Announcements

Discovery of Kepler-17b

Project News • November 4th, 2011

This is a hot Jupiter-class planet orbiting an active star, with dark spots that are frequently occulted by the planet. From this we find the star rotates in about 12 days, only 8 times the the planet’s orbital period.

Discovery of Kepler-18b, c, and d

Project News • October 4th, 2011

A team of Kepler researchers led by Bill Cochran of The University of Texas at Austin has announced the discovery three planets: a super-Earth and two Neptune-sized planets.

NASA Space Telescope Finds Fewer Asteroids Near Earth

Project News • September 29th, 2011

New observations by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, show there are significantly fewer near-Earth asteroids in the mid-size range than previously thought. The findings also indicate NASA has found more than 90 percent of the largest near-Earth asteroids, meeting a goal agreed...

NASA's WISE Mission Captures Black Hole's Wildly Flaring Jet

Project News • September 20th, 2011

Astronomers using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have captured rare data of a flaring black hole, revealing new details about these powerful objects and their blazing jets.

Origin of Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Remains a Mystery

Project News • September 19th, 2011

Observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission indicate the family of asteroids some believed was responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs is not likely the culprit, keeping open the case on one of Earth's greatest mysteries.

NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers a World Orbiting Two Stars

Project News • September 15th, 2011

NASA's Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet -- a planet orbiting two stars -- 200 light-years from Earth.

The turbulent lives of stars

Project News • September 14th, 2011

The stars are boiling! The reason is the energy generated in the center of the star that wants to escape. If this does not happen quickly enough, the star starts to ‘boil’ in the outer layers causing vibrations that result in light variations, like in the Sun.

Invisible World Discovered

Project News • September 8th, 2011

Kepler-19b transits its star every 9 days and 7 hours. It orbits the star at a distance of 8.4 million miles, where it is heated to a temperature of about 900 degrees Fahrenheit.

NASA'S Wise Mission Discovers Coolest Class of Stars

Project News • August 23rd, 2011

Scientists using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have discovered the coldest class of star-like bodies, with temperatures as cool as the human body.

Alien World is Blacker than Coal

Project News • August 11th, 2011

A Press Release from Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA announcing that astronomers have discovered the darkest known exoplanet: Jupiter-sized gas giant known as TrES-2b that reflects less than one percent of the sunlight falling on it, making it blacker than coal or any...