Tag: exoplanets
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Euclid studies Milky Way center, supports future Roman observations
The European Space Agency (ESA) recently released a new picture of the center of the Milky Way galaxy, an area known as the galactic bulge. Containing over 60 million stars, the picture, taken by ESA’s Euclid space telescope, represents the largest and most detailed photo of this region to date. Euclid observed the area outside…
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Roman Space Telescope Launches September, 8 Months Early
Will the Roman Space Telescope Launch on Schedule? NASA announced today that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will launch in September 2026, eight months ahead of its original May 2027 schedule and coming in under its $4.2 billion cost cap. The wide-field infrared observatory, designed to investigate dark energy and hunt for exoplanets, represents…
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Hubble observes dead star devouring Pluto-like object
With help from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in low-Earth orbit, scientists recently observed a Pluto-like object being “eaten” by its host star. Hubble’s unique sensitivity to ultraviolet light allowed it to study the planetary system, which lies around 260 light-years away from Earth. The hungry star is a white dwarf — the dense, stellar core…
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ESO’s VLT reveals inner wind layers of distant exoplanet
Using data from the four telescopic units of the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), a team of scientists has successfully peered into the atmosphere of an exoplanet for the first time. Moreover, the data allowed the team to create a three-dimensional map of the atmosphere. The results showed powerful winds within the…
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Astronomers find evidence of a volcanic exomoon
Astronomers have found evidence for a volcanic moon orbiting an exoplanet 635 light-years from Earth. No moons have been confirmed to orbit planets outside our solar system, but a sodium cloud hints at the existence of one around exoplanet WASP-49 b. Moons orbiting planets outside our solar system — also known as exomoons — are…
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Webb identifies surprising carbon-rich ingredients around young star
Using the joint NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) James Webb Space Telescope, a team of international scientists studied a disk of cosmic material surrounding an extremely low-mass star. The results from the investigation show the richest hydrocarbon chemistry ever observed within a protoplanetary disk, which is a disk of gas,…
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Astronomers find an Earth-sized exoplanet around a tiny star and a large, but ultra-light exoplanet around a Sun-like star
Astronomers from the Search for Planets Eclipsing Ultra-cool Stars (SPECULOOS) project found an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting an ultracool dwarf star about 55 light-years away. The team concluded that the exoplanet, called SPECULOOS-3b, likely has a rocky surface and no atmosphere. The SPECULOOS project is a network of six robotic telescopes, four in the Southern Hemisphere…
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Why interstellar objects like ‘Oumuamua and Borisov may hold clues to exoplanets
On October 17 and 18, 2017, an unusual object sped across the field of view of a large telescope perched near the summit of a volcano on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The Pan-STARRS1 telescope was designed to survey the sky for transient events, like asteroid or comet flybys. But this was different: The object…
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Using Hubble, scientists observe weather on exoplanet
Using data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers has detected atmospheric variability on an exoplanet called WASP-121 b. The team analyzed observations taken with Hubble over several years and used computer simulations to demonstrate that the observed variations in the atmosphere could be explained by weather patterns. WASP-121 b, also known…
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Data from Kepler reveals reason behind shrinking exoplanets
Located throughout the universe, there are billions — possibly even trillions — of exoplanets orbiting around stars of varying shapes, sizes, colors, and more. Like the stars they orbit, exoplanets also come in many different shapes, sizes, and colors, with scientists classifying exoplanets into one of four groups: gas giants, super-Earths, sub-Neptunes, and terrestrial. Interestingly,…