Space and astronomy news
If you want to know more about an exoplanet atmosphere, watch how it changes over time. That’s the mantra of a group of astronomers who just reported on conditions at Tylos, otherwise known as WASP-121 b.
Continue reading “Hubble Watches an Exoplanet Atmosphere Change Over Three Years”
Red dwarf exoplanet habitability is a hot topic in space science. These small dim stars host lots of exoplanets, including small rocky ones the size of Earth. But the little stars emit extremely powerful flares that can damage and strip away atmospheres.
If we’re ever going to understand red dwarf habitability, we need to understand the atmospheres of the exoplanets that orbit them.
Continue reading “GJ 367b is Another Dead World Orbiting a Red Dwarf”
The world runs on carbon. Not just fossil-fuel-driven human society, but all life on Earth. Carbon-based organic molecules are a part of every living thing on Earth. Along with oxygen, nitrogen, and water, carbon is a necessary ingredient for life as we know it. So one way to look for life on other worlds could be to look for carbon in its atmosphere. But a new study shows that it’s actually a lack of carbon that could be the best clue to life on another world.
Continue reading “Want to Find Life? See What's Missing in an Atmosphere”
The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has a high-resolution spectrograph called ESPRESSO, designed specifically to detecting and characterize exoplanets. Astronomers recently ran a test with the instrument, studying the atmosphere and winds of Jupiter. They used a technique called Doppler velocimetry to measure the reflection of light from the Sun in the planet’s clouds, allowing for instantaneous measurement of the clouds’ wind speeds. The technique has also been used on Venus and will guide the future study of exoplanets.
Continue reading “Astronomers Test an Exoplanet Instrument on Jupiter”
As astronomers have begun to gather data on the atmospheres of planets, we’re learning about their compositions and evolution. Thick atmospheres are the easiest to study, but these same thick atmospheres can hide the surface of a planet from view. A Venus-like world, for example, has such a thick atmosphere making it impossible to see the planet’s terrain. It seems the more likely we are to understand a planet’s atmosphere, the less likely we are to understand its surface. But that could change thanks to a new study in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astrophysical Society.
Continue reading “The Atmosphere of an Exoplanet Reveals Secrets About Its Surface”
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has been busy. Clocking in over 5000 exoplanet candidates, the researchers who manage the telescope’s data have enlisted an army of volunteer classifiers to sift through its data to confirm whether these planets exist. In a new paper in Astronomy & Astrophysics, some researchers from Brazil think they have found three planets that almost certainly do – and they happen to orbit stars that are very similar to our own Sun.
Continue reading “Astronomers Find Two Planetary Systems Around Sun-Like Stars”
Telescopes have been collecting copious amounts of data on exoplanets in recent years. One of the most common datasets tracks what are known as “transits,” where an exoplanet crosses in front of its host star and dims the star’s light slightly as it does so. The majority of exoplanets have been found this way, but other interesting details might be hidden in the data. For example, what would it mean if the transits happened in a way that disagreed with typical Newtonian physics? One answer to that question is that there might be an intelligent force behind the discrepancy – and that’s what a group of researchers at Breakthrough Listen began looking for in a paper recently published on arXiv.
Continue reading “Astronomers Scan Hundreds of Stars for “Anomalous Transits””
The search for life is tied to the search for liquid water. That’s why astronomers are so keen on detecting rocky, Earth-like exoplanets in their stars’ habitable zones. In a habitable zone, a planet receives enough energy from its star to maintain liquid water on its surface, given the right atmospheric conditions.
But in our Solar System, we’ve found worlds with liquid water that are way beyond the habitable zone. Can we do the same in other solar systems?
Continue reading “17 Known Exoplanets Could Have Oceans of Liquid Water”
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is already making great strides in helping us to unravel the mysteries of the Universe. Earlier this year, hundreds of rogue planets were discovered in the Orion Nebula. The real surprise to this discovery was that 9% of the planets were paired up in wide binary pairs. To understand how this binary planets formed, astronomers simulated various scenarios for their formation.
Continue reading “What’s the Source of Binary Rogue Planets?”
A recent study presented this week at the 2023 meeting of the American Geophysical Union discusses observations of “hot Jupiters” from the NASA-funded CubeSat mission known as the Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE). Unlike most exoplanet-hunting telescopes, whose sizes are comparable to a small school bus, CUTE measures 36 centimeters (14 inches) in length, equivalent to the size of a cereal box. These findings come after members of the team, which consists of undergraduate and graduate students, published an overview paper about CUTE in The Astronomical Journal in January 2023 and results from CUTE observing WASP-189b in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in August 2023.
Continue reading “A Tiny Telescope is Revealing “Hot Jupiter” Secrets”