Extrasolar Planets
First Detection of Water Clouds Outside Our Solar System
Astronomers have now determined a nearby brown dwarf has some exciting characteristics: its atmosphere is full of clouds of water…
New System Discovered with Five Planets
NASA's planet-discovering Kepler mission suffered a major mechanical failure in May 2013, but thanks to innovative techniques subsequently implemented by…
Webb Telescope Gets its Science Instruments Installed
The package of powerful science instruments at the heart of NASA’s mammoth James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have been successfully…
Friendly Giants Have Cozy Habitable Zones Too
According to a recent study from the Carl Sagan Institute, aging red giant stars could still have habitable zones that…
Three New Earth-sized Planets Found Just 40 Light-Years Away
Three more potentially Earthlike worlds have been discovered in our galactic backyard, announced online today by the European Southern Observatory. Researchers using the…
Did the Sun Steal Planet Nine?
One of the biggest new mysteries in our Solar System is the purported presence of a large and distant "Planet Nine,"…
ALMA Captures Never-Before-Seen Details of Protoplanetary Disk
ALMA, a network of radio telescopes, creates the most detailed images ever of a solar system forming around a nearby…
First Super-Earth Atmosphere Detected
Exotic "Diamond Planet" gets even more exotic with the discovery of a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.
Time-lapse Video Documents Assembly of Webb Telescope Primary Mirror
NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, MD - A time-lapse video newly released by NASA documents the painstakingly complex assembly of…
Do Comets Explain Mystery Star’s Bizarre Behavior?
The story of KIC 8462852 appears far from over. You'll recall NASA's Kepler mission had monitored the star for four years,…