earths Found Orbiting a Red Dwarf Star at the Edge of the Habitable Zone
NASA's TESS mission has turned up hundreds of planets and planetary candidates, and here are two more.
JWST Looks at the Atmosphere of a Stormy, Steamy Mini-Neptune
Just because there's no Mini-Neptune in our Solar System doesn't mean they're not common. They appear to be widespread throughout…
Even if There's Life on TRAPPIST-1, We Probably Can't Detect it
If we ever find life on other worlds, it is unlikely to be a powerful message from space. It's certainly…
Bizarre Exoplanet Breaks All the Orbital Rules
A fluffy hot jupiter has an orbit that doesn't line up with the rotation of its star.