Skip Navigation
menu close modal

Multimedia

The Earth-like Planet Gliese 581c (Artist's Impression)

The Earth-like Planet Gliese 581c (Artist's Impression)

Artist's impression of the five-Earth mass planet, Gliese 581 c, found in the habitable zone around the red dwarf Gliese 581, with the instrument HARPS on the ESO 3.6-m telescope.

Credit

ESO

ENLARGE

Related

Add your own creative vision to the coloring page based on our popular Exoplanet Travel Bureau poster for HD 40307 g. Do you picture a rocky planet or one shrouded in gas and ice? 
More
A coloring page based on our popular Exoplanet Travel Bureau poster for HD 40307 g that shows the effects of super gravity as a skydiver descends over the planet.
HD 40307 g Coloring Page
In the three and a half years of its primary mission, NASA's Kepler spacecraft produced a mountain of data. Astronomers continue to mine it, finding new likely planets all the time - including Kepl...
More
Getting Closer to Another Earth: Kepler's 4500+ Planet Candidates
Getting Closer to Another Earth: Kepler's 4500+ Planet Candidates
This artist's rendition shows one possible appearance for the planet HD 219134b, the nearest confirmed rocky exoplanet found to date outside our solar system.
More
Hot, Rocky World (Artist's Concept)
Hot, Rocky World (Artist's Concept)
Astronomers can detect the presence of disks of dust orbiting distant stars by measuring how the combined light from the star and disk changes across different wavelengths.
More
The Invisible Disk
The Invisible Disk
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...
More
Kepler-10 System
Kepler-10 System
The diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-69, a two-planet system about 2,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. The two planets of Kepler-69 orbit a sta...
More
Kepler-69 and the Solar System
Kepler-69 and the Solar System
This artist's conception shows the 30 Ari system, which includes four stars and a planet.
More
Planet With Four Stars (Artist's Concept)
Planet With Four Stars (Artist's Concept)
Researchers using data from NASA's Kepler space telescope have shown that migrating planets stop their inward journey before reaching their stars, as illustrated in this artist's concept.
More
On the Road Toward a Star, Planets Halt Their Migration (Artist Concept)
On the Road Toward a Star, Planets Halt Their Migration (Artist Concept)
The first planet to have its clouds mapped showed us what weather looked like on a planet outside our solar system.
More
Infographic: Planet Kepler-7b, cloud mapped
Infographic: Profile of planet Kepler-7b
ESO’s VLT identified our Sun's oldest twin and provides new clues about stars that may host terrestrial rocky planets.
More
The life cycle of a Sun-like star (annotated)
The life cycle of a Sun-like star (annotated)
This composite image shows an exoplanet (the red spot on the lower left), orbiting the brown dwarf 2M1207 (centre). 2M1207b is the first exoplanet directly imaged and the first discovered orbiting ...
More
2M1207b - First image of an exoplanet
2M1207b - First image of an exoplanet
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.
More
Infographic: Profile of planet 51 Pegasi b
Infographic: Profile of planet 51 Pegasi b
The conception illustration depicts how solar pressure can be used to balance NASA's Kepler spacecraft, keeping the telescope stable enough to continue monitoring distant stars in search of transit...
More
Kepler's Second Light: How K2 Will Work
Kepler's Second Light: How K2 Will Work
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.
More
Chemical Soups Around Cool Stars
Chemical Soups Around Cool Stars
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.
More
How to Find a Planetary Hot Spot
How to Find a Planetary Hot Spot
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.
More
VLT image of the protoplanet around the young star HD 100546
VLT image of the protoplanet around the young star HD 100546
This artist's conception compares the KOI-961 planetary system to Jupiter and the largest four of its many moons. Image credit: Caltech
More
KOI-961 and its three known planets
KOI-961 and its three known planets
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...
More
Kepler's Greatest Hits
Kepler's Greatest Hits
During the four years of science operations, the pointing precision of the spacecraft was controlled to within a few milli-arcseconds. That is the equivalent of keeping your gaze steady on a grain ...
More
Kepler's Precision Pointing
Kepler's Precision Pointing
Audience: 5th grade and older (introduces Kelvin) This slide shows the difference in temperature between planets orbiting an M Dwarf star and our Sun. The second view shows their relative distan...
More
This slide shows the difference in temperature between planets orbiting an M Dwarf star and our Sun. The second view shows their relative distance from their star.
Comparison of Host stars – with Solar System Planets
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...
More
Cartoon animation of the Kepler space telescope passing a torch to the TESS spacecraft.
Animation: Kepler Passes the Torch to TESS
An artist's concept shows a gas-giant planet orbiting very close to its parent star, creating searingly hot conditions on the planet's surface.
More
Forecasting Weather on Distant Worlds
Forecasting Weather on Distant Worlds
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a world where two suns set over the horizon instead of just one.
More
Where the Sun Sets Twice (Artist Concept)
Where the Sun Sets Twice (Artist Concept)
This illustration shows the unusual orbit of planet Kepler-413b around a close pair of orange and red dwarf stars. The planet's 66-day orbit is tilted 2.5 degrees with respect to the plane of the b...
More
Wobbly Planet Orbital Schematic (Illustration)
Wobbly Planet Orbital Schematic (Illustration)
Audience: 3rd grade and older Asteroids move much faster than airplanes; and are also much bigger.
More
This slide illustrates how asteroids move much faster than airplanes; and are also much bigger.
Speed Comparison – Jet Airliner vs. Small Astronomical Bodies

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.
More

Strange New Worlds

Explore an interactive gallery of some of the most intriguing and exotic planets discovered so far.
More
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.
More