Category Archives: Exoplanets

Astrobiology – Indicators of Life on Other Worlds

Posted on May 4, 2022 by Kaitlyn Lane

Astrobiology studies the past, present, and future of life in the universe. One facet of this interdisciplinary field is considering the possibility of life on other planets or worlds. Scientists utilize research in biology, chemistry, astronomy, and cosmology to help determine if life could exist elsewhere in the universe, and if so, how we can […] Continue reading →

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Blog #7: Sara Seager Ted Talk

Posted on April 29, 2022 by nadiamcglynn

I watched the 2015 Ted Talk from Sara Seager (of the Seager Equation) called The Search for Planets Beyond our Solar System. She sets out to introduce what we currently know about our solar galaxy and extra solar planets. She presents a few interesting artist conceptions of the various exoplanets we know of (mainly from […] Continue reading →

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What if life existed in every solar system?

Posted on April 27, 2022 by Quint Gfroerer

The Drake equation investigates the likelihood of intelligent, communicating life existing on other worlds in our galaxy. But what if life could easily exist on other worlds, and there was life in every solar system around us? What could this potentially mean for us? First, we must consider the fact that the closest star to […] Continue reading →

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Exoplanets

Posted on April 17, 2022 by Kaitlyn Lane

The words in the above picture are hard to make out, but I really liked the visual of some of the known exoplanets graphed on a plot. The color and appearances of these planets are not truly known since we have not directly seen them, but they are inferred based on density, temperature, metal content, […] Continue reading →

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Kepler-16b – The Existence of Tatooine

Posted on April 17, 2022 by jordanekstein

Kepler-16b was discovered when looking for exoplanets using the transit method from the Kepler mission of 2011. While looking at this data two stars were discovered to be in orbiting each other due to the dip in brightness of the system when they eclipsed. What was strange was even when they were not eclipsing each […] Continue reading →

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Hot Jupiters: Migration and Orbital Changes

Posted on April 17, 2022 by jordanekstein

Hot Jupiters are gas giants that have orbital periods that are very close to their stars; often less than 10 days. Usually this means they are less than 0.1AU away from their stars which is one tenth the distance between earth and the sun. While scientists originally did not think giant planets could exist this […] Continue reading →

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‘Oumuamua: An Interstellar Visitor

Posted on April 17, 2022 by Quint Gfroerer

In 2017, a small, long object between 100 and 1,000 meters in length and between 35 and 167 meters in height and width passed through the inner solar system with a trajectory and speed only possible if it originated from beyond our solar system. This object, now known as ‘Oumuamua, is one of the first […] Continue reading →

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The Future of Exoplanet Analysis

Posted on April 16, 2022 by Brian

The search for extrasolar planets and alien life is a fascinating research focus that sits at the intersection of astronomy, physics, planetary science, and biology. As we have discussed in class, discovering exoplanets is a very difficult task, but we have discovered roughly 5,000 exoplanets to date and are making significant progress in that area.Continue reading “The Future of Exoplanet Analysis” Continue reading →

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Kepler-186f

Posted on April 6, 2022 by jesszhang782

Kepler-186f is an extrasolar planet that was discovered on July 23, 2015. It was the first rocky planet about the size of Earth found in the habitable zone. The habitable zone is an area around a star where the temperature is good for liquid water. Oth… Continue reading →

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Thousands of Other Planets (Post 4)

Posted on March 23, 2022 by ccatanese1

Other planets and galaxies in space have been the subject of many science fiction novels and television shows, most notably Star Trek. This week, NASA officially confirmed that 5,000 exoplanets outside of our Solar System exist. This discovery is monumental within the astronomy community, because although it has been speculated that there are millions or […] Continue reading →

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