In our presentation of the NASA-hosted event opening the James Webb Space Telescope to the world’s astronomical community, we discussed one of the five commissioning targets presented to the public. That choice to open this 5-article series was SMACS 0723, a distant galaxy cluster receding at 29% the speed of light. In this article, we’ll[…]
With a period of 24 days, TOI-1231-b orbits an M-class (M3V) star of 0.48 solar masses, first discovered by the TESS orbiting exoplanet finder in 2019. Further confirmation came from the Planet Finder Spectrograph on the Magellan Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Led by Jennifer Burt of NASA/JPL, her team at JPL and the University[…]
Dr. Jim Daly of Astronomy For Change Interviews Alberto Caballero. The Exoplanet Project’s home page: https://exoplanetschannel.wixsite.com/home. Alberto holds a Master’s degree and is the host of the “Exoplanets” YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdDS4j318UpKjNcpe_LeQxQ) whose focus is habitable exoplanets, extraterrestrial intelligence and Interstellar Travel. He is also involved with the Habitable Exoplanet Hunting Project, an international consortium of[…]
With the first topic of discussion posted, Astronomy for Change launches our new Community Forum and Discussion Board. The first topic of discussion is How Successful will TESS be? Jump right in and let us know what you think of NASA’s new mission of discovery and exploration or introduce a topic of your own.
UPDATE: On April 18th at 6:51 PM, EDT, SpaceX is set to launch the small counterpart and addition to the intrepid Kepler Space Telescope now operating with limited control propellant and hence, limited time during the newly designated K2 mission. Having its original mission cut short due to general failure of a second of the[…]
A team of astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, an orbiting platform that observes the universe exclusively in the InfraRed (heat) region of the spectrum, have discovered a group of Earth-size planets in orbit around the cool, low-mass red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, three of which are within the star’s habitable zone! As mentioned in yesterday’s[…]
The search for life beyond Earth starts in habitable zones, the regions around stars where conditions could potentially allow liquid water – essential for life as we know it – to pool on a planet’s surface. New NASA research suggests some of these zones might not actually be able to support life due to frequent[…]
Its often been said that Three’s a Charm! That is to say, in this case, three stars in the same system with a habitable Earth-like planet in the mix just for good measure! The Alpha Centauri Star System is a Trinary system – three stars linked by gravity, in orbit around a common center. What[…]
In another first for extrasolar planetary astronomy, it was announced on 20 June that NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, reconfigured and designated as the “K2 Mission”, has discovered the youngest exoplanet to date orbiting a brand new star. Follow-up confirmation observations were made using the W. M. Keck Observatory’s twin 10 meter telescopes on Mauna Kea,[…]
