Gas Giant Exoplanets

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Illustration of an exoplanet with a hazy blue atmosphere and loose bands of clouds on the black background of space. The right three-quarters of the planet is lit by a star not shown in the illustration. The left quarter is in shadow. The terminator, the boundary between the day and night sides is gradual, not sharp. The planet is light blue with loose bands of white clouds. The limb of the planet (the edge) has a subtle blue glow.

Webb Cracks Case of Inflated Exoplanet

7 min read

Why is the warm gas-giant exoplanet WASP-107 b so puffy? Two independent teams of researchers have an answer. Data collected…

Article1 month ago
Illustration showing a hazy blue planet against the black background of space. The planet is in the left side of the frame. The axis is tilted roughly 20 degrees counter-clockwise from vertical. The eastern side (right half) is lit by a star out of view and the western side (left half) is in shadow. The terminator (the boundary between the day and night sides) is fuzzy. There are white patchy clouds visible on the dayside, near the terminator, along the equator, that appear to be originating from the nightside.

NASA’s Webb Maps Weather on Planet 280 Light-Years Away

6 min read

An international team of researchers has successfully used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to map the weather on the hot…

Article2 months ago
Artist's concept shows the red-dwarf star, TRAPPIST-1, at the upper left, with two large dots on the face of the disk representing transiting planets; five more planets are shown at varying positions descending toward the lower right as they orbit the star. Artist's concept shows the TRAPPIST-1 planets as they might be seen from Earth using an extremely powerful – and fictional – telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

That Starry Night Sky? It’s Full of Eclipses

5 min read

Our star, the Sun, on occasion joins forces with the Moon to offer us Earthlings a spectacular solar eclipse –…

Article3 months ago
Illustration shows the upper two-thirds of a gas-giant planet, TOI-4600 c, that is similar to Saturn (minus the rings). Cloud bands alternate between light tan, yellow, and darker yellow verging on green.

Discovery Alert: a Long Year for a ‘Cold Saturn’

3 min read

Two recently discovered exoplanets, gas giants possibly similar to Saturn, could be candidates for further atmospheric investigation.

Article4 months ago
A dull, orange-red background dotted with tiny white spots includes a small, bright yellow circle, a star, in the bottom left corner. In the center and center-right of the image, a large, doughnut-shaped, puffy cloud that has splotches of bright and dull orange-red, with a bright yellow-orange center. In front of the right side of this cloud is a red rock, a leftover planet core, that has bright red lines stemming from it. All across the image are small, dark greyish rocks.

Discovery Alert: Glowing Cloud Points to a Cosmic Collision

3 min read

Scientists find that a glowing cloud that obscured a star was caused by a cataclysmic collision of two giant exoplanets.

Article4 months ago

NASA’s Roman Mission Gears Up for a Torrent of Future Data

5 min read

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team is exploring ways to support community efforts that will prepare for the deluge…

Article9 months ago

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