Do certain exoplanets mirror Earth regarding their distribution of iron and water? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as an international team of researchers ...

Of the seven Earth-sized worlds orbiting the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, one planet in particular has attracted the attention ...

What can star variability—changes in a star's brightness over time—teach astronomers about exoplanet habitability? This is ...

"The James Webb Space Telescope has captured helium escape from this planet for the first time, and it is the most confident ...

As much as 95% of an exoplanet's water could be trapped forever deep inside its iron core, transforming what we thought we knew about water worlds and potentially rendering them even more habitable ...

When astronomers search for planets that could host liquid water on their surface, they start by looking at a star's habitable zone. Water is a key ingredient for life, and on a planet too close to ...

"When the Earth's mantle melts, it produces basalts," said Esteban Gazel, professor of engineering. Basalt, a gray-black volcanic rock found throughout the solar system, are key recorders of geologic ...

For decades, the search for alien life has revolved around a narrow ring around stars where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. That “habitable zone” remains important, but astronomers are ...

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured helium escape from this planet for the first time, and it is the most confident ...

Still, science being science, we needed proof—and we got it in 1992, when two astronomers found two planets orbiting a pulsar ...

Scientists have discovered the strongest evidence to date for a stratosphere on a planet outside our solar system, or exoplanet. A stratosphere is a layer of atmosphere in which temperature increases ...