EXTRA SOLAR

2,688 articles

Jumping genes shed light on how advanced life may have emerged
Nov 20, 2018 (SPX)
This discovery began with a curiosity for retrotransposons, known as "jumping genes," which are DNA sequences that copy and paste themselves within the genome, ...
New database to archive amateur astronomer exoplanet data
Nov 19, 2018 (SPX)
Though exoplanets are difficult to directly observe, data about them can be collected by watching for telltale variations in the light coming from the stars the...
New Arecibo message challenge announced
Nov 17, 2018 (SPX)
"Our society and our technology have changed a lot since 1974," said Francisco Cordova, the director of the NSF-funded Arecibo Observatory. "So, if we were asse...
Super-earth discovered orbiting the sun's famous stellar neighbor
Nov 16, 2018 (SPX)
"Barnard's star is among the nearby red dwarfs that represents an ideal target to search for exoplanets that could someday actually be reached by future interst...
A cold Super-Earth just 6 light years away at Barnard's Star
Nov 15, 2018 (SPX)
The planet has just over three times the mass of Earth and is slightly colder than Saturn. The discovery was made by measuring the periodic change in the radial...
Laser tech could be fashioned into Earth's 'porch light' to attract alien astronomers
Nov 06, 2018 (SPX)
The research, which author James Clark calls a "feasibility study," appears in The Astrophysical Journal. The findings suggest that if a high-powered 1- to 2-me...
Laboratory experiments probe the formation of stars and planets
Nov 06, 2018 (SPX)
The study of black holes provides clues that could help solve this mystery. Black holes are typically depicted as vacuum cleaners sucking up all the nearby matt...
NASA retires Kepler Space Telescope, passes planet-hunting torch
Oct 31, 2018 (SPX)
"As NASA's first planet-hunting mission, Kepler has wildly exceeded all our expectations and paved the way for our exploration and search for life in the solar ...
Rocky and habitable - sizing up a galaxy of planets
Oct 26, 2018 (JPL)
And as our space telescopes and other instruments grow ever more sensitive, we're beginning to zero in. The discoveries so far inspire excitement and curiosity ...
Some planetary systems just aren't into heavy metal
Oct 25, 2018 (SPX)
Researchers at Yale and the Flatiron Institute have discovered that compact, multiple-planet systems are more likely to form around stars that have lower amount...
Superflares From Young Red Dwarf Stars Imperil Planets
Oct 25, 2018 (SPX)
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is observing such stars through a large program called HAZMAT - Habitable Zones and M dwarf Activity across Time. "M dwarf" is the...
Ultra-close stars discovered inside a planetary nebula
Oct 24, 2018 (SPX)
Planetary nebulae are the glowing shells of gas and dust formed from the outer layers of stars like our own Sun, which they throw off during the final stages of...
Plan developed to characterize and identify ocean worlds
Oct 24, 2018 (SPX)
Hendrix and Terry A. Hurford of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center are co-lead authors of "The NASA Roadmap to Ocean Worlds" that appears in Astrobiology. Hendrix...
Algorithm takes search for habitable planets to the next level
Oct 22, 2018 (SPX)
On-sky demonstration was recently achieved on NAOJ's 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope, and the Paris Observatory's team is already scaling up the algorithms for futur...
Scientific research will help to understand the origin of life in the universe
Oct 22, 2018 (SPX)
However, the scientists from Samara University, together with their colleagues from the University of Hawaii, Florida International University, and Lawrence Ber...
Giant planets around young star raise questions about how planets form
Oct 22, 2018 (SPX)
The system has also set a new record for the most extreme range of orbits yet observed: the outermost planet is more than a thousand times further from the star...
Discovering a previously unknown role for a source of magnetic fields
Oct 22, 2018 (SPX)
Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have found that this phenomenon may not only generate magneti...
Double dust ring test could spot migrating planets
Oct 19, 2018 (SPX)
Finding real evidence that a planet is migrating (usually inwards) within such discs would help solve a number of problems that have emerged as astronomers are ...
Boy meets world: Life-long space buff and Western graduate student discovers exoplanet
Oct 12, 2018 (SPX)
Teamed with Paul Wiegert, Graduate Program Director at Western's renowned Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration (CPSX), Fox discovered the exoplanet - pr...
How the seeds of planets take shape
Oct 12, 2018 (SPX)
Phil Hopkins, professor of theoretical astrophysics at Caltech, working with Jonathan (Jono) Squire, a former postdoctoral fellow at Caltech, began thinking abo...
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