Exoplanets

Exoplanets are planets that exist outside our solar system. The first discovery of a confirmed exoplanet was in 1992, but now astronomers know of more than 5,000 exoplanets.

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The new study suggests that miniture solar systems would not necessarily look like our own. This composite of planets in our solar system was taken by various NASA spacecraft. Included in the image are (from top to bottom) Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Credit: NASA/JPL.

Solar system

Our solar system hosts a plethora of fascinating planets and other objects.

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Credit: Marco Lorenzi.

Stars

These giant, glowing balls of gas are vital to the evolution of the cosmos.

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Artist’s conception of the Milky Way. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech).

Milky Way

Our home galaxy hosts hundreds of billions of stars orbited by countless worlds.

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Located 12 million light-years away, M82 appears high in the northern spring sky in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. It is also called the “Cigar Galaxy” because of the elliptical shape produced by the oblique tilt of its starry disk relative to our line of sight. Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).

Galaxies

These sprawling star factories are home to millions to trillions of stars.

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In this artist’s rendition, the newly discovered planet is shown as a hot, rocky, geologically-active world glowing in the deep red light of its nearby parent star, the M dwarf Gliese 876. Credit: Trent Schindler, National Science Foundation.

Exoplanets

Our cosmos is filled with countless bizarre worlds around other stars.

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An artist’s imagination of hydrocarbon pools, icy and rocky terrain on the surface of Saturn’s largest moon. Credit: Steven Hobbs (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia).

Alien life

Only one planet we know of hosts life. But the hunt for extraterrestrial life is on.

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This artist’s conception illustrates one of the most primitive supermassive black holes known (central black dot) at the core of a young, star-rich galaxy. Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have uncovered two of these early objects, dating back to about 13 billion years ago. The monstrous black holes are among the most distant known, and appear to be in the very earliest stages of formation, earlier than any observed so far. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Exotic objects

The universe is filled with extreme objects, from black holes to pulsars and more.

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Based on the study, astronomers have updated the timeline of the universe to reflect when the first stars are now thought to have appeared, some 180 million years after the Big Bang. Credit: N. R. Fuller/National Science Foundation.

Cosmology

The origin, evolution, and fate of the universe is shrouded in mystery.

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