Astronomers use NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope to confirm the orbital period of the outermost TRAPPIST-1 planet.
continue reading…
Browsing Posts in Space Station Reports
This illustration shows a hypothetical planet covered in water around the binary star system of Kepler-35A and B. With two suns in its sky, Luke Skywalker’s home planet Tatooine in “Star Wars” looks like a parched, sandy desert world. In real life, we know that two-star systems can indeed support planets.
continue reading…
NASA’s Kepler Mission Planet-Hunter Natalie Batalha Named to Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential List
continue reading…
Three extraordinary planet-hunters have been recognized by TIME Magazine as this year’s top 100 most influential people: Natalie Batalha from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; Michael Gillon from the University of Liège in Belgium; and Guillem Anglada-Escudé from the Queen Mary University in London.
continue reading…
A new study explores potential climates of a planet orbiting two suns.
continue reading…
During the period of Dec. 15, 2016 and March 4, the Kepler spacecraft, operating as the K2 mission, observed TRAPPIST-1, an ultra-cool dwarf star home to seven Earth-size planets that are likley rocky. At image center is the light from TRAPPIST-1 collected by Kepler’s onboard camera.
continue reading…
New observational data of the TRAPPIST-1 system from Kepler are expected to allow astronomers to refine the previous measurements of six planets, pin down the orbital period and mass of the seventh and farthest planet, TRAPPIST-1h, and learn more about the magnetic activity of the host star.
continue reading…
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.
continue reading…
NASA scientists are expanding the definition of habitable zones (the area around a star where a life-sustaining planet might lurk), taking into account the effect of stellar activity that can threaten exoplanets’ atmospheres with oxygen loss.
continue reading…
Neptune-mass worlds are likely the most common type of planet to form in the icy outer realms of planetary systems.
continue reading…
