It is a planet only about twice as massive as Jupiter. While 51 Eridani b is larger than any planet in our solar system, it is currently the smallest exoplanet we’ve ever observed directly.
Earth 2
NASA has announced confirmation of the most Earth-like planet yet.
She’s So Unusual
We’ve now discovered thousands of stars with planets. Is ours really unique?
Spaghetti on the Wall
In the 1700s, Bode’s law seemed to work for our solar system. Now it’s being applied to other star systems, but how well does it really work?
Winter is Coming
New research finds that planetary orbits could be both chaotic and stable, which raises the possibility of “chaotic earths” with extreme seasons.
The Old Ones
Five small planets have been discovered around an ancient star.
Shadow of the Rings
We now know the planet with the greatest ring system isn’t Saturn.
M Class
In the Star Trek fictional universe, habitable Earth-like planets are designated as Class M planets, where M stands for the Vulcan word Minshara. In the real universe such planets would also be known as class M, but for different reasons.
Baby Picture
Every now and then in astronomy we’ll get an image that lets us actually see phenomena we have previously just deduced from other observations. The image above is one of them. It was taken by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), and shows an exoplanetary system in the process of forming. This isn’t an artistic rendering, it’s an actual image.