A team of astrophysicists at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und- Raumfahrt; DLR), together with German and other European colleagues, has discovered the most extensive planetary system to date. Seven planets circle the star KOI-351 – more than in other known planetary systems. They are arranged in a similar fashion to the [continue reading]
A team of astronomers has found the first Earth-sized planet outside the Solar System that has a rocky composition like that of Earth. This exoplanet, known as Kepler-78b, orbits its star very closely every 8.5 hours, making it much too hot to support life. The results are being published in the journal Nature. This Earth-sized [continue reading]
Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found the building blocks of solid exoplanets that are capable of having substantial amounts of water. This rocky debris, currently orbiting a white dwarf star called GD 61, is considered a relic of an exoplanetary system that survived the burnout of its parent star. The finding suggests [continue reading]
ESO’s VLT provides new clues to help solve lithium mystery An international team led by astronomers in Brazil has used ESO’s Very Large Telescope to identify and study the oldest solar twin known to date. Located 250 light-years from Earth, the star HIP 102152 is more like the Sun than any other solar [continue reading]
During my holiday, there was lots of news from the Universe. In case you were not informed in another way, I’ll still publish the most important items. Gliese 667C reexamined A team of astronomers has combined new observations of Gliese 667C with existing data from HARPS at ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope in Chile, [continue reading]
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has found signs of Earth-like planets in an unlikely place: the atmospheres of a pair of burnt-out stars in a nearby star cluster. The white dwarf stars are being polluted by debris from asteroid-like objects falling onto them. This discovery suggests that rocky planet formation is common in clusters, [continue reading]