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Tag: 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, […]

Artist rendering of the exoplanet WASP-107b transiting its highly active K-type main sequence star. (ESA/Hubble, NASA, M. Kornmesser)

First Detection of Helium in an Exoplanet Atmosphere

May 4, 2018

Scientists say for the first several hundred thousand years or so after the Big Bang, there were virtually only two elements in the universe, hydrogen, and helium. A hydrogen atom is made of only one proton and one electron, and a helium atom has two each of protons, electrons, and neutrons. Hydrogen and then helium are […]

Illustration of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite -- TESS -- observing an M dwarf star with orbiting planets. (NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

NASA Launches TESS the Exoplanet Hunter

April 23, 2018

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, will soon join NASA’s fleet of exoplanet-hunters that, so far, includes the Kepler, Hubble, and the Spitzer Space Telescopes. TESS was launched at 2251 UTC on April 18, 2018, from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The space observatory is expected to survey about 85% of […]

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 […]

Sitting next to its parent star, this the Saturn-mass exoplanet WASP-39b, about 700 light-years from Earth. (NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI))

Lots of Water Detected in Exoplanet WASP 39b Atmosphere

March 5, 2018

Scientists, who studied a “hot Jupiter-like” exoplanet with NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, were able to detect signs of water in its atmosphere. And, they didn’t just find signs of a little water – but a lot of water, three times the amount of water on our solar system’s largest planet, Jupiter. The exoplanet they […]

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 […]

Artist’s impression of the cool red star and gas-giant planet NGTS-1b against the Milky Way (University of Warwick/Mark Garlick)

Hot Monster Planet; No Fountain of Youth; Sunscreen Snow on Exoplanet

November 3, 2017

Hot Monster Planet Found Orbiting Small Star British astronomers say they discovered a “monster” planet orbiting a tiny star, but, according to planet formation theory, the planet should not even exist. The theory suggests a planet of its size could not be formed around such a small star. Located about 600 light years from Earth, […]

An artist's illustration of the epsilon Eridani system showing Epsilon Eridani b, right foreground, a Jupiter-mass planet orbiting its parent star at the outside edge of an asteroid belt. In the background can be seen another narrow asteroid or comet belt plus an outermost belt similar in size to our solar system's Kuiper Belt. (NASA/SOFIA/Lynette Cook)

Solar System Mimics Ours; The Big Empty; Closest Human Relative?

May 3, 2017

Nearby Planetary System Mimics our Solar System A group of scientists using NASA’s airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy or SOFIA recently completed a study that confirmed their previous findings of a young and nearby planetary system. The researchers found that the system surrounding the star Epsilon Eridani, which is about 10.5 light years away […]

Dark Matter Imaged; Shoe-String Theory; Metal in Mars Atmosphere

April 14, 2017

Dark Matter Filaments of Cosmic Web Imaged Two Canadian researchers say that they have constructed a composite image of dark matter filaments that make up what cosmologists call the cosmic web. Scientists have been finding evidence that our universe may be anything but random and that everything is actually organized and connected to each other […]

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