Exoplanets
Webb Sees a System That Just Finished Forming its Planets
When a young star begins forming, it's spinning rapidly, surrounded by a flattened disk that grows its future planets. Once…
The LIFE Telescope Passed its First Test: It Detected Biosignatures on Earth.
We know that there are thousands of exoplanets out there, with many millions more waiting to be discovered. But the…
Planets in Binary Star Systems Could be Nice and Habitable
The Star Wars world Tatooine is one of the most recognizable planets in the realm of science fiction. It's a…
Some Intelligent Civilizations Will Be Trapped on their Worlds
Evolution has produced a wondrously diverse variety of lifeforms here on Earth. It just so happens that talking primates with…
If Exoplanets Have Lightning, it’ll Complicate the Search for Life
Discovering exoplanets is almost routine now. We've found over 5,500 exoplanets, and the next step is to study their atmospheres…
Dying Stars Could Have Completely New Habitable Zones
Aging stars that become red giants increase their luminosity and can wreak havoc on planets that were once in the…
Did the Galileo Mission Find Life on Earth?
Although it was bound for Jupiter, NASA's Galileo spacecraft made flybys of Earth in 1990 and 1992 to get boosts…
Some Young Planets Are Flattened Smarties, not Spheres.
One of contemporary astronomy's most pressing questions concerns planet formation. We can see more deeply than ever into very young…
Atmospheres in the TRAPPIST-1 System Should be Long Gone
When the TRAPPIST-1 system was discovered, astronomers were elated to find seven Earth-sized worlds, three in the star's habitable zone.…
A Super-Earth (and Possible Earth-Sized) Exoplanet Found in the Habitable Zone
Astronomers have found a new Super-Earth orbiting an M-dwarf (red dwarf) star about 137 light-years away. The planet is named…