Alien Planets

A newfound exoplanet that lies 90 light-years from Earth may be studded with active volcanoes, whose emissions could sustain an atmosphere.

The latest entry in the Zelda series features floating islands high above the lands of Hyrule. But can we find these features on Earth, or alien planets?

The James Webb Space Telescope has taken a closer look at a mysterious "mini-Neptune" that is like nothing found in the solar system and may have had a watery past.

NASA's TESS spacecraft spotted two super-Earth planets as they crossed the face of their star within its 'habitable zone.'

Astronomers are watching a shadow sweep across the face of a vast disc of planet-birthing gas and dust surrounding the star TW Hydrae.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have spotted water vapor around an exoplanet that could indicate the presence of an atmosphere.

New research suggests that Hycean exoplanets would suffer from a catastrophic runaway greenhouse effect, causing their oceans to boil away.

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, is now in its fifth year scanning the sky for new worlds.

For the first time, the James Webb Space Telescope revealed the chemical composition of dusty planet-birthing disks of material around distant stars.

Astronomers witnessed a young Jupiter-size planet as it carves out spiral-shaped cavities in the disk of planet-birthing gas and dust that surrounds its parent star.

Artificial intelligence experts have been challenged to join astronomers in the hunt for planets outside the solar system as part of the Ariel Data Challenge 2023, launched on April 14.

Dwarf planet Haumea reaches both opposition and perigee on April 20, making this a prime opportunity to see the dwarf planet in the night sky.

Astronomers have directly detected and imaged a gas giant orbiting another star by combining different techniques for hunting exoplanets.

Earth's magnetic field protects life on our blue planet — and astronomers just found evidence of a magnetic field on a rocky exoplanet 12 light-years away.

Things could be heating up for a newly discovered warm Jupiter planet. The exoplanet planet around 1,000 light years away could snuggle up to its star but only if another planet plays matchmaker.

A red dwarf star almost 500 light-years from Earth is surrounded by two rings of dust that might have been separated by the orbit of a Saturn-sized planet.

Astronomers have discovered precursors for life and other complex molecules in a region of star and planet formation close to the solar system, the Perseus Molecular Cloud.

Studying exoplanets similar to Venus could aid the search for habitable worlds by teaching us what not to look for in the universe.

The atmospheres of gas giant planets across the Milky Way galaxy can be very different from those in the solar system, the James Webb Space Telescope has found.

New measurements by the James Webb Space Telescope found that a rocky exoplanet orbiting a star known as TRAPPIST-1 most likely has no atmosphere.