Latest Exoplanetology Stories
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA has selected five planet hunters to receive the 2013 Carl Sagan Exoplanet Postdoctoral Fellowships. The fellowship, named for the late astronomer, was created to inspire the next generation of explorers seeking to learn more about planets, and possibly life, around other stars. The primary goal of the fellowship program is to support outstanding recent postdoctoral scientists in conducting independent research related to the science goals of NASA's...
WASHINGTON, April 5, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Astrophysics Explorer Program has selected two missions for launch in 2017: a planet-hunting satellite and an International Space Station instrument to observe X-rays from stars. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) were among four concept studies submitted in September 2012. NASA determined these two...
[ Watch the Video: Dead Star Warps Light of Red Star ] redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online NASA's Kepler space telescope has observed the effects of a dead star bending the light of its companion star, one of the first detections of this phenomenon in double star systems. The dead star, known as a white dwarf, is the burnt-out core of what used to be a star much like our sun. It is locked in an orbiting pattern with its partner, a small "red dwarf" star, which is...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Researchers at The University of Auckland wrote in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society that they have a new method that could lead to the discovery of 100 billion earth-like planets. The new strategy, called gravitational microlensing, requires a combination of data from microlensing and the NASA Kepler space telescope. “Kepler finds Earth-sized planets that are quite close to parent stars, and it estimates that...
GREENBELT, Md., April 3, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The public is invited to experience "Stars and Planets Everywhere! Finding Other Worlds Beyond Our Solar System," a free event on April 10 at the Visitor Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The lecture will be presented by Jennifer Wiseman, senior astrophysicist at NASA Goddard. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) "It's amazing: The discovery of planets outside our solar...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An international team of astronomers has made the most detailed examination to date of the atmosphere around a Jupiter-like exoplanet using the Keck Observatory, one of the two largest optical telescopes in the world. The young exoplanet, orbiting the star HR 8799, has water and carbon monoxide in its atmosphere. It does not, however, have methane, suggesting that a particular planet-forming mechanism, known as core accretion, brought...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Using a state-of-the-art telescopic imaging system, astronomers are now able to see planets that orbit distant stars, known as exoplanets, more easily and in greater detail, according to a report in the Astrophysical Journal. Scientists gather information from distant planets via the light they radiate, referred to as their spectra, and previously, astronomers have only been able to analyze planets as they pass in front of, or...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new study from Penn State's Department of Geosciences suggests that the number of potentially habitable planets is greater than previously thought, and that some of those planets are likely to be found around nearby stars. "We now estimate that if we were to look at 10 of the nearest small stars we would find about four potentially habitable planets, give or take," said Ravi Kopparapu, a post-doctoral researcher in geosciences....
[WATCH VIDEO: Flying Through The HD 100546 System] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Astronomers, for the first time, may have made a direct observation of a planet forming inside a thick disc of gas and dust. An international team led by Sascha Quanz, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), used the European Space Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT). Their discovery could help improve scientists' knowledge of how planets form and...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Scientists are on the hunt to find habitable exoplanets, and a new discovery might mean there are even more candidates out there than previously thought. A new theoretical study suggests even dying stars might be able to have orbiting exoplanets that are hospitable to extraterrestrial life. As a star dies, its outer layers puff off, leaving behind a hot core known as a white dwarf which is typically about the size of Earth. Although...
Latest Exoplanetology Reference Libraries
Image Caption: Artistic concept of a planetary system. Credit: Wikipedia/NASA/JPL-Caltech The term Astronomy encompasses a broad range of topics, including the study of stars, galaxies, and planets. In order to focus on the different areas of study, many subfields of astronomy emerge. One such area is the study of planets known, appropriately, as Planetary Astronomy. Observational Planetary Astronomy Even within the field of Planetary Astronomy, there are several divisions to...
Terrestrial Planet Finder -- The Terrestrial Planet Finder is a proposed NASA telescope system capable of detecting extrasolar terrestrial planets. In May 2002, NASA chose two TPF mission architecture concepts for further study and technology development. Each would use a different means to achieve the same goal - to block the light from a parent star in order to see its much smaller, dimmer planets. That technology challenge has been likened to finding a firefly near the beam of...
Extrasolar Planet -- An extrasolar planet is a planet orbiting around a star other than the Sun. Extrasolar planets were first discovered in the 1990s as a result of improved telescope technology, CCD and computer-based image processing which allowed far more accurate measurements of stellar motions. The first extrasolar planets were reported by the astronomer Aleksander Wolszczan in 1993, orbiting the pulsar PSR 1257+12. Subsequent investigation has determined that they are only planets...
