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NASA’s Tally of Planets Outside Our Solar System Reaches 6,000

NASA has confirmed over 6,000 exoplanets with thousands more awaiting confirmation. Each new discovery helps scientists understand how planets form, how common Earth-like worlds might be, and where to look for signs of life. With upcoming missions like the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the Habitable Worlds Observatory, we are closer to answering the most haunting question of all: Are we truly alone in the universe?

Volcanoes erupt and clouds swirl in this animation of the Earth-size world LP 791-18 d.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (KRBwyle)

LP 791-18 d, illustrated here in an artist's concept, is an Earth-size world about 90 light-years away. Astronomers discovered and studied the planet using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) along with many other observatories.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (KRBwyle)

MSH 15-52

MSH 15-52 (LABELED)

In this composite image, a pulsar, a pulsar wind nebula, and a low energy X-ray cloud combine to create an uncanny scene of a skeletal hand preparing to grab a glowing ember. The hand reaches up from the bottom of the image, the ghostly blue flesh and white bones representing pulsar wind nebula X-rays observed by Chandra. A bright white spot in the wrist is the pulsar itself. Just beyond the hand�s fingertips, near our upper right, is a mottled yellow and orange shape that appears to glow from within. This is the low energy X-ray cloud observed by Chandra.

Pulsar wind nebulas like MSH 15-52 are clouds of energetic particles, producing X-rays, that are driven away from dead collapsed stars. X-rays from Chandra (gold and blue); infrared from the Dark Energy Camera KPNO Blanco 4.0m (red and blue)

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NOIRLab/DECam; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt

Near the center of these images lies the pulsar B1509-58, a rapidly spinning neutron star that is only about 12 miles in diameter. This tiny object is responsible for producing an intricate nebula (called MSH 15-52) that spans over 150 light-years, or about 900 trillion miles. The nebula, which is produced by energetic particles, resembles a human hand with a palm and extended fingers pointing to the upper right in a view from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Radio data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) provides new information about this exploded star and its environment. This image also contains optical data of hydrogen gas. The bright red and gold areas near the top of the image show the remains of the supernova that formed the pulsar.

Labeled version of MSH 15-52

X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Hong Kong/S. Zhang et al.; Radio: ATNF/CSIRO/ATCA; H-alpha: UK STFC/Royal Observatory Edinburgh; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk

In this composite image, a pulsar, a pulsar wind nebula, and a low energy X-ray cloud combine to create an uncanny scene of a skeletal hand preparing to grab a glowing ember. The hand reaches up from the bottom of the image, the ghostly blue flesh and white bones representing pulsar wind nebula X-rays observed by Chandra. A bright white spot in the wrist is the pulsar itself. Just beyond the hand�s fingertips, near our upper right, is a mottled yellow and orange shape that appears to glow from within. This is the low energy X-ray cloud observed by Chandra.

Pulsar wind nebulas like MSH 15-52 are clouds of energetic particles, producing X-rays, that are driven away from dead collapsed stars. X-rays from Chandra (gold and blue); infrared from the Dark Energy Camera KPNO Blanco 4.0m (red and blue)

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NOIRLab/DECam; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt

Near the center of these images lies the pulsar B1509-58, a rapidly spinning neutron star that is only about 12 miles in diameter. This tiny object is responsible for producing an intricate nebula (called MSH 15-52) that spans over 150 light-years, or about 900 trillion miles. The nebula, which is produced by energetic particles, resembles a human hand with a palm and extended fingers pointing to the upper right in a view from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Radio data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) provides new information about this exploded star and its environment. This image also contains optical data of hydrogen gas. The bright red and gold areas near the top of the image show the remains of the supernova that formed the pulsar.

Labeled version of MSH 15-52

X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Hong Kong/S. Zhang et al.; Radio: ATNF/CSIRO/ATCA; H-alpha: UK STFC/Royal Observatory Edinburgh; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk

MSH 15-52

MSH 15-52 (LABELED)

A ‘Pulsing’ Skeletal Hand

Back in 2009, NASA’s Chandra Observatory revealed a pulsar surrounded by a nebula, shaped uncannily like a human hand.

Now with the new data from Australia’s ATCA telescope, astronomers have given this eerie structure a fresh look. Studying strange shapes like this give us clues on how energy and matter ripple through space and how the echoes of stellar death leave behind raw materials to form future stars and planets.

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Galaxy of Horrors

Lurking beyond our solar system, among the billions of stars and the exoplanets that orbit them, is another sort of Milky Way altogether. Our "Galaxy of Horrors" reveals the sinister science behind real worlds we’ve discovered in our galaxy.

Creepy Cosmic Corner

‘Blood-Soaked’ Eyes: NASA’s Webb, Hubble Examine Galaxy Pair

‘Witch Head’ Brews Baby Stars

Spitzer Telescope Spots a Ghoulish Gourd

Ghost Head Nebula

Chandra Catches Spider Pulsars Destroying Nearby Stars

A White Dwarf’s Chilling Feast

About 260 light years away, a burned out star is caught inthe act of devouring a Pluto-like world. NASA’s Hubble detected the icy material being pulled apart and swallowed by the star’s immense gravity.

This discovery offers a glimpse of what may one day happen in our own solar system, when the Sun becomes a white dwarf and consumes the remnants of our worlds.

A top-down view of a spiral galaxy, showing its brightly-shining center, its broad spiral arms, and the faint halo around its disk, as well as distant galaxies and stars on a dark background. Large blue clouds of gas speckled with small stars and strands of dark dust swirl around the galaxy’s disk. A couple of the background galaxies are large enough that their own swirling spiral arms are visible.

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