Exoplanets | SpaceRef

Exoplanets TOP STORY

Simulations Explain Giant Exoplanets With Eccentric, Close-in Orbits

Exoplanet

As planetary systems evolve, gravitational interactions between planets can fling some of them into eccentric elliptical orbits around the host star, or even out of the system altogether.

A dramatic glimpse of the aftermath of a collision between two exoplanets is giving scientists a view of what can happen when planets crash into each other. A similar event in our own solar system may have formed the moon.

Exoplanets

Cascades Of Gas Around Young Star Indicate Early Stages of Planet Formation

What does a gestating baby planet look like? New research in Nature by a team including Carnegie's Jaehan Bae investigated the effects of three planets in the process of forming around a young star, revealing the source of their atmospheres.

Exoplanets

Liquifying A Rocky Exoplanet

Rocky exoplanets that are around Earth-size are comparatively small, which makes them incredibly difficult to detect and characterise using telescopes.

Exoplanets

Many Gas Giant Exoplanets Waiting To Be Discovered

There is an as-yet-unseen population of Jupiter-like planets orbiting nearby Sun-like stars, awaiting discovery by future missions like NASA's WFIRST space telescope, according to new models of gas giant planet formation by Carnegie's Alan Boss, described in an upcoming publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

Exoplanets

Hints Of A Volcanically Active Exomoon

Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active body in our solar system. Today, there are indications that an active moon outside our solar system, an exo-Io, could be hidden at the exoplanet system WASP-49b.

Exoplanets

Constraining the Formation of the Four Terrestrial Planets in the Solar System

To reproduce the orbits and masses of the terrestrial planets (analogs) of the solar system, most studies scrutinize simulations for success as a batch. However, there is insufficient discussion in the literature on the likelihood of forming planet analogs simultaneously in the same system (analog system).

Exoplanets

Hubble Uncovers a 'Heavy Metal' Exoplanet Shaped Like a Football

How can a planet be "hotter than hot?" The answer is when heavy metals are detected escaping from the planet's atmosphere, instead of condensing into clouds.

Exoplanets

Confirmation of Toasty TESS Planet Leads to Surprising Find of Promising World

A piping hot planet discovered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has pointed the way to additional worlds orbiting the same star, one of which is located in the star's habitable zone.

Exoplanets

TESS Discovers Three New Worlds

NASA's newest planet hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), has discovered three new worlds -- one slightly larger than Earth and two of a type not found in our solar system -- orbiting a nearby star.

Exoplanets

Moon-Forming Disk Discovered Around Distant Planet

Using Earth's most powerful array of radio telescopes, astronomers have made the first observations of a circumplanetary disk of gas and dust like the one that is believed to have birthed the moons of Jupiter.

Exoplanets

Atmosphere Of Mid-size Exoplanet Revealed By Hubble and Spitzer

Two NASA space telescopes have teamed up to identify, for the first time, the detailed chemical "fingerprint" of a planet between the sizes of Earth and Neptune. No planets like this can be found in our own solar system, but they are common around other stars.

Exoplanets

TESS Finds Its Smallest Planet Yet

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered a world between the sizes of Mars and Earth orbiting a bright, cool, nearby star. The planet, called L 98-59b, marks the tiniest discovered by TESS to date.

Exoplanets

18 Earth-sized Exoplanets Discovered

Somewhat more than 4000 planets orbiting stars outside our solar system are known so far.

Exoplanets

Small, Hardy Planets Most Likely To Survive Death Of Their Stars

Small, hardy planets packed with dense elements have the best chance of avoiding being crushed and swallowed up when their host star dies, new research from the University of Warwick has found.

Exoplanets