Extrasolar Planets News

December 21, 2024

Top Headlines

Young Exoplanet's Atmosphere Unexpectedly Differs from Its Birthplace

Dec. 18, 2024 — Conventional wisdom assumes the ratio of gases in a planet's atmosphere should match the ratio of gases in the natal disk that birthed it. For the first time, researchers compared gases in a still-forming planet's atmosphere to its natal disk. The ...

Does the Exoplanet Trappist-1 B Have an Atmosphere After All?

Dec. 16, 2024 — Recent measurements with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) cast doubt on the current understanding of the exoplanet Trappist-1 b's nature. Until now, it was assumed to be a dark rocky planet without an atmosphere, shaped by a billion-year-long ...

Planets Form Through Domino Effect

Dec. 13, 2024 — New radio astronomy observations of a planetary system in the process of forming show that once the first planets form close to the central star, these planets can help shepherd the material to form new planets farther out. In this way each planet ...

New Planet in Kepler-51 System Discovered Using James Webb Space Telescope

Dec. 3, 2024 — An unusual planetary system with three known ultra-low density 'super-puff' planets has at least one more planet, according to new ...

Latest Headlines

updated 9:33am EST

Researchers Deal a Blow to Theory That Venus Once Had Liquid Water on Its Surface

Dec. 2, 2024 — A team of astronomers has found that Venus has never been habitable, despite decades of speculation that our closest planetary neighbor was once much ...

New Solar Composition Ratios That Could Reconcile Longstanding Questions

Nov. 12, 2024 — A team combined compositional data of primitive bodies like Kuiper Belt objects, asteroids and comets with new solar data sets to develop a revised solar composition that potentially reconciles ...

NASA's Hubble, Webb Probe Surprisingly Smooth Disk Around Vega

Nov. 1, 2024 — Teams of astronomers used the combined power of NASA's Hubble and James Webb space telescopes to revisit the legendary Vega ...

Rocky Planets Orbiting Small Stars Could Have Stable Atmospheres Needed to Support Life

Oct. 23, 2024 — A sequence of events during the evolution of certain rocky planets orbiting M-dwarfs, the most common stars in the universe, creates an atmosphere ...

Are Nearby Planets Sending Radio Signals to Each Other?

Oct. 16, 2024 — Researchers have developed a new method using the Allen Telescope Array to search for interplanetary radio communication in the TRAPPIST-1 star ...

NASA's Hubble, New Horizons Team Up for a Simultaneous Look at Uranus

Oct. 11, 2024 — NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and New Horizons spacecraft simultaneously set their sights on Uranus recently, allowing scientists to make a direct comparison of the planet from two very different ...

Physicists Explore Possibility of Life Beyond Earth

Oct. 1, 2024 — Are there planets beyond Earth where humans can live? The answer is maybe, according to physicists examining F-type star ...

Scientists Discover Planet Orbiting Closest Single Star to Our Sun

Oct. 1, 2024 — Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting Barnard's star, the closest single star to our Sun. On this newly discovered exoplanet, which has at least half the mass of Venus, a year lasts just ...

This Rocky Planet Around a White Dwarf Resembles Earth -- 8 Billion Years from Now

Sep. 26, 2024 — A 2020 microlensing event was caused by a planetary system with an Earth-like planet and brown dwarf. The star type was uncertain. The team has ...

Mapping Distant Planets: 'Ridges', 'Deserts' and 'Savannahs'

Sep. 25, 2024 — Researchers examined Neptunian exoplanets -- these planets share similar characteristics to our own Neptune, but orbit outside of our solar system. Scientists discovered a new area called the ...

Astronomers Catch a Glimpse of a Uniquely Inflated and Asymmetric Exoplanet

Sep. 24, 2024 — Astronomers have observed the atmosphere of a hot and uniquely inflated exoplanet using NASA's James Webb Space ...

Formation of Super-Earths Is Limited Near Metal-Poor Stars

Sep. 9, 2024 — In a new study, astronomers report novel evidence regarding the limits of planet formation, finding that after a certain point, planets larger than Earth have difficulty forming near low-metallicity ...

Researchers Discover a Space Oddity -- An Exoplanet Moving in Mysterious Ways

Sep. 5, 2024 — A research team has discovered a small planet that displays peculiar orbital motion. The shimmying planet, located 455 light-years from Earth, shows that planetary systems can be considerably more ...

Six New Rogue Worlds: Star Birth Clues

Aug. 27, 2024 — The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted six likely rogue worlds -- objects with planet-like masses but untethered from any star's gravity -- including the lightest ever identified with a ...

Key to Rapid Planet Formation

Aug. 1, 2024 — Researchers have developed a new model to explain the formation of giant planets such as Jupiter, which furnishes deeper insights into the processes of planet formation and could expand our ...

Images of Nearest 'Super-Jupiter' Open a New Window to Exoplanet Research

July 24, 2024 — Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers imaged a new exoplanet that orbits a star in the nearby triple system Epsilon Indi. The planet is a cold super-Jupiter exhibiting a ...

Researchers Explore the Effects of Stellar Magnetism on Potential Habitability of Exoplanets

July 22, 2024 — A study extends the definition of a habitable zone for planets to include their star's magnetic ...

Astronomers Spot a 'Highly Eccentric' Planet on Its Way to Becoming a Hot Jupiter

July 17, 2024 — The newly discovered planet TIC 241249530 b has the most highly elliptical, or eccentric, orbit of any known planet. It appears to be a juvenile planet that is in the midst of becoming a hot Jupiter, ...

NASA's Webb Investigates Eternal Sunrises, Sunsets on Distant World

July 15, 2024 — Researchers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have finally confirmed what models have previously predicted: An exoplanet has differences between its eternal morning and eternal evening ...

Scorching Storms on Distant Worlds Revealed

July 15, 2024 — An international study reveals the extreme atmospheric conditions on the celestial objects, which are swathed in swirling clouds of hot sand amid temperatures of 950C. Using NASA's powerful ...

Scientific Definition of a Planet Says It Must Orbit Our Sun; A New Proposal Would Change That

July 11, 2024 — The International Astronomical Union defines a planet as a celestial body that orbits the sun, is massive enough that gravity has forced it into a spherical shape, and has cleared away other objects ...

Found With Webb: A Potentially Habitable Icy World

July 9, 2024 — A international team of astronomers has made an exciting discovery about the temperate exoplanet LHS 1140 b: it could be a promising 'super-Earth' covered in ice or ...

Building Materials for Water-Rich Planets in the Early Solar System

July 9, 2024 — Age data for certain classes of meteorite have made it possible to gain new findings on the origin of small water-rich astronomical bodies in the early solar system. These planetesimals continually ...

Stench of a Gas Giant? Nearby Exoplanet Reeks of Rotten Eggs, and That's a Good Thing

July 8, 2024 — An exoplanet infamous for its deadly weather has been hiding another bizarre feature -- it reeks of rotten eggs, according to a new study of data from the James Webb Space ...

The Density Difference of Sub-Neptunes Finally Deciphered

June 27, 2024 — The majority of stars in our galaxy are home to planets. The most abundant are the sub-Neptunes, planets between the size of Earth and Neptune. Calculating their density poses a problem for ...

Telltale Greenhouse Gases Could Signal Alien Activity

June 25, 2024 — If aliens modified a planet in their solar system to make it warmer, we'd be able to tell. A new study identifies the artificial greenhouse gases that would be giveaways of a terraformed ...

Watery Planets Orbiting Dead Stars May Be Good Candidates for Studying Life -- If They Can Survive Long Enough

June 13, 2024 — The small footprint and dim light of white dwarfs, remnants of stars that have burned through their fuel, may make excellent backdrops for studying planets with enough water to harbor life. The trick ...

Mysterious Mini-Neptunes

June 13, 2024 — This study discovered mini-Neptunes around four red dwarfs using observations from a global network of ground-based telescopes and the TESS space telescope. These four mini-Neptunes are close to ...

Small, Cool and Sulfurous Exoplanet May Help Write Recipe for Planetary Formation

June 10, 2024 — Astronomers observing exoplanet GJ 3470 b saw evidence of water, carbon dioxide, methane and sulfur dioxide. Astronomers hope the discovery of this exoplanet's sulfurous atmosphere will advance ...

Planet-Forming Disks Around Very Low-Mass Stars Are Different

June 6, 2024 — Using the James Webb Space Telescope, a team of astronomers studied the properties of a planet-forming disk around a young and very low-mass star. The results reveal the richest hydrocarbon ...