Surveys have revealed many multi-planet systems containing super-Earths and Neptunes in orbits of a few days to a few months. There is debate whether in situ assembly or inward migration is the dominant mechanism of the formation of such planetary systems. Simulations suggest that migration creates tightly packed systems with planets whose orbital periods may be expressed as ratios of small integers (resonances), often...
Tag Archives: planets
A resonant chain of four transiting, sub-Neptune planets
Surveys have revealed many multi-planet systems containing super-Earths and Neptunes in orbits of a few days to a few months. There is debate whether in situ assembly or inward migration is the dominant mechanism of the formation of such planetary systems. Simulations suggest that migration creates tightly packed systems with planets whose orbital periods may be expressed as ratios of small integers (resonances), often...
Number of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy: Tens of billions
An illustration of what some of the new exoplanets announced today may look like, along with their host stars. (credit: NASA)
It is one thing to observe the periodic dimming of a star’s light, as NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has done for thousands of planet “candidates” since its launch in 2009. However, to confirm that such...
1,284 new worlds! Kepler mission doubles its tally of planets in one fell swoop
The scientists behind NASA’s Kepler mission are using statistics to put their campaign to identify new planets into overdrive: New software that automates the process has verified 1,284...
Temperate Earth-sized planets transiting a nearby ultracool dwarf star
Star-like objects with effective temperatures of less than 2,700 kelvin are referred to as ‘ultracool dwarfs’. This heterogeneous group includes stars of extremely low mass as well as brown dwarfs (substellar objects not massive enough to sustain hydrogen fusion), and represents about 15 per cent of the population of astronomical objects near the Sun. Core-accretion theory predicts that, given the small masses of these ultracool...
NASA will keep its eye on a trio of potentially habitable planets just 40 light-years away
Three potentially...
Temperate Earth-sized planets transiting a nearby ultracool dwarf star
Star-like objects with effective temperatures of less than 2,700 kelvin are referred to as ‘ultracool dwarfs’. This heterogeneous group includes stars of extremely low mass as well as brown dwarfs (substellar objects not massive enough to sustain hydrogen fusion), and represents about 15 per cent of the population of astronomical objects near the Sun. Core-accretion theory predicts that, given the small masses of these ultracool...
Postal Service geeks out with space stamps for Pluto, planets, the moon and ‘Star Trek’
For the first time since 1991, Pluto and the solar system’s eight bigger planets are getting their own postage stamps – thanks to a U.S. Postal Service cosmopalooza that also spotlights Earth’s moon and “Star Trek.” The Pluto stamp pays tribute to NASA’s...