Tag: exoplanets
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NASA moves forward with mission using spy satellite telescope
Artist’s concept of the WFIRST spacecraft. Credit: NASA NASA has formally approved plans — a year ahead of schedule — for an infrared space telescope launching around 2024 to record unique wide-angle views of the cosmos, seeking answers to questions about mysterious dark energy and searching for habitable worlds around other stars, the space agency…
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First spectral analysis of a super-Earth’s atmosphere shows it’s not super for life
An artist’s impression shows the super-Earth 55 Cancri e in front of its parent star. The star is slightly smaller, cooler and less massive than our sun. (Credit: M. Kornmesser / ESA / Hubble) For the first time, astronomers have conducted a spectral analysis of a distant super-Earth’s atmosphere – and the results show it…
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NASA’s next flagship space telescope to get formal start
Artist’s concept of WFIRST. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center NASA officials expect to officially kick off development in February of a multibillion-dollar observatory recycling a grounded top secret spy satellite telescope capable of studying dark energy and directly resolving planets around other stars. The WFIRST mission will launch in the 2020s as NASA’s next flagship-class…
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NASA’s next flagship space telescope to get formal start
Artist’s concept of WFIRST. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center NASA officials expect to officially kick off development in February of a multibillion-dollar observatory recycling a grounded top secret spy satellite telescope capable of studying dark energy and directly resolving planets around other stars. The WFIRST mission will launch in the 2020s as NASA’s next flagship-class…
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Galileo gets a planet: IAU astronomers reveal first batch of names for alien worlds
An artist’s conception shows a “hot Jupiter” around an alien star. One of the first hot Jupiters to be detected, 55 Cancri b, has been given the name Galileo. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech) After a crowdsourcing campaign that lasted more than a year, the International Astronomical Union has issued its first-ever list of approved names…
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Red planet vs. blue planet: Lori Garver looks ahead to Mars and the future of space
Former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver chats with Alan Boyle on stage during the 2015 GeekWire Summit. If we want to send astronauts to Mars, we better find a way to do it within 10 years. And if we want to discover a blue planet around an alien sun, there’s a good chance it could happen within five…
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Kepler telescope spots Earth-like ‘cousin’
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Artist’s concept of Kepler-452b, the first near-Earth-size world to be found in the habitable zone of star that is similar to our sun. Credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle Analysis of data from NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has revealed a near Earth-size world orbiting in the habitable zone of…
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Kepler’s data catalog exceeds 1,000 confirmed planets
Artist’s concept of an exoplanet discovered by Kepler. Credit: NASA Astronomers culling imagery from NASA’s Kepler space telescope have found eight new worlds around other stars, raising the number of verified discoveries made by Kepler to more than 1,000 planets. The planets were found in Kepler’s original four-year data set. Three of the newly-validated planets…
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Planet-hunting telescope to launch on Falcon 9 rocket
Artist’s concept of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Credit: MIT NASA’s decision to launch a satellite to search for planets around other stars on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2017 will allow officials to cancel plans to order a solid-fueled kick motor to send the telescope into a unique high-altitude orbit, the mission’s top…