Exoplanet systems as a research area investigate the formation, architecture, dynamics, and physical properties of planetary systems orbiting stars other than the Sun, integrating observational, theoretical, and computational approaches. The field encompasses detection techniques (e.g., transits, radial velocities, direct imaging, microlensing), characterization of planetary masses, radii, atmospheres, and orbits, and statistical studies of population demographics as functions of stellar type, metallicity, and environment. It also addresses disk–planet interactions, migration processes, multi-planet dynamics, and stability, with implications for planet formation theories, comparative planetology, and the occurrence and potential habitability of terrestrial and giant planets in diverse stellar contexts.
Here's a thought experiment that keeps planetary scientists awake at night. Strip every living thing from our planet, every bacterium, every blade of grass, every creature that has ever drawn breath and ask a simple but profound ...
Astrobiology
Mar 2, 2026
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Scientists might have just found Earth's icy, distant cousin a few hundred light-years away. HD 137010 b is one of thousands of exoplanets, or planets that orbit other stars, and is potentially the first Earth-like one that ...
Astrobiology
Feb 28, 2026
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Planetary systems such as our solar system take hundreds of millions of years to evolve. Since humanity has only existed for a sliver of that time, astronomers have only observed planetary systems at birth or, more often, ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 27, 2026
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44
If you've been following exoplanet research over the last couple of years, you've definitely heard of K2-18b. Located 124 light years away in the constellation Leo, it's attracted a lot of attention as it sits squarely in ...
Astrobiology
Feb 24, 2026
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178
Our solar system hosts almost 900 known moons; more than 400 orbit the eight planets while the remaining orbit dwarf planets, asteroids, and Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). Of these, only a handful are targets for astrobiology ...
Astrobiology
Feb 23, 2026
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31
Using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has discovered a new exoplanet orbiting a distant star known as TIC-65910228. The newfound alien world is slightly larger and ...
An international team of astronomers has discovered a distant planetary system that challenges long-standing theories of how planets form. Across our galaxy, astronomers routinely observe a characteristic pattern in planetary ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 21, 2026
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94
Astronomers have analyzed the data from long-term radio observations of a binary pulsar known as PSR J1906+0746. Results of the new study, published February 5 on the arXiv pre-print server, deliver important information ...
The atmospheres of exoplanets have been a focal point of the field lately, with the James Webb Space Telescope taking a look at as many as it can manage. But time on the world's most powerful space telescope is valuable, ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 15, 2026
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60
Astronomers want to collect as much data as possible using as many systems as possible. Sometimes that requires coordination between instruments. The teams that run the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the upcoming Atmospheric ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 15, 2026
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