Category Archives: Exoplanets

Blog 04 – Proxima b

Posted on October 19, 2024 by Mercedes

The closest star system to Earth is Alpha Centauri, a three-star system. A planet, Proxima b, approximately 1.3 times the mass of ours orbits off the smallest star, Proxima Centauri. This planet orbits its star even closer than Mercury does the Sun and only takes 11 days to complete a single one! Despite this, Proxima […] Continue reading →

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Deadly Exoplanet

Posted on April 29, 2024 by sabrinaalperin

While my last blog post talked about the search for intelligent alien civilizations on habitable planets, I want to dedicate this blog post to the exact opposite. This blog post is dedicated to one of the weirdest exoplanets discovered, HD 189773b. Do not be confused by it’s bright blue beauty. The planet is anything but […] Continue reading →

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Visualizing Exoplanet s

Posted on April 27, 2024 by Angela Harris

The subject of my blog 5 post was the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system. While learning about this system of extrasolar planets, I was fascinated by the  illustrations of exoplanets that can’t be photographed by telescopes. Tim Pyle and Robert Hurt are two artists who create renderings of exoplanets by using data about an exoplanet’s size, mass, […] Continue reading →

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Gotta find them all!!

Posted on April 25, 2024 by Abbie!!

Knowing about all the planets in our own solar system made us wonder if there are other planetary systems out there as well. And there are!! But how did we detect these extrasolar planets? There are four ways to detect extrasolar planets. The simplest way, but not always the easiest way, is direct observation. That’s […] Continue reading →

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How do we discover Exoplanets?

Posted on April 9, 2024 by Garrett

Depiction of Astrometry For this blog I wanted to look into exoplanets and more specifically how we discover them. I found that there are 4 main methods to discover exoplanets. The first is the radial velocity method. This is how many of the first exoplanets were discovered. This method observes the doppler shift in the […] Continue reading →

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The Not so Coolest Exoplanet

Posted on April 7, 2024 by Andres Becerra

Now, I am from Phoenix, Arizona and it gets pretty hot over there. Which is why I think this is the “coolest” exoplanet. 55 Cancri E. Take a look at this beauty. Artist representation of 55 Cancri E This is a planet I can get down with. It looks exactly like Mustafar from Star Wars. […] Continue reading →

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Our Closest Stellar Neighbor

Posted on April 7, 2024 by sabrinaalperin

If I am going to be honest, my decision to dedicate this blog post to the Alpha Centauri system comes from a TV show that I watched a few years ago. Netflix’s remake of Lost in Space follows a family as they travel across the universe to Alpha Centauri to start a colony there. Captured […] Continue reading →

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Discovering Extrasolar Planets

Posted on April 7, 2024 by sabrinaalperin

Have you ever wondered if us humans are alone in the vast expanse of the universe? Do worlds similar to those in our solar system exist? Scientists are currently looking for answers to these questions by studying extrasolar planets, or planets that orbit around other stars. Three main methods allow scientists to analyze these questions […] Continue reading →

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Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion

Posted on February 13, 2024 by Tejas Mahesh

After meticulously calculating the data that Tycho Brahe collected, Kepler discovered three different laws that described how planets move. Kepler’s First Law – The planets orbit in ellipses, not circles nor epicycles. For majority of history, it was thought that planets orbit through epicycles because the orbit of the planets must be perfect. However, the […] Continue reading →

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Astrobiology & The Search For Life

Posted on April 30, 2023 by brandodan

Astrobiology is the study of life that occurs somewhere other than Earth, as we’ve learned in class, and this blog post emphasizes its developments and possible future directions. There have been substantial scientific, technological, and programmatic advances achieved in the hunt for extraterrestrial life since the 2015 publication of NASA’s Astrobiology Strategy. Understanding the beginnings […] Continue reading →

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