NASA recently revealed the first pictures of its newly constructed Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which could soon help researchers hunt for exoplanets, map the Milky Way and unravel some of the universe’s biggest mysteries, such as the true nature of dark matter. Experts have also revealed the most probable launch date for the next-generation … Read more
What if some of the alien worlds we’ve discovered are not actually planets at all? Astronomers have spent years cataloging thousands of worlds orbiting distant stars, assuming that if something has the mass of a planet and exerts a gravitational pull on its parent star, it must be a planet. But there may be a … Read more
A quartet of Earth-like worlds, each about 20% to 30% the size of our planet, circle one of our closest stellar neighbors, a new study reveals. The rocky alien worlds are close enough that future generations of humans may be able to visit them with futuristic rocket propulsion technology. However, it is unlikely that we … Read more
Far beyond the eight familiar planets in our solar system, countless bizarre and extreme worlds await discovery — and some have already been found. Thanks to rapidly advancing telescope technology, astronomers have detected more than 5,600 planets outside our solar system. These exoplanets, as scientists call them, are worlds of lava, and worlds of water. They’re worlds … 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: Four brand-new alien planets have potentially been discovered after scientists detected the shimmering radio flashes of auroras in those planets’ atmospheres, a … Read more
The search for alien life should broaden its horizons a bit, a new study suggests. Alien hunters have to date focused largely on Earthlike planets — a reasonable place to start, given that our rocky, water-covered world is the only one we know of that hosts life. But the universe teems with a huge diversity … Read more
