The deserts of Abu Dhabi and Jordan play starring roles in the blockbuster sci-fi movie “Dune,” which premieres this week in theaters and on HBO Max — but the origins… Read More
More than a decade ago, Fomalhaut b was considered one of the first exoplanets to be directly imaged — but now it’s vanished, and scientists suspect it was actually nothing… Read More
An alien Earth that just might be habitable has been discovered in years-old records, thanks to sharp-eyed astronomers who gave the data a second look. The exoplanet, known as Kepler-1649c,… Read More
Astronomers report that NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has detected its first Earth-sized planet lying in its parent star’s habitable zone, plus its first planet orbiting two stars.… Read More
Over the past 42 years, filmgoers have seen exotic worlds come to life in a succession of Star Wars movies — a series that is now coming to a climax… Read More
Readings from the Hubble Space Telescope have shed light on a bizarre class of alien planets that have the density of cotton candy. The “super-puff” planets were detected by NASA’s… Read More
Astronomers have identified thousands of stars that have planets, and that number could mushroom even faster when waves of next-generation telescopes come online. But where are the best places to… Read More
Saturn has pulled ahead of Jupiter again in the moon discovery race, thanks to a batch of 20 outer moons that bring the ringed planet’s total tally to 82. The… Read More
Astronomers are sharing a flood of findings from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, including the detection of a potentially habitable super-Earth far beyond our solar system. The planet… Read More
The European Southern Observatory and the billionaire-backed Breakthrough Watch program say they have achieved first light with a new observing instrument designed to spot super-Earths in Alpha Centauri, the nearest… Read More
Less than a year after NASA’s TESS spacecraft was launched, the scientists behind the mission have unveiled their third confirmed planet, a weird alien world that’s between Earth and Neptune… Read More
Imagine the images on social media when one of our modern space-travel pioneers — whether it’s Bezos or Musk or Branson — actually gets us there. Random pictures of sunsets… Read More
If you had to pick a place to set up shop amid the seven planets in the TRAPPIST-1 star system, 39 light-years from Earth, the fourth rock from that alien… Read More
The astronomical team that found the nearest exoplanet at Proxima Centauri has done it again with the reported detection of a super-Earth orbiting Barnard’s Star, the second-closest star system to… Read More
NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting telescope now belongs to the ages, with its fuel completely spent and its instruments shut down — but the planet quest continues, thanks to a treasure trove of… Read More
With a lot of help from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers now feel confident enough to publish their evidence for the first moon detected in orbit around a planet beyond… Read More
While searching for a hypothetical Planet Nine, astronomers found a distant mini-world that’s been given a spooky nickname: “The Goblin.” The icy object was found at a distance of about… Read More
Astronomers on the team for NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission, or TESS, are reporting their first potential planet discoveries, just days after the spacecraft’s first science image was unveiled.… Read More
The first science images from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite focus on a strip of southern sky that includes the two nearest dwarf galaxies and plenty of potential targets in… Read More
Twelve years after the International Astronomical Union voted in a definition of planethood that reclassified Pluto, the debate goes on. A newly published study uses the historical record to take… Read More
It’s no hoax: Mars is bigger and brighter in the night sky than it’s been at any time since 2003. And you can watch the longest total lunar eclipse of… Read More
News Brief: NASA has hit the pause button on observations by its most prolific planet-hunting probe, the Kepler space telescope, so that it can download 51 days’ worth science data… Read More
The once-mysterious bright spots shining on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres are getting their closest close-ups from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, adding to the strangest sights of the solar… Read More
One month after its launch, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has sent back an initial test image that shows more than 200,000 stars in the southern sky. TESS’ image was… Read More
It took nine years for NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft to get to Pluto, and laying the groundwork for that history-making space mission here on Earth took nearly twice as long.… Read More
SpaceX has launched NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, kicking off a mission aimed at surveying nearly the entire sky for exoplanets. The probe rose into space atop a SpaceX… Read More
NASA and SpaceX say they’ll take more time to launch the Transiting Exoplanet Survey System, or TESS, just to make sure the $337 million mission will be on the right… Read More
We’re not alone. At least when it comes to solar systems with the same number of major planets as ours. NASA today announced details about the recent discovery of an… Read More
A red dwarf star that was previously thought to be the source of a weird signal from aliens turns out to have a temperate Earth-sized planet, astronomers reported today. The… Read More
2014 MU69 just won’t cut it, so NASA and the folks behind the New Horizons mission want you to help pick out a cooler nickname for the icy object that’s… Read More