Extrasolar Planets
Brown Dwarf Discovered in Planetary System
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has directly imaged a small brown dwarf star orbiting a larger star - the first time…
Huge, Lightweight Planet Discovered
A new, lightweight planet has been discovered orbiting a star 450 light-years away in the constellation Lacerta. This unusual planet…
Identifying Planets with Life
Telescope technology is advancing quickly, as larger and larger instruments are getting built. Eventually, an observatory will be built capable…
Network of Small Telescopes Find a Big Planet
A network of amateur astronomers has discovered an extrasolar planet located 500 light years away. This incredible discovery was made…
Earth-Sized Planets are Probably Common
Of the many extrasolar planetary systems discovered so far, more than a third could contain Earth-like planets. This is according…
Giant Planet or Failed Star?
The Hubble Space Telescope has helped astronomers uncover an object right at the dividing line between stars and planets. The…
Astrophoto: Stellar Nursery NGC 7129 by Bob Allevo
Prior to 1957, virtually all photographs of the sky were produced as monochrome, black and white images. In that year,…
Hubble Finds an Exoplanet’s Parent Star
When a star flared briefly, astronomers knew it was because a dimmer star had passed directly in front, acting as…
Twin Planemos Discovered
Astronomers have turned up plenty of extrasolar planets, but a newly discovered binary pair of planets is quite the find.…
Earth-Sized Planets Could Be Nearby
Nearly all of the extrasolar planets discovered so far have been huge, Jupiter-sized and above. The question is: could smaller,…