This artists impression shows the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9. This is the closest such object to the Solar System.

Kepler does not orbit the Earth, rather it orbits the Sun in concert with the Earth, slowly drifting away from Earth. Every 61 Earth years, Kepler and Earth will pass by each other.

The Kepler space telescope will remain for decades in orbit around the Sun, weaving in and out of Earth’s orbital path.

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.

This diagram shows how astronomers observed a distant gas giant planet around OGLE-2005-BLG-169 using microlensing.

Kepler does not directly observe the image of a planet. Rather it observes the effect the planet has on its parent star. If the orbit of the planet is aligned along Kepler's line of sight to the st...

Lurking beyond our solar system, among the billions of stars and the exoplanets that orbit them, is another sort of Milky Way altogether. Our "Galaxy of Horrors" reveals the sinister science behind...

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...

This graph of data from NASA's Spitzer Space telescope shows changes in the infrared light output of two star-planet systems (one above, one below) located hundreds of light-years away.

What does an extremely young planetary system look like? The answer depends on your point of view. This diagram shows how such a system appears when viewed from different directions.

Researchers made a brightness map, tracing the glow from hot regions of WASP-18 b as it slipped behind, and reappeared from, its star.

This video is a trailer of the upcoming TESS mission.

NASA's Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet, named Kepler-10b. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our solar system.

Within our own solar system we can observe planetary transits of Mercury and Venus when they pass in front of the Sun as viewed from Earth. Kepler will observe the same phenomena in order to detect...

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...

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...

This infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope tells astronomers that a distant gas planet, a so-called "hot Jupiter" called HD 209458b, might be smothered with high clouds. It is one of th...

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will reveal secrets of clouds in the atmospheres of exoplanets – planets beyond our solar system.

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...

Astronomers can take pictures of exoplanets by removing the overwhelming glare of the stars they orbit.

This image shows the HR 8799 planets with starlight optically suppressed and data processing conducted to remove residual starlight. The star is at the center of the blackened circle in the image. ...

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.

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...

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.

This graph shows the brightness variations of the brown dwarf named 2MASSJ22282889-431026 measured simultaneously by both NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.