extrasolar planets tagged posts

Astronomers using the VLBA have produced a full, 3-D view of a binary star system with a planet orbiting one of the stars. Their achievement promises important new insights into the process of planet formation.

By precisely tracing a small, almost imperceptible, wobble in a nearby star’s motion through space, astronomers have discovered a Jupiter-like planet orbiting that star, which is one of a binary pair. Their work, using the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), produced the first-ever determination of the complete, 3-dimensional structure of the orbits of a binary pair of stars and a planet orbiting one of them...

New study suggests that the nightsides of hot Jupiters share clouds made of minerals...

This is an artist’s impression of the planets orbiting K2-187.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, T. Pyle (IPAC), UTokyo/J. Livingston

An international team of astronomers using a combination of ground and space based telescopes have reported more than 100 extrasolar planets (here after, exoplanets) in only three months. These planets are quite diverse and expected to play a large role in developing the research field of exoplanets and life in the Universe.

Exoplanets, planets that revolve around stars other than the Sun, have been actively researched in recent years. One of the reasons is the success of the Kepler Space Telescope, which launched in 2009 to search for exoplanets...

DARKNESS (the DARK-speckle Near-infrared Energy-resolved Superconducting Spectrophotometer) can detect planets around the nearest stars. Credit: Image courtesy of University of California – Santa Barbara

Physicists and astronomers commission the most advanced superconducting camera in the world. Somewhere in the vastness of the universe another habitable planet likely exists. And it may not be that far – astronomically speaking – from our own solar system. Distinguishing that planet’s light from its star, however, can be problematic. But an international team led by UC Santa Barbara physicist Benjamin Mazin has developed a new instrument to detect planets around the nearest stars. It is the world’s largest and most advanced superconducting camera...