What is the habitable zone?

The weather in your hometown is downright uninhabitable. There's scorching heatwaves, annual tyhpoonic deluges, and snow deep enough to bury a corn silo.

Researchers identify circular orbits for 74 small exoplanets

Viewed from above, our solar system's planetary orbits around the sun resemble rings around a bulls-eye. Each planet, including Earth, keeps to a roughly circular path, always maintaining the same distance from the sun.

What are extrasolar planets?

For countless generations, human beings have looked out at the night sky and wondered if they were alone in the universe. With the discovery of other planets in our solar system, the true extent of the Milky Way galaxy, and ...

Circular orbits for small extrasolar planets

Orbits of 74 small extrasolar planets are found to be close to circular, in contrast to previous measurements of massive exoplanets. The results, to be published in the Astrophysical Journal are obtained by the SAC researchers ...

Kepler's six years in science (and counting)

NASA's Kepler spacecraft began hunting for planets outside our solar system on May 12, 2009. From the trove of data collected, we have learned that planets are common, that most sun-like stars have at least one planet and ...

Ancient star raises prospects of intelligent life

Can life survive for billions of years longer than the expected timeline on Earth? As scientists discover older and older solar systems, it's likely that before long we'll find an ancient planet in a habitable zone. Knowing ...

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