Extrasolar Planets
Block Starlight to See Planets
University of Arizona researchers have developed an "optical vortex mask" that will block the starlight from a bright star, so…
Nearby Exoplanet is Scorching Hot
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has uncovered a hot extrasolar planet orbiting a nearby star. Planet HD 189733b orbits its parent…
Icy Extrasolar Planet Discovered
Astronomers have discovered an extrasolar planet only 5 times larger than the Earth orbiting a star in the Sagittarius constellation.…
Planet Finding Instrument Should Allow Many Discoveries
A new instrument called Exoplanet Tracker has turned up an extrasolar planet orbiting a star 100 light years away. This…
Debris Disk Could Be Forming Rocky Planets
Astronomers have discovered a dusty disk around a young star that could be in the process of forming new planets.…
Earth-Like Planets Should Be Easy Spot While They’re Forming
Researchers at the Washington University in St. Louis have developed a "field guide" for planet hunters searching for other Earths.…
Podcast: Planetary Disk That Refuses to Grow Up
With new instruments, astronomers are filling in all the pieces that help to explain how planets form out of extended…
Oldest Planetary Disk Discovered
Astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have found a dusty disk around a star which is 25 million years…
Planet Found in Triple Star System
A backdrop in many science fiction stories is to have multiple suns in the sky. Astronomers have now found such…
Will We Find Super Earths?
As techniques and equipment for finding extrasolar planets improve, astronomers are finding planets with smaller masses. First it was Jupiter-sized…