Extrasolar Planets
Neptune-Sized Planet Found Orbiting a Dead White Dwarf Star. Here’s the Crazy Part, the Planet is 4 Times Bigger Than the Star
Astronomers have discovered a large Neptune-sized planet orbiting a white dwarf star. The planet is four times bigger than the…
Giant Meteor Impacts Might Have Triggered Early Earth’s Plate Tectonics
A new study by an Australian-US team has found that a large impact that happened ca. 3.2 billion years ago…
Astronomers Find Cyanide Gas in Interstellar Object 2I/Borisov, but Don’t Panic Like it’s 1910
An international team of astronomers recently obtained spectra from the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov, which confirmed the presence of cyanide gas.
One Year, Almost 1,000 Planetary Candidates. An Update On TESS
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Telescope launched back in April, 2018. After a few months of testing, it was ready to…
Competition Will Let You Name an Exoplanet
When it comes to naming all those exoplanets that astronomers keep finding, it's up to the International Astronomical Union (IAU)…
Prototype of a Future Interstellar Probe was Just Tested on a Balloon
Researchers with the UCSB Experimental Cosmology Group recently conducted a successful stratospheric test of their wafercraft, which could be traveling…
Which Habitable Zones are the Best to Actually Search for Life?
A new study conducted by an international team of scientists examines what the term "habitable zone" means and how next-generation…
Complex Life Might Require a Very Narrow Habitable Zone
A new study has placed new constraints on the emergence of complex life, which effectively narrows what what we would…
This is Kepler’s Final Image
Even in retirement, the Kepler space telescope is still allowing for discoveries, which include it's "last light" images and recordings.
Geothermal Heating Could Make Life Possible on the Super Earth Planet at Barnard’s Star
In 2018, scientists announced the discovery of a extrasolar planet orbiting Barnard's star, an M-type (red dwarf) that is just…