Tag: Exoplanets

Our solar system may be unique – let’s look after it

March 10, 2019

There’s growing evidence that not just our Earth but also the solar system we know and love is actually a rarity, as such things go. Many stars, we now learn, have planetary systems. But very few are like ours. That’s a change from even the mid-twentieth century, when we considered our solar system to be … More Our solar system may be unique – let’s look after it

Five cool things about TRAPPIST-1 and its seven worlds

February 25, 2017

It’s SO COOL that we’ve found seven rocky and (broadly) Earth-sized planets orbiting a red dwarf star just 39 light years away. How cool? I’m talking leap in the air and shout ‘this is totally fucking uber-cool‘ scale cool. It’s exciting like nothing else astronomical for a long while. It’s – well, figure this: it’s … More Five cool things about TRAPPIST-1 and its seven worlds

How long is the ‘now’ moment we live in?

January 28, 2015

How long is ‘now’ – you know, the evanescent moment we live in and usually let past without properly experiencing it. Now, like time itself, is largely seen as a philosophical issue; a personal perception that stretches or shrinks depending on what we are doing. For a kid, an hour spent in a classroom listening to the teacher … More How long is the ‘now’ moment we live in?

Searching for that elusive exo-Earth

January 14, 2015

In the nearly 20 years since Michel Mayer and Didier Queloz confirmed the first known exoplanet around 51 Pegasi, the number of known exoplanets has risen to over 1860 – and there are more to come. The Kepler space telescope, before being hobbled by mechanical failure, created a massive database of planet candidates orbiting the 150,000 stars it looked … More Searching for that elusive exo-Earth