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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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The habitable zone is the distance from a star where one can have liquid water on the surface of a planet. If a planet is too close to its parent star, it will be too hot and water would have evapo...
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Comparative Life Zones of Stars (with text)
Comparative Life Zones of Stars (with text)
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
This sculpture by Angela Palmer is created from the data gathered to date by the Kepler telescope. It literally reproduces in three dimensions the chunk of sky the Kepler telescope has been trained...
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Goldilocks
Goldilocks
The analysis of the first three years of Kepler data have revealed more than 3,600 candidate worlds. The diagram plots the planet candidates by oribtal period on the x-axis and size relative to Ear...
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Kepler's Planet Candidates, November 2013
Kepler's Planet Candidates, November 2013
The first exoplanet discovered around a sun-like star, 51 Pegasi b made us question what we knew of our universe and launched the search for new worlds.
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Infographic: Profile of planet 51 Pegasi b
Infographic: Profile of planet 51 Pegasi b
This graph shows the brightness variations of the brown dwarf named 2MASSJ22282889-431026 measured simultaneously by both NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.
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Probing Brown Dwarf Layers
Probing Brown Dwarf Layers
This image from NASA's Kepler mission shows the telescope's full field of view -- an expansive star-rich patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.
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Full Focal Plane Image (First Light for Kepler Photometer)
Full Focal Plane Image (First Light for Kepler Photometer)
A dusty planetary system (left) is compared to another system with little dust in this artist concept. Dust can make it difficult for telescopes to image planets because light from the dust can out...
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Seeking Planets in the Dust (Artist's Concept)
Seeking Planets in the Dust (Artist's Concept)
Audience: 5th grade and older (introduces Kelvin) This slide shows the difference in temperature between planets orbiting an M Dwarf star and our Sun. The second view shows their relative distan...
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This slide shows the difference in temperature between planets orbiting an M Dwarf star and our Sun. The second view shows their relative distance from their star.
Comparison of Host stars – with Solar System Planets (Kelvin)
These plots from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show light from a distant planet, GJ 436b, and its star, as measured at six different infrared wavelengths.
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How to Measure Exoplanet Light
How to Measure Exoplanet Light
NASA has confirmed more than 5,000 worlds beyond our solar system during 30 years of exploration. There are billions of exoplanets in our galaxy alone, so many more discoveries await.
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Video that covers how we've reached 5000 confirmed exoplanet discoveries and what the future may hold.
NASA Confirms 5,000 Exoplanets -- and Counting
Animation of Kepler spacecraft slowly rotating in space.
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Kepler "Beauty Shot"
Kepler "Beauty Shot"
A list of current and future missions that have a role in searching for new worlds.
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Exoplanet Missions
Exoplanet Missions
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
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
Exoplanets – planets outside our solar system – are everywhere. At NASA, we're studying exoplanets to learn all about their weirdness, their variety, and all the fascinating things they can tell us...
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An animated video from NASA showing how we find exoplanets, the alien worlds we know beyond our solar system, and how we search for alien life.
Video: What Is an Exoplanet?
Once the third stage finishes its work, Kepler will have sufficient energy to leave the gravitational pull of Earth and go into orbit around the Sun, trailing behind Earth and slowly drifting away ...
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Kepler Third Stage
Kepler Third Stage
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
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?
This illustration shows three possible scenarios for the evolution of asteroid belts.
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Scenarios for the Evolution of Asteroid Belts
Scenarios for the Evolution of Asteroid Belts
The New Mexico Exoplanet Spectroscopic Survey Instrument (NESSI) will soon get its first "taste" of exoplanets, helping astronomers decipher their chemical composition.
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Exoplanets Soon to Gleam in the Eye of NESSI
Exoplanets Soon to Gleam in the Eye of NESSI
This infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope called a spectrum tells astronomers that a distant gas planet, a so-called "hot Jupiter" called HD 209458b, might be smothered with high cloud...
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Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: an Exoplanet Atmosphere
Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: an Exoplanet Atmosphere
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
During the four years of science operations, the pointing precision of the spacecraft was controlled to within a few milli-arcseconds. That is the equivalent of keeping your gaze steady on a grain ...
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Kepler's Precision Pointing
Kepler's Precision Pointing
Researchers have detected the first "exomoon" candidate -- a moon orbiting a planet that lies outside our solar system. Using a technique called "microlensing," they observed what could be either a...
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Moon or Planet? The 'Exomoon Hunt' Continues (Artist's Concept)
Moon or Planet? The 'Exomoon Hunt' Continues (Artist's Concept)

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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The Search For Life

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Science Writer: Pat Brennan
Site Editor: Kristen Walbolt
Manager: Anya Biferno