The stars TESS studies are 30 to 100 times brighter than those the Kepler mission and K2 follow-up surveyed, enabling far easier follow-up observations with both ground-based and space-based telesc...

This artist's concept illustrates Kepler-47, the first transiting circumbinary system -- multiple planets orbiting two suns – 4,900 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus.

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...

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 th...

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a world where two suns set over the horizon instead of just one.

Planets having atmospheres rich in helium may be common in our galaxy, according to a new theory based on data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. These planets would be around the mass of Neptune...

Artistic rendering of a planet's transmission spectrum

The telescope studied comets and asteroids, counted stars, scrutinized planets and galaxies, and discovered soccer-ball-shaped carbon spheres in space called buckyballs.

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...

We've wanted to study the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets with the James Webb Space Telescope since its Christmas Day launch in 2021. We expect to see new science on the planets in the coming year.

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

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.

This slide provides the answers to common questions about black holes.

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 Kepler photometer is lowered onto the spacecraft in a clean room.

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...

This plot shows the masses and sizes of the smallest exoplanets for which both quantities have been measured. The solar system planets (shown in red) are for comparison.

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.

Spitzer Mission Manager Joseph Hunt stands in Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on Jan. 30, 2020, declaring the spacecraft decommissioned and the Spitzer ...

An animation of an imagined Earth-sized exoplanet.

Watch the PlanetQuest interactive timeline in video format!

Watch what happens in the life of a star and its planets. This version of the video has no text overlays.

This slide explains the radial velocity method for exoplanet detection. 

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.

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...