November 19, 2012
Astronomers using infrared data from the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii have discovered a "super-Jupiter" around the bright star Kappa Andromedae, which now holds the record for the most massive star known to host a directly imaged planet or lightweight brown dwarf companion.
› read more
November 15, 2012
Astronomers have snapped a picture of what is very likely to be a free-floating orphan exoplanet.
› read more
November 01, 2012
New study finds that asteroid belts of the right size and density may be key to creating habitable exoplanets.
› read more
October 26, 2012
PlanetQuest talks with Olivier Guyon about what it feels like to get the "genius" phone call and what he plans to do with the award.
› read more
October 16, 2012
Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting the star closest to our own.
› read more
October 15, 2012
The discovery of planets continues to expand beyond the domain of professional astronomers. A joint effort of amateur astronomers and scientists has led to the first reported case of a planet orbiting a double star that, in turn, is orbited by a second distant pair of stars.
› read more
October 11, 2012
JPL scientist Olivier Guyon has been named one of the 2012 MacArthur Fellows, a prestigious award popularly known as the “genius grant.”
› read more.jpeg?1348861374)
September 28, 2012
A new study finds that "super-Earths" may lack a magnetic field, which could make them difficult places for life to survive.
› read more
September 28, 2012
Scientists theorize that radiation-pummeled pulsar planets may be bathed in an "electromagnetic wake".
› read more
September 14, 2012
NASA-funded astronomers have, for the first time, spotted planets orbiting sun-like stars in a crowded cluster of stars. The findings offer the best evidence yet that planets can sprout up in dense stellar environments.
› read more
September 11, 2012
While the hunt continues for the elusive Earth-like 'blue dot,' astronomers have discovered a collection of odd exoplanets.
› read more
September 06, 2012
Exoplanet hunter John Johnson is spearheading a grassroots effort to build a lean, mean, Earth-hunting telescope in the hills of Southern California.
› read more
August 28, 2012
Kepler has found the first multiple-planet solar system orbiting a pair of stars, revealing a brand new kind of solar system.
› read more
August 27, 2012
Astronomers have discovered evidence of a planet that's been consumed by its "red giant" star. This event could mirror the fate of planets like Earth when our sun expands into its red giant phase.
› read more
August 08, 2012
A group of astronomers including John Johnson of Caltech has found that data from Kepler may show that Jupiter-size planets might not be as easy to come by as smaller, rocky worlds like Earth.
› read more
June 21, 2012
Astronomers have discovered a pair of neighboring planets with dissimilar densities orbiting very close to each other.
› read more
May 08, 2012
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a "super-Earth" planet beyond our solar system for the first time.
› read more
April 04, 2012
NASA's Kepler mission has been approved for extension through fiscal year 2016 based on a recommendation from the Agency’s Senior Review of its operating missions.
› read more
March 29, 2012
A new result from ESO’s HARPS planet finder shows that rocky planets not much bigger than Earth are very common in the habitable zones around faint red stars. The international team estimates that there are tens of billions of such planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone, and probably about one hundred in the Sun’s immediate neighbourhood.
› read more
February 21, 2012
Observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have come up with a new class of planet, a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. It's smaller than Uranus but larger than Earth.
› read more
February 02, 2012
A newly-discovered super-Earth in a triple-star system could potentially be an Earth-like planet.
› read more
January 11, 2012
Astronomers using data from NASA's Kepler mission have discovered the three smallest planets yet detected orbiting a star beyond our sun.
› read more
January 11, 2012
Our Milky Way galaxy contains, on average, a minimum of one planet for every star, according to a new statistical study.
› read more
January 01, 2012
2011 showed NASA's Kepler mission finding its stride. 2012 could be even bigger.
› read more
