Planetary Formation
What Would Happen if the Solar System Gained a Super-Earth?
In this era of exoplanet discovery, astronomers have found over 5,000 confirmed exoplanets, with thousands more awaiting confirmation and many…
Most Exoplanets Suffer Worse Space Weather Than We Do
We have it relatively easy on the Earth. Our Sun is relatively calm. The space weather environment in the solar…
Trading Spaces: How Swapping Stars Create Hot Jupiters
Star clusters tend to host more hot Jupiters than average, but why? A team of astronomers have proposed a new…
Baby Gas Giants Cast Shadows on Their Siblings
A team of astronomers has caught glimpses of gas giants forming around a very young star. The nascent giants are…
It’s Tough to Find Evidence of Stars Eating Planets
Tragically sometimes stars engulf their own planets. While most stars are able to quickly cover up the evidence for their…
A new way to Discover Planets? Astronomers Detect an Exoplanet by Seeing its Trojan Belts
Astronomers demonstrate that you don't have to see a planet to discover it. You only need to see its Lagrange…
Hot Stars Blast Away at gas Giants Until Only Their Rocky Cores Remain
We don't see many Neptune-sized worlds closely orbiting their star. That may be because the star robs them of their…
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…
Digging Through Kepler Data Turns Up a Near Twin of Jupiter
NASA's Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft was deactivated in November 2018, about ten years after it launched. The mission detected over 5,000…
Hubble Has Been Watching This Planet Form for 13 Years
Hubble's most remarkable feature might be its longevity. The Hubble has been operating for almost 32 years and has fed…