NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has discovered most of the confirmed exoplanets that we know of. But its successor, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), is catching up. New research announces the validation of eight more TESS candidates, and they’re all Super-Earths.
Continue reading “TESS Finds Eight More Super-Earths”An Exo-Neptune Beat the Odds and Kept its Atmosphere
As planet-hunting scientists find more and more planets, they’ve encountered some puzzles. One of them concerns the lack of Neptune-size worlds orbiting close to their stars. Astronomers think that these planets aren’t massive enough to retain their atmospheres in the face of their stars’ powerful radiation, which strips it away.
But at least one of these planets has retained its atmosphere. How?
Continue reading “An Exo-Neptune Beat the Odds and Kept its Atmosphere”