May 13, 2013

Grazing in the gap

Young stars start out with a massive disk of gas and dust that over time, astronomers think, either diffuses away or coalesces into planets and asteroids.

May 09, 2013

Planetary Family Portrait

This image shows the HR 8799 planets with starlight optically suppressed and data processing conducted to remove residual starlight. The star is at the center of the blackened circle in the image. The four spots indicated with the letters b through e are the planets. This is a composite image using 30 wavelengths of light and was obtained over a period of 1.25 hours on June 14 and 15, 2012.

May 06, 2013

An Astronomer's Fantasy: Planets in the Lab

If astronomers could somehow pull planets out of the sky and analyze them in the laboratory, it might look something like this artistically altered image illustrating new research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

April 18, 2013

Kepler-62f, a Small Habitable Zone World (Artist Concept)

The artist's concept depicts Kepler-62f, a super-Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a star smaller and cooler than the sun, located about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra.

April 18, 2013

Kepler-62e (Artist Concept)

The artist's concept depicts Kepler-62e, a super-Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a star smaller and cooler than the sun, located about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra.

April 18, 2013

Super-Venus (Artist Concept)

The artist's concept depicts Kepler-69c, a super-Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a star like our sun, located about 2,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.

April 18, 2013

Morning Star (Artist Concept)

This artist's concept depicts in the foreground planet Kepler-62f, a super-Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of its star, which is seen peeking out from behind the right edge of the planet.

April 18, 2013

Kepler-62 and the Solar System

The diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-62, a five-planet system about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra.

April 18, 2013

Kepler-69 and the Solar System

The diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-69, a two-planet system about 2,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. The two planets of Kepler-69 orbit a star that belongs to the same class as our sun, called G-type.

April 18, 2013

Lining Kepler Habitable Zone Planets Up

Relative sizes of Kepler habitable zone planets discovered as of 2013 April 18. Except for Earth, these are artists' renditions.

February 28, 2013

VLT image of the protoplanet around the young star HD 100546

This image from the NACO system on ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows a candidate protoplanet in the disc of gas and dust around the young star HD100546.

February 28, 2013

NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope view of the dust disc around the young star HD 100546

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a visible light view of the outer dust around the young star HD100546. The position of the newly discovered protoplanet is marked with an orange spot.

February 28, 2013

Artist's impression of a gas giant planet forming in the disc around the young star HD 100546

This artist’s impression shows the formation of a gas giant planet in the ring of dust around the young star HD 100546.

February 13, 2013

Habitable exomoon

This image shows an Earth-like "exomoon" orbiting a gas giant planet in a star's habitable zone.

February 06, 2013

Red Dwarf Planet

The artist's conception shows a hypothetical planet with two moons orbiting in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star.

January 08, 2013

Anatomy of Brown Dwarf's Atmosphere

This artist's illustration shows the atmosphere of a brown dwarf called 2MASSJ22282889-431026, which was observed simultaneously by NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes.

January 08, 2013

Probing Brown Dwarf Layers

This graph shows the brightness variations of the brown dwarf named 2MASSJ22282889-431026 measured simultaneously by both NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.

January 08, 2013

Forecast for Exotic Weather

This artist's conception illustrates the brown dwarf named 2MASSJ22282889-431026.

November 19, 2012

Artist's rendering of the "super-Jupiter" Kappa Andromedae b

The "super-Jupiter" Kappa Andromedae b, shown here in an artist's rendering, circles its star at nearly twice the distance that Neptune orbits the sun. With a mass about 13 times Jupiter's, the object glows with a reddish color.

November 19, 2012

Image of the "super-Jupiter" Kappa Andromedae b (no labels)

This false-color near-infrared image has been processed to remove most of the scattered light from the star Kappa Andromedae to reveal its "super-Jupiter" companion, Kappa Andromedae b.

November 14, 2012

The free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9 (annotated)

This image captured by the SOFI instrument on ESOs New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory shows the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9 in infrared light.

November 14, 2012

Artists impression of the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9

This artists impression shows the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9. This is the closest such object to the Solar System.

November 14, 2012

The free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9

This closeup of an image captured by the SOFI instrument on ESOs New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory shows the free-floating planet CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9 in infrared light.

November 01, 2012

Scenarios for the Evolution of Asteroid Belts

This illustration shows three possible scenarios for the evolution of asteroid belts.

October 16, 2012

Artists impression of the planet around Alpha Centauri B (Annotated)

This annotated artists impression shows the planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri B, a member of the triple star system that is the closest to Earth.

October 16, 2012

Alpha Centauri in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur)

This chart shows most of the stars visible with the unaided eye on a clear night. The star Alpha Centauri is one of the brightest stars in the southern sky (marked with a red circle). It lies just 4.3 light-years from the Earth and one component in a triple star system.

October 16, 2012

Artists impression of the planet around Alpha Centauri B

This artists impression shows the planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri B, a member of the triple star system that is the closest to Earth.

October 16, 2012

The bright star Alpha Centauri and its surroundings

This wide-field view of the sky around the bright star Alpha Centauri was created from photographic images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2.

September 14, 2012

Starry Starry Skies (Artist's Concept)

Astronomers have discovered two gas giant planets orbiting stars in the Beehive cluster, a collection of about 1,000 tightly packed stars.

September 11, 2012

Eccentric Habitable Zones

A hypothetical planet is depicted here moving through the habitable zone and then further out into a long, cold winter.

August 28, 2012

Sharing the Light of Two Suns

This artist's concept illustrates Kepler-47, the first transiting circumbinary system -- multiple planets orbiting two suns – 4,900 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus.

August 28, 2012

Two Planets of Kepler-47

The two planets of Kepler-47, the first transiting circumbinary system -- a system with more than one planet orbiting a pair of stars. Kepler-47b, on the right, has three times the radius of earth and orbits the pair of stars in less than 50 days while Kepler-47c is thought to be a gaseous giant, slightly larger than Neptune with an orbital period of 303 days.

August 28, 2012

Orbiting in the Habitable Zone of Two Suns

This diagram compares our own solar system to Kepler-47, a double-star system containing two planets, one orbiting in the so-called "habitable zone." This is the sweet spot in a planetary system where liquid water might exist on the surface of a planet.

July 18, 2012

Exoplanet is Extremely Hot and Incredibly Close (Artist's Concept)

Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have detected what they believe is an alien world just two-thirds the size of Earth one of the smallest on record.

June 08, 2012

Highlighting our Tiniest Neighbors

This image shows our own back yard, astronomically speaking, from a vantage point about 30 light-years away from the sun. It highlights the population of tiny brown dwarfs recently discovered by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE (red circles).

May 23, 2012

FINESSE -- A Proposed Exoplanet Mission

Artist's rendering of the proposed Fast Infrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer - or FINESSE -- spacecraft orbiting above Earth.

April 20, 2012

Flower power: NASA starshade petal prototype

The flower you see in this picture isn’t NASA’s attempt to celebrate the coming of spring. It’s actually the latest design in a cutting-edge effort to take pictures of planets orbiting stars far from the sun.

January 26, 2012

NASA's Kepler announces 11 new planetary systems

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits the star.

January 11, 2012

KOI-961 and its three known planets

This artist's conception compares the KOI-961 planetary system to Jupiter and the largest four of its many moons. Image credit: Caltech

January 11, 2012

Smallest exoplanets compared to Earth and Mars

This chart compares the smallest known exoplanets, or planets orbiting outside the solar system, to our own planets Mars and Earth.

January 11, 2012

Planets everywhere

This artist's illustration gives an impression of how common planets are around the stars in the Milky Way.

January 11, 2012

Extrasolar Planet Detected by Gravitational Microlensing

Our Milky Way galaxy contains a minimum of 100 billion planets according to a detailed statistical study based on the detection of three extrasolar planets by an observational technique called microlensing.

January 11, 2012

Kepler's Mini Planetary System

This artist's concept depicts an itsy bitsy planetary system -- so compact, in fact, that it's more like Jupiter and its moons than a star and its planets.

December 20, 2011

Kepler-20e -- The Smallest Exoplanet (Artist's Concept)

This artist's animation flies through the Kepler-20 star system, where NASA's Kepler mission discovered the first Earth-size planets around a star beyond our own.

September 26, 2011

Earth and Super-Earth

This artists concept contrasts our familiar Earth with the exceptionally strange planet known as 55 Cancri e.

May 23, 2011

Kepler-10 Stellar Family Portrait

This artist's conception depicts the Kepler-10 star system, located about 560 light-years away near the Cygnus and Lyra constellations.

December 08, 2010

Hot, Carbon-Rich Planet

This artist's concept shows the searing-hot gas planet WASP-12b (orange orb) and its star.

December 08, 2010

Signature of a Carbon-Rich Planet

This plot of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope indicates the presence of molecules in the planet WASP-12b -- a super-hot gas giant that orbits tightly around its star.

October 19, 2010

How to Find a Planetary Hot Spot

This graph of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows how astronomers located a hot spot on a distant gas planet named upsilon Andromedae b -- and learned that it was in the wrong place.

October 19, 2010

Planetary Hot Spot Not Under the Glare of Star

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found that the hottest part of a distant planet, named upsilon Andromedae b, is not under the glare of its host star as might be expected.

April 21, 2010

Exotic Exoplanet

An unusual, methane-free world is partially eclipsed by its star in this artist's concept.

April 21, 2010

How to Measure Exoplanet Light

These plots from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show light from a distant planet, GJ 436b, and its star, as measured at six different infrared wavelengths.

December 18, 2009

Kepler Photometer Being Lowered onto Spacecraft

The Kepler photometer is lowered onto the spacecraft in a clean room.

October 20, 2009

Exotic Atmospheres

The basic chemistry for life has been detected in a second hot gas planet, HD 209458b, depicted in this artist's concept.

October 06, 2009

Alien Asteroid Belt Compared to our Own

This artist's concept illustrates what the night sky might look like from a hypothetical alien planet in a star system with an asteroid belt 25 times as massive as the one in our own solar system (alien system above, ours below).

August 10, 2009

Planetary Demolition Derby

This artist's animation shows a celestial body about the size of our moon slamming at great speed into a body the size of Mercury.

April 08, 2009

Kepler first light image: 2 CCD modules

First light image from two of the CCD modules of the Kepler mission.

April 08, 2009

Full Focal Plane Image (First Light for Kepler Photometer) with labels

This image from NASA's Kepler mission shows the telescope's full field of view -- an expansive star-rich patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.

April 08, 2009

Star Cluster NGC 6791 from Kepler First Light Image

Cluster of Stars in Kepler's Sight - This image zooms into a small portion of Kepler's full field of view -- an expansive, 100-square-degree patch of sky in our Milky Way galaxy.

April 08, 2009

Two Zooms in the Kepler Field

This image from NASA's Kepler mission shows the telescope's full field of view -- an expansive star-rich patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.

April 08, 2009

Full Focal Plane Image (First Light for Kepler Photometer)

This image from NASA's Kepler mission shows the telescope's full field of view -- an expansive star-rich patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.

April 08, 2009

Kepler Full Focal Plane Image - Inverted

Inverted image (dark stars on light sky) Stars in the image are all brighter than magnitude 18.5. Stars brighter than 11.5 are "saturated" (all look the same brightness in the image).

April 08, 2009

Tres-2 - in Kepler Photometer First Light Image

April 07, 2009

Chemical Soups Around Cool Stars

This artist's conception shows a young, hypothetical planet around a cool star. A soupy mix of potentially life-forming chemicals can be seen pooling around the base of the jagged rocks.

January 28, 2009

Exoplanet HD 80606b Infrared Light Curve

This figure charts 30 hours of observations taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope of a strongly irradiated exoplanet (an planet orbiting a star beyond our own). It shows the very rapid heating the planet experienced as it swung through its closest approach to the star.

January 28, 2009

Severe Exoplanetary Storm

These computer-generated images chart the development of severe weather patterns on the highly eccentric exoplanet HD 80606b during the days after its closest approach to its parent star.

November 18, 2008

Kepler focal plane assembly

Kepler focal plane assembly in a clean room.

November 08, 2008

HST ACS/HRC Wide View of Fomalhaut b Planet in 2004 and 2006

Close-up of the planet Fomalhaut b as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. Fomalhaut b was discovered in Hubble data in 2008.

November 08, 2008

HST ACS/HRC Wide View of Fomalhaut System

This image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows the planet Fomalhaut b, orbiting its parent star, Fomalhaut.

November 08, 2008

HST Image of Fomalhaut and Fomalhaut b

This image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows the planet Fomalhaut b, orbiting its parent star, Fomalhaut.

February 17, 2008

Rocky, Terrestrial Worlds

This artist's concept illustrates the idea that rocky, terrestrial worlds like the inner planets in our Solar System may be plentiful, and diverse, in the Universe.

November 07, 2007

Water, water everywhere - on an extrasolar planet

An artist’s impression of a transiting exoplanet, named 'HD 189733b' - the first exoplanet found to have water vapor in its atmosphere.

November 06, 2007

Our Solar System's Cousin?

This artist's concept illustrates two planetary systems -- 55 Cancri (top) and our own. Blue lines show the orbits of planets, including the dwarf planet Pluto in our solar system.

July 11, 2007

Steaming Hot Planet

Scientists have reported the first conclusive discovery of water vapor in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our Solar System.

July 11, 2007

Exoplanet Forecast: Hot and Wet

This plot of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope tells astronomers that a toasty gas exoplanet, or a planet beyond our solar system, contains water vapor.

July 11, 2007

Steaming Hot Planet

Scientists have reported the first conclusive discovery of water vapor in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our Solar System.

July 11, 2007

Exoplanet Forecast: Hot and Wet

This plot of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope tells astronomers that a toasty gas exoplanet, or a planet beyond our solar system, contains water vapor.

May 30, 2007

Depth Perception in Space

This artist's concept shows how astronomers use the unique orbit of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and a depth-perceiving trick called parallax to determine the distance of dark planets, black holes, and failed stars which lurk invisibly among us.

May 09, 2007

First Map of an Exoplanet Atmosphere

This map, the first-ever of the surface of an exoplanet, shows temperature variations across the cloudy tops of a gas giant called HD 189733b.

May 09, 2007

Blacker than Black

This artist's concept illustrates the hottest planet yet observed in the Universe. The scorching ball of gas, a "hot Jupiter" called HD 149026b, is about 3 times hotter than the surface of Venus.

February 21, 2007

Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: an Exoplanet Atmosphere

This infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope called a spectrum tells astronomers that a distant gas planet, a so-called "hot Jupiter" called HD 209458b, might be smothered with high clouds. It is one of the first spectra of an alien world.

February 21, 2007

Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: an Exoplanet Atmosphere

This infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope tells astronomers that a distant gas planet, a so-called "hot Jupiter" called HD 209458b, might be smothered with high clouds. It is one of the first spectra of an alien world.

February 21, 2007

Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: An Exoplanet Atmosphere

This infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope tells astronomers that a distant gas planet, a so-called "hot Jupiter" called HD 189733b, might be smothered with high clouds. It is one of the first spectra of an alien world.

February 21, 2007

Isolating a Planet's Spectrum

This diagram illustrates how astronomers can capture the elusive spectra of hot-Jupiter planets by comparing observations including light from both the star and planet to those containing just the star.

January 09, 2007

Forecasting Weather on Distant Worlds

An artist's concept shows a gas-giant planet orbiting very close to its parent star, creating searingly hot conditions on the planet's surface.

January 08, 2007

Gas Giants Form Quickly

This is an artist's concept of a hypothetical 10-million-year-old star system. The bright blur at the center is a star much like our sun. The other orb in the image is a gas-giant planet like Jupiter. Wisps of white throughout the image represent traces of gas.

October 12, 2006

Exotic World Blisters Under the Sun

This artist's concept shows a Jupiter-like planet, called Upsilon Andromedae b, soaking up the scorching rays of its nearby star. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope determined that this planet is two-faced, with one side perpetually in the cold dark, and the other forever blistering under the heat of its star.

October 12, 2006

The Light and Dark Sides of a Distant Planet

The top graph consists of infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. It tells astronomers that a distant planet, called Upsilon Andromedae b, always has a giant hot spot on the side that faces the star, while the other side is cold and dark. The artist's concepts above the graph illustrate how the planet might look throughout its orbit if viewed up close with infrared eyes.

September 18, 2006

Brown Dwarf Companion

This is an artist's concept of the star HD 3651 as it is orbited by a close-in Saturn-mass planetary companion and the distant brown dwarf companion discovered by Spitzer infrared photographs.

April 05, 2006

Extreme Planets

This artist's concept depicts a planetary system discovered by Aleksander Wolszczan in 1992 around a pulsar.

December 14, 2005

The Invisible Disk

Astronomers can detect the presence of disks of dust orbiting distant stars by measuring how the combined light from the star and disk changes across different wavelengths.

March 22, 2005

The Language of Planetary Light

This graph of data from NASA's Spitzer Space telescope shows changes in the infrared light output of two star-planet systems (one above, one below) located hundreds of light-years away.

March 22, 2005

Blinded by the Light

This artist's concept shows what a fiery hot star and its close-knit planetary companion might look close up if viewed in visible (left) and infrared light.

January 10, 2005

Massive Smash-Up at Vega

This artist concept illustrates how a massive collision of objects, perhaps as large as the planet Pluto, smashed together to create the dust ring around the nearby star Vega. New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope indicate the collision took place within the last one million years.

December 09, 2004

The View from Within AU Microscopii's Disk

This is an artist's impression of the view from the vicinity of a hypothetical terrestrial planet and moon orbiting the red dwarf star AU Microscopii.

November 09, 2004

Observing Young Stars: Hitting the 'Sweet Spot'

What does an extremely young planetary system look like? The answer depends on your point of view. This diagram shows how such a system appears when viewed from different directions.

October 18, 2004

The Rocky World of Young Planetary Systems (Annotated)

This artist's concept illustrates how planetary systems arise out of massive collisions between rocky bodies.

October 18, 2004

The Rocky World of Young Planetary Systems

This artist's concept illustrates how planetary systems arise out of massive collisions between rocky bodies.

May 27, 2004

Out of the Dust, A Planet is Born

A possible newfound planet spins through a clearing in a nearby star's dusty, planet-forming disc.

May 18, 2001

Free-Floating Planets May be More Common Than Stars

This artist's conception illustrates a Jupiter-like planet alone in the dark of space, floating freely without a parent star.

October 18, 0200

A single Kepler science module

Up-close picture of Kepler CCD hardware.