Two separate teams of scientists have identified major challenges for the development of life in what has recently become one of the most famous exoplanet systems, TRAPPIST-1.
Astronomy
Jul 13, 2017
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In the search for planets similar to our own, an important point of comparison is the planet's density. A low density tells scientists a planet is more likely to be gaseous like Jupiter, and a high density is associated with ...
Astronomy
Jul 11, 2017
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171
Rocky planets are probably a whole lot more common in our galaxy than astronomers previously believed—according to the latest release of Kepler Space Telescope data last week—a scenario that enhances the prospects for ...
Astronomy
Jun 29, 2017
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247
Europe has approved the launch of a deep-space observatory to sniff out habitable planets in other star systems, along with any life forms they may host.
Astronomy
Jun 21, 2017
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645
A team of astronomers at the University of Chicago and Grinnell College seeks to change the way scientists approach the search for Earth-like planets orbiting stars other than the sun. They favor taking a statistical comparative ...
Astronomy
Jun 14, 2017
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11
(Phys.org)—European astronomers report the detection of a new extrasolar world several times more massive than Earth. The newly found exoplanet, classified as a so-called "super-Earth," is circling a nearby star designated ...
It was a good week for astrobiology. Within days of NASA's announcement that the necessary ingredients for life exist in the plumes erupting from the southern pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus, scientists gathered at Stanford ...
Astronomy
May 1, 2017
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After NASA announced in February the discovery of a solar system with seven planets—three of which were deemed potentially habitable—UChicago postdoctoral scholar Sebastiaan Krijt began wondering: If a life form existed ...
Astronomy
Apr 27, 2017
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429
When it comes to exploring exoplanets, it may be wise to take a snorkel along. A new study, published in a paper in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, has used a statistical model to predict that ...
Astronomy
Apr 20, 2017
17
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The newly discovered super-Earth LHS 1140b orbits in the habitable zone around a faint red dwarf star named LHS 1140, in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Red dwarfs are much smaller and cooler than the Sun and, ...
Astronomy
Apr 19, 2017
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