Related topics: stars · planets · spacecraft · comet

Nearing one thousand exoplanets

A quiet milestone in modern astronomy may soon come to pass. As of today, The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia lists a current tally of 998 extrasolar planets across 759 planetary systems. And although various tabulations ...

Survivor of stellar collision is new type of pulsating star

A team of astronomers from the UK, Germany and Spain have observed the remnant of a stellar collision and discovered that its brightness varies in a way not seen before on this rare type of star. By analysing the patterns ...

Gas-giant exoplanets cling close to their parent stars

Gemini Observatory's Planet-Finding Campaign finds that, around many types of stars, distant gas-giant planets are rare and prefer to cling close to their parent stars. The impact on theories of planetary formation could ...

How common are earths around small stars?

(Phys.org) —The Kepler mission has revolutionized the study of exoplanet statistics by increasing the number of known extrasolar planets and planet candidates by a factor of five, and by discovering systems with longer ...

Astrobiology research: Life possible on extrasolar moons

(Phys.org)—In their search for habitable worlds, astronomers have started to consider exomoons, or those likely orbiting planets outside the solar system. In a new study, a pair of researchers has found that exomoons are ...

Cassini Instrument Learns New Tricks

(Phys.org)—For seven years, a mini-fridge-sized instrument aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft reliably investigated weather patterns swirling around Saturn; the hydrocarbon composition of the surface of Saturn's moon Titan; ...

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