Topic description and stories

Astronomers observe light bending around an isolated white dwarf

02 Feb 2023

Astronomers have directly measured the mass of a dead star using an effect known as gravitational microlensing, first predicted by Einstein in his...

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On a massive planet around a nearby star, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has detected a stratosphere, one of the primary layers of the atmospheres of Earth and other planets in our solar system.

‘Sunscreen’ layer detected on distant planet

12 Jun 2015

On a blazing-hot exoplanet known as WASP-33b, a team of astronomers including researchers from the University of Cambridge has detected a...

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Mapping the weather on WASP-43b

09 Oct 2014

Two new studies have been used to make the most detailed weather map for a planet outside the solar system, where typical daytime highs reach 1500...

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A Neptune-size planet with a clear atmosphere is shown crossing in front of its star in this artist's depiction

Clear skies on exo-Neptune

24 Sep 2014

Smallest exoplanet ever found to have water vapour

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Highest-precision measurement of water in planet outside the solar system

24 Jul 2014

The discovery of water vapour in the atmospheres of three exoplanets includes the most precise measurement of any chemical in a planet outside the...

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Artist impression of a rocky and water-rich asteroid being torn apart by the gravity of the white dwarf star GD 61.

Watery asteroid in dying star points to habitable exoplanets

10 Oct 2013

Latest research on rocky relics suggests a distant planetary system, now past its “death throes”, had very similar water ‘delivery system’ to our own...

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This illustration is an artist’s impression of the thin, rocky debris disc discovered around the two Hyades white dwarfs. Rocky asteroids are thought to be perturbed by planets within the system and diverted inwards towards the star, where they break up,

‘Polluted’ stellar graveyard gives glimpse of our Solar System after Sun’s implosion

09 May 2013

Research indicates the existence of Earth-like planets in dead solar system through latest chemical analysis techniques

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