A particularly intriguing subclass of rocky exoplanets are the ultra-short period (USP) worlds that orbit their host stars in less than a day. These planets are particularly rare around M […]
SPECULOOS
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Hidden Gems In TESS: Sherlock Finds Two New Rocky Planets Around Nearby M Dwarfs
The Hidden Gems project searches the TESS data for additional planets transiting low-mass stars in confirmed systems. Our goal is to identify planet candidates that are below the detection threshold […]
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Two Temperate Earth- and Neptune-sized Planets Orbiting Fully Convective M dwarfs
As the diversity of exoplanets continues to grow, it is important to revisit assumptions about habitability and classical HZ definitions. In this work, we introduce an expanded ‘temperate’ zone, defined […]
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Press Release
Three Earth-sized Planets Discovered In A Compact Binary System
An international team of researchers has just revealed the existence of three Earth-sized planets in the binary stellar system TOI-2267 located about 190 light-years away. This discovery, published in Astronomy […]
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
SPECULOOS: Five Years Hunting Terrestrial Planets Around Ultra-cool Dwarfs
The SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) project aims to detect temperate terrestrial planets transiting nearby ultracool dwarfs, including late M-dwarf stars and brown dwarfs, which are well-suited […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
TOI-2407 b: A Warm Neptune In The Desert
We present the validation of TOI-2407 b, a warm Neptune-sized planet with a radius of 4.26 ± 0.26 R⊕, orbiting an early M-type star with a period of 2.7 days […]
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
A Transiting Rocky Super-Earth And A Non-transiting Sub-Neptune Orbiting The M Dwarf TOI-771
The origin and evolution of the sub-Neptune population is a highly debated topic in the exoplanet community.
Posted inAstrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Comets and Asteroids, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Extinction events, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Impact events, Meteorites & Asteroids, Press Release, TRAPPIST-1
The Smallest Asteroids Ever Detected In The Main Belt
The asteroid that extinguished the dinosaurs is estimated to have been about 10 kilometers across. That’s about as wide as Brooklyn. Such a massive impactor is predicted to hit Earth […]
![Comparison of SPECULOOS-3 b with other rocky exoplanets. a) Sizes of host stars and incident stellar flux of known sub-Neptune-sized exoplanets. The size of the symbols scales linearly with the radius of the planet. The background is colour-coded according to stellar size (in units of the Sun’s size), with the ultra-cool dwarf regime shown in orange. The positions of the Solar System terrestrial planets are shown for reference. One can see on this Figure that SPECULOOS-3 b extends the unique planet sample of TRAPPIST-1 to a larger stellar flux. b) SPECULOOS-3 b in the context of other known transiting terrestrial exoplanets (Rp < 1.6R⊕) that are cool enough (Teq < 880 K [80]) to have a dayside made of solid rock (in contrast to hotter magma worlds with molten surfaces). The planets are shown as a function of their radius and their Emission Spectroscopy Metric [62]. They are color-coded as a function of their equilibrium temperature. The shaded green area highlights planetary radii most similar to Earth’s (0.9–1.1 R⊕). The dashed horizontal line represents the threshold of ESM=7.5 recommended by ref. [62] to identify the top targets for emission spectroscopy with JWST. SPECULOOS-3 b is one of the smallest planets amenable to emission spectroscopy with MIRI/LRS. Data from https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu (16th of October 2023). -- astro-ph.EP](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Detection-Of-An-Earth-sized-Exoplanet.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Detection Of An Earth-sized Exoplanet Orbiting The Nearby Ultracool Dwarf Star SPECULOOS-3
Located at the bottom of the main sequence, ultracool dwarf stars are widespread in the solar neighbourhood. Nevertheless, their extremely low luminosity has left their planetary population largely unexplored, and […]
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release
Astronomers Discover A New Earth-sized World Orbiting Ultra-cool Star SPECULOOS-3
A new, Earth-sized planet orbiting an ultra-cool red dwarf star, has been detected by an international team of astronomers – just 55 light years away.