Latest Extrasolar planets Stories

As astronomers gaze toward nearby planetary systems in search of life, they are focusing their attention on each system's habitable zone, where heat radiated from the star is just right to keep a planet's water in liquid form.A number of planets have been discovered orbiting red dwarf stars, which make up about three-quarters of the stars close to our solar system. Potentially habitable planets must orbit close to those stars "“ perhaps one-fiftieth the distance of Earth to the sun "“...

Astronomers have discovered a distant "sun" residing in the constellation Aquila, in what they are calling the smallest known star to host a planet, BBC News reported.Scientists used astrometry "” a method based on measuring small changes in a star's position "” to discover the Jupiter-like exoplanet orbiting the star VB 10. Experts say that VB 10 is one-twelfth the mass of the Sun, yet the star is more massive than its planet and has about the same girth. The upcoming edition...

The U.S. space agency says a new planet-hunting technique has recorded its first discovery -- a Jupiter-like planet orbiting one of the smallest stars known. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the technique, called astrometry, involves measuring the motions of a star as an unseen planet tugs the star back and forth. However, the method had failed to identify any exoplanets. But now two astronomers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory using the technique have identified a...

U.S. scientists say they have created an astro-comb technology that helps astronomers detect Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars. Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said many extrasolar planets can't be seen directly because the glare of their nearby star is too great. But although a planet might weigh millions of times less than its star, the star will be moved a tiny amount by the gravity interaction with the planet, the researchers said. That motion...

A new way of reading light will sharpen the view of planets around other starsThanks to the ability of astronomers to detect the presence of extrasolar planets orbiting distant stars, scientists today are able to examine hundreds of solar systems. Now researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. have created an "astro-comb" to help astronomers detect lighter planets, more like Earth, around distant stars. The Harvard group will present their...

During the last two decades, astronomers have found hundreds of planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. New research indicates they might have found even more except for one thing "“ some planets have fallen into their stars and simply no longer exist.The idea that gravitational forces might pull a planet into its parent star has been predicted by computer models only in the last year or so, and this is the first evidence that such planet destruction has already occurred, said...

A team of astronomers from University College London (UCL), including undergraduate students, have discovered that an exotic world passes directly in front of the Sun-like star it orbits, revealing for the first time that it is about the same size as Jupiter. And rather than traveling to one of the major observatories in Hawaii or Chile, the students made the discovery with a telescope at UCL's University of London Observatory (ULO) in the capital's northern suburb of Mill Hill.The work was...

Astronomers claim to have discovered an exoplanet that is the most similar to Earth in terms of mass than any previously discovered.Found in the constellation Libra, the planet known as Gliese 581 represents about twice the mass of Earth.Astronomers have previously identified some 300 exoplanets, but most are much larger than Earth."This is by far the smallest planet that's ever been detected," said Michael Mayor, from the Geneva Observatory, Switzerland."This is just one more...

An international team of scientists has found that giant exoplanets orbiting very close to their stars could lose a quarter of their mass during their lifetime.  The team found that planets that orbit closer than 2% of an Astronomical Unit (AU), the distance between the Earth and the Sun, may lose their atmospheres completely, leaving just their core.  The team, led by Dr Helmut Lammer of the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, believe that the recently...

The European Space Agency says the COROT space telescope has found the smallest terrestrial planet ever detected outside the solar system. The ESA said the newly discovered exoplanet is less than twice the size of Earth and orbits a sun-like star. Its temperature is so high -- approximately 2,000 degrees or more Fahrenheit -- it is possibly covered in lava or water vapor. This discovery is a very important step on the road to understanding the formation and evolution of our planet, said...