Latest HAT-P-11 Stories

NASA reported on Thursday that its Kepler spacecraft discovered a planetary system with two planets crossing in front of the same star. This is the first planetary system discovered with more than one planet transiting in front of the same star.  The two planets were named Kepler-9b and 9c.  The findings were published in Thursday's issue of the journal Science. Kepler's camera measures tiny decreases in the stars' brightness that occurs when a planet transits in from of them.  This...

Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have discovered a planet somewhat larger and more massive than Neptune orbiting a star 120 light-years from Earth. While Neptune has a diameter 3.8 times that of Earth and a mass 17 times Earth's, the new world (named HAT-P-11b) is 4.7 times the size of Earth and has 25 Earth masses.HAT-P-11b was discovered because it passes directly in front of (transits) its parent star, thereby blocking about 0.4 percent of the star's light....