A revolutionary exoplanet
In 1992, Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail became the first astronomers to publicly announce that they had discovered the first planets outside the Solar System, orbiting the dense core of a dead st…
exoplanets
9 posts
How Venus could harbor life: supercritical carbon dioxide
A new study published in the online journal Life says a hotter, pressurized form of carbon dioxide could harbor life in a similar way water does on Earth. This is an interesting find, theoretical thou…
ALMA telescope catches live planet-forming action for the first time
The ALMA telescope in Chile has, for the first time, observed a star system that might be in the early stages of planet formation. The picture has astronomers drooling over it because the study of the…
For planets, one thing leads to another
One of the biggest benefits of being a journalist is that you become aware of interesting things from various fields. As a science journalist, the ambit is narrowed but the interestingness, not at all…
New category: Exoplanets
Of late, telescopes like Kepler, Spitzer and ALMA are revealing new things about exoplanets as much as they’re exposing how clueless we are about their origins. Unlike in the search for life, where ou…
Kepler data reveals a frost giant
I've been most fascinated lately by studies of planet formation. Every small detail is like that one letter in the crossword you need to fill all the other boxes in, every discovery a cornerstone that holds together a unique piece of the universe. For example, using just the find that the exoplanet…
What life on Earth tells us about life 'elsewhere'
In 1950, the physicist Enrico Fermi asked a question not many could forget for a long time: "Where is everybody?" He was referring to the notion that, given the age and size of the universe,…
Rocky exoplanets only get so big before they get gassy
By the time the NASA Kepler mission failed in 2013, it had gathered evidence that there were at least 962 exoplanets in 76 stellar systems, not to mention the final word is awaited on 2,900 more. In t…
The secrets of how planets form
Astronomers who were measuring the length of one day on an exoplanet for the first time were in for a surprise: it was shorter than any planet's in the Solar System. Beta Pictoris b, orbiting the…