Tag: exoplanets
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Looking for life: Scientists find 7 possibly Earthlike planets orbiting ultracool star
A diagram shows seven exoplanets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star known as TRAPPIST-1. If the planets were transported to our own solar system, they’d all lie within Mercury’s orbit. (ESO Illustration) A second look at an exoplanet system 40 light-years from Earth has brought a bonanza for astronomers: not two, not three, but seven alien worlds…
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Watch a video replay of NASA’s exoplanet announcement
NASA announced Wednesday the discovery of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a star 39 light-years from Earth, and three of the rocky worlds may have the right conditions to support life. Read our full story. Email the author. Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.
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Very Large Telescope joins Breakthrough search for Alpha Centauri’s planets
The ESO’s Very Large Telescope looms in the foreground of this image, and a star map has been superimposed on the night sky to show the locations of Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri. (ESO Photo) One of the most powerful observing instruments on Earth, the Very Large Telescope, will join the search for potentially habitable…
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Video: How will we get to Alpha Centauri? Researchers work on an antimatter drive
An artist’s conception shows a positron rocket engine. (Positronics Research via NASA) Project Blue’s scientists still have to raise more than $800,000 over the next 15 days to reach their initial crowdfunding goal for a mission to observe Alpha Centauri’s alien planets, but they’re already thinking about how future explorers could get there. It would take…
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Project Blue kicks off $1 million crowdfunding campaign to seek out Alpha Centauri’s alien Earths
An artist’s concept shows Project Blue’s telescope monitoring Alpha Centauri. (Credit: Project Blue) How much would you pay to find out whether Alpha Centauri’s twin suns possess blue planets like Earth? Project Blue is hoping it’s at least $10, and maybe thousands of dollars. That’s the point behind the project’s Kickstarter campaign, which aims to raise…
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Proxima’s progress: Why it’ll take years to learn what closest exoplanet is really like
An artist’s conception shows a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b, with the red dwarf Proxima Centauri near the horizon. (Credi:t: M. Kornmesser / ESO) University of Washington astronomer Rory Barnes says Proxima Centauri b is the biggest discovery in 20 years for planet hunters like himself, but it could take another 20…
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Proxima Centauri b confirmed! Potentially habitable planet orbits the star next door
An artist’s conception shows Proxima Centauri b orbiting its parent star, a red dwarf, with the two other stars of the Alpha Centauri system in the far background. (Credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO) The rumors you’ve heard are mostly true: Scientists say the star that’s closest to our solar system has a planet that could be…
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Potentially-habitable planet discovered around nearest star Proxima Centauri
An artist’s impression of what the surface of Proxima b might look like. Notice the red sky around the star and the darker sky elsewhere. Image: ESO/M Kornmesser. A planet with at least 1.3 times the mass of Earth has been discovered orbiting within the habitable zone of the nearest star to our Sun, Proxima…
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Revived Kepler mission confirms 104 new planets, and two could be a lot like Earth
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Kepler telescope observing four planets as they pass across the disk of their parent star. The comparative sizes of the spacecraft and the star are not to scale. (Credit: NASA / JPL) Astronomers say they’ve confirmed the existence of 104 worlds to add to the list of extrasolar planets detected…
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Youngest planet spotted around alien star
An artist’s conception shows the planet K2-33b crossing the disk of its parent star. (Credi: NASA / JPL-Caltech) Scientists say they’ve detected a giant planet circling a star that’s only 5 million to 10 million years old, which would make it the youngest exoplanet ever identified. The super-Neptune-sized planet traces a super-close-in orbit, making a complete swing…