Extrasolar Planets
Earth-Sized Planets are Probably Common
Of the many extrasolar planetary systems discovered so far, more than a third could contain Earth-like planets. This is according…
Giant Planet or Failed Star?
The Hubble Space Telescope has helped astronomers uncover an object right at the dividing line between stars and planets. The…
Astrophoto: Stellar Nursery NGC 7129 by Bob Allevo
Prior to 1957, virtually all photographs of the sky were produced as monochrome, black and white images. In that year,…
Hubble Finds an Exoplanet’s Parent Star
When a star flared briefly, astronomers knew it was because a dimmer star had passed directly in front, acting as…
Twin Planemos Discovered
Astronomers have turned up plenty of extrasolar planets, but a newly discovered binary pair of planets is quite the find.…
Earth-Sized Planets Could Be Nearby
Nearly all of the extrasolar planets discovered so far have been huge, Jupiter-sized and above. The question is: could smaller,…
Squadrons of Planet Hunters Could Find Life
The Hubble Space Telescope demonstrated that the best viewing is outside the Earth's atmosphere. Over the years, a series of…
Protoplanetary Disk Warped by a Hidden Companion
New images of a relatively nearby protoplanetary disk, taken by the Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea, show strange banana-shaped arcs…
Rotating Disk Could Contain Newly Forming Planets
Astronomers from the University of St. Andrews have found evidence that a ring of dust around nearby Epsilon Eridani is…
How Super Earths Might Form
Although our Solar System only contains a "regular Earth", astronomers predict that other systems could contain "super Earths"; rocky planets…