Earth is a rocky planet that humans know the most in the universe. Humans are driven to imagine what other bodies may be like. NASA's TESS and its counterpart, the Kepler spacecraft, are two of the missions that support the scientific curiosity about what planets exist outside the sun's neighborhood.
The study of planets outside our solar system helps answer questions about our place in the universe. Learning about gas giants can help us understand how Jupiter got to be where it is today. The rarity and preciousness of our planet is highlighted by searching for rocky planets in the habitable zones around their parent stars. We inspire our imaginations by discovering what is possible.
These are some of the discoveries made in the year.
There is a planet in another universe.
Scientists published a study in October about the discovery of an exoplanet outside of our galaxy.
The candidate for an exoplanet is located 28 million light-years away from Earth.
The transit method is used to detect exoplanets by looking for dips in a star's optical brightness. The faint periods show that a planet is passing in front of the star. Astronomers use TESS to find alien worlds.
Astronomers put a twist on this method to find a potentially-supergalactic world. Scientists were looking for dips of X-ray brightness instead of changes in optical light when they spotted this exoplanet candidate, called M51-ULS-1b. Researchers were able to see objects transiting stars farther away with the help of X-ray observations.
The team used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton space telescope to look for a planet outside the Milky Way. They looked at 55 different star systems in the whirlpool galaxy.
The M51-ULS-1b is a potentially Saturn-sized exoplanet that is twice the distance from the sun to a dense object like a black hole.
Astronomers take a planetary baby photo.
The exoplanet 2M0337b is a gas giant that circles a star 417 light-years from Earth. The host star has been mostly removed by image-processing techniques, while the four Spikes are artifacts produced by the telescope's optics. The image is from the Subaru Telescope.
Astronomers captured an image of a baby exoplanet.
The amazing photo is rare. The planet featured in this view is so close to Earth that the telescope at the summit of Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano was able to take a picture of it.
There is a fascinating world. This place is very close to Earth and is one of the youngest exoplanets ever found. It is younger than the planets in the solar system. The world was formed just a few million years ago, and its surface is very hot, perhaps as hot as lava.
It took three years for scientists to confirm the existence of 2M0337b, a planet that is very slow in moving across Earth's sky.
The planets could be revealing themselves.
An artist's depiction of a planet. The Wikimedia Commons is reproduced under a Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license.
27 possible rogue planets were spotted using a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.
Ours is to the sun, but these Earth-sized worlds are not bound to a star.
The existence of these planetary travelers will need future observations to be confirmed. Since the planets are not circling the stars at regular intervals, optical light observations that measure stellar brightness or dimming can't be used to spot them.
Astronomers looked at the data from NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope to detect signs of rare microlensing events. The light of a distant star or quasar is warped by the gravity of a massive foreground object.
Future observations from missions such as NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could help confirm findings.
The ALMA captured the PDS 70 system.
Astronomers caught another alien world in its infancy, if the photo of a baby exoplanet wasn't cute enough. The first moon-forming disk around a planet outside the solar system was discovered this year.
There is a primordial ring of material around a Jupiter-like exoplanet called PDS 70c. The planets are still in the early stages of formation. The detection of this system is a big win for astronomy, as it helps them understand how planets and moons are formed in a system's infancy.
The circumplanetary disk of this system is 500 times larger than the rings of Saturn. The ring of material is enough to make three bodies the size of Earth's moon, according to scientists.
A new atmosphere may have been created by an exoplanet.
A planet may have created a new atmosphere after a loss.
The red dwarf star GJ 1132 b is 41 light-years away and circles its parent star every 1.5 Earth days. The atmosphere on this exoplanet may not have been present when the world formed, according to observations by the Hubble Space Telescope. There is a chance that the new atmosphere was created by gases released from molten rock.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched in December of 2011. Scientists could get a better look at what's going on with GJ 1132 b once the observatory is up and running.
There is a possibility of water clouds in a Neptune-like exoplanet.
An artist's depiction of a planet. The image is from NASA/JPL-Caltech.
According to research published this year, the atmosphere of one exoplanet may contain clouds of water.
The TOI-1231 b takes just 24 days to travel from Earth to its parent star and is smaller than Neptune. More observations are needed to confirm that water clouds are floating in the world's atmosphere, even though the findings published this spring are exciting.
The TOI-1231 b is a cool world with a relatively cool atmosphere. Preliminary research suggests that this planet, which is 3.5 times larger than Earth, may have a dense water-vapor atmosphere. The atmosphere of the planet may be similar to Neptune's hydrogen-helium composition if further observations show that this isn't the case.
Aplanet with the shortest-known path is detected.
An artist's depiction of a Jupiter. The image was taken by NASA, the European Space Agency and G. bacon.
The exoplanet takes just 16 hours to circle its star. The world called TOI-2109b is getting closer to its star at the fastest rate ever observed.
A gas giant called TOI-2109b is close to its parent star. Astronomers have identified about 400 planets. This world is the second-hottest exoplanet ever found, it is five times as massive as Jupiter, and twice the mass of our sun. The planet's close proximity to its parent star and the fact that its dayside never turns to face away from it could cause the heat.
The star of TOI-2109b is approximately 855 light-years away from Earth. The paper detailing TOI-2109b was published in November of 2021.
Alpha Centauri A may host a Neptune-sized exoplanet.
The view of the sky around Alpha Centauri was created from photographic images that formed part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. Davide De Martin is the author of the Acknowledgement of theDigitized Sky Survey 2.
Near Earths in the Alpha Cen Region has been searching for planets in the stars of the Alpha Centauri system. The stars are a stone's throw away from Earth, at a distance of more than 4 light-years.
Evidence suggests that a previously-unknown planet exists in this system. Astronomers found a world in Alpha Centauri that was larger than the Earth and could support liquid water. The region is called a habitable zone because it is in a range where the parent star can be found.
The study authors hope that the new work will inspire other people to look for planets in the area.
It takes more than 200 days for 'em-1b to reach its star.
An artist's rendering of a 10-million-year-old star system with a gas-giant planet. The image is from NASA/JPL-Caltech.
An exoplanet with a funny unofficial name has a 218-day orbit around its parent star.
Astronomers hope that this world, which is located about 1,300 light-years away from Earth, can help improve scientific understanding about planetary populations and their migrations.
Gas giants like those in our solar system are very close to their stars. There are several hundred known "hot Jupiters," which are planets that are close to their stars. Only a few dozen of the thousands of exoplanets were discovered with a longer than 200 day lifespan.
It's called GOT 'EM-1b after its parent star. It's five times the mass of Jupiter and is a gas giant. It's long trip around its star resembles a few dozen other "hot Jupiters".
One of the oldest-known rocky exoplanets was spotted by TESS.
One of the oldest, most metal-poor planetary systems discovered yet in the Milky Way is depicted in the artist's rendition. The image was taken by W. M. Keck Observatory.
A paper was published in January of 2021.
The surface temperature of TOI-561b is over 3,140 degrees F. This exoplanet is three times more massive than Earth and it is in close proximity to its star. It takes less than 12 hours to travel around its parent star.
The planet is very old. Astronomers used data from NASA's TESS mission and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to estimate the exoplanet's age. They think it's about 10 billion years old. It shows that the universe has been forming rocky planets since it was 14 billion years ago, and that TOI-561b is one of the oldest rocky planets yet discovered.
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