Looking for a Mirror, NY Times “The challenges to photographing a mirror Earth are daunting, but not insurmountable. A small rocky planet is a dim mote of dust lost in […]
extrasolar planets
Posted inAstronomy
Finding Pandora and Endor
Sub-Earth-Mass Moon Orbiting a Gas Giant Primary or a High Velocity Planetary System in the Galactic Bulge “We present the first microlensing candidate for a free-floating exoplanet-exomoon system, MOA-2011-BLG-262, with […]
Posted inSpace & Planetary Science
You Can't Read About Billions of Habitable Zone Planets Unless You Pay (Update)
Prevalence of Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (full article behind paywall) “We find that 22% of Sun-like stars harbor Earth-size planets orbiting in […]
Posted inAstronomy
Additional Uses for Kepler? (Second Update)
Habitable Planets Around White Dwarfs: an Alternate Mission for the Kepler Spacecraft “Our proposed survey requires a total of 200 days of observing time, and will find up to 100 […]
Posted inAstronomy
Citizen Science and Planet Discovery
15 New Planets Hint at “Traffic Jam” of Moons in Habitable Zone “Volunteers from the Planethunters.org website, part of the Oxford University-led Zooniverse project, have discovered 15 new planet candidates […]
Posted inAstrobiology
Apparently, Earth-Sized Planets Are Common
NASA Survey Suggests Earth-Sized Planets Are Common “Nearly one in four stars similar to the sun may host planets as small as Earth, according to a new study funded by […]