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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.

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ESO

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The planet GJ 1214b, shown here in an artist's conception with two hypothetical moons, orbits a "red dwarf" star 40 light-years from Earth. GJ 1214b has a radius of about 2.7 times that of Earth and is about 6.5 times as massive, putting it squarely into the class of exoplanets known as super-Earths.
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Super-Earth Exposed (Artist's Concept)
Super-Earth Exposed (Artist's Concept)
This shows the first planet to be confirmed as an exoplanet, 51 Pegasi b, and the newest Earth-sized planet confirmed.
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Twenty Years of Progress
Twenty Years of Progress
Kepler-7b (left), which is 1.5 times the radius of Jupiter (right), is the first exoplanet to have its clouds mapped. This artist's concept shows what those clouds might look like. The cloud map was produced using data from NASA's Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes.
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Partially Cloudy Skies on Kepler-7b (Artist's Concept)
Partially Cloudy Skies on Kepler-7b (Artist's Concept)
This infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope called a spectrum 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 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
Celebrate Valetine's Day with a hot Jupiter that tightly hugs its star.
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A Valentine for a Hot Jupiter
Hot Jupiter Valentine
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 brightness is represented on the vertical axis, and time on the horizontal axis. The data at left show infrared light from the dust around the star back in 2012. Between 2012 and 2013, Spitzer had to stop observing the star because it was located behind the sun, as seen from Spitzer's Earth-trailing orbit.
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Witnessing a Planetary Wreckage
Witnessing a Planetary Wreckage
An artist's conception of Kepler-78b orbiting its parent star once every 8.5 hours.
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Kepler-78b
Kepler-78b
A team of researchers has devised a way to measure the internal properties of stars—a method that offers more accurate assessments of their orbiting planets.
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Verified by vibration
Verified by vibration
Researchers are getting to know some of our sun's closest and smallest neighbors.
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Free-floating failed star
Free-floating failed star
This is an artist's concept of HD 189733b and its parent star.
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Extrasolar Planet's Hazy Atmosphere (Artist's Concept)
Extrasolar Planet's Hazy Atmosphere (Artist's Concept)
A whole new category of planets, Super Earths are quite common in our galaxy.
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Super Earth—Super Girth
Super Earth—Super Girth
Artist’s rendition of the relationship between the composition of the atmosphere and transmitted colors of light.
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Rayleigh scattering in exoplanet atmospheres
Rayleigh scattering in exoplanet atmospheres
Relative sizes of Kepler habitable zone planets discovered as of 2013 April 18. Except for Earth, these are artists' renditions.
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Lining Kepler Habitable Zone Planets Up
Lining Kepler Habitable Zone Planets Up
The sweep of NASA Kepler mission’s search for small, habitable planets in the last six years.
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Searching for Habitable Worlds
Searching for Habitable Worlds
An artist's impression of a red supergiant engulfing a Jupiter-like planet as it expands.
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Hungry Red Giant
Hungry Red Giant
The basic chemistry for life has been detected in a second hot gas planet, HD 209458b, depicted in this artist's concept.
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Exotic Atmospheres
Exotic Atmospheres
The artistic impression shows NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft operating in a new mission profile called K2.
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Reborn Kepler Can Still Find Planets
Reborn Kepler Can Still Find Planets
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have made the first direct detection of the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a star outside our solar system. The planet orbits a yellow, Sun-like star called HD 209458, located 150 light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.
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HD 209458b
HD 209458b
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 star that belongs to the same class as our sun, called G-type.
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Kepler-69 and the Solar System
Kepler-69 and the Solar System
Hubble finds a deep-blue exoplanet that may feature pummeling showers of glass rain moving at 4,500 mph. Care to visit?
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Blue and bizzarre
Blue and bizzarre
This artist’s impression shows how the newly discovered super-Earth surrounding the nearby star GJ1214 may look.
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GJ1214b
GJ1214b
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'
Artist's impression of the planetary system around the red dwarf Gliese 581.
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The Planetary System in Gliese 581 (artist's impression)
The Planetary System in Gliese 581 (artist's impression)
This diagram illustrates how astronomers can capture the elusive spectra of hot-Jupiter planets by comparing observations including light from both the star and planet to those containing just the star.
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Isolating a Planet's Spectrum
Isolating a Planet's Spectrum
Keep your Valentine close with a tidally-locked planet, that always faces its star.
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Illustration of a tidally-locked planet.
Tidally-locked Valentine

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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