May 09, 2013
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.
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February 13, 2013
This image shows an Earth-like "exomoon" orbiting a gas giant planet in a star's habitable zone.
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November 19, 2012
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.
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November 19, 2012
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.
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September 14, 2012
Astronomers have discovered two gas giant planets orbiting stars in the Beehive cluster, a collection of about 1,000 tightly packed stars.
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August 28, 2012
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.
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August 28, 2012
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.
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August 28, 2012
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.
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June 08, 2012
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).
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May 23, 2011
This artist's conception depicts the Kepler-10 star system, located about 560 light-years away near the Cygnus and Lyra constellations.
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December 08, 2010
This artist's concept shows the searing-hot gas planet WASP-12b (orange orb) and its star.
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December 08, 2010
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.
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October 19, 2010
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.
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October 19, 2010
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.
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April 21, 2010
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.
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April 21, 2010
An unusual, methane-free world is partially eclipsed by its star in this artist's concept.
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October 20, 2009
The basic chemistry for life has been detected in a second hot gas planet, HD 209458b, depicted in this artist's concept.
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April 08, 2009
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.
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April 08, 2009
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.
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January 28, 2009
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.
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January 28, 2009
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.
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November 08, 2008
Close-up of the planet Fomalhaut b as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. Fomalhaut b was discovered in Hubble data in 2008.
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November 08, 2008
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.
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November 07, 2007
An artist’s impression of a transiting exoplanet, named 'HD 189733b' - the first exoplanet found to have water vapor in its atmosphere.
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November 06, 2007
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.
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July 11, 2007
Scientists have reported the first conclusive discovery of water vapor in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our Solar System.
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July 11, 2007
Scientists have reported the first conclusive discovery of water vapor in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our Solar System.
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May 09, 2007
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.
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May 09, 2007
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.
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February 21, 2007
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.
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February 21, 2007
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.
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February 21, 2007
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.
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February 21, 2007
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.
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January 08, 2007
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.
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October 12, 2006
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.
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October 12, 2006
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.
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September 18, 2006
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.
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March 22, 2005
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.
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March 22, 2005
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.
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May 27, 2004
A possible newfound planet spins through a clearing in a nearby star's dusty, planet-forming disc.
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May 18, 2001
This artist's conception illustrates a Jupiter-like planet alone in the dark of space, floating freely without a parent star.
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Artists' renderings of science concepts.
Images of observation data captured by telescopes.
Data charts, spectra, graphs, and planetary maps.
Small exoplanets that may have rocky surfaces, like Earth.
Exoplanets 2.5 times the size of Earth and larger.
Massive worlds too close to their stars for comfort.
Areas where young planets are being formed.
