Tag: exoplanets
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Could Barnard’s Star harbor an icy home for life? Astronomers weigh the options
An artist’s conception shows three planets around a red dwarf star. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Illustration) Where’s the nearest exoplanet with conditions that are right for life? Over the past couple of years, astrobiologists have talked up Proxima Centauri b, which is sitting just 4.2 light-years away. But Villanova University astrophysicist Edward Guinan favors a world…
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Astronomers announce first exoplanets discovered by NASA’s TESS mission
Six months into its mission scanning the sky for planets around other stars, NASA’s orbiting TESS observatory has found three previously-undiscovered worlds and hundreds candidates requiring follow-up observations, the first batch of a potential haul of up to 10,000 exoplanet detections over TESS’s planned two-year mission, astronomers announced this week. NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey…
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TESS planet-hunters add a ‘sub-Neptune’ world to discovery list, with more to come
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite, or TESS, with an assortment of exoplanets. (NASA / GSFC / MIT Illustration) Less than a year after NASA’s TESS spacecraft was launched, the scientists behind the mission have unveiled their third confirmed planet, a weird alien world that’s between Earth and Neptune in size. And…
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NASA says goodbye to Kepler planet-hunter
Artist’s concept of the Kepler observatory. Credit: NASA Ground controllers have beamed the final commands to NASA’s Kepler telescope, turning off the spacecraft’s transmitters and disabling the craft’s automatic recovery software after the planet-hunting observatory ran out of fuel last month. The last signals to Kepler were broadcast from a control center at the Laboratory for…
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Scientists report a super-Earth orbiting Barnard’s Star, a mere 6 light-years away
An artist’s conception shows what the surface of the reported planet known as Barnard’s Star b might look like. (ESO Illustration / M. Kornmesser) The astronomical team that found the nearest exoplanet at Proxima Centauri has done it again with the reported detection of a super-Earth orbiting Barnard’s Star, the second-closest star system to our…
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Farewell, Kepler: NASA’s planet-hunting probe runs out of gas, but mission goes on
Stylized artwork shows NASA’s Kepler space telescope among planetary systems. (NASA Illustration / Wendy Stenzel / Daniel Rutter) NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting telescope now belongs to the ages, with its fuel completely spent and its instruments shut down — but the planet quest continues, thanks to a treasure trove of downloaded data as well as a new…
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NASA’s trailblazing Kepler telescope ends planet hunt
This illustration depicts NASA’s exoplanet hunter, the Kepler space telescope. Credits: NASA/Wendy Stenzel/Daniel Rutter NASA’s Kepler telescope has run out of fuel and ended science operations, closing out a pioneering decade-long mission that showed planets are commonplace across our galaxy, agency officials said Tuesday. The observatory’s supply of hydrazine has run low for months, but…
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Hubble Space Telescope boosts evidence for first exomoon seen circling alien planet
An artist’s impression shows the Jupiter-sized exoplanet Kepler-1625b transiting its parent star with the Neptune-sized candidate exomoon in tow. (Dan Durda Illustration) With a lot of help from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers now feel confident enough to publish their evidence for the first moon detected in orbit around a planet beyond our solar system.…
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TESS probe finds first potential planets
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, with an alien sun and planet in the background. (NASA / GSFC Illustration) Astronomers on the team for NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission, or TESS, are reporting their first potential planet discoveries, just days after the spacecraft’s first science image was unveiled. The…
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TESS in excellent health, finds 1st two exoplanet candidates during first science orbit
The joint NASA / Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has completed its first science orbit after launch and orbital activations/checkouts. Unsurprisingly given TESS’s wide range of view, a team of scientists have already identified the planet-hunting telescope’s first two exoplanet candidates. The yet-to-be-confirmed exoplanets are located 59.5 light years…