(Phys.org)—Despite losing its two reaction wheels, NASA's Kepler spacecraft hasn't stopped amazing the scientific community by detecting new alien worlds. The repurposed Kepler mission, called K2, has recently discovered ...
The last decade has seen a bonanza of exoplanet discoveries. Nearly 2,000 exoplanets—planets outside our solar system—have been confirmed so far, and more than 5,000 candidate exoplanets have been identified. Many of ...
Astronomy
Mar 29, 2016
2
506
(Phys.org)—A team of Chilean astronomers recently detected two new "hot Jupiters" using the data from NASA's Kepler spacecraft operating in a new mission profile called K2. The planets, designated EPIC210957318b and EPIC212110888b, ...
Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope to study the atmospheres of ten hot, Jupiter-sized exoplanets in detail, the largest number of such planets ever studied. The ...
Astronomy
Dec 14, 2015
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2714
Researchers at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and Queen's University in Canada have unraveled the mystery of how Jupiter and Saturn likely formed. This discovery, which changes our view of how all planets might have ...
Astronomy
Aug 19, 2015
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592
The Gemini Planet Imager has discovered and photographed its first planet, a methane-enshrouded gas giant much like Jupiter that may hold the key to understanding how large planets form in the swirling accretion disks around ...
Astronomy
Aug 13, 2015
7
1197
Astronomers have used the ESO 3.6-metre telescope to identify a planet just like Jupiter orbiting at the same distance from a Sun-like star, HIP 11915. According to current theories, the formation of Jupiter-mass planets ...
Astronomy
Jul 15, 2015
1
2285
For the last decade, astronomers have observed curious "hotspots" on Saturn's poles. In 2008, NASA's Cassini spacecraft beamed back close-up images of these hotspots, revealing them to be immense cyclones, each as wide as ...
Space Exploration
Jun 15, 2015
19
1063
Long before Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars formed, it seems that the inner solar system may have harbored a number of super-Earths—planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. If so, those planets are long gone—broken ...
Astronomy
Mar 23, 2015
19
2132
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has the best evidence yet for an underground saltwater ocean on Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon. The subterranean ocean is thought to have more water than all the water on Earth's surface.
Space Exploration
Mar 12, 2015
8
2291
