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Category: exoplanet

This artist's concept shows planet KELT-9b orbiting its host star, KELT-9. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Iron and Titanium Found in Atmosphere of Ultra-hot Exoplanet

August 17, 2018

The chemical makeup of Earth’s atmosphere is said to contain about 78% Nitrogen and 21% oxygen, with argon, carbon dioxide, and other gases making up the remaining 1%. But an international team of scientists says they have detected vapors of iron and titanium in the atmosphere of what is considered to be the hottest “ultra-hot” […]

The 44 confirmed planets and their approximate size class, orbits and surface temperatures. (John Livingston)

Astronomers Find and Confirm 44 New Extrasolar Planets

August 10, 2018

An international team of astronomers has confirmed the existence of 44 new extrasolar planets. The planets were first spotted by the astronomers through data gathered from Campaign #10 of NASA’s Kepler K2 mission. According to NASA’s Kepler and K2 webpage, campaign #10 ran from July 6, 2016, to September 20, 2016. To verify their findings, […]

This image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the centre of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. (ESO/A. Müller et al.)

Astronomers Snap First Baby Picture of Newborn Exoplanet

July 5, 2018

An international group of astronomers has captured what is being called the first confirmed image of a planet forming near a young dwarf star. The group, led by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, found the newborn planet making its way through a protoplanetary disk of dust and gas that […]

This is an enhanced-color image of Mecury taken during NASA’s MESSENGER mission in 2015. (NASA/JHU Applied Physics Lab / Carnegie Inst. Washington)

Newly Discovered Exoplanet Resembles Planet Mercury

March 30, 2018

A newly found exoplanet called K2-229b is about 20% larger and 2.5 times more massive than Earth. But the international team of astronomers, who recently discovered it, say it’s more like a super-charged version of our solar-system’s innermost planet, Mercury. They describe the planet as hot, metallic, made of iron and nickel, circles an orange K-dwarf […]

Artist impression of a flare from Proxima Centauri, modeled after the loops of glowing hot gas seen in the largest solar flares. An artist’s impression of the exoplanet Proxima b is shown in the foreground. A flare 10 times larger than a major solar flare would blast Proxima b with 4,000 times more radiation than the Earth gets from our Sun’s flares. (Roberto Molar Candanosa/Carnegie Institution for Science, NASA/SDO, NASA/JPL)

Nearby Star Produces Powerful Solar Flare Blast

March 6, 2018

Those looking for the possible habitability of Proxima Centauri b, the closest exoplanet to Earth, may have their hopes dashed by new findings of the exoplanet’s parent star. When Proxima Centauri b, a mere 4.24 light years from Earth, was discovered in 2016, scientists found the planet was located within the habitable zone of its […]

Artist’s rendering of the Kepler space telescope. (NASA)

95 New Exoplanets Found With Data From NASA’s K2 Mission

February 20, 2018

Thanks to data from NASA’s K2 mission, an international team of scientists, led by Andrew Mayo of the National Space Institute at the Technical University of Denmark have recently discovered 95 more exoplanets. From a list of some 275 candidates, the researchers validated 149 of them as actual exoplanets. According to the research team, it […]

This artist's concept shows what the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system may look like. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

New Insight Into TRAPPIST 1 Planets

February 7, 2018

Two new, but separate, studies provide fresh insight into planets orbiting the nearby red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. One of the studies, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, suggests the atmospheres of at least three of the seven TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets found so far do not seem to be as hydrogen-rich as our solar system’s gas giant […]

Image of the gravitational lens RX J1131-1231 galaxy with the lens galaxy at the center and four lensed background quasars. University of Oklahoma research estimate that there are trillions of planets in the center elliptical galaxy in this image. (University of Oklahoma)

First Extragalactic Planets Found

February 6, 2018

No doubt you’ve heard about extrasolar or exoplanets; planets that were discovered orbiting a star outside of our own solar system. Nearly 3,000 of these planets have been confirmed so far, with many more candidate planets waiting to be verified. However, these planets have all been discovered within our own Milky Way galaxy. An astrophysics […]

This sketch illustrates a family tree of exoplanets. Planets are born out of swirling disks of gas and dust called protoplanetary disks. (NASA/Kepler/Caltech (T. Pyle))

Kepler Discovers More Exoplanets / Scientists Classify Types of Planets

June 22, 2017

NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler mission recently released what it calls the most comprehensive and detailed catalog of candidate exoplanets. Exoplanets or extrasolar planets are planetary bodies that exist outside of our solar system. The new and final Kepler catalog from data gathered from the spacecraft’s initial patch of sky view within the Cygnus constellation includes 219 […]

This animation shows the progression of NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) investigation for the mission's first three years following its restart in December 2013. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/PSI)

Einstein Proven Correct; Gravitational Waves Detected; Super Hot Planet

June 8, 2017

Einstein Theory Confirmed Again In his 1915 Theory of General Relativity, physicist Albert Einstein proposed that mass can bend space time. And he predicted that when a distant star’s light passed by a large object en route to the observer, the object’s gravity can bend and brighten the starlight like a magnifying lens. This effect, called […]

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