Space and astronomy news
Astronomers know of about 60 rocky exoplanets orbiting in the habitable zones of their stars. When they try to determine how habitable these planets might be, detecting water in their atmospheres plays a huge role. But what if there was another way of measuring the water content in these worlds? Researchers are developing a way …
Continue reading “Astronomers Calculate Which Exoplanets Are Most Likely to Have Water”
When the JWST activated its penetrating infrared eyes in July 2022, it faced a massive wish-list of targets compiled by an eager international astronomy community. Distant, early galaxies, nascent planets forming in dusty disks, and the end of the Universe’s dark ages and its first light were on the list. But exoplanets were also on …
Continue reading “JWST Sees Four Exoplanets in a Single System”
JWST has demonstrated how well it can analyze the atmosphere of exoplanets, revealing carbon dioxide, water vapor, and sulfur compounds. The hope, of course, is that it might be able to find evidence of biosignatures. Astronomers have found over 5,000 confirmed exoplanets, and TESS has turned up 4,000 candidate exoplanets. With this enormous catalog of confirmed and potential planets, which are high priorities that JWST should be pointed at?
With JWST safely in space, researchers are designing the next generation of space telescope that could Earth-sized worlds orbiting sunlike stars. Chinese scientists released a concept paper this week for the Tianlin mission, a 6-meter UV/Optical/IR space telescope, which could begin operations in 2045. This telescope would search for rocky planets in the habitable zones around nearby stars and search for biosignatures using direct imaging. The team estimates they could obtain the spectrum of 20 candidate exoplanets in the first five years of operation.
According to a new study, JWST is powerful enough to detect the chemicals in the atmospheres of various terrestrial planets and could give a hint if there’s life there.
A new machine learning technique will help astronomers detect young exoplanets in disks surrounding other stars.
In a recent study submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters, an international team of researchers led by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) examine the potential for water-worlds around M-dwarf stars. Water-worlds, also known as ocean worlds, are planets that possess bodies of liquid water either directly on its surface, such as Earth, or …
Using China’s FAST telescope and a new technique, an international team of astronomers scanned 33 exoplanets for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Back in 2008, astronomers made a big announcement: for the first time, they had taken pictures of a multi-planet solar system, much like ours, orbiting another star. At the time, the star system, named HR8799 was known to have three planets, but follow-up observations a year later revealed a fourth world. Astronomers have continued to …
Continue reading “Watch This 12-Year Timelapse of Exoplanets Orbiting Their Star”
Using data from Hubble and Spitzer, an international team has discovered two new waterworlds in one system.