Exoplanetary Science

Astronomers have obtained a direct spectrum of the exoplanet HR 8799 c, about 130 light years from Earth, and if you watch your definitions, it’s possible to call this the first ‘direct spectrum’ of such a world. I throw in the qualifier because way back in 2004, astronomers using the ESO’s Very Large Telescope and [...]

With the American Astronomical Society meeting now wrapped up in Washington, we’re left to mull over the highlights, particularly the Kepler results. But the Keck Observatory also contributed compelling exoplanet news in the form of HD156668b, a planet some eighty light years from earth in the direction of Hercules. Working with Keck data, a research [...]

Just how good is Kepler at finding planets? We’re getting a pretty good idea. In his talk yesterday at the AAS meeting in Washington, William Borucki (NASA Ames) showed a plot of the lightcurve for previously known planet HAT-P-7. The signature of the planetary transit is unmistakable in these data, a well defined dip in [...]

Several stories stick in my mind as we approach the New Year, presented here in no particular order, but merely as material for musing. The detection (by the MEarth Project) of a transiting ’super-Earth’ this past month opens up interesting areas for speculation. Gliese 1214b is roughly 6.5 times as massive as Earth, orbiting an [...]