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Coronagraph explanation 2 minutes

An animation explaining how the hybrid Lyot coronagraph works. Watch the longer version here.

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When a planet crosses directly between us and its star, we see the star dim slightly because the planet is blocking out a portion of the light. We can make a plot called a light curve with the brig...
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Visualization of how the light from a star dims a bit when a planet crosses in front of it.
Transit Light Curve
Kepler-10b as a scorched world, orbiting at a distance that’s more than 20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our own Sun.
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What Is Planet Kepler-10b Like?
What Is Planet Kepler-10b Like?
Large gas-giant planets like Jupiter may be more rare in the galaxy than small, rocky worlds like Earth.
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Where are the Giants?
Where are the Giants?
How do coronagraphs find exoplanets? Find out in this animation narrated by Dr. Nick Siegler, Technology Manager of the NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program.
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The Search for Alien Earths - How Coronagraphs Find Hidden Planets
The Search for Alien Earths - How Coronagraphs Find Hidden Planets
This plot shows data obtained from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment, or OGLE, telescope located in Chile, during a "microlensing" event. Microlensing ...
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Time Delay in Microlensing Event
Time Delay in Microlensing Event
Animation of the Kepler spacecraft ejecting its dust cover.
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Kepler: Ejection of the Dust Cover
Kepler: Ejection of the Dust Cover
If astronomers could somehow pull planets out of the sky and analyze them in the laboratory, it might look something like this artistically altered image illustrating new research from NASA's Spitz...
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An Astronomer's Fantasy: Planets in the Lab
An Astronomer's Fantasy: Planets in the Lab
This 360-degree animation and sonification tracks humanity's discovery of the planets beyond our solar system over time.
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360 infographic video (youtube) showing discoveries over time
5,000 Exoplanets: Listen to the Sounds of Discovery (360 Video)
This infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope tells astronomers that a distant gas planet, a so-called "hot Jupiter" called HD 189733b, might be smothered with high clouds. It is one of th...
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Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: An Exoplanet Atmosphere
Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: An Exoplanet Atmosphere
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
This slide illustrates how scientists use Spectroscopy to determine what substances are present in the atmosphere of a celestial body.
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how scientists use spectroscopy to lean about planets
Spectroscopy - Detection of Biosignatures
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 with dissolves between frames.
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Spitzer Exoplanet Observation of HD 80606b
Spitzer Exoplanet Observation of HD 80606b
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
A night test of a small-scale starshade model shows how the starshade could block bright light from telescopes.
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A demonstration of the starshade blocking starlight.
Starshade desert testing
Astronomers have discovered one of the most distant planets known, a gas giant about 13,000 light-years from Earth, called OGLE-2014-BLG-0124L. The planet was discovered using a technique called mi...
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Map of Exoplanets Found in our Galaxy (Artist's Concept)
Map of Exoplanets Found in our Galaxy (Artist's Concept)
The flower you see in this picture isn’t NASA’s attempt to celebrate the coming of spring. It’s actually the latest design in a cutting-edge effort to take pictures of planets orbiting stars far fr...
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Flower power: NASA starshade petal prototype
Flower power: NASA starshade petal prototype
Depiction of a world completely covered with ocean.
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Water World
Water World
A team of researchers has devised a way to measure the internal properties of stars—a method that offers more accurate assessments of their orbiting planets.
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Verified by vibration
Verified by vibration
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
Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), the most versatile spectrograph ever to fly on Hubble, ceased operations in August 2004 due to the failure of its power supply. The STIS instrument's ac...
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STIS Repair: The Quest for Renewed Exploration
STIS Repair: The Quest for Renewed Exploration
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
This artist's animation shows a celestial body about the size of our moon slamming at great speed into a body the size of Mercury.
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Planetary Demolition Derby
Planetary Demolition Derby
This artist's concept shows what the weather might look like on cool star-like bodies known as brown dwarfs. These giant balls of gas start life like stars, but lack the mass to sustain nuclear fus...
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Storms on Brown Dwarfs
Storms on Brown Dwarfs
For the first time since exoplanets, or planets around stars other than the sun, were discovered almost 20 years ago, X-ray observations have detected an exoplanet passing in front of its parent st...
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Exo-eclipse in x-ray vision - illustration only
Exo-eclipse in x-ray vision - illustration only
Volunteers using DiskDetective, a NASA-sponsored citizen science website to find potential planetary nurseries, have made 1 million classifications in less than a year. Goddard astrophysicist Marc ...
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'Disk Detectives' Top 1 Million Classifications in Search for Planetary Habitats
'Disk Detectives' Top 1 Million Classifications in Search for Planetary Habitats

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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