This artist's concept shows a Super Venus planet on the left, and a Super Earth on the right. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ames
There is only one planet we know of, so far, that is drenched with life. That
planet is Earth, as you may have guessed, and it has all the right conditions
for critters to thrive on its surface. Do other planets beyond our solar system,
called exoplanets, also host life forms?
Astronomers still don't know the answer, but they search for potentially habitable planets using a handful of criteria. Ideally, they want to find planets just like Earth, since we know without a doubt that life took root here. The hunt is on for planets about the size of Earth that orbit at just the right distance from their star – in a region termed the habitable zone.
NASA's Kepler mission is helping scientists in the quest to find these worlds, sometimes called Goldilocks planets after the fairy tale because they orbit where conditions are "just right" for life. Kepler and other telescopes have confirmed a handful so far, all of which are a bit larger than Earth -- the Super Earths. The search for Earth's twin, a habitable-zone planet as small as Earth, is ongoing.
An important part of this research is the continuing investigation into exactly where a star's habitable zone starts and stops.
The habitable zone is the belt around a star where temperatures are ideal for liquid water -- an essential ingredient for life as we know it -- to pool on a planet's surface. Earth lies within the habitable zone of our star, the sun. Beyond this zone, a planet would probably be too cold and frozen for life (though it's possible life could be buried underneath a moon's surface). A planet lying between a star and the habitable zone would likely be too hot and steamy.
That perfect Goldilocks planet within the zone wouldn't necessarily be home to any furry creatures. But it would have the potential for some type of life to abound, if even microbes.
In one new study, researchers based at NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, Calif., carefully analyzed the location of both a planet called Kepler-69c and its habitable zone. Their analysis shows that this planet, which is 1.7 times the size of Earth, lies just outside the inner edge of the zone, making it more of a Super Venus than a Super Earth, as previous estimates indicated.
"On the way to finding Earths, Kepler is telling us a lot about the frequency of Venus-like planets in our galaxy," said Stephen Kane, lead author of the new paper on Kepler-69c appearing in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
To determine the location of a star’s habitable zone, one must first learn how much total radiation it emits. Stars more massive than our sun are hotter, and blaze with radiation, so their habitable zones are farther out. Similarly, stars that are smaller and cooler sport tighter belts of habitability than our sun. For example, the Super Earth planet called Kepler-62f, discovered by Kepler to orbit in the middle of a habitable zone around a cool star, orbits closer to its star than Earth. The planet takes just 267 days to complete an orbit, as compared to 365 days for Earth.
Knowing precisely how far away a habitable zone needs to be from a star also depends on chemistry. For example, molecules in a planet's atmosphere will absorb a certain amount of energy from starlight and radiate the rest back out. How much of this energy is trapped can mean the difference between a turquoise sea and erupting volcanoes.
Researchers led by Ravi kumar Kopparapu of Penn State University, University Park, Pa., used this type of chemical information to nudge the habitable zone out a bit farther than previously thought. The team's 2013 Astrophysical Journal study is the current gold standard in determining how a star's total radiation output relates to the location of its habitable zone. Kane and his colleagues used this information to fine-tune the boundaries of Kepler-69c's habitable zone, in addition to careful measurements of the star's total energy output and the orbit of the planet.
"Understanding the properties of the star is critical to determining planetary properties and calculating the extent of the habitable zone in that system," said Kane.
But before you purchase real estate in a habitable zone, keep in mind there are other factors that dictate whether a world develops lush greenery and beaches. Eruptions from the surfaces of stars called flares, for example, can wreak havoc on planets.
"There are a lot of unanswered questions about habitability," said Lucianne Walkowicz, a Kepler science team member based at Princeton University, N.J., who studies flaring stars. "If the planet gets zapped with radiation all the time by flares from its parent star, the surface might not be a very pleasant place to live. But on the other hand, if there's liquid water around, that makes a really good shield from high-energy radiation, so maybe life could thrive in the oceans."
Flares can also scrape off the atmospheres of planets, complicating the picture further. This is particularly true for the smaller, cooler stars, which tend to be more hyperactive than stars like our sun.
Ideally, astronomers would like to know more about the atmosphere of potentially habitable planets. That way they could look at the planet's molecular makeup for signs of runaway greenhouse gases that could indicate an inhospitable Venus-like planet. Or, future space telescopes might even be able to pick up signatures of oxygen, water, carbon dioxide and methane -- indicators that the planet might be somebody's home.
NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will bring us closer to this goal, by probing the atmospheres of planets, some of which may lie in habitable zones. The mission won't be able to examine the atmospheres of planets as small as Earth, so we'll have to wait for another future telescope to separate out the Venuses from the Earths.
NASA Ames manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with JPL at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes the Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.
More information about the Kepler mission is at http://www.nasa.gov/kepler .
More information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program is at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .
Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
Michele Johnson 650-604-4789
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
michele.johnson@nasa.gov
Astronomers still don't know the answer, but they search for potentially habitable planets using a handful of criteria. Ideally, they want to find planets just like Earth, since we know without a doubt that life took root here. The hunt is on for planets about the size of Earth that orbit at just the right distance from their star – in a region termed the habitable zone.
NASA's Kepler mission is helping scientists in the quest to find these worlds, sometimes called Goldilocks planets after the fairy tale because they orbit where conditions are "just right" for life. Kepler and other telescopes have confirmed a handful so far, all of which are a bit larger than Earth -- the Super Earths. The search for Earth's twin, a habitable-zone planet as small as Earth, is ongoing.
An important part of this research is the continuing investigation into exactly where a star's habitable zone starts and stops.
The habitable zone is the belt around a star where temperatures are ideal for liquid water -- an essential ingredient for life as we know it -- to pool on a planet's surface. Earth lies within the habitable zone of our star, the sun. Beyond this zone, a planet would probably be too cold and frozen for life (though it's possible life could be buried underneath a moon's surface). A planet lying between a star and the habitable zone would likely be too hot and steamy.
That perfect Goldilocks planet within the zone wouldn't necessarily be home to any furry creatures. But it would have the potential for some type of life to abound, if even microbes.
In one new study, researchers based at NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, Calif., carefully analyzed the location of both a planet called Kepler-69c and its habitable zone. Their analysis shows that this planet, which is 1.7 times the size of Earth, lies just outside the inner edge of the zone, making it more of a Super Venus than a Super Earth, as previous estimates indicated.
"On the way to finding Earths, Kepler is telling us a lot about the frequency of Venus-like planets in our galaxy," said Stephen Kane, lead author of the new paper on Kepler-69c appearing in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
To determine the location of a star’s habitable zone, one must first learn how much total radiation it emits. Stars more massive than our sun are hotter, and blaze with radiation, so their habitable zones are farther out. Similarly, stars that are smaller and cooler sport tighter belts of habitability than our sun. For example, the Super Earth planet called Kepler-62f, discovered by Kepler to orbit in the middle of a habitable zone around a cool star, orbits closer to its star than Earth. The planet takes just 267 days to complete an orbit, as compared to 365 days for Earth.
Knowing precisely how far away a habitable zone needs to be from a star also depends on chemistry. For example, molecules in a planet's atmosphere will absorb a certain amount of energy from starlight and radiate the rest back out. How much of this energy is trapped can mean the difference between a turquoise sea and erupting volcanoes.
Researchers led by Ravi kumar Kopparapu of Penn State University, University Park, Pa., used this type of chemical information to nudge the habitable zone out a bit farther than previously thought. The team's 2013 Astrophysical Journal study is the current gold standard in determining how a star's total radiation output relates to the location of its habitable zone. Kane and his colleagues used this information to fine-tune the boundaries of Kepler-69c's habitable zone, in addition to careful measurements of the star's total energy output and the orbit of the planet.
"Understanding the properties of the star is critical to determining planetary properties and calculating the extent of the habitable zone in that system," said Kane.
But before you purchase real estate in a habitable zone, keep in mind there are other factors that dictate whether a world develops lush greenery and beaches. Eruptions from the surfaces of stars called flares, for example, can wreak havoc on planets.
"There are a lot of unanswered questions about habitability," said Lucianne Walkowicz, a Kepler science team member based at Princeton University, N.J., who studies flaring stars. "If the planet gets zapped with radiation all the time by flares from its parent star, the surface might not be a very pleasant place to live. But on the other hand, if there's liquid water around, that makes a really good shield from high-energy radiation, so maybe life could thrive in the oceans."
Flares can also scrape off the atmospheres of planets, complicating the picture further. This is particularly true for the smaller, cooler stars, which tend to be more hyperactive than stars like our sun.
Ideally, astronomers would like to know more about the atmosphere of potentially habitable planets. That way they could look at the planet's molecular makeup for signs of runaway greenhouse gases that could indicate an inhospitable Venus-like planet. Or, future space telescopes might even be able to pick up signatures of oxygen, water, carbon dioxide and methane -- indicators that the planet might be somebody's home.
NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will bring us closer to this goal, by probing the atmospheres of planets, some of which may lie in habitable zones. The mission won't be able to examine the atmospheres of planets as small as Earth, so we'll have to wait for another future telescope to separate out the Venuses from the Earths.
NASA Ames manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with JPL at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes the Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.
More information about the Kepler mission is at http://www.nasa.gov/kepler .
More information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program is at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .
Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
Michele Johnson 650-604-4789
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
michele.johnson@nasa.gov
NASA
Latest News
July 18, 2013In the Zone: How Scientists Search for Habitable Planets
Do other planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, also host life forms?› read more
July 15, 2013Rings and a reality check
New research shows that debris disk rings may form around stars without planets being involved.› read more
July 11, 2013Blue and bizarre
Hubble finds a deep-blue exoplanet that may feature pummeling showers of glass rain moving at 4,500 mph. Care to visit?› read more
July 02, 2013Cloud cover
New exoplanet cloud-modeling studies suggest many more habitable exoplanets than previously predicted.› read more
June 26, 2013Transits in traffic
A group of astronomers including NASA's David Ciardi have discovered the first transiting planets in a star cluster.› read more
June 06, 2013Stars Don't Obliterate Their Planets (Very Often)
Researchers using data from NASA's Kepler space telescope have shown that migrating planets stop their inward journey before reaching their stars.› read more
June 03, 2013Lightest exoplanet imaged so far?
A team of astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope has imaged a faint object moving near a bright star.› read more
May 13, 2013Grazing in the gap
Stefan Kraus and his team have discovered evidence of a planet forming in a star's dust disk, shedding new light on planet formation.› read more
May 09, 20131640 strikes again
The Project 1640 team has captured some spectacular spectra from a four-exoplanet system.› read more
May 06, 2013Planets in a petri dish
Our galaxy is teeming with a wild variety of planets. In addition to our solar system's eight near-and-dear planets, there are more than 800 so-called exoplanets known to circle stars beyond our sun. One of the first "species" of exoplanets to be discovered is the hot Jupiters, also known as roasters.› read more
April 18, 2013In the zone
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the "habitable zone," the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water.› read more
April 09, 2013Talkin' bout TESS
NASA's latest exoplanet mission is called TESS and is scheduled to launch in 2017.› read more
April 04, 2013Yummy!
Astronomers watch as a rogue exoplanet is devoured by a black hole.› read more
March 19, 2013Visions of vapor
Astronomers using Keck observatory have taken some of the most in-depth measurements of an exoplanet atmosphere yet.› read more
March 15, 2013Cool confluence
Kepler, the moon, a comet, and Jupiter wrangle with the horns of Taurus.› read more
March 07, 2013Small stars are a big deal
...and could be the best chance for finding life on an exoplanet› read more
February 28, 2013Interstellar ultrasound
Astronomers with ESO's Very Large Telescope may be the first to directly observe an exoplanet in the midst of its formation.› read more
February 13, 2013Moonstruck
As one of the first astronomers to seriously hunt for moons that orbit exoplanets, or planets that orbit stars beyond our sun, David Kipping has taken on an unusually challenging task.› read more
February 06, 2013Bet on red
Kepler finds that nearby red dwarf stars may have Earth-size exoplanets.› read more
February 01, 2013Retro-active
Astronomers with the Subaru telescope in Hawaii have unraveled the mystery of a backwards-orbiting planet.› read more
January 09, 2013Blankets of brown
Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes have probed the stormy atmosphere of a brown dwarf, creating the most detailed "weather map" yet for this class of cool, star-like orbs. The forecast shows wind-driven, planet-sized clouds enshrouding these strange worlds.› read more
January 08, 2013Amateur achievements
Planet Hunters participants find a gas giant and 42 confirmed planets in Kepler data.› read more
January 07, 2013A little help from its friends
Kepler's groundbreaking mission has been supported with an array of ground and space-based follow-up projects.› read more
January 07, 2013Kepler continues to get its kicks
NASA's Kepler mission Monday announced the discovery of 461 new planet candidates. Four of the potential new planets are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit in their sun's "habitable zone," the region in the planetary system where liquid water might exist on the surface of a planet.› read more
January 04, 2013Cosmic conversation
NExScI Executive Director Charles Beichman talks about exoplanets with KPCC's David Lazarus.› read more
January 03, 2013Planets aplenty
New study confirms the galaxy is chock-full of other worlds.› read more
November 19, 2012Shootin' a Sup-Jup
Astronomers using infrared data from the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii have discovered a "super-Jupiter" around the bright star Kappa Andromedae, which now holds the record for the most massive star known to host a directly imaged planet or lightweight brown dwarf companion.› read more
November 15, 2012Float on
Astronomers have snapped a picture of what is very likely to be a free-floating orphan exoplanet.› read more
November 01, 2012Seed belts
New study finds that asteroid belts of the right size and density may be key to creating habitable exoplanets.› read more
October 26, 2012Q & A with a "genius"
PlanetQuest talks with Olivier Guyon about what it feels like to get the "genius" phone call and what he plans to do with the award.› read more
October 16, 2012A new neighbor
Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting the star closest to our own.› read more
October 15, 2012Fours to be reckoned with
The discovery of planets continues to expand beyond the domain of professional astronomers. A joint effort of amateur astronomers and scientists has led to the first reported case of a planet orbiting a double star that, in turn, is orbited by a second distant pair of stars.› read more
October 11, 2012Guyon the genius
JPL scientist Olivier Guyon has been named one of the 2012 MacArthur Fellows, a prestigious award popularly known as the “genius grant.”› read more
September 28, 2012Electric evidence
Scientists theorize that radiation-pummeled pulsar planets may be bathed in an "electromagnetic wake".› read more.jpeg?1348861374)
September 28, 2012Massive, but missing magnetism?
A new study finds that "super-Earths" may lack a magnetic field, which could make them difficult places for life to survive.› read more
September 14, 2012A buzz-worthy find
NASA-funded astronomers have, for the first time, spotted planets orbiting sun-like stars in a crowded cluster of stars. The findings offer the best evidence yet that planets can sprout up in dense stellar environments.› read more
September 11, 2012Extreme life on eccentric exos?
While the hunt continues for the elusive Earth-like 'blue dot,' astronomers have discovered a collection of odd exoplanets.› read more
September 06, 2012Earth-hunting, guerilla style
Exoplanet hunter John Johnson is spearheading a grassroots effort to build a lean, mean, Earth-hunting telescope in the hills of Southern California.› read more
August 28, 2012Binary buddies
Kepler has found the first multiple-planet solar system orbiting a pair of stars, revealing a brand new kind of solar system.› read more
August 27, 2012A ravenous red giant
Astronomers have discovered evidence of a planet that's been consumed by its "red giant" star. This event could mirror the fate of planets like Earth when our sun expands into its red giant phase.› read more
August 08, 2012Where are the giants?
A group of astronomers including John Johnson of Caltech has found that data from Kepler may show that Jupiter-size planets might not be as easy to come by as smaller, rocky worlds like Earth.› read more
June 21, 2012Odd couple
Astronomers have discovered a pair of neighboring planets with dissimilar densities orbiting very close to each other.› read more
May 08, 2012Alien light forms
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a "super-Earth" planet beyond our solar system for the first time.› read more
April 04, 2012Exo-extension
NASA's Kepler mission has been approved for extension through fiscal year 2016 based on a recommendation from the Agency’s Senior Review of its operating missions.› read more
March 29, 2012Bounty of red dwarf worlds
A new result from ESO’s HARPS planet finder shows that rocky planets not much bigger than Earth are very common in the habitable zones around faint red stars. The international team estimates that there are tens of billions of such planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone, and probably about one hundred in the Sun’s immediate neighbourhood.› read more
February 21, 2012NASA's Hubble reveals a new class of extrasolar planet
Observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have come up with a new class of planet, a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. It's smaller than Uranus but larger than Earth.› read more
February 02, 2012Huge, but habitable?
A newly-discovered super-Earth in a triple-star system could potentially be an Earth-like planet.› read more
January 11, 2012Tiny trio
Astronomers using data from NASA's Kepler mission have discovered the three smallest planets yet detected orbiting a star beyond our sun.› read more
January 11, 2012Plenty of planets
Our Milky Way galaxy contains, on average, a minimum of one planet for every star, according to a new statistical study.› read more
January 01, 2012Kepler's big year
2011 showed NASA's Kepler mission finding its stride. 2012 could be even bigger.› read more
December 20, 2011Sisters in size
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system.› read more
December 05, 2011Kepler's in the zone
NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region around a star where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count.› read more
October 20, 2011Damp disk
Using data from the Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have detected for the first time cold water vapor enveloping a dusty disk around a young star.› read more
October 19, 2011Cosmic cradle captured
Keck astronomers have captured the first direct image of a planet forming around its host star.› read more.jpg?1321250426)
July 14, 2011Ten in transit
An international team, including Oxford University scientists, has discovered ten new planets. Amongst them is one orbiting a star perhaps only a few tens of million years old, twin Neptune-sized planets, and a rare Saturn-like world.› read more
May 27, 2011Students Build Planet-Hunting Miniature Satellite
Exoplanet CubeSat set to hitch a ride into space in 2012.› read more
May 18, 2011Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars
So-called 'rogue planets' could litter the galaxy.› read more
May 10, 2011Astronomers unveil portrait of 'super-exotic super-Earth:' Densest known rocky planet
An international team of astronomers today revealed details of a 'super-exotic' exoplanet that would make the planet Pandora in the movie Avatar pale in comparison.› read more
April 07, 2011NASA Telescope Ferrets Out Planet-Hunting Targets
Astronomers have come up with a new way of identifying close, faint stars with NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite. The technique should help in the hunt for planets that lie beyond our solar system, because nearby, hard-to-see stars could very well be home to the easiest-to-see alien planets.› read more
March 29, 2011NASA Announces 2011 Carl Sagan Fellows
NASA has selected five potential discoverers as the recipients of the 2011 Carl Sagan Postdoctoral Fellowships, named after the late astronomer. The Carl Sagan Fellowship takes a theme-based approach, in which fellows will focus on compelling scientific questions, such as "Are there Earth-like planets orbiting other stars?"› read more
March 28, 2011Winter thaws out with hot exoplanet news
Kepler's big annoucement of over 1,000 exoplanet candidates in early February continues to reverberate in the astronomy world. Here are some other news stories that are heating things up in the realm of exoplanets.› read more
March 07, 2011Kepler changes the planetary scorecard
Kepler's latest data release included the discovery of an exotic six-planet solar system and five Earth-size worlds, but the bigger story may be in the hundreds of new "candidate planets" that were announced.› read more
February 17, 2011Direct Images of Disks Unravel Mystery of Planet Formation
The fruits of the SEEDS (Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru) Project, led by Motohide Tamura at NAOJ (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), are accumulating.› read more
February 02, 2011NASA's Kepler Spacecraft Discovers Extraordinary New Planetary System
Scientists using NASA's Kepler, a space telescope, recently discovered six planets made of a mix of rock and gases orbiting a single sun-like star, known as Kepler-11, which is located approximately 2,000 light years from Earth.› read more
February 02, 2011NASA Finds Earth-size Planet Candidates in the Habitable Zone
Is our Milky Way galaxy home to other planets the size of Earth? Are Earth-sized planets common or rare? NASA scientists seeking answers to those questions recently revealed their discovery.› read more
January 12, 2011NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Its First Rocky Planet
NASA's Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet, named Kepler-10b. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our solar system.› read more
January 12, 2011Inclined Orbits Prevail in Exoplanetary Systems
A research team led by astronomers from the University of Tokyo and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) has discovered that inclined orbits may be typical rather than rare for exoplanetary systems -- those outside of our solar system.› read more
January 02, 2011Planet count tops 500
A big year for exoplanet exploration came to a fitting end in December when astronomers announced new exoplanet discoveries that brought the total number of known worlds outside our solar system to over 500.› read more
December 08, 2010NASA's Spitzer Reveals First Carbon-Rich Planet
Astronomers have discovered that a huge, searing-hot planet orbiting another star is loaded with an unusual amount of carbon. The planet, a gas giant named WASP-12b, is the first carbon-rich world ever observed. The discovery was made using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, along with previously published ground-based observations.› read more
December 06, 2010Double vision: New instrument casts its eyes to the sky
The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer has taken its first images of the star Beta Peg in the constellation Pegasus -- an encouraging start for an instrument designed to probe the cosmic neighborhoods where Earth-like planets could exist.› read more
December 01, 2010NASA Aids in Characterizing Super-Earth Atmosphere
A team of astronomers, including two NASA Sagan Fellows, has made the first characterizations of a super-Earth's atmosphere, by using a ground-based telescope.› read more
November 18, 2010An exoplanet from another galaxy
Over the last 15 years, astronomers have detected nearly 500 exoplanets orbiting ordinary stars in our cosmic neighborhood. Now, for the first time, astronomers have detected an exoplanet whose origin appears to lie outside our own galaxy.› read more
November 02, 2010Using Planet Colors to Search for Alien Earths
Earth is invitingly blue. Mars is angry red. Venus is brilliant white. Astronomers have learned that a planet's "true colors" can reveal important details.› read more
October 29, 2010Cosmic neighborhoods to avoid
With new evidence suggesting that the galaxy could be full of habitable planets like ours, the universe may be a more friendly place than anyone might have imagined. However, not every planet is lucky enough to have the right conditions for life. Here are some examples of how things can go very wrong.› read more
October 28, 2010NASA Survey Suggests Earth-Sized Planets are Common
Nearly one in four stars similar to the sun may host planets as small as Earth, according to a new study funded by NASA and the University of California.› read more
October 25, 2010Details of 'Earthlike' world will have to wait
Just how similar to Earth is the newly discovered planet orbiting the star Gliese 581? Until astronomers can take a closer look with a space-based exoplanet mission, that answer is likely to remain a mystery, NASA experts said.› read more
October 19, 2010Astronomers Find Weird, Warm Spot on an Exoplanet
Observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveal a distant planet with a warm spot in the wrong place.› read more
December 04, 2008Planet Hunters: Angling for extraterrestrials and Earthlike worlds
As an avid fly fisherman and geocaching enthusiast, Robert Peters is a natural hunter, which makes him the perfect person to work on technology to help find Earthlike planets.› read more
October 03, 2008Planet Hunters: On a quest for astronomy's holy grail
It's fitting that Sara Seager is fascinated by stories of explorers visiting uncharted places. From her groundbreaking work on the detection of exoplanet atmospheres to her innovative theories about life on other worlds, Seager has been a pioneer in the vast and unknown world of exoplanet› read more
April 17, 2008Planet Hunters: Photographer to the stars
Webster Cash's passion for space began when he saw his first planetarium show as a child. Now, as the principal investigator for one of NASA's future exoplanet mission proposals, Cash is on the cutting edge of ideas that could help change our perception of the universe.› read more
December 17, 2007Planet Hunters: For Rachel Akeson, science is in the genes
You could say that science runs in Rachel Akeson's family. The daughter of two scientists, she knew she was going to be an astronomer by the time she was a third-grader. Now, in addition to having her hands full with her own young children, Akeson is studying young stars as they develop their own planetary families.› read more
July 18, 2007Planet Hunters: Putting together the big picture in planet-finding
"I just do it for the pictures," laughs Dr. David Imel as he points to the myriad posters of stars and galaxies hanging from the walls in his office at Caltech. But the picture Imel wants to see most doesn't exist yet - a pale blue dot orbiting a distant star. Another Earth.› read more
February 05, 2007Planet Hunters: Finding beauty in the universe
Beth A. Biller overcame her fear of math to pursue her career as a serious astronomer. Her research has helped produce some of the sharpest images of extrasolar worlds ever obtained.› read more
October 11, 2006Planet Hunters: A conversation with Navigator Chief Scientist Wes Traub
Where are the other Earths? Answering that question is just the first step in NASA's long-range quest to look for life around stars beyond our solar system, according to Dr. Wes Traub. And to answer it, he says, we have to go into space.› read more
December 16, 2005Planet Hunters: Burning the midnight oil at 13,600 feet
Robert Ligon is an engineer, not an astronaut. Nonetheless, his work takes place on an otherworldly landscape miles above the Earth, where the air is thin and clear. He is part of a team that is pushing the technology envelope to aid in NASA's search for new worlds.› read more
January 19, 2005Planet Hunters: Former athlete flexes new muscles for planet search
JPL physicist Ken Brown aims high. Twice named All-American in track and field, he placed 12th in the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trails qualifier in high jump. Now, he has his sights set on even loftier goals - building an instrument to spot hard-to-see planets outside our solar system and inspiring students to join in the quest.› read more
September 22, 2004Planet Hunters: A conversation with 'Origins' host Neil Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of the world's most popular lecturers on astronomy, talks about the PBS "Origins" series, public perceptions of science, and the childhood influences that led him to become a scientist and an ambassador to the cosmos.› read more
April 07, 2003Planet Hunters: Geoff Marcy predicts discovey of another 'Earth' within decade
Astronomers have been discovering large planets around other stars by the dozen in recent years, but are there really any other places that look like Earth out there? In a recent interview, planet-hunter extraordinaire Geoff Marcy said the answer may be closer than you think.› read more
April 01, 2002Planet Hunters: A conversation with David Charbonneau
The detection of small, Earth-like worlds outside our solar system may be closer than you think, according to Caltech's David Charbonneau.› read more
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07/02/2013 08:00 PM EDT
Exploratory recovery commanding of Kepler’s reaction wheels will commence mid-to-late July.
06/26/2013 08:00 PM EDT
Astronomers have found two planets smaller than three times the size of Earth orbiting sun-like stars in a crowded stellar cluster approximately 3,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.
06/06/2013 08:00 PM EDT
The Kepler spacecraft remains in its Point Rest State (PRS) and is operating well in this mode.
05/14/2013 08:00 PM EDT
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