Exoplanets

Look at the development of Earth-bound tech and you'll find fire at the heart of it, says a duo of researchers. And what does fire need to burn? Oxygen, whose chemical signature could provide clues to technological societies on worlds beyond our own.To date, researchers have already confirmed the existence of more than 5,000 planets beyond Earth. While we don't yet have telescopes that are powerful enough to show us the surface of these exoplanets, we do have celestial imagers that can reveal the chemical composition of…

At 30 years old, Michelle Kunimoto already has more than 3,000 planet candidates under her belt.Inspired by science fiction and curiosity, the University of British Columbia astronomy graduate is passionate about searching for exoplanets — bodies orbiting stars outside our own solar system.She's currently leading a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) hunting for them. In 2024, Kunimoto will return to her alma mater as an assistant professor in UBC's department of physics and astronomy."She is an…

Artist’s illustration of a star-planet system. The stellar wind around the star and the effect on the planet’s atmosphere is visible. Credit: AIP/ K. Riebe/ J. Fohlmeister, editedA groundbreaking study reveals that cool stars with strong magnetic fields produce powerful stellar winds, crucial information for assessing the habitability of exoplanetary systems.Employing state-of-the-art numerical simulations, a study led by scientists at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) has obtained the first systematic…

In a groundbreaking study, NASA has unveiled a revelation that expands the search for extraterrestrial life. Researchers have identified 17 exoplanets positioned beyond our solar system that might boast subsurface oceans beneath their icy exteriors. The intriguing aspect lies in the possibility of periodic eruptions, resembling geysers, breaking through the frozen crusts of these distant worlds. Subsurface OceansThe research, conducted by scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, included a meticulous analysis of…

Habitable oceans and geysers may exist on icy exoplanets, a new NASA study has suggested. The study recently expanded the search for life beyond our solar system by looking at 17 exoplanets that could have oceans of liquid water beneath their icy shells.The water from these oceans could also eventually erupt through the icy surface of these planets as geysers, and scientists have calculated the amount of this geyser activity on the exoplanets for the first time ever, including two planets close enough to observe…

Making stars is a messy business. Although the process takes far longer than any human life span, we’ve sufficiently studied its various stages in stellar nurseries scattered around our galaxy to gain a decent overall grasp of how it works. It starts, in general, with a huge swirling cloud of gas and cosmic dust—like the Orion nebula that currently graces our winter skies. Motions in the cloud can give rise to tenuous clumps of material If such a clump grows large enough, it can gain the necessary gravitational pull to…

The first steps to solve the millennia-old mystery of our true place in the universe happened, of all places, on a brisk and early Tuesday morning in the unremarkable conference room of a hotel in Washington, D.C. Here a team of legendary heroes assembled on Halloween—Gandalf and a Star Trek captain among them. Yet these were not just costumes donned by trick-or-treating scientists. They were a fitting metaphor for the 60 astronomers chosen to begin one of the grandest tasks imaginable, not just in space science but…

Astronomers have discovered an uncommon star system located just 100 light-years away from us, with six planets huddled immensely close to their host star — so close, in fact, that all their orbits could fit within the distance between Mercury and our sun. Puzzlingly, unlike our own solar system, it appears this newfound slice of the cosmos has remained largely unchanged since its birth over a billion years ago."If the galaxy was the Empire State Building, we can only see and detect the planets next to stars that have…

An illustration of two water-rich exoplanets with hazy atmospheres. Credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa/Johns Hopkins UniversityScientists have made a significant breakthrough in simulating hazy conditions on water-rich exoplanets, offering new insights into the challenges of observing these distant worlds in the search for extraterrestrial life.Researchers have successfully simulated conditions that allow hazy skies to form in water-rich exoplanets. This is a crucial step in determining how haziness muddles observations by…

A research team used the James Webb Space Telescope to explore the impact of increased CO2 on Earth and exoplanets. Their research found that CO2 additions cause more warming in areas without direct sunlight, affecting global circulation. This phenomenon is consistent on both Earth and TRAPPIST-1e, highlighting the importance of understanding greenhouse gases for exoplanet habitability and Earth’s climate. This study marks a significant advancement in exoplanetary science and climate research.A research team, utilizing…