As many as 200 worlds beyond our solar system discovered by astronomers may be larger than estimated, which could influence the search for extraterrestrial life. That’s the theory of a team of researchers who looked at hundreds of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, observed by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). TESS hunts exoplanets by catching … Read more
The innermost Earth-like planet in the famous TRAPPIST-1 system might be capable of supporting a thick atmosphere after all, according to new research. Since the system of seven tightly-packed, Earth-sized worlds was discovered in 2017, huddled in remarkable harmony just 40 light-years from Earth, astronomers have tried to determine whether any support atmosphere, which is … Read more
A planet beyond the solar system that has been compared to Spock’s homeworld Vulcan in the Star Trek franchise may have been nothing more than an illusion caused by a jittery star. The extrasolar planet or “exoplanet” (a term for a planet outside of our solar system) was proposed to orbit a star called 40 … Read more
Five years ago, NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope helped discover a family of seven rocky exoplanets orbiting the same star, known as TRAPPIST-1. Now, NASA’s new infrared powerhouse — the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) — measured the temperature of one of those worlds, TRAPPIST-1b, in new research published in the journal Nature. The bad … Read more
Young stars are surrounded by chaos: Clouds of gas, dust and ice swirl about in a so-called protoplanetary disk. And when gravity binds this material together, planets are born. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers developed a new technique to measure and date infant exoplanets forming in these protoplanetary disks. By … Read more
Welcome to the latest installment of “Writer Fuel – cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Check out our Writer Fuel page on the LimFic blog for more inspiration. Today: Astronomers have broken yet another record, spotting a new gas giant with the shortest known orbit. The world takes just 16 hours … Read more
Welcome to the latest installment of “Writer Fuel – cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Check out our Writer Fuel page on the LimFic blog for more inspiration. Today: There’s now even more evidence that a bizarre star system perched on the constellation Orion’s nose may contain the rarest type of … Read more
