So many planets, so few telescopes

Over the last few weeks, astronomers announced not one but two extraordinary discoveries in the ongoing search for planets orbiting stars beyond the sun. The first was a world about the size of Neptune, 5,000 light-years ...

Getting to know the Goldilocks planet

NASA's Kepler spacecraft is discovering a veritable avalanche of alien worlds.  Recent finds include planets with double suns, massive "super-Earths" and "hot Jupiters," and a miniature solar system.  The variety ...

High planetary tilt lowers odds for life?

Highly-tilted worlds would have extreme seasons, subjecting life to alternating periods of scorching and subzero temperatures. This could make the development of all but hardiest, simplest creatures a long shot.

Earth's cloudy past could reveal exoplanet details

The pattern of clouds on Earth is largely determined by the arrangement of the continents below. Now, astronomers are modeling the clouds at different periods in Earth's past to better understand what alien worlds might look ...

Sulfurous signs of life

Any sulfurous molecules that astronomers spot on alien worlds might be a way to reveal whether or not those distant planets host life, researchers suggest.

How to learn a star's true age

(PhysOrg.com) -- For many movie stars, their age is a well-kept secret. In space, the same is true of the actual stars. Like our Sun, most stars look almost the same for most of their lives. So how can we tell if a star is ...

Volunteers to hunt for 'lost planets'

(PhysOrg.com) -- The public are being asked to help Oxford University astronomers find planets orbiting other stars which may have been 'lost' in the data from over 100,000 stars. Volunteers could even find 'Earth-like' alien ...

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