Project News

NASA Extends Spitzer, Planck, Kepler Missions

Planck • April 5th, 2012

NASA is extending three missions affiliated with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. -- Kepler, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the U.S. portion of the European...

NASA Releases New WISE Mission Catalog of Entire Infrared Sky

Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer • March 14th, 2012

NASA unveiled a new atlas and catalog of the entire infrared sky today showing more than a half billion stars, galaxies and other objects captured by the Wide-field Infrared...

All-Sky Images Show Cold Gas and Strange Haze

Planck • February 13th, 2012

New images from the Planck mission show previously undiscovered islands of star formation and a mysterious haze of microwave emissions in our Milky Way galaxy.

NASA's Kepler Announces 11 Planetary Systems Hosting 26 Planets

Kepler • January 26th, 2012

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified planets and triple the number...

NASA's Kepler Mission Finds Three Smallest Exoplanets

Kepler • January 11th, 2012

Astronomers using data from NASA's Kepler mission have discovered the three smallest planets yet detected orbiting a star beyond our sun. The planets orbit a single star, called...

NASA Discovers First Earth-size Planets Beyond Our Solar System

Kepler • December 20th, 2011

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system.

Kepler-22b, Super-Earth in the habitable zone of a Sun-like Star

Kepler • December 5th, 2011

The Kepler team has discovered Kepler-22b, a planet 2.4 times the size of Earth that orbits a sun-like star in 289 days. It the smallest planet yet found to orbit in the middle...

Kepler-21b discovery

Kepler • November 20th, 2011

Kepler Deputy Project Scientist Steve Howell led a research team in discovering that one of the brightest stars in the Kepler star field has a 1.6 Earth-radius planet circling...

Discovery of Kepler-17b

Kepler • 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...

Discovery of Kepler-18b, c, and d

Kepler • 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.