Before the discovery of exoplanets, most astronomers expected that other planetary systems would be much like our own—planets following roughly circular orbits, with the most massive planets several AU from their parent star. Such systems do exist in large numbers, but many exoplanets and planetary...
Honing in on exoplanets To date, astronomers have identified more than 1000 confirmed exoplanets using NASA’s Kepler space telescope alone. This is around half of the 2000 that are known to exist. Its findings are thanks to the innovative “transit” method, which measuring how much a star's...
What are exoplanets? What is planetary astrophysics? What planets in our solar system have no atmosphere? What was the first extrasolar planet discovered? What dwarf planet exist in the asteroid belt? What is the Jovian system? What planet is closest to the Kuiper belt?
Other methods exist, and - alone or in combination - have allowed for the detection and confirmation of over four thousand exoplanets, while another 5,742 candidates await confirmation. Of these, 1473 (34%) have been gas giants comparable to Neptune (Neptune-like), while 1359 (31%) have be...
What are exoplanets? What is the densest known star cluster? What is larger: a star system or a star cluster? What kind of orbit do comets have? What is the difference between nebulae and planetary nebulae? What space probes have headed to the Oort cloud?
days and always shows the same face towards it. Now, imagine a tiny rocky planet, only a third of the size of Earth orbiting its star in only 4.5 hours. These kinds of worlds really exist. Exoplanets vary in size, orbit, composition, and more. But how can we know all these aspects?
The word "year," is normally a unit of time, but light-years measure distance. M. Aurelius/Shutterstock A light-year is a way of measuring astronomical distances in space. That doesn't make much sense because "light-year" contains the word "year," which is normally a unit of time. ...
The Endangered Species Act can work, but it’s still struggling to protect animals from the threat of extinction – Vox Clearing Skies: Opening a New Path on Climate and the Future – Yale E360 Exoplanets’ climate: It takes nothing to switch from habitable to hell, say...
This is an illustration of the exoplanet Kepler-186f. It is one of the first Earth-sized exoplanets we have discovered that orbits around its parent star within the habitable zone. (Photo Credit : SRStudio/Shutterstock) Factors Of The Star System That Determine Habitability Of A Planet ...
"In our circle of close neighbors—the Moon, Mars, Venus—we're the only planet with a magnetic field that's been going strong since the beginning and remains active today," Lapôtre said. But Jupiter-sized exoplanets orbiting close to their star have been identified with magnetic fields,...