An international group of collaborators, including scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and The University of New Mexico, have discovered a new, temperate sub-Neptune sized exoplanet with a 24-day orbital period orbiting a nearby M dwarf star. The recent discovery offers exciting research opportunities thanks to the planet’s substantial atmosphere, small star, and how fast … Read more
Astronomers have finally uncovered water vapour in the atmosphere of a super-Earth exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of its star. The find means that liquid water could also exist on the rocky world’s surface, potentially even forming a global ocean. The discovery, made with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, serves as the first detection of … Read more
Scientists have spotted evidence of Jupiter-like stripes in the thick atmosphere of a nearby brown dwarf, a new study reports — and this evidence was gathered in a novel way.
For the first time ever, astronomers have measured wind speed on a brown dwarf, or “failed star,” an object heftier than a planet but not massive enough to host the fusion reactions that power stars.
Alien worlds may be all the rage, with their mystique and promise, but the orb we call home, planet Earth, has all the makings for a jaw-dropping blockbuster movie: from the drama of explosive volcanoes, past meteor crashes and catastrophic collisions between rocky plates to the seeming fantasy of the ocean’s deep abysses swirling with … Read more
The hellish planet Venus may have had a perfectly habitable environment for 2 to 3 billion years after the planet formed, suggesting life would have had ample time to emerge there, according to a new study. A study presented at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 by Michael Way of The Goddard Institute for Space Science … Read more
Researchers at the Universities of Zurich and Cambridge have discovered a new, exotic class of planets outside our solar system. These so-called super-Earths were formed at high temperatures close to their host star and contain high quantities of calcium, aluminium and their oxides—including sapphire and ruby. Twenty-one light years away from Earth in the constellation … Read more
A massive stellar flare on a baby star has been spotted by University of Warwick astronomers, shedding light on the origins of potentially habitable exoplanets. One of the largest ever seen on a star of its type, the huge explosion of energy and plasma is around 10,000 times bigger than the largest solar flare ever … Read more
A team of astronomers has found strong indications of a cold super-Earth orbiting Barnard’s Star, the second closest star system to our sun. The discovery provides greater evidence for rocky worlds in our galaxy. It seems like the Super-Earth is Frozen. The frozen world is at least 3.2 times the mass of Earth and is … Read more