Category Archives: Exoplanets

The Search for Extrasolar Planets

Posted on April 6, 2015 by farhannshabab

Extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, lie outside our solar system. We have so far discovered nearly 2000 exoplanets, most of which are Jovian planets like Jupiter. However in 2009, a possibly Earth like planet was discovered: Gliese 581d had the potential to support liquid water on its possibly rocky surface. It has a mass of around […] Continue reading →

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Exoplanet in Four Star System

Posted on April 6, 2015 by revanth111

Source: Discovery News Astronomers recently discovered the second exoplanet known to be part of a four star system. To find a planet in such a system is rare because the gravitational interaction between the stars are likely to remove planets from any sort of stable orbit. Four star systems are fairly rare themselves, making up […] Continue reading →

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Kepler Search for Exoplanets

Posted on April 5, 2015 by robbyks

The Kepler spacecraft entered its 4th observing campaign in February. There are nearly 16,000 target stars, which are being searched for exoplanets and other astrophysical phenomena. Included in the target are two open star clusters in the Taurus constellation. Onboard fuel is projected to last until December 2017. In its previous campaigns, the Kepler team […] Continue reading →

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Saturn 2.0

Posted on April 5, 2015 by jamej00

So all the planets know that Saturn’s rings give it a really over-inflated ego.  But now there’s good news!  Maybe it’ll quit bragging now that it looks like there’s another planet with a bigger ring system.  Scientists think they’ve found an extrasolar planet with an elaborate ring system, the first discovery of a planet with… Continue reading →

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Exoplanets: Planets Not Orbiting the Sun

Posted on April 2, 2015 by ctogrye

Hey there! Today I’m going to be discussing the topic. The definition of an Exoplanet is a planet which orbits a star (or stellar remnant or brown dwarf) which is not the Sun. Thus far, over 1900 exoplanets have been discovered. 480 of these exoplanets are confirmed to exist in multi-planet systems. These planets are […] Continue reading →

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The Goldilocks Zone: Not as elusive as previously thought?

Posted on March 26, 2015 by jclyncmp

New research from the Australian National University and the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen has calculated that billions of the milky Way star’s have one to three planets in the habitable zone (or nicknamed: “The Goldilocks Zone” because…

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The Continual Search for Planets

Posted on February 14, 2015 by conorastr201

The discovery of new life-harboring planets has been a hot topic in the last century, but there has always been a limitation: we couldn’t see other planets. However, observational technologies and techniques have progressed to the point where we may be able to find more Earth-like planets within a few short years. The main problems […] Continue reading →

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Earth-Like Planets?

Posted on February 13, 2015 by abbeyrstephens

There was a journal article released last week from the Australian National University with the title, “Scientists Predict Earth-Like Planets around Most Stars”. To summarize, using the idea of the “Goldilocks zone” (the distance from a star where liquid water can exist) and applying it to the exoplanets discovered by the Kepler telescope, astronomers have […] Continue reading →

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Think Saturn’s rings are cool? Think Bigger.

Posted on February 13, 2015 by christophermfitzgerald

Saturn’s rings are large, 175,000 miles across large, but as the old adage goes-bigger is better. Scientists looking at exoplanets have discovered a planet with rings 200 times larger than that of Saturn’s. The planet itself, known as J1407b, is … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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The Super-Saturn

Posted on February 12, 2015 by pgolemanska

Astronomers in the University of Rochester recently discovered a planet with a massive ring system that dwarfs Saturn’s rings. Exoplanet J1407b is a gas giant with 10 to 40 times the mass of Jupiter orbiting a 16-million year old star located 434 light years away. Scientists usually find and study exoplanets and stars when the […] Continue reading →

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