Most of the exoplanets we've discovered orbit red dwarf stars. This isn't because red dwarfs are somehow special, simply that they are common. About 75% of the stars in the Milky Way are red dwarfs, so you would expect red dwarf planets to be the most abundant. This also means that most habitable worlds are going to orbit these small, cool stars, and that has some significant consequences for our search for life.

Astronomers have identified two different cases of "mini-Neptune" planets that are losing their puffy atmospheres and likely transforming into super-Earths. Radiation from the planets' stars is stripping away their atmospheres, driving hot gas to escape like steam from a pot of boiling water.

Article URL: https://browse.arxiv.org/html/2312.11133v1 Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38836217 Points: 1 # Comments: 0

Some of the rocky TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets could still have atmospheres, a new study from the University of Washington suggests. Could they even be habitable? The post Some TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets could have stable atmospheres first appeared on EarthSky.

Employing state-of-the-art numerical simulations, a study led by scientists at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) has obtained the first systematic characterization of the properties of stellar winds in a sample of cool stars. They found that stars with stronger magnetic fields produce more powerful winds. These winds create unfavorable conditions for the survival of planetary atmospheres, thus…

Barium, a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56, is the heaviest element detected to date in any exoplanetary atmosphere.

An international team of researchers examined data for 25 exoplanets and found some links among the properties of the atmospheres, including the thermal profiles and chemical abundances in them. These findings will help establish a generalized theory of planet formation which will improve our understanding of all planets, including the Earth.

When it comes to finding life in the Universe, there's still only one place that we know of that has it: right here on planet Earth. However, as science has recently shown us, both the raw…

Acoustic perturbations to stellar envelopes can lead to the formation of weak shock waves via nonlinear wave-steepening. Close to the stellar surface, the weak shock wave increases in strength and can potentially lead to the expulsion of part of the stellar envelope. While accurate analytic solutions to the fluid equations exist in the limits of low amplitude waves or strong shocks, connecting these phases…

Astronomers have spotted an unexpected chemical element high within the atmosphere of two sizzling exoplanets where liquid iron and gems rain down from the skies. Barium is the heaviest element ever discovered within the atmosphere of an exoplanet.

The next generation of advanced telescopes could sharpen the hunt for potential extraterrestrial life by closely scrutinizing the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets, new research suggests.

In a new paper in the Astrophysical Journal, a duo of astronomers from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University described a way to manipulate solar gravitational lensing to view extrasolar planets.

Gas giants orbiting our sun show a clear pattern; the more massive the planet, the lower the percentage of "heavy" elements (anything other than hydrogen and helium) in the planet's atmosphere. But out in the galaxy, the atmospheric compositions of giant planets do not fit the solar system trend, an international team of astronomers has found.

The James Webb Space Telescope is slowly gathering evidence that a nearby exoplanet has an Earth-like atmosphere and liquid water.

Worlds Around Other Stars Can Change Their Classification If our solar system were a hobbyist kit, it would come boxed up with four rocky terrestrial planets, like Earth; and four gas giant planets like Jupiter. What astronomers have discovered around some other stars is a rare type of pla

Modeling shows that these types of planets could potentially host life.

The Hubble Space Telescope spots face-melting hot weather on the planets.

Earth's oceans and atmosphere are changing as the planet warms. Some ocean waters become greener as more microscopic organisms bloom. In the atmosphere, dust storms born on one continent affect the air quality of another, while smoke from massive wildfires can blanket entire regions for days. NASA's newest Earth-observing satellite, called PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean […]

The Hubble Space Telescope have investigated 25 exoplanets to find out about how the composition of their atmospheres.

Worlds that hold onto their dense primordial atmospheres of hydrogen and helium may stay warm enough to maintain liquid water on their surfaces, even without starlight