exoplanets

PARIS (AFP) – Astronomers have discovered a new Earth-like planet that is larger than our own and may be more than half covered with water, according to a study published Wednesday in the science journal Nature. The so-called "super Earth" is about 42 light years away in another solar system...

Astronomers announced today that they have discovered a "super-Earth" orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth. They found the distant planet with a small fleet of ground-based telescopes no larger than those many amateur astronomers have in their backyards. Although the super-Earth...

An international team of planet hunters has discovered as many as six low-mass planets around two nearby Sun-like stars, including two super-Earths with masses 5 and 7.5 times the mass of Earth. The researchers, led by Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), and Paul...

SPACE.com Space.com Staff space.com – 44 mins ago Astronomers say they have taken the first direct image of a planet-like object orbiting a star much like our own sun. A similar breakthrough was announced last year, when astronomers unveiled direct images of a single-planet and...

Two teams of astronomers have found that extrasolar planet HAT-P-7b, discovered in 2008, has a retrograde or highly tilted orbit. On May 30, 2009, a Japanese collaboration team led by Norio Narita, from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, used the Subaru Telescope's High Dispersion...

The confirmation of the nature of CoRoT-7b as the first rocky planet outside our solar system marks a significant step forward in the search for earth-like exoplanets. The detection by CoRoT (Convection ROtation and planetary Transits) and follow-up radial velocity measurements with the High...

Astronomers have taken what they say are the first-ever direct images of planets outside of our solar system, including a visible-light snapshot of a single-planet system and an infrared picture of a multiple-planet system. Earth-like worlds might also exist in the three-planet system, but if...

Interstellar Boundary Explorer detects neutral hydrogen coming from the Moon Solar wind particles impact only the dayside of the Moon, where most of them are embedded in the lunar surface. NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft has made the first observations of fast hydrogen...

August 7, 2009 NASA’s planet-hunting space telescope has proved that it’s capable of finding other Earth-like planets in our galaxy, if they’re out there. NASA reported on Thursday that its new exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope passed its first big test. The spacecraft, which is...

Method developed to detect extraterrestrial oceans Wednesday, May 27, 2009 Until today has more than three hundred planets outside our solar system found. In most cases, the objects which are similar to Jupiter and gasreus too warm or too cold for life as we know hosting. Somewhere in the...

Are We On the Brink of Finding a Second Earth? Thursday, April 2, 2009 "It could happen almost any time now. We now have the technological capability to identify Earth-like planets around the smallest stars." David Latham - Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics To date, planet...

Life-friendly planets may reveal itself Monday, March 30, 2009 Radio signals from the magnetic fields of planets, the habitable worlds can now reveal the telescopes in the future be taken that can absorb, says a study by Joseph Lazio and some colleagues from the Naval Research Laboratory...

Smallest planet outside solar system found Last updated: Tuesday, February 3 , 2009 The European space probe Corot has hitherto smallest rocky planet found outside our solar system. The amazing object is less than twice as large as the Earth revolves in orbit around a star zonachtige. The...