Exoplanets

Gaia is Now Finding Planets. Could it Find Another Earth?

The ESA launched Gaia in 2013 with one overarching goal: to map more than one billion stars in the Milky…

2 days ago

This Exoplanet is Probably a Solid Ball of Metal

We can't understand nature without understanding its range. That's apparent in exoplanet science and in our theories of planetary formation.…

7 days ago

An Ambitious New Technology Might be Needed to See Other Earths

NASA and its partners are starting to develop plans for the Habitable Worlds Observatory flagship mission that's due to launch…

1 week ago

If Astronomers See These Chemicals in a Planet’s Atmosphere, There’s Likely an Advanced Civilization There

In an age of ever-growing numbers of exoplanets circling other stars, it's natural that astronomers search for signatures of advanced…

2 weeks ago

Planning is Underway for NASA’s Next Big Flagship Space Telescope

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has only been operational for just over a year, but this isn’t stopping the…

2 weeks ago

Do The Gaps in Protoplanetary Disks Really Indicate Newly Forming Planets?

Modern instruments like ALMA have revealed newly forming stars surrounded by accretion disks. These images are so sensitive you can…

2 weeks ago

JWST Might Have Imaged a Hycean World for the First Time, With a Hydrogen-Rich Atmosphere and a Deep Planet-Wide Water Ocean

Astronomers have directed JWST to examine the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18 b, which orbits a cool dwarf star…

2 weeks ago

TESS Finds a Planet That Takes 482 Days to Orbit, the Widest it’s Seen so Far

We're rapidly learning that our Solar System, so familiar to us all, does not represent normal. A couple of decades…

3 weeks ago

Astronomers Confirm First Exoplanet “Thermometer Molecule” that is Typically Used to Study Brown Dwarfs

A recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters examines a rare alloy molecule known as chromium hydride (CrH) and…

4 weeks ago

A Neptune-sized Exoplanet is Denser Than Steel. The Result of a Catastrophic Collision?

There's an odd exoplanet out there posing a challenge to planetary scientists. It's a hot Neptune denser than steel. The…

4 weeks ago