All articles tagged with #exoplanets
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is on track for Aug. 30 launch from Kennedy Space Center atop SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, with live updates as the observatory moves toward the Sun-Earth L2 to study dark energy and exoplanets.
Red dwarfs are the longest‑lived stars—potentially around 10 trillion years—thanks to slow hydrogen fusion and a convective interior that reuses fuel; they make up about three‑quarters of stars, including nearby Proxima Centauri, which hosts Earthlike Proxima b. While such systems could harbor habitable worlds, tidal locking and stellar flares complicate life, though a distant greenhouse effect could help; in any case, red dwarfs will dominate the galaxy’s stellar population long after larger stars fade.
NASA will televise the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Aug. 30, 2026, with live coverage beginning at 6:20 a.m. ET and liftoff no earlier than 7:26 a.m. ET atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center. The telescope, named for NASA's former chief of astronomy, features a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble’s and will study dark energy while using coronagraphic techniques to image exoplanets. If Aug. 30 slips, a backup window is set for Aug. 31 at 7:22 a.m. ET, and NASA will host prelaunch briefings on Aug. 29.
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is on track for an Aug. 30 liftoff from Kennedy Space Center aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. The observatory will spend about 30 days en route to the sun–Earth L2 point (roughly 1.5 million km from Earth), followed by a multi‑month checkout before it begins surveys for exoplanets and dark energy and investigates distant stars.
NASA-led researchers propose HOEE, a hybrid observatory that pairs an orbital starshade with ground-based extremely large telescopes to directly image rocky Earth-like exoplanets by blocking starlight; the occulter would orbit ~175,000 km away in an elongated orbit, using 48 petals and a 50 m disk, and be precisely positioned by microthrusters to suppress glare, enabling optical observations of nearby systems within ~20 light-years and the search for atmospheric life signatures; Phase B NIAC funding is sought for 2027, with an inflatable final design to keep launch mass under 1,500 kg and a total cost around a billion dollars.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launching from Kennedy Space Center, will map hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies with a wide infrared view, search for up to 200,000 exoplanets via transits and microlensing, and probe dark matter and dark energy through weak gravitational lensing—potentially addressing key cosmological tensions and expanding our understanding of the universe.
NASA plans to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope later this month, featuring a 2.4-meter mirror and a 300-megapixel infrared camera to survey wide swaths of the sky. Its field of view will be about 100 times larger than Hubble’s, enabling studies of dark matter and exoplanets, with Japan contributing an instrument and ground stations for data. The launch from Kennedy Space Center is slated for August 30, with first observations after about three months of testing.
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will survey vast areas of the infrared sky, acting as a wide-field scout that finds targets for Hubble and Webb, maps the distribution of galaxies to test cosmology, and demonstrates coronagraphy for direct imaging of exoplanets, all while informing future missions like Habitable Worlds Observatory.
Astronomers have identified GJ 523b, a dense 'mega-Earth' about 2.5 times Earth in size and around 23 times as massive, with a surprisingly thin atmosphere. Discovered by NASA’s TESS and examined with the WIYN telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, the planet’s high density and lack of a thick gaseous envelope defy simple formation models, leading researchers to speculate that extreme heat or a past planetary collision stripped away much of its atmosphere and to push for a clearer definition of the Mega-Earth category.
Astronomers using ESO's VLT CRIRES+ measured an exceptionally fast equatorial jet on the bloated hot Jupiter WASP-127b (about 520 light-years away). Doppler shifts in water vapor and carbon monoxide during transit reveal two opposing velocity peaks, indicating a strong eastward jet. After subtracting the planet’s rotation, the jet speed is 7.7 ± 0.2 km/s (roughly 27,700 km/h); including rotation, the maximum equatorial motion reaches about 9 km/s (≈33,000 km/h)—the fastest wind observed on any planet. The result demonstrates a method to map atmospheric circulation on unresolved exoplanets and confirms molecules in the atmosphere, while suggesting cooler poles or high-altitude clouds and paving the way for finer measurements with the Extremely Large Telescope.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope analyzed WASP-94A b by splitting its transit into the cooler, cloudier morning limb and the hotter, clearer evening limb. The observations suggest mineral clouds (likely magnesium silicate) form as gas cools on the morning side and evaporate on the scorching dayside, leaving the evening limb relatively clear and rich in water absorption. This limb-by-limb spectroscopy reveals a weather-driven 3D structure that a single averaged atmospheric model would miss, highlighting a mineral-cloud cycle on a tidally locked exoplanet and showcasing a method to map exoplanet weather even when the planet isn’t spatially resolved.
This piece traces the exoplanet revolution led by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, who in 1995 detected the first exoplanet (51 Pegasi b) via radial velocity, opening a flood of discoveries and a toolkit of methods (radial velocity, transits, microlensing, direct imaging, astrometry). It surveys a spectrum of worlds—from hot Jupiters to super-Earths, ocean worlds, lava planets, and rogue planets—and shows how these findings reshape planetary formation theories and fuel the search for biosignatures with JWST, aiming to determine whether life exists beyond Earth.
Two habitable-zone exoplanets are confirmed within 11 light-years: Proxima Centauri b (4.24 ly) and GJ 887 d (10.7 ly). Proxima b, the nearest known world, orbits Proxima Centauri every 11.2 days at about 0.049 AU; GJ 887 d, confirmed in 2026 after adding 101 HARPS observations and 12 ESPRESSO measurements and accounting for stellar activity, completes a 50.77‑day orbit at 0.212 AU with a minimum mass near 1.1 Earth masses and about 81% of Earth's insolation. Both lie in their stars’ habitable zones, but neither is known to have an atmosphere, ocean, or life, and neither transits, making atmospheric characterization difficult. Proxima b’s environment may be affected by the star’s flares, and red-dwarf planets may be tidally locked; proximity helps future studies but does not guarantee habitability.
Scientists announced a helium-rich atmosphere around rocky exoplanet LHS 1140b in its star’s habitable zone, renewing discussion of interstellar missions using miniature probes propelled by light sails—laser-driven or solar. Projects like Breakthrough Starshot aim to send tiny sensors at relativistic speeds to nearby star systems to observe them up close and relay data back over decades, but such flyby missions require overcoming major propulsion, data transmission, and deceleration challenges before any practical interstellar voyage is feasible.
Astronomers detected a helium signal escaping from LHS 1140 b duringtransits, providing the first atmospheric confirmation for a rocky planet in a star’s habitable zone and placing it 48 light-years away in Cetus. The finding shows an atmosphere exists, but leaves questions about its composition, pressure and surface conditions. The observation used the Magellan telescope in 2024, with a recheck in 2025 that yielded a non-detection, suggesting the escape can vary with the star’s high-energy output; further repeated helium detections and Webb observations are planned to probe the planet’s gases and potential habitability.