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Exoplanets TOP STORY

Maunakea Telescopes Confirm First Brown Dwarf Discovered By Radio Observations

Mars Imaged by Hubble

A collaboration between the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope in Europe, the Gemini North telescope, and the NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF), both on Maunakea in Hawai'i, has led to the first direct discovery of a cold brown dwarf from its radio wavelength emission.

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Exoplanets

An Earth-sized Rogue Planet Discovered In The Milky Way

Copernicus Detail

Our Galaxy may be teeming with rogue planets, gravitationally unbound to any star. An international team of scientists, led by Polish astronomers, has announced the discovery of the smallest Earth-sized free-floating planet found to date.

Exoplanets

Vaporized Metal In The Atmosphere Of An Exoplanet

An international team of researchers led by the National Centre of Competence in Research Planet of the University of Bern and the University of Geneva studied the atmosphere of the ultra-hot exoplanet WASP-121b.

Exoplanets

Stars And Planets May Be Siblings

An international team of scientists has discovered planet formation in a star system younger than 500,000 years old.

Exoplanets

Astronomers Discover An Earth-sized "pi planet" With A 3.14-day Orbit

In a delightful alignment of astronomy and mathematics, scientists at MIT and elsewhere have discovered a "pi Earth" -- an Earth-sized planet that zips around its star every 3.14 days, in an orbit reminiscent of the universal mathematics constant.

Exoplanets

Carbon-rich Exoplanets May Be Made Of Diamonds

As missions like NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, TESS and Kepler continue to provide insights into the properties of exoplanets (planets around other stars), scientists are increasingly able to piece together what these planets look like, what they are made of, and if they could be habitable or even inhabited.

Exoplanets

ALMA Captures A Stirred-up Planet Factory

Planet-forming environments can be much more complex and chaotic than previously expected. This is evidenced by a new image of the star RU Lup, made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

Exoplanets

First Exposed Planetary Core Discovered

A year that is a mere 18 hours TOI 849 b is an extremely unusual planet in the so-called "Neptune Desert" - a term used by astronomers for a region close to stars where we rarely see planets of Neptune's mass or larger.

Exoplanets

Super Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby Red Dwarf Gliese 887

The nearest exoplanets to us provide the best opportunities for detailed study, including searching for evidence of life outside the Solar System.

Exoplanets

Rogue's Gallery Of Dusty Star Systems Reveals Exoplanet Nurseries

Astronomers this month released the largest collection of sharp, detailed images of debris disks around young stars, showcasing the great variety of shapes and sizes of stellar systems during their prime planet-forming years. Surprisingly, nearly all showed evidence of planets.

Exoplanets

Young Giant Planet Offers Clues to Formation of Exotic Worlds

Jupiter-size planets orbiting close to their stars have upended ideas about how giant planets form. Finding young members of this planet class could help answer key questions.

Exoplanets

WASP-79b Has Yellow Skies And Iron Rain

The weather forecast for the giant, super-hot Jupiter-size planet WASP-79b is steamy humidity, scattered clouds, iron rain, and yellow skies.

Exoplanets

Researchers Use 'Hot Jupiter' Data to Mine Exoplanet Chemistry

After spotting a curious pattern in scientific papers -- they described exoplanets as being cooler than expected -- Cornell astronomers have improved a mathematical model to accurately gauge the temperatures of planets from solar systems hundreds of light-years away.

Exoplanets

Cheops Observes Its First Exoplanets And Is Ready For Science

Cheops, ESA's new exoplanet mission, has successfully completed its almost three months of in-orbit commissioning, exceeding expectations for its performance.

Exoplanets

Safety Zone Saves Giant Moons From Fatal Plunge

Numerical simulations showed that the temperature gradient in the disk of gas around a young gas giant planet could play a critical role in the development of a satellite system dominated by a single large moon, similar to Titan around Saturn.

Exoplanets

What If Mysterious 'Cotton Candy' Planets Actually Sport Rings?

Some of the extremely low-density, "cotton candy like" exoplanets called super-puffs may actually have rings, according to new research from Carnegie's Anthony Piro and Caltech's Shreyas Vissapragada.