Astronomers detect distant Jupiter-sized planet eclipsing its host starSeptember 29th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Taking the help of a telescope in Florida, astronomers have pinned down the extravagantly unusual orbit of HD 80606b, a Jupiter-sized planet nearly 200 light years away, which eclipsed its host star. The astronomers made observations of the planet eclipsing its star from a 41-year-old telescope at the department's Rosemary Hill Observatory 30 miles west of Gainesville in Bronson.
NASA's Spitzer spots clump of planet-forming material around young starSeptember 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has witnessed a clump of planet-forming material around a young star. Planets form out of swirling disks of gas and dust.
Astronomers find first rocky planet outside solar systemSeptember 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A group of European astronomers said Wednesday that they had found the first known rocky planet outside the solar system. The find by European Southern Observatory scientists in Garching, Germany, is an important step forward in answering the question of whether humans are alone in the universe, because it is the first of the more than 300 known exoplanets - as planets outside the solar system are known - that is not large and gaseous.
A cosmic but too hot place to stand: Astronomers find first rocky planet outside solar systemSeptember 16th, 2009 Found: Firm place to stand outside solar systemWASHINGTON — Astronomers have finally found a place outside our solar system where there's a firm place to stand — if only it weren't so broiling hot. As scientists search the skies for life elsewhere, they have found more than 300 planets outside our solar system.
"Mars spectacular" event on August 27 a hoax, say astronomersAugust 27th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Astronomers have confirmed that an email promising a "Mars spectacular" event on August 27, when the Red Planet will look as large as the full moon, is nothing but a hoax. According to a report in National Geographic News, the anonymous message from an unknown part of the globe says that the red planet "will look as large as the full moon" in the night sky, and that "no one alive today will ever see this again."
The claim has been bombarding people's inboxes worldwide every summer for five years.
First planet that orbits "backward" around its star found by scientistsAugust 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have found the first planet that orbits "backward" around its star, an eccentricity likely caused by a collision with a larger neighbor early in its life. According to a report in National Geographic News, the planet, dubbed WASP-17b, orbits a star about a thousand light-years away.
Newly discovered planet victim of game of 'planetary billiards'August 13th, 2009 LONDON - A team of scientists has found a new planet which appears to have been the victim of a game of planetary billiards, flung into its unusual orbit by a close encounter with a "big brother" planet. The planet, named WASP-17, and orbiting a star 1000 light years away, was found by the UK's WASP project in collaboration with Geneva Observatory.
NASA's Kepler space telescope detects atmosphere of known giant gas planetAugust 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - NASA's new exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope has detected the atmosphere of a known giant gas planet. The find is based on a relatively short 10 days of test data collected before the official start of science operations.
'Super Earth' has rocky surface, say astronomersAugust 7th, 2009 SYDNEY - European astronomers have said that the smallest planet yet detected outside our Solar System, dubbed 'Super Earth', appears to have a solid surface. According to a report by ABC News, the European team describe the exoplanet CoRoT-7b, a so-called Super-Earth, which has a diameter approximately twice that of Earth.
Galileo may have discovered Neptune 234 years before its official discoveryJuly 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new theory by a University of Melbourne physicist has said that Galileo knew he had discovered a new planet, that we now know as Neptune, in the year 1613, 234 years before its official discovery date. Professor David Jamieson, Head of the School of Physics, has put the theory forward.
First planet spotted outside the Milky Way may lie in Andromeda galaxyJune 15th, 2009 LONDON - A team of astronomers has claimed to have seen hints of the first planet to be spotted outside the Milky Way galaxy, in the Andromeda galaxy. According to a report by BBC News, the team, which has made the finding, is made up of researchers from the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Italy and collaborators in Switzerland, Spain, and Russia.
Broken dwarf planet may have scarred the Moon in early solar systemJune 11th, 2009 London, June 11 (ANI: A new analysis of craters of the Moon has suggested that the shattered remnants of a dwarf planet may have bombarded the inner planets in the early solar system. According to a report in New Scientist, several large impact scars on the moon appear to be around 3.9 billion years old, suggesting that the Earth and other objects of the inner solar system were heavily pounded at that time.
Astronomers discover Jupiter-like planet orbiting one of the smallest stars knownMay 29th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A long-proposed tool for hunting planets has finally discovered a Jupiter-like planet orbiting one of the smallest stars known. The technique, called astrometry, was first attempted 50 years ago to search for planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets.
Extrasolar planets disappear after parent stars pluck themApril 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Billions of planets are orbiting stars outside our solar system, but many have disappeared after being plucked by the gravitational pull of their stars, according to a study. Computer models over the last year or so have only predicted that gravitational forces might pull a planet into its parent star and this is such planet destruction has already occurred, said Washington University (WU) astronomer Rory Barnes.
Missing planets proof of destructive power of stars' tidesApril 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Astronomers have come across first time evidence of the destructive power of stars' tides, in the form of missing planets outside our solar system. According to University of Washington astronomer Rory Barnes, the idea that gravitational forces might pull a planet into its parent star has been predicted by computer models only in the last year or so, and this is the first evidence that such planet destruction has already occurred.
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