Artist’s impression of CHEOPS in orbit above Earth. In this view the satellite’s telescope cover is closed.
ESA / ATG medialab
The primary objective of CHEOPS is to better understand the planets that we’ve already found. And its mission is now in full swing.
An exoplanet and its atmosphere pass in front of its star (artist’s impression, from an imaginary point near to the planet).
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
New research expands the pool of habitable worlds to include super-Earths with hydrogen-rich atmospheres.
The sun emitting a sudden flash of light—a solar flare.
NASA
Has the Sun entered a stage of old age?
A planet-forming disk made from rock and gas surrounds a young star.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/ Gerald Eichstädt /Seán Doran
Why isn’t there an endless variety of planets in the universe? An astrophysicist explains why planets only come in two flavors.
An artist’s rendering of Proxima Centauri planetary system. The newly discovered exoplanet Proxima c is on the right.
Lorenzo Santinelli
We may be able to send microchips to investigate Alpha Centauri c up close.
An artist’s impression of an exoplanet in the habitable zone around a star.
ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser
NASA scientists have discovered a new planet orbiting around a nearby star that is in a habitable zone. But does this planet have liquid oceans that can support life?
sdecoret/Shutterstock
Scientists can’t expect the unexpected if they’re not open-minded about how their theories might be wrong.
An artist’s conception of WASP-18b, a giant exoplanet that orbits very close to its star.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/I.Pillitteri et al; Optical: DSS
Sometimes it is difficult to take a photograph of an exoplanet because the star illuminating it is too bright. Now there is a new ‘deluminator’ telescope that can block out the extra light.
Studio23/Shutterstock
New research suggests that Earth’s oxygenation didn’t require difficult and complex evolutionary leaps forward.
Is there anybody out there?
Greg Rakozy/Unsplash
From the subatomic to the cosmic, don’t think for a second that we’re at the end of scientific history.
Could an alien world look like this?
Shutterstock
Somewhere out there, just maybe, an alien – probably stranger looking than in our wildest imagination – might be pondering this very question.
This artist’s impression shows a view of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the solar system.
ESO/M. Kornmesser
Beyond the outer edge of the Solar System, mysterious, unknown worlds await by the thousands. Astronomers can now finally find them and explore them - but will we find another Earth?
Artist impression of the exoplanet 51 Pegasi b.
ESO/M. Kornmesser/Nick Risinger
Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz thought it would take years to find a planet outside the solar system – they did it in months.
Didier Queloz helped to revolutionise the search for new worlds outside our Solar system.
Andy Rain/AAP Image
The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics went to a cosmologist who helped unlock the secrets of the Big Bang’s aftermath, and two astronomers who found a “hot Jupiter” orbiting a nearby star.
Artist’s rendering of a Jupiter-sized exoplanet and its host, a star slightly more massive than our sun. Image credit:
ESO/NASA
Scientists who discovered planets in far off stellar systems and the fundamentals of the Big Bang Theory have earned the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Dome at Calar Alto Observatory.
Pedro Amado/Marco Azzaro - IAA/CSIC
The discovery of a huge planet orbiting a small star challenges our understanding of planet formation.
Artist’s impression of planet K2-18 b, its host star and an accompanying planet in this system.
ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser
K2-18 b is now the exoplanet most likely to be habitable.
Landscape in the Var area of France with fossilised Permian pelites (Permian Middle, 270 Ma) and “muddle cracks”.
The geological and biological archives of the Earth shed light on both the distant past of our planet and allow us to imagine its future.
Planets form from a disc of dust orbiting a star.
Mopic/Shutterstock.com
It is always exciting to discover new planets beyond our Solar System. Now a planetary astrophysicist is using a star’s chemistry to predict which ones are likely to host giant planets.
The bright spot in the centre of the image is a new planet forming.
Valentin Christiaens et al./ ESO
Astronomers have found the first observational evidence for a disc of material around a giant young planet at a distant star. It’s a place they think moons can form.