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Exoplanet missions

A picture of future missions.

A graphic of present and future exoplanet missions from space agencies and observatories around the world.

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Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Twelve Exoplanet discoveries from Kepler that are less than twice the size of Earth and reside in the habitable zone of their host star. The sizes of the exoplanets are represented by the size of e...
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Kepler's Greatest Hits
Kepler's Greatest Hits
This map, the first-ever of the surface of an exoplanet, shows temperature variations across the cloudy tops of a gas giant called HD 189733b.
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First Map of an Exoplanet Atmosphere
First Map of an Exoplanet Atmosphere
First light image from two of the CCD modules of the Kepler mission.
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Kepler first light image: 2 CCD modules
Kepler first light image: 2 CCD modules
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
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
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
For Valentine's Day, give the tight-knit Kepler-11 to your faves.
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An illustration of an exoplanet Valentine.
Planetary System Valentine
The artist's concept depicts Kepler-62f, a super-Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a star smaller and cooler than the sun, located about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation L...
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Kepler-62f, a Small Habitable Zone World (Artist Concept)
Kepler-62f, a Small Habitable Zone World (Artist Concept)
Astronomers were surprised to see these data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in January 2013, showing a huge eruption of dust around a star called NGC 2547-ID8. In this plot, infrared brightnes...
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Witnessing a Planetary Wreckage
Witnessing a Planetary Wreckage
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 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
Three astronomers in NASA Goddard's Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory discuss how Hubble's coronagraph and resulting images have helped scientists find planets orbiting distant stars.
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20 Years of Hubble Science
20 Years of Hubble Science
The doomed egg-shaped exoplanet WASP-12b is a hot Jupiter that orbits so close to its parent star, it's being torn apart.
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An interactive 3D planet model of WASP-12b.
WASP-12b 3D Model
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?
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
What do planets outside our solar system, or exoplanets, look like? A variety of possibilities are shown in this illustration. 
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Illustration of exoplanet types
Exoplanet Types - Illustration
On August 25, 2003, NASA launched the Spitzer Space Telescope to reveal secrets of the infrared universe.
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Spitzer Space Telescope: 10 Years of Innovation
Spitzer Space Telescope: 10 Years of Innovation
There is only one planet we know of so far that is teeming with life–– Earth. If we want to find life on other planets, we start with the ingredients we know at home.
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Goldilocks Zone
Goldilocks Zone
This artist's concept shows how astronomers use the unique orbit of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and a depth-perceiving trick called parallax to determine the distance of dark planets, black hole...
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Depth Perception in Space
Depth Perception in Space
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
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
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have taken the first ever image of the snow line in an infant planetary system.
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TW Hydrae snow line distance compared to the Solar System
TW Hydrae snow line distance compared to the Solar System
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
Some telescopes capture starlight shining through the atmospheres of exoplanets. Gases in these atmospheres can then be revefaled.
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Spectroscopy Infographic
Spectroscopy Infographic
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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Two Zooms in the Kepler Field
Two Zooms in the Kepler Field

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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