exoplanets
Lone Planets “More Common Than Stars”
[/caption] We happen to live in a solar system where everything seems to be tucked neatly in place. Sun, planets,…
The Flip Side of Exoplanet Orbits
[/caption] It was once thought that our planet was part of a "typical" solar system. Inner rocky worlds, outlying gas…
Kepler Discovers First Earth Sized Planets inside Habitable Zone
[/caption] With the startling new finding of dozens of Earth-sized extrasolar planets, NASA's Kepler planet hunting space telescope has just…
Kepler Discovers Its Smallest and First Rocky Planet
[/caption] NASA’s Kepler planet hunting space telescope has made an historic discovery by finding its first rocky planet – and…
Catching Planets in the Womb
[/caption]Awhile ago I wrote on the difficulty of finding young planets. There, I mentioned one team announcing the potential discovery…
The Strange Warm Spot of upsilon Andromedae b
[/caption] If you set a big black rock outside in the Sun for a few hours, then go and touch…
Comet Hartley 2 Scouted by WISE, Hubble for Upcoming Encounter
[/caption] In a little less than a month, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft (its current mission is called EPOXI) will fly…
Does Tidal Evolution Cause Stars to Eat Planets?
[/caption] With the success of the Kepler mission, the viability of looking for planets via transits has reached maturity. However,…
Extrasolar Volcanoes May Soon be Detectable
[/caption] We’ve all seen pictures of erupting terrestrial volcanoes from space, and even eruptions on Jupiter’s moon Io in the…
The Origin of Exoplanets
[/caption] We truly live in an amazing time for exoplanet research. It was only 18 years ago the first planet…