exoplanets
Astronomy Cast Ep. 512: Direct Imaging of Exoplanets
Finding planets is old news, we now know of thousands and thousands of the places. But the terrible irony is…
NASA’s Technosignatures Report is Out. Every Way to Find Evidence of an Intelligent Civilization
NASA's final report from their Technosignature Workshop is now out and addresses all the ways in which humanity is looking…
New SPECULOOS Telescope Sees First Light. Soon it’ll be Seeing Habitable Planets Around Ultra-Cool Stars
Our newest planet-hunting telescope is up and running at the ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile. SPECULOOS,…
Now that TESS is Operational, Astronomers Estimate it’ll Find 14,000 Planets. 10 Could Be Earthlike Worlds in a Sunlike Star’s Habitable Zone
How many exoplanets are there? Not that long ago, we didn't know if there were any. Then we detected a…
Astronomers Detect Water in the Atmosphere of a Planet 179 Light-Years Away
Gathering detailed information on exoplanets is extremely difficult. The light from their host star overwhelms the light from the exoplanet,…
The Power of the Wobble: Finding Exoplanets in the Shifting of Starlight
They say there's more than one way to skin an interstellar cat, and in astronomy there's more than one way…
We Could Build a Powerful Laser and Let Any Civilizations Within 20,000 Light-Years Know We’re Here. Although… Should We?
A powerful laser is just the thing to announce our presence as a technological species in this arm of the…
It’s Over For Kepler. The Most Successful Planet Hunter Ever Built is Finally out of Fuel and Has Just Been Shut Down.
After eight years of service and thousands of exoplanet discoveries, the Kepler space telescope has run out of fuel and…
What is the Direct Imaging Method?
A highly effective (but very difficult) method of exoplanet detection involves capturing direct images of bodies orbiting distant stars from…
A Red Dwarf Blasts off a Superflare. Any Life on its Planets Would Have a Very Bad Day
Astronomers observed a red dwarf superflare much more powerful than anything our Sun can produce. Bad news for any habitable-zone…