How Far Are the Closest Exoplanets with Life?
To increase our chances of finding life on other planets, a systematic approach needs to be adopted, one that applies reasonable assumptions that maximize ou...
Posts by Category
science
How Long Will Life on Earth Last?
Nothing lasts forever, stars live and die over the course of hundreds of millions to billions, and in the case of red dwarf stars, trillions of years. Plane...
Exoplanet Temperatures from Secondary Eclipses
Over the course of this show, we’ve talked many many times about the Transit Method for detecting exoplanets. It is simply the measure of a star’s decrease ...
Biosignatures: The Search for Life Beyond Earth
In recent years, scientists have made great strides in the search for extraterrestrial life. They have discovered thousands of exoplanets. And some of them a...
A Glimpse into the Early Stages of Planetary Evolution
Deep in the cosmos, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered four new worlds orbiting a pair of young stars. These planets are prov...
Tidally Locked Worlds: Life in the Twilight Zone
Based on our experience here on Earth, we know life here to be tenacious and ubiquitous. Even in the harshest climates, if we look hard enough, we can usual...
What is the Habitable Worlds Observatory?
Finding habitable worlds has been a driving passion since we first learned there were other planets out there, and to find them, we are going to need a dedic...
How Starshades Can Help Us Find New Worlds
Most of the 5000 exoplanets discovered so far have been found using methods that don’t actually see the planet at all. Brightness dimmings and star wobbles ...
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will Revolutionize our Understanding of Exoplanets
The next big milestone in our study of exoplanets is a telescope that can see beyond the limits of our eyes, beyond the boundaries of our solar system, beyo...
How Common are Habitable Exoplanets?
How common are habitable exoplanets? Where’s the life? Astronomers are using all tools at their disposal to answer this question.
Finding Exoplanets with Direct Imaging
So here’s the scenario: We see all planets - including those in our solar system - in reflected light from the star. Starlight shines on a planet and is ref...
Life in the Dark: How Moons of Rogue Planets Could Harbor Life
If a moon has a thick atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, and some water, it could create a greenhouse effect that traps heat and keeps the surface warm. The...
How Long Would it Take to Travel to Proxima Centauri b?
We’ll need to do a lot better than that if we want to get to the closest exoplanet to us in any reasonable amount of time.
Finding Exoplanets
How do astronomers find exoplanets? This episode explores the various ways planets around other stars reveal themselves.
How Many Exoplanets Are There?
There are an average of 1.6 planets for every star in our galaxy
Exoplanets are Everywhere
More planets than stars
What is an Exoplanet?
There are many types of planets around other stars
exoplanets
Epsilon Indi Ab: A Twin of Jupiter
An international team of astronomers has directly imaged this exoplanet, one of the coldest ever seen. The team observed Epsilon Indi Ab using the coronagra...
TOI 1853 b: A Baffling Planet That Defies Explanation
Meet TOI-1853 b, one of the weirdest exoplanets ever discovered! It’s about the size of Neptune, but four times more massive. It orbits its star so closely t...
Osiris: The Exoplanet That Changed Everything
On September 9, 1999, a team of astronomers from the High Altitude Observatory made a groundbreaking discovery. Using the radial velocity method, they detect...
TRAPPIST-1e: The Most Habitable Exoplanet?
TRAPPIST-1e is a rocky, close-to-Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone around the ultra-cool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 approximately 40 light-...
The Many Earth-Sized Worlds of TOI-700
Move over TRAPPIST-1, there a new system that is just as exciting. TOI-700 is a system of four rocky, Earth-sized worlds and some might be habitable
Meet TrES-2b: The Planet That Reflects Almost No Light
Here is a planet that is so dark that it reflects less than one percent of the sunlight falling on it. How can a planet be so black? What makes it glow like ...
KELT-9b: The Hottest Known Exoplanet
Kelt-9b is a gas giant planet that orbits a star 670 light-years from Earth. It is so close to its star that its dayside temperature is 7,800 degrees Fahrenh...
HAT-P-67 b: The Largest Exoplanet Known
HAT-P-67-b seems to fit the bill. It is 1,200 light years from Earth and has a radius that is a little over twice that of Jupiters’. It orbits its host sta...
TRAPPIST-1d: A World on the Edge of Life
Tucked inside a quiet solar system, in the area of sky outlined by the constellation Aquarius, orbits a planet named TRAPPIST-1d, the third of seven planets ...
James Webb Space Telescope Observes New Type of Brown Dwarf
VHS 1256 b is a fascinating example of how diverse and complex the universe is. It shows us that there are many types of planets out there that we have not s...
WASP-39b: A Hot, Jupiter-sized World
WASP-39 b is a fascinating example of how diverse and complex exoplanets can be.
TRAPPIST-1: A System Full of Hope
While data from Hubble and Webb Space Telescopes have yet to confirm the existence of any atmospheres on any of these worlds, we have only just begun looking...
An Exoplanet That Shouldn’t Exist
How can a planet survive the expansion of its star into a Red Giant?
Proxima Centauri-b: The Closest Exoplanet to Earth
Proxima Centauri-b is an exoplanet right next door.
Kepler-22b: A Planet with a lot of Promise
Kepler-22b has lots of promise for life
Welcome to Exoplanet Radio
Delve into the mysteries of exotic planets in our galaxy!
discoveries
The Rogue Planets of JWST
The Orion Nebula, M42, is the largest stellar nursery close to Earth. Within this massive complex some 1300 light years away, the James Webb Space Telescope...
The First Hycean World? JWST’s Discovery of K2-18 b
The James Webb Space Telescope has completed observations of an exoplanet that may contain an ocean-covered surface underneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere. Th...
TESS’s Breakthrough Discovery of Long-Period Exoplanets TOI 4600 b and c
Human beings have discovered over five thousand five hundred exoplanets. Over 80 percent of them have orbits shorter than 50 days which would place them at ...
Astronomers Confirm Proxima Centauri b is Not a Transiting Exoplanet
Proxima Centauri b does not pass between us and the star, astronomers confirm. This will make determining habitability harder.
Is TRAPPIST-1 c Habitable? New Webb Telescope Observations Suggest Not
TRAPPIST-1 c may not have a thick atmosphere, or any atmosphere at all, but all is not lost on the habitability of the TRAPPIST-1 system
Trillions of Worlds Without Stars
Astronomers estimate that there are more free roaming planets in our galaxy than there are planets in orbit around stars
JWST Takes First Direct Image of an Exoplanet
Just a few months after deployment, astronomers have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to take a direct image of a planet outside our solar system. The ...
A Giant Planet Found Orbiting a Small Star
Finding planets in locations we don’t expect and in regions that defy our current understanding is an important reason why astronomers scan the heavens in se...
The First Exoplanets: The Discovery That Forever Changed Us
The observations of planets around other stars is very recent and it changed our view of humanity’s place in the universe forever.
Exoplanet Detected in Another Galaxy?
Astronomers have found evidence of a possible planet outside of our Milky Way galaxy
The First Exoplanet of JWST
This is the First Exoplanet Confirmed by JWST
JWST Measures Temperature of TRAPPIST-1b
JWST has measured the surface temperature of exoplanet TRAPPIST-1b
Rogue Planets: Not All Exoplanets Orbit Stars
Astronomers have detected many rogue planets