NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is giving astronomers a rare look at a Jupiter-sized, still-forming planet that is feeding off material surrounding a young star. Brendan Bowler of the University of Texas at Austin said: “We just don’t know very much about how giant planets grow. This planetary system gives us the first opportunity to witness ...
Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope are finding that planet formation is tough in the rough-and-tumble central region of the massive, crowded star cluster Westerlund 2. Located 20,000 light-years away, Westerlund 2 is a unique laboratory to study stellar evolutionary processes because it’s relatively nearby, quite young, and contains a large stellar population. A 3-year ...
Astronomers have observed an exoplanet orbiting a star in just over 18 hours, the shortest orbital period ever observed for a planet of its type. It means that a single year for this hot Jupiter — a gas giant similar in size and composition to Jupiter in our own solar system — passes in less ...
K2-18b, which is eight times the mass of Earth, is now the only planet orbiting a star outside the Solar System, or “exoplanet,” known to have both water and temperatures that could support life. The discovery, published in Nature Astronomy, is the first successful atmospheric detection of an exoplanet orbiting in its star’s “habitable zone” ...
Astronomers are planning to hunt for cores of exoplanets around white dwarf stars by “tuning in” to the radio waves that they emit. In new research led by the University of Warwick, scientists have determined the best candidate white dwarfs to start their search, based on their likelihood of hosting surviving planetary cores and the ...
Using data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, citizen scientists have discovered a new world, a planet roughly twice the size of Earth located within its star’s habitable zone, the range of orbital distances where liquid water may exist on the planet’s surface. The new world, known as K2-288Bb, could be rocky or could be a gas-rich ...
Researchers have identified a young star with four Jupiter- and Saturn-sized planets in orbit around it, the first time that so many giant planets have been detected in such a young system. The system has also set a new record for the most extreme range of orbits yet observed: The outermost planet is more than ...
The reason Pluto lost its planet status is not valid, according to new research from the University of Central Florida. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union, a global group of astronomy experts, established a definition of a planet that required it to “clear” its orbit, or in other words, be the largest gravitational force in ...
A distinct lack of the chemical element phosphorus in other parts of the Universe could make it very difficult for extra-terrestrial life to exist there. This is according to experts at Cardiff University, who have found very little evidence of the element — which is essential to life on Earth — around the Crab Nebula, ...
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