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Rogue planet Valentine

Illustration of a rogue planet.

Rogue planets float freely through the universe, without the gravity of a star or planetary system to hold them in one place. You could say they're dancing among the stars.

Credit

NASA-JPL/Richard Barkus

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The graphic tells NASA's Kepler spacecraft's story by the numbers from the moment it began hunting for planets outside our solar system on May 12, 2009.
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Kepler's Six Years In Science (and Counting)
Kepler's Six Years In Science (and Counting)
An artist's conception shows the Kepler-10 system, home to two rocky planets. In the foreground is Kepler-10c, a planet that weighs 17 times as much as Earth and is more than twice as large in size. Planet formation theorists are challenged to explain how such a massive world could have formed.
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Kepler-10 System
Kepler-10 System
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 the first spectra of an alien world.
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Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: An Exoplanet Atmosphere
Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: An Exoplanet Atmosphere
A new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has shown that a planet is making the star that it orbits act much older than it actually is, as explained in our latest press release. The artist’s illustration featured in the main part of this graphic depicts the star, WASP-18, and its planet, WASP-18b.
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WASP-18b: A 'Hot Jupiter'
WASP-18b: A 'Hot Jupiter'
Astronomers have discovered a transiting exoplanet with the longest known year. Located beyond the "snow line" this planet may give clues about planetary migration.
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Transiting Exoplanet with Longest Known Year
Transiting Exoplanet with Longest Known Year
This artist's concept depicts Kepler-186f, the first validated Earth-size planet to orbit a distant star in the habitable zone -- a range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the planet's surface. The discovery of Kepler-186f confirms that Earth-size planets exist in the habitable zones of other stars and signals a significant step closer to finding a world similar to Earth.
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Kepler-186f, the First Earth-size Planet in the Habitable Zone (Artist's Concept)
Kepler-186f, the First Earth-size Planet in the Habitable Zone (Artist's Concept)
Artist’s conception of the extrasolar ring system circling the young giant planet or brown dwarf J1407b. The rings are shown eclipsing the young sun-like star J1407, as they would have appeared in early 2007.
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J1407b: Super-Saturn
J1407b: Super-Saturn
This closeup of an image captured by the SOFI instrument on ESOs New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory shows the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9 in infrared light.
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The free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9
The free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9
This artist's conception illustrates Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It is the first planet that NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed to orbit in a star's habitable zone - the region around a star where liquid water, a requirement for life on Earth, could persist.
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Kepler-22b: Closer to Finding Another Earth
Kepler-22b: Closer to Finding Another Earth
This artist's concept shows what a fiery hot star and its close-knit planetary companion might look close up if viewed in visible (left) and infrared light.
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Blinded by the Light
Blinded by the Light
Some giant planets, many times the size of Jupiter, are puffed up.
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Less Mass, More Gas
Less Mass, More Gas
This graphic shows Kepler-76b's orbit around a yellow-white, type F star located 2,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.
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Kepler-76b's transiting orbit
Kepler-76b's transiting orbit
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found that the hottest part of a distant planet, named upsilon Andromedae b, is not under the glare of its host star as might be expected.
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Planetary Hot Spot Not Under the Glare of Star
Planetary Hot Spot Not Under the Glare of Star
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
An artist's conception of Kepler-78b orbiting its parent star once every 8.5 hours.
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Kepler-78b
Kepler-78b
This is an artist's impression of the view from the vicinity of a hypothetical terrestrial planet and moon orbiting the red dwarf star AU Microscopii.
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The View from Within AU Microscopii's Disk
The View from Within AU Microscopii's Disk
An artist’s impression showing a newly discovered Jupiter twin gas giant orbiting the solar twin star, HIP 11915. The planet is of a very similar mass to Jupiter and orbits at the same distance from its star as Jupiter does from the Sun.
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Artist’s Impression of a Jupiter twin orbiting HIP 11915
Artist’s Impression of a Jupiter twin orbiting HIP 11915
This artist's conception illustrates the brown dwarf named 2MASSJ22282889-431026.
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Forecast for Exotic Weather
Forecast for Exotic Weather
This image captured by the SOFI instrument on ESOs New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory shows the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9 in infrared light.
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The free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9 (annotated)
The free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9 (annotated)
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
Young stars start out with a massive disk of gas and dust that over time, astronomers think, either diffuses away or coalesces into planets and asteroids.
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Grazing in the gap
Grazing in the gap
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)
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
Over its ten years in space, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has evolved into a premier tool for studying exoplanets.
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Spitzer: 10 years of surprises
Spitzer: 10 years of surprises
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

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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