EXTRA SOLAR

2,688 articles

Metal-poor stars are rich with small planets
Jun 22, 2012 (SPX)
Planets as big as Earth but smaller than Neptune are likely even more common in our galaxy than previously believed, according to a statistical analysis of rece...
Astronomers spy 2 planets in tight quarters as they orbit a distant star
Jun 22, 2012 (SPX)
A research team led by astronomers at the University of Washington and Harvard University has discovered a bigger version of Earth locked in an orbital tug-of-w...
Where Are The Metal Worlds And Is The Answer Blowing In The Wind
Jun 22, 2012 (SPX)
The torrent of discoveries that has come out of the exo-planet research community lately has brought up more new questions than it has answered. Some of the mor...
Astronomers with NASA's Kepler Mission find 'puzzling pair of planets'
Jun 22, 2012 (SPX)
Two planets with very different densities and compositions are locked in surprisingly close orbits around their host star, according to astronomers working with...
Planets can form around different types of stars
Jun 14, 2012 (SPX)
It had previously been thought that planets were more likely to form around a star if the star had a high content of heavier elements. But new research from the...
Extremely little telescope discovers pair of odd planets
Jun 14, 2012 (SPX)
Even small telescopes can make big discoveries. Though the KELT North telescope in southern Arizona carries a lens no more powerful than a high-end digital came...
Small Planets Don't Need 'Heavy Metal' Stars to Form
Jun 14, 2012 (JPL)
The formation of small worlds like Earth previously was thought to occur mostly around stars rich in heavy elements such as iron and silicon. However, new groun...
Alien Earths Could Form Earlier than Expected
Jun 14, 2012 (SPX)
Building a terrestrial planet requires raw materials that weren't available in the early history of the universe. The Big Bang filled space with hydrogen and he...
Tiny Planet-Finding Mirrors Borrow from Webb Telescope Playbook
Jun 04, 2012 (SPX)
NASA's next flagship mission - the James Webb Space Telescope - will carry the largest primary mirror ever deployed. This segmented behemoth will unfold to 21.3...
Astronomers Probe 'Evaporating' Planet Around Nearby Star with Hobby-Eberly Telescope
Jun 01, 2012 (SPX)
Astronomers from The University of Texas at Austin and Wesleyan University have used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at UT Austin's McDonald Observatory to confirm t...
NSO To Use Venus Transit To Fine-Tune Search For Other Worlds
May 31, 2012 (SPX)
A century ago, scientists chased transits of Mercury and Venus in an effort to size up our solar system. Next week, they will use the last Venus transit for a c...
Venus transit may boost hunt for other worlds
May 30, 2012 (AFP)
Astronomers around the world will be using advanced telescopes to watch Venus cross in front of the Sun on June 5 and 6 in the hopes of finding clues in the hun...
Newfound exoplanet may turn to dust
May 20, 2012 (SPX)
Researchers at MIT, NASA and elsewhere have detected a possible planet, some 1,500 light years away, that appears to be evaporating under the blistering heat of...
In search of new 'Earths' beyond our Solar System
May 15, 2012 (Voice of Russia)
Light coming from an exoplanet only eight times larger than the Earth was observed with the help of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. With the advent of new space...
Cosmic dust rings no guarantee of planets
May 15, 2012 (UPI)
Dust rings around distant stars, considered by many as "smoking gun" evidence of orbiting planets, can form on their own, U.S. research suggests. The finding is...
Unseen planet revealed by its gravity
May 11, 2012 (SPX)
More than a 150 years ago, before Neptune was ever sighted in the night sky, French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier predicted the planet's existence based on sm...
Ultra-cool companion helps reveal giant planets
May 11, 2012 (SPX)
An international team of astronomers led by David Pinfield of the University of Hertfordshire has found a brown dwarf that is more than 99% hydrogen and helium....
Free-floating planets in the Milky Way outnumber stars by factors of thousands
May 11, 2012 (SPX)
A few hundred thousand billion free-floating life-bearing Earth-sized planets may exist in the space between stars in the Milky Way. So argues an international ...
NASA's Spitzer Sees the Light of Alien 'Super Earth'
May 09, 2012 (JPL)
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a "super-Earth" planet beyond our solar system for the first time. While the planet is not habi...
Some giant planets in other systems most likely to be alone
May 08, 2012 (SPX)
Hot Jupiter-type planets are most likely to be alone in their systems, according to research by a University of Florida astronomer and others. "Hot Jupiters" ar...
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