It’s not just for Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars. Not even close. Shortly after Earth first formed first formed, life quickly took hold, thriving ever since. Both reflected sunlight on a […]

It’s one of only five spacecraft that will exit the Solar System, and the only one we have a chance to aim at another star. Of all the spacecraft ever launched, […]

We’ve come fantastically far in our understanding of the distant Universe. Here’s how we’ll go even farther. Sometime in 2021, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will launch, deploy, and begin science […]

A fascinating podcast on the topic with NASA scientist Dr. Jessie Christiansen. How many planets are out there in the Universe? How many stars have planets, and what kinds of […]

The closest star to our own doesn’t just host one rocky planet, but a second, larger ‘super-Earth’ much farther out. Of all the stars in the Universe, the closest one to […]

Unlike most articles that are titled with a question, the answer isn’t automatically “no.” Announced on January 6, 2020, NASA’s TESS mission has just discovered its first Earth-sized, habitable zone […]

On May 9, 2016, the prior transit of Mercury occurred, and was photographed many times on a practically continuous basis by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Transits of Mercury are rare, […]

A theoretical view of a distant world so far from our Sun that our Solar System appears barely brighter than the remaining stars in the sky. ( Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)) Pluto […]

Jim Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz just won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics. It couldn’t be more well-deserved. Every year, the Nobel Prize reminds all of humanity to […]

We know a lot about what else is out there, but we still don’t know everything. In the quest for life in the Universe, it makes sense to look at […]

It’s a great scientific opportunity of modern times, but we won’t get there with our current observatories. One of the holy grails of modern science is to find a world, […]

And one of our planets has the orbiting moons to prove it. Despite the dangers posed to planet Earth by a comet or asteroid strike, our Solar System is actually an […]

After Kepler but before James Webb, TESS is preparing astronomers for the coming exoplanet revolution. There are always new discoveries and achievements occurring in science, and certain fields have experienced […]

What makes Uranus and Neptune-like worlds so fascinating? If you only knew. What do we really know, and what mysteries are left to solve, about the outer worlds of our Solar […]

A case for looking beyond the planetary scientist’s (or even the astronomer’s) definition. Ever since 2006, when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially defined the term planet — introducing the term ‘dwarf […]

Not only can’t astronomers and planetary scientists agree, but the IAU made it worse for everyone. If you were alive in 2006, you likely remember a momentous event in astronomy: […]

Our outer Solar System, from Jupiter to Neptune, isn’t unique after all. In the early 1990s, scientists began detecting the first planets orbiting stars other than the Sun: exoplanets. The easiest […]

We assume that life is ubiquitous in the Universe. But what if it’s just us? When it comes to the question of extraterrestrial life, humans optimistically assume the Universe is prolific. […]

If you think we’ve done a great job with planet-finding so far, just wait until you learn what’s possible with microlensing! When we think about finding planets in the Universe, […]

In all the Universe, there’s only one Earth. But can we find the other worlds that are like ours? Even though the ingredients for life have been confirmed to be practically […]

In order to reap the greatest rewards, we have to think big and invest big. One of these four missions will deliver like never before. When it comes to exploring the […]

We know that life is possible on an Earth-like world around a Sun-like star. But can it find a way on a Super-Earth? When it comes to the origin of […]

Kepler showed us that the Universe is full of planets around other stars. TESS is giving us our next great leap. It’s been nearly a decade since NASA’s Kepler mission first […]

For generations, planet formation was only a theory. As 2018 comes to an end, here’s the evidence of what’s going on. The theory of planet formation has been around for a […]

With thousands of discovered planets around stars beyond our own Sun, why haven’t we found the next Earth? Over the past 30 years, astronomers have gone from zero known extra-solar planets […]

We can’t help but wonder if it’s habitable, or even inhabited, but the evidence isn’t there for it. Every star that fills the night sky carries along with it one of […]

The most unusual star known has finally had its dimming scientifically explained. Here’s the unusual, dusty resolution. The science of planet-hunting has truly taken off in the 21st century, with […]

Finding the ingredients for life is a very different prospect than finding the products of life. Perhaps the greatest quest in science today is to find life that originated beyond Earth. […]

Intelligent aliens, if they exist in the galaxy or the Universe, might be detectable from a variety of signals: electromagnetic, from planet modification, or because they’re spacefaring. But we haven’t […]

The ingredients for life are everywhere, but so far the only life we know of comes from Earth. Here’s how that might change. Ever since human beings first turned our eyes […]