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Latest News About Alien Planets
An alien planet orbits a star other than our sun, and is sometimes called an "exoplanet." Learn more about the types of alien planets, including exoplanets and extrasolar planets, and get the latest news.
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Space can be a pretty rough place, and it just got rougher. A study has found evidence of a "cannibal star" that recently devoured a companion star or planet, possibly spawning a second generation of exoplanets in the process.
The latest discovery of a new planetary system has the potential to teach astronomers about planet migration, and could give researchers a glimpse into the formation history of planetary systems.
The atmosphere of a big, hot alien planet contains almost no methane, surprising astronomers who had thought the stinky gas was a common feature of such worlds.
Most of the big, super-hot alien planets that astronomers have been searching for in old star clusters were likely destroyed long ago, a new study suggests.
Astronomers peering at a gas-giant exoplanet found it has an atmosphere unlike that of any extrasolar planet yet studied.
Just because a planet is more or less Earth-sized doesn't mean it's all that much like Earth. This list of five intriguingly Earth-sized planets makes that point pretty clearly.
A gas giant alien planet discovered around a very young star proves that planets can form very quickly.
Exoplanets with tilted orbits found, could have implications for planetary system evolution and habitability.
To help in the search for extraterrestrial life and habitable exoplanets, researchers have simulated how extremely low levels of light would look to us reflected off of an Earth-like world's soil, oceans, snow or even vegetation.
A Neptune-sized planet orbiting another star has one odd atmosphere – analysis has shown that it lacks methane, a common ingredient for many planets in our solar system and a possible signature of life.
A new method that separates starlight from planet light could help find smaller, closer-orbiting extrasolar planets.
New observations show rocky, dusty material circling two young stars at a distance similar to that between the Earth and sun.
Six exoplanets found to orbit backwards, suggests new mechanism for formation of hot Jupiters.
White dwarf stars show contamination from rocky material suggesting rocky planets common in galaxy.
Recently discovered plant CoRoT-9b has low enough temperatures to have liquid water.
CoRoT mission finds gas giant exoplanet that most closely resembles Jupiter, Saturn.
Methane fluorescence detected in hot Jupiter exoplanet atmosphere with ground-based telescope.
Telescope on Earth able to directly detect spectrum of extrasolar planet.
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