exoplanets Archives

September 18, 2020September 18, 2020 by Evan Gough

Searching for Phosphorus in Other Stars

A Southwest Research Institute scientist has identified stellar phosphorus as a probable marker in narrowing the search for life in the cosmos. Stars with phosphorus levels similar to the Sun are considered more likely to host rocky planets with the potential to host life as we know it. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Search for Life can be a lot messier than it sounds. The three words make a nice, tidy title, but what it entails is extraordinarily difficult. How, in this vast galaxy, can we find life and the planets or moons that might host it? We’re barely at the point of either discovering or ruling out other life in our own Solar System.

Finding it somewhere else in the galaxy, even in our own interstellar neighbourhood, is a task so daunting it can be hard to comprehend.

So any time scientists think they’ve found something that can give them an edge in their near-impossible task, it deserves to be talked about.

September 2, 2020September 2, 2020 by Matt Williams

Machine Learning Algorithm Scoops up 50 New Exoplanets

Advances in technology are having a profound impact on astronomy and astrophysics. At one end, we have advanced hardware like adaptive optics, coronographs, and spectrometers that allow for more light to be gathered from the cosmos. At the other end, we have improved software and machine learning algorithms that are allowing for the data to be analyzed and mined for valuable nuggets of information.

One area of research where this is proving to be invaluable is in the hunt for exoplanets and the search for life. At the University of Warwick, technicians recently developed an algorithm that was able to confirm the existence of 50 new exoplanets. When used to sort through archival data, this algorithm was able to sort through a sample of candidates and determine which were actual planets and which were false positives.

September 1, 2020September 1, 2020 by Matt Williams

Astronomers Thought They’d Found a Red Dwarf That Wasn’t Hostile to its Habitable Zone Planets. They Were Wrong

Artistic design of the super-Earth GJ 625 b and its star, GJ625 (Gliese 625). Credit: Gabriel Pérez/SMM (IAC)

In the past decade, the study of exoplanets has grown by leaps and bounds. At present, a total of 4,201 planets have been confirmed beyond the Solar System and another 5,481 candidates await confirmation. In the midst of all this, M-type red dwarf stars have become a focus of exoplanet research because they appear to be the most likely place where rocky (aka. Earth-like) planets can be found orbiting within the star’s habitable zone (HZ).

However, that does not mean that red dwarf stars are good candidates for hosting habitable planets. Take GJ 887, for example, one of the brightest M stars in the sky that has a system of two (possibly three) planets. In the past, this star was believed to be calm and stable, but new research by astronomers from Arizona State University has shown that GJ 887 might not be so calm as previously thought.

August 26, 2020August 26, 2020 by Matthew Cimone

There’s No Chemical Difference Between Stars With or Without Planets

Orion Nebula - Closest Star Forming Region to Earth c Cimone - Trottier Observatory

Strange New Worlds

Imagine if a star could tell you it had planets. That would be really helpful because finding planets orbiting distant stars – exoplanets – is hard. We found Neptune, the most distant planet in our own solar system, in 1846. But we didn’t have direct evidence of a planet around ANOTHER star until….1995.…149 years later. Think about that. Any science fiction you watched or read that was written before 1995 which depicted travel to exoplanets assumed that other planets even existed. Star Trek: The Next Generation aired its last season in 1994. We didn’t even know if Vulcan was out there. (Now we do!…sortof)

Jupiter (right bright point) and Saturn (left bright point) seen here against the Milky Way were the most distant planets we could see before inventing telescopes – C. Matthew Cimone

August 9, 2020August 8, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

An exoplanet has been found for the first time using radio telescopes

Artist's illustration of the recently-discovered TVLM 513–46546. Image credit: Luis A. Curiel Ramirez

Astronomers have found an extrasolar planet around a main sequence star. Which isn’t a big deal. With a radio telescope. Which is.

July 28, 2020July 28, 2020 by Andy Tomaswick

Saturn-sized Planet Found in the Habitable Zone of Another Star. The First Planet Completely Discovered by Amateur Astronomers

Exoplanets have been a particularly hot topic of late. More than 4000 of them have been discovered since the first in 1995. Now one more can potentially be added to the list. This one is orbiting Gliese 3470, a red dwarf star located in the constellation Cancer. What makes this discovery particularly interesting is that this planet wasn’t discovered by any professional astronomers using high tech equipment like the Kepler Space Telescope. It was found entirely by amateurs.

July 23, 2020July 23, 2020 by Evan Gough

Wow! An Actual Picture of Multiple Planets Orbiting a Sunlike Star

This image, captured by the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, shows the star TYC 8998-760-1 accompanied by two giant exoplanets. This is the first time astronomers have directly observed more than one planet orbiting a star similar to the Sun. The image was captured by blocking the light from the young, Sun-like star (on the top left corner) using a coronagraph, which allows for the fainter planets to be detected. The bright and dark rings we see on the star’s image are optical artefacts. The two planets are visible as two bright dots in the centre and bottom right of the frame. Image Credit: ESO/Bohn et al, 2020

We’ve detected thousands of exoplanets, but for the most part, nobody’s ever seen them. They’re really just data, and graphs of light curves. The exoplanet images you see here at Universe Today and other space websites are the creations of very skilled illustrators, equal parts data and creative license. But that’s starting to change.

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has captured images of two exoplanets orbiting a young, Sun-like star.

July 23, 2020July 23, 2020 by Evan Gough

Astronomers are Starting to Find Planets in Much Longer Orbits. Cooler, More Habitable Planets

This artist’s view shows the planet orbiting the young star Beta Pictoris. This exoplanet is the first to have its rotation rate measured. Its eight-hour day corresponds to an equatorial rotation speed of 100 000 kilometres/hour — much faster than any planet in the Solar System.

We’re getting better and better at detecting exoplanets. Using the transit method of detection, the Kepler Space Telescope examined over 530,000 stars and discovered over 2,600 explanets in nine years. TESS, the successor to Kepler, is still active, and has so far identified over 1800 candidate exoplanets, with 46 confirmed.

But what if, hidden in all that data, there were even more planets? Astronomers at Warwick University said they’ve found one of these “lost” planets, and that they think they’ll find even more.

July 21, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

A Neptune-class exoplanet has been found with its atmosphere stripped away

Voyager 2 captured this image of Neptune in 1982, when it was over 7 million km (4.4 million miles) away from the planet. The Great Dark Spot in the middle of the image was the first storm ever seen on Neptune. Image: By NASA (JPL image) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

What happens when a giant planet gets stripped of its atmosphere? It leaves behind a giant core, rich in iron and other metals. A team using NASA’s TESS mission recently found such a remnant core, orbiting a star just 730 light-years away.

July 16, 2020July 21, 2020 by Matt Williams

Do the TRAPPIST-1 Planets Have Atmospheres?

Most exoplanets orbit red dwarf stars because they're the most plentiful stars. This is an artist's illustration of what the TRAPPIST-1 system might look like from a vantage point near planet TRAPPIST-1f (at right). Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

In February of 2017, the scientific community rejoiced as NASA announced that a nearby star (TRAPPIST-1) had a system of no less than seven rocky planets! Since that time, astronomers have conducted all kinds of follow-up observations and studies in the hopes of learning more about these exoplanets. In particular, they have been attempting to learn if any of the planets located in the stars Habitable Zone (HZ) could actually be habitable.

Many of these studies have been concerned with whether or not the TRAPPIST-1 planets have sufficient water on their surfaces. But just as important is the question of whether or not any have viable atmospheres. In a recent study that provides an overview of all observations to date on TRAPPIST-1 planets, a team found that depending on the planet in question, they are likely to have good atmospheres, if any at all.