Latest Extrasolar planets Stories
WASHINGTON, Jan. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Newly released NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of a vast debris disk encircling the nearby star Fomalhaut and a mysterious planet circling it may provide forensic evidence of a titanic planetary disruption in the system. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) Astronomers are surprised to find the debris belt is wider than previously known, spanning a section of space from 14 to nearly 20 billion miles...
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA is marking two milestones in the search for planets like Earth; the successful completion of the Kepler Space Telescope's 3 1/2- year prime mission and the beginning of an extended mission that could last as long as four years. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Scientists have used Kepler data to identify more than 2,300 planet candidates and confirm more than 100 planets. Kepler is teaching us the...
Dr. John Millis and Jedidiah Becker for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online In 2008, astronomers announced that the Hubble Space Telescope had captured images of an alien planet orbiting the nearby star Fomalhaut, located a mere 25 light years away in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. Dubbed Fomalhaut b and claimed as the first exoplanet to be confirmed through direct imaging in visible light, the planet appeared to orbit its star immersed in a massive ring of dust and debris. In...
[ Watch the Video: Studying Hubble Data Revives a Zombie Exoplanet ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new study suggests that the nearby star Fomalhaut hosts a massive "zombie" exoplanet that was previously thought to not exist, but is back from the dead. A second look at data from the Hubble Space Telescope is reviving the claim that Fomalhaut b is alive, but completely surrounded by dust. Fomalhaut is the brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus,...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online One nearby super-Earth planet could have a lot more "bling" on it than our planet, because astronomers say it maybe a diamond planet. Yale University scientists reported in the Astrophysical Journal Letters that the surface of 55 Cancri e is likely covered in graphite and diamond, rather than water and granite. The planet has a radius twice of Earth's, and a mass eight times greater, allowing it to fall into the classification...
NEW YORK, Sept. 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- PBS composer Tim Janis will bring together some of today's most beloved female artists to celebrate and foster awareness of those living with autism on Friday, November 30th at Carnegie Hall, by benefitting Kate Winslet's Golden Hat Foundation. Grammy award-winner Sarah McLachlan, internationally acclaimed singer/song writer Loreena McKennitt, multi-platinum selling Irish singer Andrea Corr, and classical crossover sensation Hayley...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers say they've witnessed the death of a planet, which found its journey ended by way of its own star. The scientists reported in the Astrophysical Journal Letters that BD+48 740 became a red giant at the end of its life, helping it to eventually consume its close-by planet. "A similar fate may await the inner planets in our solar system, when the sun becomes a red giant and expands all the way out to Earth's orbit some 5...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Scientists collaborated recently to produce simulations of Earth-like planets being vaporized in order to help astronomers have a better grasp of what to look for in the atmosphere of candidate super-Earths. Super-Earths are rocky exoplanets that are more massive than Earth, but less massive than Neptune. Most of those that have been found so far orbit very close to their stars. Scientists writing in The Astrophysical Journal show...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers have detected a new exoplanet 33 light-years away that is two-thirds the size of Earth, making it the nearest known world to our solar system that is smaller than our home planet. UCF-1.01 was discovered by astronomers from the University of Central Florida using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The exoplanet is the first ever identified with the telescope, pointing to a possible new role for Spitzer in helping to...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers have observed one planet in another solar system, similar to Jupiter, giving off a powerful burst of evaporation after passing by its parent star. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers saw exoplanet HD 189733b bathe in an intense X-ray radiation after its parent star gave off a violet flare. The team observed the planet with Hubble during early 2010 and late 2011, during which HD 189733b was silhouetting its...
Latest Extrasolar planets Reference Libraries
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...
Epsilon Eridani -- Epsilon Eridani is a main-sequence star in the constellation of Eridanus (the river). It is often used in science fiction because it is extremely sunlike, and in the fictional Star Trek universe it is the home sun of the planet Vulcan which is home to Mr. Spock. It is the third closest star visible without a telescope. It has 85% of the Sun's mass, almost that much of its diameter, and 28% of its luminosity. It is 10.5 light years from Earth. Its spectrum is...
La Silla Observatory -- La Silla is a 2400-m mountain, bordering the southern extremity of the Atacama desert in Chile. It is located about 160 Km north of La Serena. Its geographical coordinates are: Latitude 29 15' south & Longitude 70 44' west. Originally known as Cinchado, the mountain was renamed La Silla (the saddle) after its shape. It rises quite isolated and remote from any artificial light and dust sources (astronomy's worst enemies). La Silla was the first ESO...
