Exoplanets
It’s Already Hard Enough to Block a Single Star’s Light to See its Planets. But Binary Stars? Yikes
Detecting exoplanets was frontier science not long ago. But now we've found over 5,000 of them, and we expect to…
Could Next-Generation Telescopes See That Earth Has Life?
While the Earth absorbs a lot of energy from the Sun, a lot of it is reflected back into space.…
By Blocking the Light From a Star, Webb Reveals the Dusty Disk Surrounding It
AU Microscopii is a small red dwarf star about 32 light-years away. It's far too dim for the unaided human…
Worlds Bustling With Plantlife Should Shine in a Detectable Wavelength of Infrared
Future historians might look back on this time and call it the 'exoplanet age.' We've found over 5,000 exoplanets, and…
TESS has Found A Second Earth-Sized World in This System. Exoplanet Science is Maturing
For planet-hunters, finding an Earth-sized exoplanet must be special. NASA estimates there are about 100 billion planets in the Milky…
The Webb Has Confirmed its First Exoplanet, and it’s the Same Size as Earth.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the most powerful telescope ever launched into space. That power has led to a…
Giant Exoplanet is Spiraling Inward to its Doom
"Death by star" is a fate awaiting most planets in star systems. That includes our Sun, Venus, and Mercury a…
Are Planets Tidally Locked to Red Dwarfs Habitable? It’s Complicated
Astronomers are keenly interested in red dwarfs and the planets that orbit them. Up to 85% of the stars in…
Could Life Survive on Frigid Exo-Earths? Maybe Under Ice Sheets
Our understanding of habitability relies entirely on the availability of liquid water. All life on Earth needs it, and there's…
This Hellish Planet Orbits its Star Every 18 Hours. How Did it Get There?
Astronomers discovered 55 Cancri e in 2004. That was five years before NASA's Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft was launched, and exoplanet…