Planets are Finally Being Discovered Orbiting Farther From Their Stars
We don’t know much about exoplanets with long orbital periods, but we’re starting to learn.
There are Planets So Close to Their Stars That They Have Magma Oceans 100km Deep and Winds that Go 8000 km/h
200 light years away, “super earth” exoplanet K2-141b orbits a star so closely that its “year” is only 7 hours long. Not its day…its YEAR! K2-141b orbits a mere million kilometers from the fiery surface of its star. Earth is 150 million km from our Sun. Even Mercury, the planet closest to our Sun, is …
We use the Transit Method to Find other Planets. Which Extraterrestrial Civilizations Could use the Transit Method to Find Earth?
We have found more than 4,000 planets orbiting other stars. Life on distant worlds could find us in the same way.
Here’s a Clever Idea, Looking for the Shadows of Trees On Exoplanets to Detect Multicellular Life
That’s the kind of headline that can leave us scratching our heads. How can you see tree shadows on other worlds, when those planets are tens or hundreds of light years—or even further—away. As it turns out, there might be a way to do it. One team of researchers thinks that the idea could potentially …
Those are Exoplanets. You’re Looking at Actual Exoplanets 63 Light-Years Away!
By combining two exoplanet detection methods for the first time ever, the GRAVITY collaboration has confirmed the existence of a second planet around Beta Pictoris
There Could Be Carbon-Rich Exoplanets Made Of Diamonds
Scientists are getting better at understanding exoplanets. We now know that they’re plentiful, and that they can even orbit dead white dwarf stars. Researchers are also getting better at understanding how they form, and what they’re made of. A new study says that some carbon-rich exoplanets could be made of silica, and even diamonds, under …
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James Webb Will Look for Signs of Life on Planets Orbiting Dead Stars
Can the galaxy’s dead stars help us in our search for life? A group of researchers from Cornell University thinks so. They say that watching exoplanets transit in front of white dwarfs can tell us a lot about those planets. It might even reveal signs of life.
Astronomers Thought They’d Found a Red Dwarf That Wasn’t Hostile to its Habitable Zone Planets. They Were Wrong
New research using Hubble archive data shows that GJ 887, the nearby red dwarf star system with two exoplanets, might not be as calm and “boring” as we thought!
There’s No Chemical Difference Between Stars With or Without Planets
Strange New Worlds Imagine if a star could tell you it had planets. That would be really helpful because finding planets orbiting distant stars – exoplanets – is hard. We found Neptune, the most distant planet in our own solar system, in 1846. But we didn’t have direct evidence of a planet around ANOTHER star …
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Some Stars Could Support as Many as 7 Habitable Planets
A new study by a team of astronomers and planetary scientists calculate that some stars could have as many as 7 habitable planets orbiting them!