Alien planet found spiraling to its doom around an aging star

For the first time, astronomers have spotted an exoplanet whose orbit is decaying around an evolved, or older, host star. The stricken world appears destined to spiral closer and closer to its maturing star until collision ...

Astronomers find that two exoplanets may be mostly water

A team led by UdeM astronomers has found evidence that two exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf star are "water worlds," planets where water makes up a large fraction of the volume. These worlds, located in a planetary system ...

Kepler telescope glimpses population of free-floating planets

Tantalizing evidence has been uncovered for a mysterious population of "free-floating" planets, planets that may be alone in deep space, unbound to any host star. The results include four new discoveries that are consistent ...

Why some planets eat their own skies

For many years, for all we knew, our solar system was alone in the universe. Then better telescopes began to reveal a treasure trove of planets circling distant stars.

How many Earth-like planets are around sun-like stars?

A new study provides the most accurate estimate of the frequency that planets that are similar to Earth in size and in distance from their host star occur around stars similar to our Sun. Knowing the rate that these potentially ...

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