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14-inch Spacecraft delivers new Details about ‘Hot Jupiters’

The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) spacecraft is about the size of a cereal box. It has also recorded incredibly detailed measurements of the atmospheres of planets hundreds of light-years from Earth.

A spacecraft the size of a cereal box has collected precise measurements of the atmospheres of large and puffy planets called “hot Jupiters.” The findings, led by a team from the University of Colorado Boulder, could help reveal how the atmospheres around these and a host of other worlds are escaping into space.

The diminutive spacecraft, which measures just 14 inches in length, may be cute, but its scientific findings are anything but...

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