spectroscopy
Astronomers Find a Star That Contains 65 Different Elements
Have you ever held a chunk of gold in your hand? Not a little piece of jewelry, but an ounce…
Astronomy Jargon 101: Spectrum
In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You'll get the whole picture with…
What’s the Connection Between the Chemistry of a Star and the Formation of its Planets?
Scientists seem to have come up with a new parlor game - how many ways can we potentially detect exoplanets? …
How To Search the Chemical Makeup of Exoplanet Atmospheres for Hints at Their History
Author’s note – this article was written with Dr. Vincent Kofman, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), working in…
New Technique to Search for Life, Whether or not it’s Similar to Earth Life
A new tool for measuring the complexity of molecules is able to identify those that must have formed in the…
Astronomers Find a Planet Like Jupiter, but It Doesn’t Have any Clouds
Can you picture Jupiter without any observable clouds or haze? It isn't easy since Jupiter's latitudinal cloud bands and its…
The Color of Habitable Worlds
“This is where we live. On a Blue Dot.” said Carl Sagan when the now famous Pale Blue Dot photo…
James Webb Will Look for Signs of Life on Planets Orbiting Dead Stars
Can the galaxy's dead stars help us in our search for life? A group of researchers from Cornell University thinks…
There’s No Chemical Difference Between Stars With or Without Planets
Strange New Worlds Imagine if a star could tell you it had planets. That would be really helpful because finding…
Extremely Hot Exoplanets Can Have Extreme Weather, Like Clouds of Aluminum Oxide and Titanium Rain
Thanks to the success of the Kepler mission, we know that there are multitudes of exoplanets of a type called…