Exoplanets | News Ledge

A Fresh Batch of Exoplanets Were Just Confirmed Orbiting Cool Red Dwarf Stars

Posted on March 12, 2018
byAlex Chavers

NASA’s Kepler along with a pair of telescopes on Earth confirmed 15 new exoplanets recently. All of them orbiting red dwarf stars. One of the brighter red dwarfs, dubbed K2-155,…

View Post

Kepler’s Final Tally Of Planets After Staring At 160,000 Stars Is In

Posted on June 19, 2017
byAlex Chavers

For Kepler’s first four years, it stared at a patch of sky in the Cygnus constellation. As it trailed behind Earth’s on its yearly trip around the sun, Kepler constantly…

View Post

Search for Alien Life Heats Up With Three Exoplanets Around Cool Star

Posted on Last Updated on January 9, 2017
byAlex Chavers

40 light years from Earth sits an ultracool dwarf star formerly known as 2MASS J23062928-0502285. Today, it’s called TRAPPIST-1 after the telescope used to find the trio of planets orbiting…

View Post

How Do You Find a Planet With No Home?

Posted on Last Updated on January 9, 2017
byAlex Chavers

Update: NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has entered emergency mode. The mission team has declared a spacecraft emergency giving them priority access to NASA’s Deep Space Network. NASA isn’t sure what caused…

View Post

Kepler Animation Shows Just How Fast Most Exoplanets Orbit Their Star

Posted on Last Updated on January 9, 2017
byAlex Chavers

The first phase of the Kepler mission discovered thousands of potential exoplanets. 1,031 of these were confirmed while the other 4,696 are listed as ‘candidates.’ Scientists believe the vast majority…

View Post

What is a Planet?

Posted on Last Updated on January 9, 2017
byAlex Chavers

Seems like an easy question, right? It was, until the 1990s. Before the 1990s, a planet was defined as any large body orbiting the sun that was not an asteroid…

View Post

NASA’s Kepler Mission and Its ‘Second Light’

Posted on Last Updated on January 9, 2017
byAlex Chavers

NASA’s Kepler mission is back in the spotlight with Kepler-452b, a near-Earth-size planet discovered in the “habitable zone” around a star much like our sun. Today, the Kepler mission is…