Exoplanets
Can We Predict if a System Will Have Giant Planets?
Prediction is one of the hallmarks of scientific endeavors. Scientists pride themselves on being able to predict physical realities based…
JWST is Powerful Enough to See a Variety of Biosignatures in Exoplanets
According to a new study, JWST is powerful enough to detect the chemicals in the atmospheres of various terrestrial planets…
This Hot Jupiter is Leaving a Swirling Tail of Helium in its Wake
In a recent study published in Science Advances, a team of researchers commissioned the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET), which is designed…
A Planet So Hot Its Atmosphere Contains the Raw Material for Rocks
In the annals of "strange new worlds", the ultra-hot Jupiter planet WASP-76b ranks right up there as a very unusual…
Is it Time for a New Definition of “Habitable?”
Things tend to move from the simple to the complex when you're trying to understand something new. This is the…
JWST Scans an Ultra-Hot Jupiter’s Atmosphere
When astronomers discovered WASP-18b in 2009, they uncovered one of the most unusual planets ever found. It's ten times as…
The Kepler Mission’s Final Three Planets?
NASA's Kepler spacecraft ended its observations in October 2018 after nine and a half years, a solid six years beyond…
A Third of Planets Orbiting Red Dwarf Stars Could be in the Habitable Zone
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a pair of researchers from the University…
A New Place to Search for Habitable Planets: “The Soot Line.”
The habitable zone is the region around a star where planets can maintain liquid water on their surface. It's axiomatic…
Two Super-Earths Found Orbiting a Red Dwarf Star at the Edge of the Habitable Zone
NASA's TESS mission has turned up hundreds of planets and planetary candidates, and here are two more.