exoplanets
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…
Surprising Discovery. Four Giant Planets Found Around a Very Young Star
What exactly is a "normal" solar system? If we thought we had some idea in the past, we definitely don't…
First Exomoon Found! A Neptune-Sized Moon Orbiting a Jupiter-Sized Planet
A pair of astronomers combing through data from the Kepler spacecraft have discovered the first exomoon. The moon is in…
Technosignatures are NASA’s New Target for Detecting Other Civilizations in Space. Wait. What’s a Technosignature?
A NASA workshop on Technosignatures paves the way for a new approach to the search for intelligent life.
New Video Shows Construction Beginning on the World’s Largest Telescope
A new video released by the ESO illustrates the construction of the Extremely Large Telescope, which will be the world's…