HARPS tagged posts

All kinds of exoplanets orbit very close to their star. Some look like the Earth, others like Jupiter. Very few, however, are similar to Neptune. Why this anomaly in the distribution of exoplanets? Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS have observed a sample of planets located at the edge of this Hot Neptune Desert to understand its creation...

searchers at the Centre for Planetary Sciences have found that K2-18b could very well be a scaled-up version of Earth. They also discovered it has a neighbour. (Illustration by Alex Boersma)

New ESO research has revealed that a little-known exoplanet called K2-18b could well be a scaled-up version of Earth. Just as exciting, the same researchers also discovered for the first time that the planet has a neighbor. “Being able to measure the mass and density of K2-18b was tremendous, but to discover a new exoplanet was lucky and equally exciting,” says lead author Ryan Cloutier, a PhD student in U of T Scarborough’s Centre for Planet Science, U of T’s Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Université de Montréal Institute for research on exoplanets (iREx).

Both planets orbit K2-18, a ...

This artist’s impression shows the exoplanet LHS 1140b, which orbits a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth and may be the new holder of the title ‘best place to look for signs of life beyond the Solar System’. Using ESO’s HARPS instrument at La Silla, and other telescopes around the world, an international team of astronomers discovered this super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone around the faint star LHS 1140. This world is a little larger and much more massive than the Earth and has likely retained most of its atmosphere. Credit: ESO/spaceengine.org

Super-Earth LHS 1140b orbits in the habitable zone around a faint red dwarf star named LHS 1140, in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster)...

IMAGE1: HD189733: The planet HD 189733b is shown here in front of its parent star. A belt of wind around the equator of the planet travels at 5400mph from the heated day side to the night side. The day side of the planet appears blue due to scattering of light from silicate haze in the atmosphere. The night side of the planet glows a deep red due to its high temperature.
Credit: Mark A. Garlick/University of Warwick

The University of Warwick discovery is the first time that a weather system on a planet outside of Earth’s solar system has been directly measured and mapped. The wind speed recorded is 20x greater than the fastest ever known on earth, where it would be 7x the speed of sound.

Tom Louden, of the University of Warwick’s Astrophysics group, said: “This is the first ever weather map...