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.
Searching for planets around nearby stars is like searching for a needle in a field of haystacks.
Trevor Dobson/Flikr
Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland e Stephen Kane, University of California, Riverside
Science is full of surprises. While searching for planets orbiting nearby stars, researchers stumbled across the remains of a star that once outshone the Sun.
Relative sizes of planets that are in a zone potentially compatible with life: Kepler-22b, Kepler-69c, Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f and Earth (named left to right; except for Earth, these are artists’ renditions).
NASA
Exoplanet discovery can help us work out how the Earth will end its days.
An artist’s impression of Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It is the first planet that NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed to orbit in a star’s habitable zone - the region around a star where liquid water, a requirement for life on Earth, could persist.
NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech
Josh Calcino, The University of Queensland e Jake Clark, University of Southern Queensland
Life could exist in another solar system in a different part our galaxy. Or in another galaxy far away. We don’t have the perfect technology yet to study such far away places but we’re still trying.
An artist’s impression of the surface of the planet orbiting Barnard’s Star.
ESO - M. Kornmesser
Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland e Jake Clark, University of Southern Queensland
The new planet is believed to be orbiting Barnard’s Star, a red dwarf that’s not visible to the naked eye but one of the closest stars to our Solar System.
Nobody knows for sure - but it’s possible.
Shutterstock
There are probably more than a million planets in the universe for every single grain of sand on Earth. That’s a lot of planets. My guess is that there probably is life elsewhere in the Universe.
Artist’s impression of the exoplanet Kepler-1625b with its large moon.
Dan Durda
Anish Kapoor made “Cloud Gate”, a giant bean-shaped mirror in Chicago. Visitors play with the light in the city and its surroundings, where our future lays.
The other galaxies are there, but they are hiding a very long way away.
www.shutterstock.com
We are in the Milky Way. If you travelled on an extremely fast spaceship for more than two million years, you would reach our neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy. All other galaxies are even further away.
Kepler 452-b is looking like a good candidate for having evolved life.
NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyl
The new planet-hunting telescope TESS was successfully launched today by NASA, and Australia will play a key role in checking out any new worlds it discovers.
Imagined view from Kepler-10b, a planet that orbits one of the 150,000 stars that the Kepler spacecraft is monitoring.
NASA/Kepler Mission/Dana Berry
When NASA first started planning the Kepler mission, no one knew if the universe held any planets outside our solar system. Thousands of exoplanets later, the search enters a new phase as Kepler retires.
Rocket Lab successfully launched its Electron rocket from the company’s complex on the Māhia Peninsula in New Zealand.
Rocket Lab
There are plenty of astronomical things to watch out for this year beyond this week’s lunar eclipse, including new Moon landings and a space station falling back to Earth.
Blood moon on April 15, 2014.
Robert Jay GaBany/wikipedia,
Google’s artificial intelligence has been taught to look for planets around other stars. It’s already making new discoveries that scientists have missed.
Artist’s impression of the enigmatic space rock.
ESO/M. Kornmesser
Having discovered an asteroid from outside the solar system for the first time, scientists are hoping there are more out there – illuminating the path to extrasolar worlds.