Articles tagged with "exoplanets"

03/12/2013 12:28:49
Astronomers Observe Planets Around Another Star Like Never Before
Marcus Woo

PASADENA, Calif.—Thanks to a new high-tech gadget, astronomers have observed four planets orbiting a star relatively close to the sun in unprecedented detail, revealing the roughly ten-Jupiter-mass planets to be among the most exotic ones known.

08/06/2007 07:00:00
Astronomers Find Largest Exoplanet to Date
Robert Tindol
An international team of astronomers has discovered the largest-radius and lowest-density exoplanet of all those whose mass and radius are known. It is a gas-giant planet about twice the size of Jupiter, and is likely to have a curved cometlike tail. It has been named TrES-4, to indicate that it is the fourth planet detected by the Trans-atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES) network of telescopes.
 
07/11/2007 07:00:00
NASA'S Spitzer Finds Water Vapor on Hot, Alien Planet
Robert Tindol
The exoplanet HD 189733b has just been found to have water vapor in its atmosphere. The observation provides the best evidence to date that water exists on worlds outside our own solar system.
 
05/31/2007 07:00:00
Astronomers Find Their Third Planet With Novel Telescope Network
Robert Tindol
Astronomers using the Trans-atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES) network of small telescopes are announcing today their discovery of a planet twice the mass of Jupiter that passes in front of its star every 31 hours. The planet is in the constellation Hercules and has been named TrES-3 as the third planet found with the TrES network.
 
02/21/2007 08:00:00
Astronomers Puzzled by Spectra of Transiting Planet Orbiting Nearby Star
Robert Tindol
A team of astronomers led by Carl Grillmair of the California Institute of Technology has discovered some puzzling things about a Jupiter-sized planet that passes in front of a nearby star in the constellation Vulpecula.
 
09/14/2006 07:00:00
The Dwarf Planet Formerly Known as Xena Has Officially Been Named Eris, IAU Announces
Robert Tindol
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) today announced that the dwarf planet known as Xena since its 2005 discovery has been named Eris, after the Greek goddess of discord.
 
09/08/2006 07:00:00
Jupiter-Sized Transiting Planet Found by Astronomers Using Novel Telescope Network
Robert Tindol
Our home solar system may be down by a planet with the recent demotion of Pluto, but the number of giant planets discovered in orbit around other stars continues to grow steadily. Now, an international team of astronomers has detected a planet slightly larger than Jupiter that orbits a star 500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Draco.
 
08/10/2006 07:00:00
NSF-Funded Wireless Network Leads Palomar Observatory Astronomers to Major Discoveries

For the past three years, astronomers at the California Institute of Technology's Palomar Observatory in Southern California have been using the High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN) as the data transfer cyberinfrastructure to further our understanding of the universe. Recent applications include the study of some of the most cataclysmic explosions in the universe, the hunt for extrasolar planets, and the discovery of our solar system's tenth planet. The data for all this research is transferred via HPWREN from the remote mountain observatory to college campuses hundreds of miles away.

 
04/11/2006 07:00:00
Hubble Space Telescope Obtains Best-Ever Size Measurement of Xena; Still Larger Than Pluto
Robert Tindol
To paraphrase a certain young lady from literature, the tenth planet Xena is getting curiouser and curiouser. Data released today by the Space Telescope Science Institute reveals that Xena is about 5 percent larger than Pluto, which means that it must be the most reflective planet in the solar system.
 
01/10/2006 08:00:00
Kuiper Belt Moons Are Starting to Seem Typical
Robert Tindol

In the not-too-distant past, the planet Pluto was thought to be an odd bird in the outer reaches of the solar system because it has a moon, Charon, that was formed much like Earth's own moon was formed. But Pluto is getting a lot of company these days. Of the four largest objects in the Kuiper belt, three have one or more moons.

 
03/14/2002 08:00:00
Caltech Astronomer to Discuss the Search for Planets Outside Our Solar System
Marcus Woo
Postdoc scholar David Charbonneau, to give Watson lecture April 3, 2002.
 
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