Space and astronomy news
If the dataset from the Kepler mission is any indication, the most common type of exoplanets in our galaxy aren’t Earth-sized rocky worlds or hot Jupiters. In fact, the most common type of exoplanet isn’t one that we see in our own neighborhood at all. “Perhaps the most remarkable discovery by Kepler is the amount …
Continue reading “The Most Common Exoplanets Might be “Mini-Neptunes””
How common are planets like Earth? That’s been a question astronomers and dreamers have pondered for decades, and now, thanks to the Kepler spacecraft, they have an answer. One in five Sun-like stars in our galaxy have Earth-sized planets that could host life, according to a recent study of Kepler data. “What this means is, …
Continue reading “22% of Sun-like Stars have Earth-sized Planets in the Habitable Zone”
A newly verified planet found in data from the Kepler mission delivers on the space telescope’s task of finding Earth-size planets around other stars. The new planet, called Kepler-78b, is the first Earth-sized exoplanet discovered that has a rocky composition like that of Earth. Similarities to Earth, however, end there. Kepler-78b whizzes around its host …
Continue reading “Rocky Earth-sized World is a ‘Sungrazing’ Exoplanet”
It was just last week that we reported on the oh-so-close approach to 1,000 confirmed exoplanets discovered thus far, and now it’s official: the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia now includes more than 1,000! (1,010, to be exact.) 21 years after the first planets beyond our own Solar System were even confirmed to exist, it’s quite a …
Continue reading “There Are Now Officially Over 1,000 Confirmed Exoplanets!”
Remains of a water-filled asteroid are circling a dying white dwarf star, right now, about 150 light-years from us. The new find is the first demonstration of water and a rocky surface in a spot beyond the solar system, researchers say. The discovery is exciting to the astronomical team because, according to them, it’s likely …
Continue reading “Wet Asteroid’s Remains Found In Old Star That Could Have Hosted Habitable Planets”
As far as our understanding of life in the Universe goes, right now, we’re it. But the past decade has brought discoveries of hundreds of planets orbiting other stars, some of which could potentially host life. Fellow science journalist Lee Billings has written a new book about the exciting field of searching for extrasolar planets. …
Continue reading “Exoplanets and the Search for Life in the Universe: Q&A with author Lee Billings”
This might be the most exciting exoplanet news yet. An international team of scientists analyzing data from NASA’s Kepler mission has found a planetary system with two small, potentially rocky planets that lie within the habitable zone of their star. The star, Kepler-62, is a bit smaller and cooler than our Sun, and is home …
Continue reading “Kepler Team Finds System with Two Potentially Habitable Planets”
As we’ve reported recently, the likelihood of findings habitable Earth-sized worlds just seems to keep getting better and better. But now the latest calculations from a new paper out this week are almost mind-bending. Using what the authors call a “very careful extrapolation” of the rate of small planets observed around M dwarf stars by …
Continue reading “Could There be 100 Billion Potentially Habitable Planets in the Galaxy?”
Captain Kirk has nothing on the “strange new worlds” the Kepler space telescope has found. NASA’s planet-probing orbiting observatory launched its quest to find more Earths four years ago this week. Since then, it’s found thousands of planets ranging from ginormous gas giants to tiny rocky worlds that are even smaller than our planet. NASA …
Last year, physicists worked out the plausibility of a fully functional (if not fictional) Death Star being able to destroy planets, and found that the Galactic Empire’s technological terror could indeed destroy Earth-like rocky planets, but a Jupiter-sized gas planet would be a tough challenge. Now, real but theoretical modeling confirms that gas giants like …
Continue reading “Evil Empire Beware: Gas Giant Planets are Hard to Destroy”