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Top Headlines

Some Planets May Be Better for Life Than Earth

Oct. 5, 2020 — Researchers have identified two dozen planets outside our solar system that may have conditions more suitable for life than our own. Some of these orbit stars that may be better than even our ...

Venus Might Be Habitable Today, If Not for Jupiter

Sep. 30, 2020 — Venus might not be a sweltering, waterless hellscape today, if Jupiter hadn't altered its orbit around the sun, according to new ...

First Study With CHEOPS Data Describes One of the Most Extreme Planets in the Universe

Sep. 28, 2020 — CHEOPS keeps its promise: Observations with the space telescope reveal details of the exoplanet WASP-189b - one of the most extreme planets ...

Water on Exoplanet Cloud Tops Could Be Found With Hi-Tech Instrumentation

Sep. 22, 2020 — Astronomers have shown that water vapor can potentially be detected in the atmospheres of exoplanets by peering literally over the tops of their impenetrable ...

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Astronomers Discover an Earth-Sized 'Pi Planet' With a 3.14-Day Orbit

Sep. 21, 2020 — Scientists 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 ...

Can Life Survive a Star's Death? Webb Telescope Can Reveal the Answer

Sep. 16, 2020 — When stars like our sun die, all that remains is an exposed core -- a white dwarf. A planet orbiting a white dwarf presents a promising opportunity to determine if life can survive the death of its ...

Scientist Searches for Stellar Phosphorus to Find Potentially Habitable Exoplanets

Sep. 16, 2020 — A scientist has identified stellar phosphorus as a probable marker in narrowing the search for life in the cosmos. She has developed techniques to ...

Enormous Planet Quickly Orbiting a Tiny, Dying Star

Sep. 16, 2020 — Thanks to a bevy of telescopes in space and on Earth -- and even a pair of amateur astronomers in Arizona -- astronomers have discovered a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting at breakneck speed around a ...

A Warm Jupiter Orbiting a Cool Star

Sep. 14, 2020 — A planet observed crossing in front of, or transiting, a low-mass star has been determined to be about the size of ...

Carbon-Rich Exoplanets May Be Made of Diamonds

Sep. 11, 2020 — Astronomers have determined that some carbon-rich exoplanets, given the right circumstances, could be made of diamonds and ...

Meteorites Show Transport of Material in Early Solar System

Sep. 8, 2020 — New studies of a rare type of meteorite show that material from close to the Sun reached the outer solar system even as the planet Jupiter cleared a gap in the disk of dust and gas from which the ...

Peculiar Planetary System Architecture Around Three Orion Stars Explained

Sep. 3, 2020 — In our Solar System, the eight planets and many other minor objects orbit in a flat plane around the Sun; but in some distant systems, planets orbit on an incline -- sometimes a very steep one. New ...

Fifty New Planets Confirmed in Machine Learning First

Aug. 25, 2020 — Fifty potential planets have had their existence confirmed by a new machine learning ...

Unveiling Rogue Planets With NASA's Roman Space Telescope

Aug. 21, 2020 — New simulations show that NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be able to reveal myriad rogue planets -- freely floating bodies that drift through our galaxy untethered to a ...