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5 Ways to Find a Planet- Transits

The Kepler mission found 1,284 new planets via the transit method. When a planet passes directly between its star and an observer, it dims the star's light by a measurable amount.

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A possible newfound planet spins through a clearing in a nearby star's dusty, planet-forming disc.
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Out of the Dust, A Planet is Born
Out of the Dust, A Planet is Born
The conception illustration depicts how solar pressure can be used to balance NASA's Kepler spacecraft, keeping the telescope stable enough to continue monitoring distant stars in search of transit...
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Kepler's Second Light: How K2 Will Work
Kepler's Second Light: How K2 Will Work
Exoplanets can be pretty weird places, but do their names have to be so weird, too? Watch and learn how the scientific community determines and categorizes these unique planets.
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Q&Alien- What's in an exoplanet name?
Q&Alien- What's in an exoplanet name?
ESO’s VLT identified our Sun's oldest twin and provides new clues about stars that may host terrestrial rocky planets.
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The life cycle of a Sun-like star (annotated)
The life cycle of a Sun-like star (annotated)
The top graph consists of infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. It tells astronomers that a distant planet, called Upsilon Andromedae b, always has a giant hot spot on the side that fa...
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The Light and Dark Sides of a Distant Planet
The Light and Dark Sides of a Distant Planet
Illustration of Earth's surface as it might have looked 3.8 billion years ago.
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An illustration in a style similar to a National Parks poster shows a rocky shoreline in the foreground, an expanse of water lapping against it and, on the horizon, the cone of a volcano releasing a white cloud of gas against a sky with dusky light.
Ancient Earth surface
Overview of Kepler mission
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Overview of Kepler mission
Overview of Kepler mission
This plot of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope tells astronomers that a toasty gas exoplanet, or a planet beyond our solar system, contains water vapor.
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Exoplanet Forecast: Hot and Wet
Exoplanet Forecast: Hot and Wet
When a planet passes directly between a star and its observer, it dims the star's light by a measurable amount. Light curves get complicated when more planets are transiting a star. The combined li...
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transit method different planet sizes video
Transit Method Different Planet Sizes
If life exists on some of the exoplanets that Kepler finds, it may exist in forms similar to what we see in some of Earth's most extreme conditions.
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Kepler: Diversity of life possible on other planets
Kepler: Diversity of life possible on other planets
Kepler arriving at the Kennedy Space Center.
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Kepler arriving at the Kennedy Space Center
Kepler arriving at the Kennedy Space Center
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered the first transiting circumbinary system -- multiple planets orbiting two suns -- 4,900 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus, proving that more t...
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NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Multiple Planets Orbiting Twin Suns
NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Multiple Planets Orbiting Twin Suns
This artist's concept illustrates how planetary systems arise out of massive collisions between rocky bodies.
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The Rocky World of Young Planetary Systems
The Rocky World of Young Planetary Systems
When we describe different types of exoplanets – planets outside our solar system – what do we mean by "hot Jupiters," "warm Neptunes," and "super-Earths"? 
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When we describe different types of exoplanets – planets outside our solar system – what do we mean by "hot Jupiters," "warm Neptunes," and "super-Earths"?
Video: Exoplanet Types: Worlds Beyond Our Solar System
The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI) instrument set its eyes on a dusty star system called Eta Corvi, depicted here in this artist's concept. Recent collisions between comets and roc...
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LBTI hits the dusty trail of Earth-like planets
LBTI hits the dusty trail of Earth-like planets
The results from Kepler will come from measuring the brightness of the stars. The data will look like an EKG showing the heart beat. Whenever a planet passes in front of its parent star as viewed f...
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Kepler Transit Graph
Kepler Transit Graph
A new NASA-sponsored website, DiskDetective.org, lets the public discover embryonic planetary systems hidden among data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.
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Disk Detective: Search for Planetary Habitats
Disk Detective: Search for Planetary Habitats
This graph of data from NASA's Spitzer Space telescope shows changes in the infrared light output of two star-planet systems (one above, one below) located hundreds of light-years away.
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The Language of Planetary Light
The Language of Planetary Light
This artist's conception shows a young, hypothetical planet around a cool star. A soupy mix of potentially life-forming chemicals can be seen pooling around the base of the jagged rocks.
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Chemical Soups Around Cool Stars
Chemical Soups Around Cool Stars
HD 80606b is a gas giant planet in an eccentric orbit around its star. Every 111 days, the planet passes within 2.8 million miles of the star's surface. Animated without dissolves.
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Spitzer Exoplanet Observation of HD 80606b
Spitzer Exoplanet Observation of HD 80606b
Transit data are rich with information. By measuring the depth of the dip in brightness and knowing the size of the star, scientists can determine the size or radius of the planet. The orbital peri...
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Light Curve of a Planet Transiting Its Star
Light Curve of a Planet Transiting Its Star
A detailed explanation into the workings of the coronagraph and how it can help directly image exoplanets.
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How will coronagraphs be used to directly image exoplanets and search for life.
The Search for Alien Earths - How Coronagraphs Find Hidden Planets
Astronomers detect lowest-mass planet around a star like the sun found using direct imaging techniques.
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Image of gas giant GJ 504b
Image of gas giant GJ 504b
This plot shows the masses and sizes of the smallest exoplanets for which both quantities have been measured. The solar system planets (shown in red) are for comparison.
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Mars-size Kepler-138b Gets a Mass
Mars-size Kepler-138b Gets a Mass
The telescope studied comets and asteroids, counted stars, scrutinized planets and galaxies, and discovered soccer-ball-shaped carbon spheres in space called buckyballs.
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Spitzer Space Telescope
Spitzer Space Telescope

Explore Alien Worlds

Exoplanet Travel Bureau

This set of travel posters envision a day when the creativity of scientists and engineers will allow us to do things we can only dream of now.
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Strange New Worlds

Explore an interactive gallery of some of the most intriguing and exotic planets discovered so far.
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A planetary tour through time. The ancients debated the existence of planets beyond our own; now we know of thousands.

Historic Timeline

A planetary tour through time. The ancients debated the existence of planets beyond our own; now we know of thousands.
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