Exoplanets - Blog Posts
December 17th of 2019 is The Launch Date of The CHEOPS_Mission to measure The Radii of EXOPLANETS Which have already been discovered by now.
This is The Smallest Sized EXOPLANET Discovered by NASA's TRANSITING EXOPLANET SURVEY SATELLITE so far!
NASA's TESS mission finds its smallest planet yet
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered a world between the sizes of Mars and Earth orbiting a bright, cool, nearby star. The planet, called L 98-59b, marks the tiniest discovered by TESS to date.
Two other worlds orbit the same star. While all three planets’ sizes are known, further study with other telescopes will be needed to determine if they have atmospheres and, if so, which gases are present. The L 98-59 worlds nearly double the number of small exoplanets – that is, planets beyond our solar system – that have the best potential for this kind of follow-up.
“The discovery is a great engineering and scientific accomplishment for TESS,” said Veselin Kostov, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. “For atmospheric studies of small planets, you need short orbits around bright stars, but such planets are difficult to detect. This system has the potential for fascinating future studies.”
A paper on the findings, led by Kostov, was published in the June 27 issue of The Astronomical Journal.
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This could be The First Confirmed Astronomical Discovery of an Extrasolar_Moon more than 20_Years after The First Confirmed Astronomical Discovery of an Extrasolar_Planet was made!
I wonder what Alien Lifeforms which have evolved on Habitable_Zone Moons and Habitable_Zone Planets in Other Solar_Systems would look like?
Life in The TRAPPIST_1 System
The Potential for Life is higher than ever on The TRAPPIST_1 Exoplanets, a Researcher says. http://wr.al/1AePv
Nearby Exoplanet is 'excellent' target in The Search for Life.
NASA’s TESS Mission to Search for Lots More EXOPLANETS is now about to be Launched someday really soon!
The Hunt for New Worlds Continues with TESS
We’re getting ready to start our next mission to find new worlds! The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will find thousands of planets beyond our solar system for us to study in more detail. It’s preparing to launch from our Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
Once it launches, TESS will look for new planets that orbit bright stars relatively close to Earth. We’re expecting to find giant planets, like Jupiter, but we’re also predicting we’ll find Earth-sized planets. Most of those planets will be within 300 light-years of Earth, which will make follow-up studies easier for other observatories.
TESS will find these new exoplanets by looking for their transits. A transit is a temporary dip in a star’s brightness that happens with predictable timing when a planet crosses between us and the star. The information we get from transits can tell us about the size of the planet relative to the size of its star. We’ve found nearly 3,000 planets using the transit method, many with our Kepler space telescope. That’s over 75% of all the exoplanets we’ve found so far!
TESS will look at nearly the entire sky (about 85%) over two years. The mission divides the sky into 26 sectors. TESS will look at 13 of them in the southern sky during its first year before scanning the northern sky the year after.
What makes TESS different from the other planet-hunting missions that have come before it? The Kepler mission (yellow) looked continually at one small patch of sky, spotting dim stars and their planets that are between 300 and 3,000 light-years away. TESS (blue) will look at almost the whole sky in sections, finding bright stars and their planets that are between 30 and 300 light-years away.
TESS will also have a brand new kind of orbit (visualized below). Once it reaches its final trajectory, TESS will finish one pass around Earth every 13.7 days (blue), which is half the time it takes for the Moon (gray) to orbit. This position maximizes the amount of time TESS can stare at each sector, and the satellite will transmit its data back to us each time its orbit takes it closest to Earth (orange).
Kepler’s goal was to figure out how common Earth-size planets might be. TESS’s mission is to find exoplanets around bright, nearby stars so future missions, like our James Webb Space Telescope, and ground-based observatories can learn what they’re made of and potentially even study their atmospheres. TESS will provide a catalog of thousands of new subjects for us to learn about and explore.
The TESS mission is led by MIT and came together with the help of many different partners. Learn more about TESS and how it will further our knowledge of exoplanets, or check out some more awesome images and videos of the spacecraft. And stay tuned for more exciting TESS news as the spacecraft launches!
Watch the Launch + More!
Sunday, April 15 11 a.m. EDT - NASA Social Mission Overview
Join mission experts to learn more about TESS, how it will search for worlds beyond our solar system and what scientists hope to find! Have questions? Use #askNASA to have them answered live during the broadcast.
Watch HERE.
1 p.m. EDT - Prelaunch News Conference
Get an update on the spacecraft, the rocket and the liftoff operations ahead of the April 16 launch! Have questions? Use #askNASA to have them answered live during the broadcast.
Watch HERE.
3 p.m. EDT - Science News Conference
Hear from mission scientists and experts about the science behind the TESS mission. Have questions? Use #askNASA to have them answered live during the broadcast.
Watch HERE.
4 p.m. EDT - TESS Facebook Live
This live show will dive into the science behind the TESS spacecraft, explain how we search for planets outside our solar system and will allow you to ask your questions to members of the TESS team.
Watch HERE.
Monday, April 16 10 a.m. EDT - NASA EDGE: TESS Facebook Live
This half-hour live show will discuss the TESS spacecraft, the science of searching for planets outside our solar system, and the launch from Cape Canaveral.
Watch HERE.
1 p.m. EDT - Reddit AMA
Join us live on Reddit for a Science AMA to discuss the hunt for exoplanets and the upcoming launch of TESS!
Join in HERE.
6 p.m. EDT - Launch Coverage!
TESS is slated to launch at 6:32 p.m. EDT on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from our Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Watch HERE.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
Spectroscopic Observations of The Atmospheres and possibly even The Surfaces of Extrasolar Planets and Extrasolar Satellites.
ESA’s next science mission to focus on nature of exoplanets
The nature of planets orbiting stars in other systems will be the focus for ESA’s fourth medium-class science mission, to be launched in mid 2028.
Ariel, the Atmospheric Remote‐sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large‐survey mission, was selected by ESA today as part of its Cosmic Vision plan.
The mission addresses one of the key themes of Cosmic Vision: What are the conditions for planet formation and the emergence of life?
Thousands of exoplanets have already been discovered with a huge range of masses, sizes and orbits, but there is no apparent pattern linking these characteristics to the nature of the parent star. In particular, there is a gap in our knowledge of how the planet’s chemistry is linked to the environment where it formed, or whether the type of host star drives the physics and chemistry of the planet’s evolution.
Ariel will address fundamental questions on what exoplanets are made of and how planetary systems form and evolve by investigating the atmospheres of hundreds of planets orbiting different types of stars, enabling the diversity of properties of both individual planets as well as within populations to be assessed.
Observations of these worlds will give insights into the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation, and their subsequent evolution, in turn contributing to put our own Solar System in context.
“Ariel is a logical next step in exoplanet science, allowing us to progress on key science questions regarding their formation and evolution, while also helping us to understand Earth’s place in the Universe,” says Günther Hasinger, ESA Director of Science.
“Ariel will allow European scientists to maintain competitiveness in this dynamic field. It will build on the experiences and knowledge gained from previous exoplanet missions.”
The mission will focus on warm and hot planets, ranging from super-Earths to gas giants orbiting close to their parent stars, taking advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres to decipher their bulk composition.
Ariel will measure the chemical fingerprints of the atmospheres as the planet crosses in front of its host star, observing the amount of dimming at a precision level of 10–100 parts per million relative to the star.
As well as detecting signs of well-known ingredients such as water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane, it will also be able to measure more exotic metallic compounds, putting the planet in context of the chemical environment of the host star.
For a select number of planets, Ariel will also perform a deep survey of their cloud systems and study seasonal and daily atmospheric variations.
Ariel’s metre-class telescope will operate at visible and infrared wavelengths. It will be launched on ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou in mid 2028. It will operate from an orbit around the second Lagrange point, L2, 1.5 million kilometres directly ‘behind’ Earth as viewed from the Sun, on an initial four-year mission.
Following its selection by ESA’s Science Programme Committee, the mission will continue into another round of detailed mission study to define the satellite’s design. This would lead to the ‘adoption’ of the mission – presently planned for 2020 – following which an industrial contractor will be selected to build it.
Ariel was chosen from three candidates, competing against the space plasma physics mission Thor (Turbulence Heating ObserveR) and the high-energy astrophysics mission Xipe (X-ray Imaging Polarimetry Explorer).
Solar Orbiter, Euclid and Plato have already been selected as medium-class missions.
Project Blue for Alpha Centauri.
One Search for Planets in The Alpha_Centauri System is: Project Blue. https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/10/project-blue-aims-to-snap-the-first-picture-of-an-exoplanet-in-alpha-centauri/
At Least 94 More Exoplanets were just recently discovered by Astronomers and Astrophysicists using NASA's Kepler Space_Telescope.
Scientists discover almost 100 new exoplanets
“We started out analyzing 275 candidates of which 149 were validated as real exoplanets. In turn 95 of these planets have proved to be new discoveries,” said American PhD student Andrew Mayo at the National Space Institute (DTU Space) at the Technical University of Denmark.
“This research has been underway since the first K2 data release in 2014.”
Mayo is the main author of the work being presented in the Astronomical Journal.
The research has been conducted partly as a senior project during his undergraduate studies at Harvard College. It has also involved a team of international colleagues from institutions such as NASA, Caltech, UC Berkeley, the University of Copenhagen, and the University of Tokyo.
Keep reading
ESA’s GAIA Mission might reveal a Treasure Trove of Nee Exoplanetary Discoveries!
ESPRESSO Sees it’s First Light.
ESPRESSO is a New Planet Hunting Telescope at The European Southern Observatory.
There is a Planet out beyond Our Solar_System which has a 27,000 Year Long Orbit around it’s Host_Star.
The Science of Photosynthetic Lifeforms on Habitable Zone Worlds in other solar_systems.
A Huge_Planet that’s "too big for its Host_Star" has been spotted orbiting a Faint Red_Dwarf Star by some Australian Researchers - with the help of a Backyard Astronomer.
The European Space_Agency’s GAIA_Mission might help Astronomers discover a lot more Extrasolar_Planets.
(via European satellite could discover thousands of planets in Earth's galaxy (arXiv))
Three planets with sizes and temperatures akin to those of the Earth and Venus are circling a dwarf star 40 light-years away. The star in question, named TRAPPIST-1 after the telescope used to observe it, is weaker and cooler than the Sun at the heart of our solar system. "With such short orbital
Here are The Top_Ten Star_Wars Planets!
(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqHGZu0DBag)
(via For plants on alien worlds, it isn't easy being green - space - 11 April 2007 - New Scientist)
Yeah Earth is such a narcissist
But TESS is a great satellite (it launched in 2018 by SpaceX - so thanks guys!)
The study of exoplanets has never been my main thing in astrophysics (sorry, my heart belongs to black holes and cosmology!) but I think it’s a really cool and important field. And, for everyone who says that the vastness of space just shows our insignificance, know that the odds of us finding other intelligent life are extremely small. I think we’re pretty special.
WANT MORE? GET YOUR HEAD STUCK IN THE STARS AT MY BLOG!
SpaceX successfully launched TESS yesterday! We’re going to discover so many new exoplanets.
Aw heck yeah let’s go
WANT MORE? GET YOUR HEAD STUCK IN THE STARS AT MY BLOG!
List of extrasolar candidates for liquid water
The following list contains candidates from the list of confirmed objects that meet the following criteria:
Confirmed object orbiting within a circumstellar habitable zone of Earth mass or greater (because smaller objects may not have the gravitational means to retain water) but not a star
Has been studied for more than a year
Confirmed surface with strong evidence for it being either solid or liquid
Water vapour detected in its atmosphere
Gravitational, radio or differentation models that predict a wet stratum
55 Cancri f
With a mass half that of Saturn, 55 Cancri f is likely to be a gas giant with no solid surface. It orbits in the so-called “habitable zone,” which means that liquid water could exist on the surface of a possible moon. ]
Proxima Centauri b
Proxima Centauri b is an exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of the red dwarfstar Proxima Centauri, which is the closest star to the Sun and part of a triple star system. It is located about 4.2 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus, making it the closest known exoplanet to the Solar System.
Gliese 581c
Gliese 581c gained interest from astronomers because it was reported to be the first potentially Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of its star, with a temperature right for liquid water on its surface, and by extension, potentially capable of supporting extremophile forms of Earth-like life.
Gliese 667 Cc
Gliese 667 Cc is an exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Gliese 667 C, which is a member of the Gliese 667 triple star system, approximately 23.62 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius.
Gliese 1214 b
Gliese 1214 b is an exoplanet that orbits the star Gliese 1214, and was discovered in December 2009. Its parent star is 48 light-years from the Sun, in the constellation Ophiuchus. As of 2017, GJ 1214 b is the most likely known candidate for being an ocean planet. For that reason, scientists have nicknamed the planet “the waterworld”.
HD 85512 b
HD 85512 b is an exoplanet orbiting HD 85512, a K-type main-sequence star approximately 36 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Vela.
Due to its mass of at least 3.6 times the mass of Earth, HD 85512 b is classified as a rocky Earth-size exoplanet (<5M⊕) and is one of the smallest exoplanets discovered to be just outside the inner edge of the habitable zone.
MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb
MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb, occasionally shortened to MOA-192 b, is an extrasolar planet approximately 3,000 light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius. The planet was discovered orbiting the brown dwarf or low-mass star MOA-2007-BLG-192L. At a mass of approximately 3.3 times Earth, it is one of the lowest-mass extrasolar planets at the time of discovery. It was found when it caused a gravitational microlensing event on May 24, 2007, which was detected as part of the MOA-II microlensing survey at the Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand.
Kepler-22b
Kepler-22b, also known by its Kepler object of interest designation KOI-087.01, is an extrasolar planet orbiting within the habitable zone of the Sun-like star Kepler-22. It is located about 587 light-years (180 pc) from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. source
An Earth-sized planet found in the habitable zone of a nearby star
by Ravi Kumar Kopparapu
An artist’s impression of an exoplanet in the habitable zone around a star. Credits: ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser
A few months ago a group of NASA exoplanet astronomers, who are in the business of discovering planets around other stars, called me into a secret meeting to tell me about a planet that had captured their interest. Because my expertise lies in modeling the climate of exoplanets, they asked me to figure out whether this new planet was habitable – a place where liquid water might exist.
Keep reading
Is Proxima b another Earth? It’s difficult to answer because no one has actually “seen” this distant planet which orbits the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri right in theGoldilocks Zone. Scientists have merely concluded that Proxima b (which is about 4.2 light years away from Earth) is right where it should be, by observing the regular, subtle changes in Proxima Centauri’s color. Proxima b is tidally locked to its star — which means one side of it is always facing Proxima Centauri, and the other side is perpetually dark. With just an 11.2-year revolution, it lies very close to its star, although red-dwarf stars are not as hot as yellow-dwarves (like our Sun). There is a possibility that water exists on Proxima b, and that it has an atmosphere protecting it from extreme heat, and scattering heat even to its dark side. How can we be sure? Harvard’s Avi Loeb and astronomer Laura Kreidberg propose that we use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). UNCERTAINTIES The long-delayed JWST is set to launch by 2018 (originally 2011). Loeb explains that if a rocky planet, like Proxima b, has an atmosphere, it would absorb light from its star and re-emit it as infrared light. Incidentally, the JWST is specifically designed to observe infrared light. The JWST can take photos of infrared light on the surface Proxima b, looking for patterns that would confirm whether or not this exoplanet has water or is covered by an atmosphere. Things aren’t so simple, however. The proposed method may be doable. But there are other factors that have to be considered. For instance, the existence of an atmosphere may not guarantee life, says astrophysicist Ed Turner of Princeton University. Proxima b may be like Venus, with an atmosphere 90 times thicker than ours, and extreme heat. Still, Loeb’s and Kriedberg’s plan is the only option we have for a glimmer of an answer about this “Earth next-door”. References: Business Insider, Scientific American
Want to take a relaxing interstellar vacation? Consider visiting Kepler-16b, a world in a binary star system. In fact Kepler-16b is the first discovered circumbinary planet. It was detected in a wide 229 day orbit around a close pair of cool, low-mass stars some 200 light-years away. The parent stars eclipse one another in their orbits, observed as a dimming of starlight. But Kepler-16b itself was discovered by following the additional very slight dimming produced during its transits. Like sci-fi planet Tatooine of Star Wars fame, two suns would set over its horizon. Still, Kepler 16b is probably not a Tatooine-like terrestrial desert world. Instead, Kepler 16b is thought to be a cold, uninhabitable planet with about the mass of Saturn and a gaseous surface ... so plan to dress accordingly. Or, choose another Visions of the Future vacation destination. For image credit and copyright guidance, please visit the image websitehttp://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap160220.html
Happy TRAPPIST-1 Day!
Here’s a comic on our latest discovery!
http://www.space.com/35806-trappist-1-facts.html