Even if there's life on TRAPPIST-1, we probably can't detect it

If we ever find life on other worlds, it is unlikely to be a powerful message from space. It's certainly possible that an alien civilization specifically sends us a radio message like a scene out of Contact, but the more ...

A new mission will search for habitable planets at Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri is our closest stellar neighbor, a binary star system located just 4.376 light-years away. Despite its proximity, repeated astronomical surveys have failed to find hard evidence of extrasolar planets in this ...

Mercury's black disk helps sharpen Solar Orbiter's view

This year started with a nice imaging opportunity for Solar Orbiter, and a chance to further improve the quality of its data. On January 3, 2023, inner planet Mercury crossed the spacecraft's field of view, resulting in a ...

This exoplanet orbits around its star's poles

In 1992, humanity's effort to understand the universe took a significant step forward. That's when astronomers discovered the first exoplanets. They're named Poltergeist (Noisy Ghost) and Phobetor (Frightener), and they orbit ...

Astronomers detect a second planet orbiting two stars

Planets orbiting binary stars are in a tough situation: They have to contend with the gravitational pull of two separate stars. Planetary formation around a single star like our sun is relatively straightforward compared ...

Tumultuous migration on the edge of the hot Neptune desert

All kinds of exoplanets orbit very close to their star. Some look like the Earth, others like Jupiter. Very few, however, are similar to Neptune. Why this anomaly in the distribution of exoplanets? Researchers from the University ...

New exoplanet detection program for citizen scientists

The SETI Institute and its partner Unistellar are launching a new exoplanet detection program that will engage citizen scientists worldwide. Amateur astronomers, using either Unistellar's eVscope or another telescope, will ...

Birmingham telescope discovers two new temperate rocky worlds

An international research team including astronomers at the University of Birmingham, has just announced the discovery of two "super-Earth" planets orbiting LP 890-9, a small, cool star located about 100 light-years from ...

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