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Increasing the Odds of the Sweep

Increasing the Odds of the Sweep

Artist's impression of a transiting Jupiter-mass exoplanet around a star slightly more massive than the Sun, such as the one discovered around SWEEPS-04.

Credit

ESO

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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.
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Observing Young Stars: Hitting the 'Sweet Spot'
Observing Young Stars: Hitting the 'Sweet Spot'
We now believe there is at least one planet for every star in our galaxy. This could mean as many as 100 to 400 BILLION planets in our galaxy alone. This major finding from the Kepler mission, laun...
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Each Planet Is Unique, Every 100 Billion+ of Them
Each Planet Is Unique, Every 100 Billion+ of Them
This image from NASA's Kepler spacecraft shows the telescope's field of view taken in a new demonstration mode in late October. A new mission concept, dubbed K2, would continue Kepler's search for ...
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NASA Kepler's Second Light
NASA Kepler's Second Light
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 artist’s impression shows the formation of a gas giant planet in the ring of dust around the young star HD 100546.
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Artist's impression of a gas giant planet forming in the disc around the young star HD 100546
Artist's impression of a gas giant planet forming in the disc around the young star HD 100546
Exoplanet atmospheres might one day reveal the presence of life.
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Through the Looking Glass
Through the Looking Glass
This artist's concept illustrates the idea that rocky, terrestrial worlds like the inner planets in our Solar System may be plentiful, and diverse, in the Universe.
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Rocky, Terrestrial Worlds
Rocky, Terrestrial Worlds
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...
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Getting Closer to Another Earth: Kepler's 4500+ Planet Candidates
Getting Closer to Another Earth: Kepler's 4500+ Planet Candidates
Kepler-186f is the first Earth-size planet discovered in the potentially 'habitable zone' around another star, where liquid water could exist on the planet's surface. Its star is much cooler and re...
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Kepler 186f
Where the Grass is Always Redder
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.
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Mars-size Kepler-138b Gets a Mass
Mars-size Kepler-138b Gets a Mass
This plot of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope indicates the presence of molecules in the planet WASP-12b -- a super-hot gas giant that orbits tightly around its star.
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Signature of a Carbon-Rich Planet
Signature of a Carbon-Rich Planet
Astronomers detect lowest-mass planet around a star like the sun found using direct imaging techniques.
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Astronomers Image Lowest-mass Exoplanet Around a Sun-like Star
Astronomers Image Lowest-mass Exoplanet Around a Sun-like Star
Animation of a frozen planet, similar to worlds in our own solar system's Kuiper Belt.
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Kuiper Belt World
Kuiper Belt World
Our Milky Way galaxy contains a minimum of 100 billion planets according to a detailed statistical study based on the detection of three extrasolar planets by an observational technique called micr...
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Extrasolar Planet Detected by Gravitational Microlensing
Extrasolar Planet Detected by Gravitational Microlensing
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
55 Cancri e is a super Earth exoplanet that orbits a G-type star. Its mass is 8.08 Earths, it takes 0.7 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.01544 AU from its star. Its discovery was an...
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An interactive 3D planet model of the exoplanet 55 Cancri e.
55 Cancri e 3D Model
Observed transit depths and theoretical models for GJ 1214 b
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Observed transit for GJ 1214 b
Observed transit for GJ 1214 b
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)
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.
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Planetary Demolition Derby
Planetary Demolition Derby
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
If astronomers could somehow pull planets out of the sky and analyze them in the laboratory, it might look something like this artistically altered image illustrating new research from NASA's Spitz...
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An Astronomer's Fantasy: Planets in the Lab
An Astronomer's Fantasy: Planets in the Lab
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 - illustration only
Exo-eclipse in x-ray vision - illustration only
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...
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Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: An Exoplanet Atmosphere
Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: An Exoplanet Atmosphere
This artist's illustration shows the atmosphere of a brown dwarf called 2MASSJ22282889-431026, which was observed simultaneously by NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes.
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Anatomy of Brown Dwarf's Atmosphere
Anatomy of Brown Dwarf's Atmosphere
This is an artist's concept of the star HD 3651 as it is orbited by a close-in Saturn-mass planetary companion and the distant brown dwarf companion discovered by Spitzer infrared photographs.
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Brown Dwarf Companion
Brown Dwarf Companion

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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