The Kepler Space Telescope will soon run out of fuel and end its mission. Here are nine fundamental discoveries about planets aided by Kepler in the 9 years since its launch.
exoplanets
Posted inAGU News
AGU and AAS Join Forces to Foster Understanding of Exoplanets
Enhanced cooperation between organizations representing astronomers and Earth and space scientists will build upon interdisplinary work already bridging geophysics and astronomy.
Posted inNews
Exoplanet-Hunting Telescope Launches
Scanning for traces of faraway worlds, TESS will make observations over an area hundreds of times larger than that observed by its predecessor, the Kepler Space Telescope.
Posted inNews
Looking to the Future of Exoplanet Science
Upcoming missions seeking to unravel the secrets of exoplanets abound. An informal survey of astronomers revealed which of those projects they most eagerly await.
Posted inNews
Ten Earth-Sized Planets Found by Exoplanet-Hunting Telescope
A new analysis of exoplanet candidates also reveals a previously unrecognized tendency for smaller exoplanets to grow into two distinct sizes.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Lab Tests Probe Carbon Planets’ Inner Dynamics
Thermal convection in deep interiors could be more vigorous in carbide planets than in comparably sized silicate planets, according to new high-pressure measurements of silicon carbide.
Posted inNews
Meet KELT-9b, the Hottest Exoplanet Ever Discovered
The exoplanet’s host star blasts it with so much radiation that it will someday evaporate.
Posted inNews
Starlike Brown Dwarf? Not Anymore
Because of a new, surprisingly smaller mass estimate for a much-studied, nearby brown dwarf, astronomers now regard the familiar object as merely planetlike.
Posted inNews
A New Theory May Explain “Impossible” TRAPPIST-1 Planets
The proposed formation scenario relies on unconventional processes to account for a bevy of seven Earth-sized exoplanets recently found orbiting an unlikely star.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Imagining a Different Earth
Data will be critical to start to answer whether the newly found TRAPPIST-1 worlds are truly Earth-like.