As many as six billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, according to new estimates

To be considered Earth-like, a planet must be rocky, roughly Earth-sized and orbiting Sun-like (G-type) stars. It also has to orbit in the habitable zones of its star—the range of distances from a star in which a rocky planet could host liquid water, and potentially life, on its surface. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-billion-earth-like-planets-galaxy.html…

New exoplanet system is ‘mirror image’ of Earth and sun

Researchers from Germany and the US have discovered an exoplanet less than twice the size of Earth orbiting at about the same distance from its star, making it the closest analog to the Earth-sun system known so far. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/exoplanet-kepler-160-mirror-image-earth-sun…

New ‘climate decoder’ to study potentially habitable exoplanets

What is the climate like on some potentially habitable exoplanets? Scientists have developed a new “decoder” to find out. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/exoplanets-climate-environmental-color-decoder…

Researcher discusses discovery of exoplanets and his special method

René Heller from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research already made the scientific community take notice when he and his team discovered no fewer than 18 previously overlooked exoplanets in the data from the Kepler Space Telescope. Now they succeeded again, this time in finding a somewhat Earth-like planet orbiting a sun-like star. What is so special about the…

Proxima Centauri b confirmed as nearest exoworld

Researchers at the University of Geneva have confirmed the existence of an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our sun. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/exoplanet-proxima-centauri-b-confirmed…

Proxima b is more Earth-like than we thought

The closest known extrasolar planet may also be one of the most Earth-like worlds ever discovered. Situated only 4.2 light years away in orbit around … Source: https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/337280/proxima-b-is-more-earth-like-than-we-thought…

Cold War Satellites Inadvertently Tracked Species Declines

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit in 1957, the United States responded with its own spy satellites. The espionage program, known as Corona, sought to locate Soviet missile sites, but its Google Earth-like photography captured something unintended: snapshots of animals and their habitats frozen in time. Now, by comparing these images with…

TRAPPIST-1 planetary orbits not misaligned

Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope have determined that the Earth-like planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system are not significantly misaligned with the rotation of the star. This is an important result for understanding the evolution of planetary systems around very low-mass stars in general, and in particular the history of the TRAPPIST-1 planets including the ones near the habitable zone. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-05-trappist-planetary-orbits-misaligned.html…