Study illuminates fates of distant planetary atmospheres

When telescopes became powerful enough to find planets orbiting distant stars, scientists were surprised to see that a lot of them didn't have atmospheres like Earth's. Instead, they appear to have thick blankets of hydrogen.

Life in the galaxy: maybe this is as good as it gets?

Researchers have found that rocky exoplanets which formed early in the life of the galaxy seem to have had a greater chance of developing a magnetic field and plate tectonics than planets which formed later. As both these ...

How will clouds obscure the view of exoplanet surfaces?

In 2021, NASA's next-generation observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), will take to space. Once operational, this flagship mission will pick up where other space telescopes—like Hubble, Kepler and Spitzer—left ...

What if mysterious 'cotton candy' planets actually sport rings?

Some of the extremely low-density, "cotton candy like" exoplanets called super-puffs may actually have rings, according to new research published in The Astronomical Journal by Carnegie's Anthony Piro and Caltech's Shreyas ...

Saturn's rings shine in Hubble's latest portrait

Saturn is so beautiful that astronomers cannot resist using the Hubble Space Telescope to take yearly snapshots of the ringed world when it is at its closest distance to Earth.

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