Extrasolar Planets
Second Smallest Exoplanet Found
[/caption] Planet hunters have detected an extrasolar planet that is only four times the mass of Earth, making it the…
Kepler Discovers Planets-like Objects Hotter Than Stars
Possible habitable zones around stars. Credit: Kepler mission The Kepler mission announced the discovery of 5 new extrasolar planets today…
New Observations of TrES-2b May Reveal New Exoplanet
[/caption] For those know their solar system history, the discovery of Neptune is an especially exciting story. Before it was…
First Super-Earths Discovered Around Sun-like Stars
Astronomers say it’s a "neck-and-neck race" as to whether the first potentially habitable planets will be detected from the ground…
Exoplanet Not Really There?
This artist's concept shows the smallest star known to host a planet. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech In May 2009, astronomers were…
Cool – Literally – Extrasolar Planet Imaged
Yet another planet outside of our Solar System has been directly imaged, bumping the list up past ten. Given that…
The Extremely Large Telescope
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is planning on building a massive - and I do mean massive - telescope in…
Second Exoplanet with Retrograde Orbit Discovered
The exoplanet HAT-P-7b has been observed to have a very curious orbit. It either has a highly tilted orbit -…
Shedding Light on the Sun’s “Lithium Mystery”
For decades, astronomers have known our Sun contains a low amount of lithium, while other solar-like stars actually have more.…
Multi-Planet System is Chaotic, Dusty
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope captured this infrared image of a giant halo of very fine dust around the young star…