Exoplanets
Habitability of Planets Will Depend on Their Interiors
A lot of the headlines and discussion around the habitability of exoplanets is focused on their proximity to their star…
TESS Just Found its First Earth-Sized World
NASA's new planet-hunting telescope, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), just found its first Earth-sized world. Though the Earth-sized planet, and…
Ground-Based Telescope Directly Observes the Atmosphere of an Extrasolar Planet, and Sees Swirling Clouds of Iron and Silicates
We've finally got our first optical look at an exoplanet and its atmosphere, and boy is it a strange place.…
It Took 10 Years to Confirm the First Planet Ever Found by Kepler
Even though astronomy people are fond of touting the number of exoplanets found by the Kepler spacecraft, those planets aren't…
Meet WFIRST, The Space Telescope with the Power of 100 Hubbles
WFIRST ain't your grandma's space telescope. Despite having the same size mirror as the surprisingly reliable Hubble Space Telescope, clocking…
Two Newly-Discovered Exoplanets are Probably the Result of a Catastrophic Collision
How can two planets so similar in some respects have such different densities? According to a new study, a catastrophic…
TESS Finds its Third Planet, a sub-Neptune with a 36-Day Orbit
After only three months of operation, NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) spacecraft is delivering on its mission to find…
New SPECULOOS Telescope Sees First Light. Soon it’ll be Seeing Habitable Planets Around Ultra-Cool Stars
Our newest planet-hunting telescope is up and running at the ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile. SPECULOOS,…
Now that TESS is Operational, Astronomers Estimate it’ll Find 14,000 Planets. 10 Could Be Earthlike Worlds in a Sunlike Star’s Habitable Zone
How many exoplanets are there? Not that long ago, we didn't know if there were any. Then we detected a…
Astronomers Detect Water in the Atmosphere of a Planet 179 Light-Years Away
Gathering detailed information on exoplanets is extremely difficult. The light from their host star overwhelms the light from the exoplanet,…