Ghostly glow in alien skies: ‘Zodiacal light’ possibly spotted on 3 exoplanets

Watch the sun set from a particularly dark patch of Earth and you may spot a triangle of what scientists call zodiacal light extending from where our star passed below the horizon. Zodiacal light in Earth’s skies is created when sunlight bounces off the dust that fills the solar system, the remains of pulverized asteroids … Read more

The 10 most Earth-like exoplanets

Scientists have found over 4,000 exoplanets since the first such world was confirmed orbiting a sunlike star in 1995, according to NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration page. More than half of these discoveries were made by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which launched in 2009 on a mission to determine how common Earth-like planets are throughout the Milky … Read more

Exomoon around Jupiter-like planet possibly spotted by Kepler telescope

A confident detection of a moon orbiting a planet beyond our solar system – called an exomoon – has eluded astronomers so far, but they have found a new candidate Space 13 January 2022 By Leah Crane The exomoon candidate may be orbiting a planet called Kepler-1708b Helena Valenzuela Widerström Astronomers have spotted signs of … Read more

Astronomers Have Found Another Possible ‘Exomoon’ beyond Our Solar System

And then there were two—maybe. Astronomers say they have found a second plausible candidate for a moon beyond our solar system, an exomoon, orbiting a world nearly 6,000 light-years from Earth. Called Kepler-1708 b-i, the moon appears to be a gas-dominated object, slightly smaller than Neptune, orbiting a Jupiter-sized planet around a sunlike star—an unusual … Read more

James Webb Space Telescope Completes Crucial Sunshield Deployment

The James Webb Space Telescope has successfully deployed all five layers of its tennis-court-sized sunshield, a prerequisite for the telescope’s science operations and the most nerve-wracking part of its risky deployment. The challenging procedure, which required careful tensioning of each of the five hair-thin layers of the elaborate sunshield structure was a seamless success today (Jan. 4). … Read more

The Red Sky Paradox Will Make You Question Our Very Place in The Universe

On the grand cosmic scale, our little corner of the Universe isn’t all that special – this idea lies at the heart of the Copernican principle. Yet there’s one major aspect about our planet that’s peculiar indeed: Our Sun is a yellow dwarf.    Because our home star is what we know most intimately, it … Read more

JWST: The James Webb Space Telescope is finally on its way into orbit

After numerous delays, the biggest space telescope ever has blasted off on Christmas Day, and will begin its science mission in mid 2022 Space 25 December 2021 By Leah Crane The James Webb Space Telescope sits atop an Ariane 5 rocket on the launchpad in French Guiana on 23 December P PIRON/ESA/CNES/Arianespa​ce The James Webb … Read more

Rogue planets: At least 70 free-floating worlds spotted drifting in space

Free-floating planets are hard to spot, but astronomers have bagged a large haul by looking for candidates in a nearby star-forming region Space 22 December 2021 By Alex Wilkins Artist’s impression of a rogue planet COSMIC DANCE Team Astronomers have spotted what seems to be at least 70 planets drifting through space by themselves. These … Read more

Venus: Early impacts on the planet may have made it far hotter than Earth

Collisions with high-speed space rocks in Venus’s early history could have melted most of the planet’s mantle and driven any water into the atmosphere Space 17 December 2021 By Jonathan O’Callaghan Artist’s rendering of an early, large collision on Venus Southwest Research Institute/Simone Marchi High-speed impacts on Venus early in its history could help explain … Read more

Exoplanets: Ultra-hot gas giant orbits its star once every 16 hours

The second hottest planet ever found is being pulled into its star faster than any planet we have seen before Space 30 November 2021 By Jonathan O’Callaghan Artist’s impression of a hot planet transiting in front of its parent star ESA/ATG medialab, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO A gas giant exoplanet has been found that orbits … Read more