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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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There are 4,696 planet candidates now known with the release of the seventh Kepler planet candidate catalog - an increase of 521 since the release of the previous catalog in Jan. 2015.
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Kepler Planet Candidates, July 2015
Kepler Planet Candidates, July 2015
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
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
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 Single Planet videos
Transit Method Single Planet
Our Sun is just one out of over 200 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The Sun is located in the Orion arm of our galaxy about 25,000 light years from the center of the Galaxy.
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Kepler's view of the galaxy
Kepler's view of the galaxy
A series of images of a distant gas giant reveal its orbit around its star Beta Pictoris, located some 60 light-years from Earth.
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Gemini Planet Imager shows darting exoplanet
Gemini Planet Imager shows darting exoplanet
This image from the NACO system on ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows a candidate protoplanet in the disc of gas and dust around the young star HD100546.
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VLT image of the protoplanet around the young star HD 100546
VLT image of the protoplanet around the young star HD 100546
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
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
The first planet to have its clouds mapped showed us what weather looked like on a planet outside our solar system.
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Infographic: Planet Kepler-7b, cloud mapped
Infographic: Profile of planet Kepler-7b
This artist's concept illustrates an icy planet-forming disk around a young star called TW Hydrae, located about 175 light-years away in the Hydra, or Sea Serpent, constellation.
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Misty Star in the Sea Serpent
Misty Star in the Sea Serpent
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 (without text)
Comparative Life Zones of Stars (without text)
The third closest star system to the sun, called WISE J104915.57-531906, is at the center of the larger image, which was taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). It appeared to b...
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Brown Dwarfs in our 'Backyard'
Brown Dwarfs in our 'Backyard'
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
On March 21, 2022, the number of known exoplanets passed 5,000 according to the NASA Exoplanet Archive. This animation and sonification tracks humanity's discovery of the planets beyond our solar s...
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Video infographic showing numbers of exoplanet discoveries over time.
Video: 5,000 Exoplanets: Listen to the Sounds of Discovery (NASA Data Sonification)
Animation of Kepler spacecraft slowly rotating in space.
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Kepler "Beauty Shot"
Kepler "Beauty Shot"
This animated slide explains and illustrates the astronomical objects present throughout the universe stretching from our solar system outward.
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An animation showing moving elements of a slide depicting different astronomical objects throughout the universe from our solar system outward.
Astronomical Objects Through the History of the Universe
A graphic of present and future exoplanet missions from space agencies and observatories around the world.
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A picture of future missions.
Exoplanet missions
Kepler focal plane assembly in a clean room.
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Kepler focal plane assembly
Kepler focal plane assembly
This false-color near-infrared image has been processed to remove most of the scattered light from the star Kappa Andromedae to reveal its "super-Jupiter" companion, Kappa Andromedae b.
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Image of the "super-Jupiter" Kappa Andromedae b
Image of the "super-Jupiter" Kappa Andromedae b
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.
Video: NASA Confirms 5,000 Exoplanets -- and Counting
This visualization, produced using the Hayden Planetarium's Digital Universe--the most comprehensive and scientifically accurate, three-dimensional map of the known universe-- shows where the star ...
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Remote Reconnaissance of Another Solar System
Remote Reconnaissance of Another Solar System
This figure charts 30 hours of observations taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of a strongly irradiated exoplanet (an planet orbiting a star beyond our own). It shows the very rapid heating th...
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Exoplanet HD 80606b Infrared Light Curve
Exoplanet HD 80606b Infrared Light Curve
Orbiting planets cause stars to wobble in space, changing the color of the light astronomers observe.
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Radial Velocity videos
Radial Velocity
This graph of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows how astronomers located a hot spot on a distant gas planet named upsilon Andromedae b -- and learned that it was in the wrong place.
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How to Find a Planetary Hot Spot
How to Find a Planetary Hot Spot

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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