hot Jupiters

Planets Make it Harder to Figure out a Star’s age

Estimating stellar age has always been a challenge for astronomers. Now, a certain class of exoplanets is making the process…

1 year ago

How Do Hot Jupiters Get So Close to Their Stars?

In this age of exoplanet discovery, we've discovered thousands of exoplanets of different types. The hot Jupiter is one of…

2 years ago

Hubble has Characterized 25 Hot Jupiters. Here’s What we Know so far

Hot Jupiters are giant exoplanets – even more massive than Jupiter – but they orbit closer to their star than…

2 years ago

Extreme Tidal Forces Have Deformed an Exoplanet

What an exoplanet shaped like a rugby ball tells us about its composition.

2 years ago

A Tiny, Inexpensive Satellite Will be Studying the Atmospheres of hot Jupiters

The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (aptly nicknamed CUTE) is a new, NASA-funded mission that aims to study the atmospheres of…

3 years ago

Larger Rocky Planets Might be Rare Because They Shrunk

Researchers at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics published a paper last week that just might explain a mysterious…

3 years ago

Hydroxyl (OH) Seen for the First Time in an Exoplanet Atmosphere

The molecule hydroxyl (HO) is common on Earth, but astronomers have not yet determined how abundant it is on other…

3 years ago

An Exoplanet So Hot There Are 7 Different Kinds of Gaseous Metals in its Atmosphere

The search for exoplanets has revealed types of planets that are nothing like the worlds in our own Solar System.…

4 years ago

Do Hot Jupiters Form Close in, or Do They Migrate? A Newly-Discovered Planet Might Help Answer This

The recent discovery of a very young gas giant could offer clues about how "Hot Jupiters" form and whether or…

4 years ago