exoplanets
A New Planet-Hunting Instrument Has Been Installed on the Very Large Telescope
A new study shows how existing observatories like the ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) can be upgraded to perform cutting-edge…
Is it Life, or is it Volcanoes?
Astronomers are working hard to understand biosignatures and how they indicate life's presence on an exoplanet. But each planet we…
If Earth is Average, We Should Find Extraterrestrial Life Within 60 Light-Years
A new study estimates that there could be 11,000 habitable planets within 100 parsecs of our Sun, the nearest being…
How Do Lava Worlds Become Earth-Like, Living Planets?
Earth was once entirely molten. Planetary scientists call this phase in a planet's evolution a magma ocean, and Earth may…
Gaia is Now Finding Planets. Could it Find Another Earth?
The ESA launched Gaia in 2013 with one overarching goal: to map more than one billion stars in the Milky…
Why Build Megastructures? Just Move Planets Around to Make Habitable Worlds
A new study recommends we stop looking for megastructures and start searching for advanced civilizations who have moved multiple planets…
Tiny Swarming Spacecraft Could Establish Communications with Proxima Centauri
New research from the Institute for Interstellar Studies explains how swarms of thousands of tiny spacecraft could maintain communications with…
TESS Finds a Planet That Takes 482 Days to Orbit, the Widest it’s Seen so Far
We're rapidly learning that our Solar System, so familiar to us all, does not represent normal. A couple of decades…
Is Humanity Ready to Realize the Dream of Interstellar Travel?
For generations, humans have dreamed, speculated, and theorized about the possibility of journeying to distant stars, finding habitable planets around…
Astronomers Confirm First Exoplanet “Thermometer Molecule” that is Typically Used to Study Brown Dwarfs
A recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters examines a rare alloy molecule known as chromium hydride (CrH) and…