Items tagged with exoplanet

A group of astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting the closest single star to Earth’s Sun. The earth-like planet has at least half the mass of Venus, and a year lasts only a little over three Earth days. Whether it be an alien planet orbiting the K-type star Epsilon Indi A, which is around the same age as... Read more...
An international team of astronomers employing NASA’s Webb Space Telescope captured an exoplanet 12 light years away, and in a location that may be familiar to fans of science fiction. The alien planet orbits the K-type star Epsilon Indi A, which is around the same age as Earth’s Sun, but is slightly cooler. The... Read more...
Astronomers using data collected by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have identified an exoplanet as a “promising super-Earth” and unlike the one JWST spotted earlier this year, it looks like a giant eyeball peering into the Universe. Exoplanet LHS-1140b shows signs of having a global ocean covered in ice, with an... Read more...
Astronomers at Johns Hopkins University say there is something rotten in the Universe. Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the group found evidence that Jupiter-like exoplanet HD 189733 b has trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide, a molecule that gives off the stench of rotten eggs. To make matters worse, the... Read more...
Star Trek fans may be disappointed to learn that Spock’s home planet of Vulcan has turned out to be an illusion. While the planet Vulcan may not exist in real life, Spock’s star system, 40 Eridani, is very real. Star system 40-Eridani is located 16.5 light-years away from Earth, and NASA says its primary star can... Read more...
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), along with help from its tried and true sibling Hubble, have given researchers the data needed to explain why some giant gassy exoplanets are so puffy. Results of the study were mainly because of Webb’s “extraordinary sensitivity,” along with its ability to measure light... Read more...
Out of the more than 5,000 exoplanets detected, only a handful have a density that is comparable to cotton candy. Exoplanets like these may bring to mind the iconic movie Killer Klowns From Outer Space, and the cotton candy cocoon guns the Klowns used. The latest of these exoplanets to be discovered, WASP-193b, is... Read more...
An international team of researchers used NASA’s Webb space telescope to map the weather on a hot gas-giant exoplanet. WASP-43 b, as it's called, is similar in size to Jupiter and made primarily of hydrogen and helium, making it much hotter than any planet in Earth’s solar system. While the exoplanet’s star is... Read more...
NASA says that it has found a “super-Earth” that is only 137 light-years away, and the same system may hold a second, Earth-sized planet. The larger of the two exoplanets, named TOI-715 b, is roughly one and a half times wider than Earth. Scientists and astronomers have been in search for another habitable planet... Read more...
European astronomers using data gleaned from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have found an exoplanet that not only has water vapor and sulfur dioxide in its atmosphere, but also silicate clouds that eventually falls as sand rain. Not so great if you left your car parked outside. JWST has brought us many... Read more...
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) detected evidence of quartz nanocrystals in a Jupiter-like exoplanet's atmosphere 1,300 light-years from Earth. The first-ever detection of silica particles in an exoplanet's atmosphere was made possible by Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). WASP-17 b, also known as... Read more...
A new study reports two ice giant exoplanets colliding near a sun-like star, creating an astonishing afterglow in deep space. Astronomers were able to view the afterglow of light and plumes of dust as it passed in front of the parent star, dimming it over time. An international team of astronomers came together... Read more...
NASA's Webb telescope detected carbon-bearing molecules within an exoplanet 8.6 times larger than Earth, including methane and carbon dioxide. It is possible that the exoplanet, known as K2-18 b, could be a Hycean planet, meaning it potentially possesses a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, as well as an ocean-covered... Read more...
A Jupiter-like planet has escaped what should have been certain death at the hands of its sun. Exoplanet 8 UMi b, named Halla, which closely orbits its host star Baekdu, survived a period of murderous stellar transition that would have typically consumed and annihilated close-in planets. Our very own Sun will one... Read more...
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has been able to rule out an exoplanet having a thick carbon dioxide atmosphere. Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c is described by authors of a recent study on the findings as a Venus twin. When most think about the Webb telescope, spectacular images of the cosmos come to mind, unveiling space... Read more...
A team of astronomers has detected a brown dwarf with a scorching daytime temperature of 8,000 Kelvin (13,940 degrees Fahrenheit). This means this extremely hot object is hotter than our very own Sun, which has temps averaging around 5,500 Kelvin, or approximately 9,400 degrees Fahrenheit. Object WD0032-317B was... Read more...
An international team of astronomers has discovered the second-ever multiplanetary circumbinary system, giving Star Wars fans more hope that one day they might be able to travel to a Tatooine-like planet. The newly found planet, BEBOP-1c, joins TOI-1338b, which was discovered in the same system in 2020. A... Read more...
Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet that is believed to be blanketed in volcanoes. Exoplanet LP 791-18 d is suspected to have volcano eruptions as frequent as Jupiter's moon lo, which is the most volcanically active body in our solar system. LP 791-18 d was detected and studied utilizing NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, Read more...
NASA scientists are left scratching their heads after new data from its coveted James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) found hints of water vapor around a distant exoplanet. The water vapor was detected while observing exoplanet GJ 486 b using Webb's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec). Scientists using data from JWST... Read more...
Astronomers using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile discovered a Jupiter-like exoplanet in the AF Leporis system. The system is said to be similar to our own Solar System, with a star roughly the same mass, size, and temperatures as the Sun. Two groups of astronomers took on the task of studying star catalogs... Read more...
A team of astronomers has discovered a rare Earth-mass exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of a star. Exoplanet Wolf 1069 b and the star it orbits, Wolf 1069, are located approximately 31 light-years from Earth. Finding an exoplanet that is within the habitable zone of a nearby star is exceptionally difficult... Read more...
A team of astronomers has detected evidence that two exoplanets 218 light-years from Earth are "water worlds." The two planets orbit a red dwarf star in the constellation Lyra, unlike any planets in our solar system. According to a newly published research paper, two exoplanets, which are about one and a half times... Read more...
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