exoplanets
Astronomers Find a Huge Planet Orbiting its Star at 6,000 Times the Earth-Sun Distance
Tracking exoplanets is hard - especially when that exoplanet is so far away from its parent star that the normally…
This is how you get Tatooines. Binary Star Planet Formation
One of the less appreciated aspects of George Lucas’ vision for Star Wars was that he predicted the existence of…
Incredible! Astronomers see a Moon-Forming Disk Around a Newly Forming Planet
Planetary formation is a complicated, multilayered process. Even with the influx of data on exoplanets, there are still only two…
There are Probably Many More Earth-Sized Worlds Than Previously Believed
In the past decade, the discovery of extrasolar planets has accelerated immensely. To date, 4,424 exoplanets have been confirmed in…
To Take the Best Direct Images of Exoplanets With Space Telescopes, we’re Going to Want Starshades
The Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems (JATIS) has released a special edition of papers dedicated to educating the…
A Lunar Farside Telescope Could Detect Exoplanets Through Their Magnetospheres
Earth's ionosphere blocks us from seeing radio aurora on distant worlds, but a radio telescope on the Moon would let…
A New Technique for “Seeing” Exoplanet Surfaces Based on the Content of their Atmospheres
A new study takes a look at how the presence of a surface can affect an exoplanets atmosphere, giving astrobiologists…
What’s the Connection Between the Chemistry of a Star and the Formation of its Planets?
Scientists seem to have come up with a new parlor game - how many ways can we potentially detect exoplanets? …
The Elements for Life Depend on Both how and Where a Planet Forms
A new study by a team from Rice University has shown that where a planet forms in its star system…
Larger Rocky Planets Might be Rare Because They Shrunk
Researchers at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics published a paper last week that just might explain a mysterious…