ScienceDaily: Extrasolar Planets News |
- Astronomers find a new type of planet: The 'mega-Earth'
- Because you can't eat just one: Star will swallow two planets
- 'Neapolitan' exoplanets come in three flavors
- Harsh space weather may doom potential life on red-dwarf planets
- Time flies in new exoplanet video exploring beyond the boundaries of our solar system
| Astronomers find a new type of planet: The 'mega-Earth' Posted: 02 Jun 2014 08:58 AM PDT Astronomers have discovered a new type of planet -- a rocky world weighing 17 times as much as Earth. Theorists believed such a world couldn't form because anything so hefty would grab hydrogen gas as it grew and become a Jupiter-like gas giant. This planet, though, is all solids and much bigger than previously discovered 'super-Earths,' making it a 'mega-Earth.' |
| Because you can't eat just one: Star will swallow two planets Posted: 02 Jun 2014 08:58 AM PDT Two worlds orbiting a distant star are about to become a snack of cosmic proportions. Astronomers announced that the planets Kepler-56b and Kepler-56c will be swallowed by their star in a short time by astronomical standards. Their ends will come in 130 million and 155 million years, respectively. |
| 'Neapolitan' exoplanets come in three flavors Posted: 02 Jun 2014 08:58 AM PDT The planets of our solar system come in two basic flavors, like vanilla and chocolate ice cream. We have small, rocky terrestrials like Earth and Mars, and large gas giants like Neptune and Jupiter. We're missing the astronomical equivalent of strawberry ice cream -- planets between about one and four times the size of Earth. |
| Harsh space weather may doom potential life on red-dwarf planets Posted: 02 Jun 2014 08:58 AM PDT Life in the universe might be even rarer than we thought. Recently, astronomers looking for potentially habitable worlds have targeted red dwarf stars because they are the most common type of star, composing 80 percent of the stars in the universe. But a new study shows that harsh space weather might strip the atmosphere of any rocky planet orbiting in a red dwarf's habitable zone. |
| Time flies in new exoplanet video exploring beyond the boundaries of our solar system Posted: 06 May 2014 06:47 AM PDT Under normal circumstances most people who dream of staring into space would need to purchase a telescope and a book on astronomy to make sense of it all. A new video demonstrates the vast range of time-scales on which exoplanets orbit host stars. |
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