Planets

How do you introduce yourself, scientifically? I generally say that I’m an astronomer. More specifically, I’m an exoplanet astronomer, meaning I study planets that exist around other stars. In our solar system, all the planets orbit the Sun. I’m…

A team of international astronomers have identified the smallest free-floating "rogue" planet observed to date.

by Yaray Ku figures by Aparna Nathan Our understanding of Earth’s Moon formation relies heavily on rock samples obtained during the Apollo missions as long as 50 years ago. As tempting as it is to believe, these samples unequivocally prove that the Moon…

If you travel into deep space and look back at Earth through a sophisticated telescope, you could measure what’s called the vegetation red edge (VRE). The vegetation red edge is a mixture of red and infrared light that is reflected by plants on Earth’s…

by Katherine J. Wu In space, no one would hear you scream. But make a quick detour down to the surface of Venus, and all bets are off. Because even if you scream on another planet with no one else around to hear it, you’ll certainly make a sound –…

The recent discovery of Earth-like planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system has been a major headline for the past few weeks. A team led by Michael Gillon found three planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system in 2016, and recently reported at least 4 more which may…

Planets found by Kepler as of May 10, 2016 that are in their star’s “habitable zone.” Earth, Venus and Mars are included for comparison. (Credit: NASA Ames, Image obtained under Creative Commons License) Recently, the Kepler mission…

The surface of the dwarf planet Pluto, taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015 [Image: ‘First Ever High Resolution View of Pluto’s Surface’ under a CC BY 2.0 license]It sounds like it belongs in a sci-fi B movie from the…