Scientists recently announced they had found potential signs of life on a planet 124 light years from Earth. While the bold claim has been challenged, the mere prospect is enough to inflame a ...

Exoplanets are planets outside Earth's solar system. In 1995, a gas giant named 51 Pegasi b, which orbits a star similar to Earth's sun, etched its name in history as the first exoplanet ever ...

A team of scientists is developing a "quantum-sensitive" device that could capture direct images of Earth-like exoplanets — something astronomers tend to consider so difficult it's nearly impossible.

Astronomers have identified four exoplanets orbiting Barnard’s Star, a red dwarf star just 6 light-years away from Earth. No, really, this time it’s for real! We have to emphasize this because ...

Detecting exoplanets at all is difficult—they typically emit much less than 1% of a host star's brightness. Eclipse mapping requires measuring small fractions of that total as a planet circles behind ...

In our solar system, Earth is one of but eight planets – nine if you really want to count Pluto – and the only one remotely hospitable to life. But look beyond our sun's gravitational pull into the ...