Using publicly available data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have found that six percent of red dwarf stars have habitable, Earth-sized planets. Since ...
Astronomy
Feb 6, 2013
66
5
(Phys.org)—Astronomers using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, have discovered dust in an unusual place—just outside the reach of a binary star system with a short 3-hour orbit. The binary ...
Astronomy
Nov 14, 2012
0
0
A new superterran exoplanet (aka Super-Earth) was found in the stellar habitable zone of the red dwarf star Gliese 163 by the European HARPS team. The planet, Gliese 163c, has a minimum mass of 6.9 Earth masses and takes ...
Astronomy
Aug 31, 2012
2
4
(Phys.org) -- A team of astronomers have used the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) on Hawaii to discover four pairs of stars that orbit each other in less than 4 hours. Until now it was thought that such close-in ...
Astronomy
Jul 5, 2012
18
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new result from ESO’s HARPS planet finder shows that rocky planets not much bigger than Earth are very common in the habitable zones around faint red stars. The international team estimates that there ...
Astronomy
Mar 28, 2012
37
4
(PhysOrg.com) -- This artist's concept depicts a planetary system so compact that it's more like Jupiter and its moons than a star and its planets. Astronomers using data from NASA's Kepler mission and ground-based telescopes ...
Space Exploration
Mar 15, 2012
0
0
Scientists have long thought that planets had to orbit very close to small and dim red dwarf stars in order to be warm enough for life. New research challenges that assumption.
Astronomy
Feb 24, 2012
4
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of astronomers led by Zachory Berta of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) made the observations of the planet GJ 1214b.
Astronomy
Feb 21, 2012
24
1
The discovery of the three smallest planets yet orbiting a distant star, which was announced today at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society, has an unusual connection to Barnard's star, one of the Sun's ...
Astronomy
Jan 11, 2012
1
0
t has been known for several years that stars hosting planets are generally more rich in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, known in astronomy as “metals”. These heavy elements help to form the cores of ...
Astronomy
Aug 2, 2011
49
0
