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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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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
Audience: 3rd grade and older This slide compares the difference in size between planets in our solar system and with three kinds of exoplanets: Super Earth,  Neptunian and Gas Giants.
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This slide compares the difference in size between planets in our solar system and with three kinds of exoplanets: Super Earth,  Neptunian and Gas Giants.
Comparison of Planet Sizes: Exoplanets
This image shows our own back yard, astronomically speaking, from a vantage point about 30 light-years away from the sun. It highlights the population of tiny brown dwarfs recently discovered by NA...
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Highlighting our Tiniest Neighbors
Highlighting our Tiniest Neighbors
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
Exo-eclipse in x-ray vision
The flower you see in this animation 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 ...
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Flower power: NASA reveals spring starshade animation
Flower power: NASA reveals spring starshade animation
Astronomers can detect the presence of disks of dust orbiting distant stars by measuring how the combined light from the star and disk changes across different wavelengths.
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The Invisible Disk
The Invisible Disk
Of the more than 1,000 verified planets found by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, eight are less than twice Earth-size and in their stars' habitable zone. All eight orbit stars cooler and smaller tha...
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NASA Kepler's Hall of Fame: Small Habitable Zone Exoplanets
NASA Kepler's Hall of Fame: Small Habitable Zone Exoplanets
En las profundidades del universo, los núcleos de dos estrellas colapsadas se fusionan violentamente para emitir una explosión de la forma de luz más mortal y poderosa que existe, conocida como ray...
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Dos astronautas están sobre un asteroide, mirando un par de estrellas de neutrones, o los núcleos de estrellas colapsadas, chocar en la distancia. El resultado de la colisión son haces de luz brillantes y concentrados llamados rayos gamma. Los estallidos de rayos gamma evitan por poco impactar a los astronautas al ser emitidos desde la colisión.
Demonios de Rayos Gamma
Planets, including those like our own Earth, form from epic collisions between asteroids and even bigger bodies, called proto-planets. Sometimes the colliding bodies are ground to dust, and sometim...
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Building Planets Through Collisions (Artist's Concept)
Building Planets Through Collisions (Artist's Concept)
This diagram compares our own solar system to Kepler-47, a double-star system containing two planets, one orbiting in the so-called "habitable zone." This is the sweet spot in a planetary system wh...
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Orbiting in the Habitable Zone of Two Suns
Orbiting in the Habitable Zone of Two Suns
For students in Grade: 3rd to 12th A set of slides designed to help teachers and Subject Matter Experts explain complex topics in a fun way.
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Collection of Interactive PowerPoint Slides on astronomical objects, black holes, exoplanet detection, and space telescopes to be Used in Public Engagement.
Collection of Interactive PowerPoint Slides to be Used in Public Engagement
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?
Astronomers were elated to find clear skies on a Neptune-size planet called HAT-P-11b, as illustrated here. Without clouds to block their view, they were able to identify water vapor molecules in t...
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Seeing Starlight Through a Planet's Rim (Artist's Concept)
Seeing Starlight Through a Planet's Rim (Artist's Concept)
Daniel Fabrycky from the Kepler science team put together a visualization of all the multiple-planet systems discovered by the Kepler spacecraft as of February of 2011.
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Kepler Orrery II
Kepler Orrery II
Weighing in at 11 times Jupiter’s mass and orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance, planet HD 106906 b is unlike anything in our own Solar System and throws a wrench in planet...
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Fly around animation of planet orbiting distant star.
HD 106906 b Planet Animation
Launched in March 2009, NASA’s first planet-hunter confirmed more than 2,600 planets beyond our solar system. "Many stars have planets. A lot of these planets are Earth-sized. That's Kepler's legac...
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Video documentary about the legacy of the Kepler space telescope.
Kepler End of Flight Documentary
Learn more in-depth features of Eyes on Exoplanets!
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Eyes on Exoplanets Tutorial 2: Advanced Tutorial
Eyes on Exoplanets Tutorial 2: Advanced Tutorial
Overview of Kepler mission
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Overview of Kepler mission
Overview of Kepler mission
Kepler is launched at night on a Delta 2 expendable launch vehicle.
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Kepler Launch at night
Kepler Launch at night
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
Learn more about how to use the basic functions of Eyes on Exoplanets
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Eyes on Exoplanets Tutorial 1: The Basics
Eyes on Exoplanets Tutorial 1: The Basics
This artist's concept shows planet KELT-9b orbiting its host star, KELT-9. It is the hottest gas giant planet discovered so far.
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Video of the hottest exoplanet KELT-9b orbiting its star.
Video of KELT-9b
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
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
A hypothetical planet is depicted here moving through the habitable zone and then further out into a long, cold winter.
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Eccentric Habitable Zones
Eccentric Habitable Zones

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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What is an Exoplanet?

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