Topic description and stories

Giant planets around young star raise questions about how planets form

15 Oct 2018

Researchers have identified a young star with four Jupiter and Saturn-sized planets in orbit around it, the first time that so many massive planets...

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Artist's concept depicting one possible appearance of the planet Kepler-452b

Scientists identify exoplanets where life could develop as it did on Earth

01 Aug 2018

Scientists have identified a group of planets outside our solar system where the same chemical conditions that may have led to life on Earth exist...

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Multiple metals – and possible signs of water – found in unique exoplanet

31 May 2018

An international team of researchers have identified ‘fingerprints’ of multiple metals in one of the least dense exoplanets ever found.

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Artistic impression of a habitable planet near a pulsar (right)

Habitable planets could exist around pulsars

19 Dec 2017

It is theoretically possible that habitable planets exist around pulsars - spinning neutron stars that emit short, quick pulses of radiation...

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An artist's impression showing the exoplanet WASP-19b

Inferno world with titanium skies

13 Sep 2017

An international team of astronomers has detected titanium oxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet for the first time. The results , reported in the...

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Smallest-ever star discovered by astronomers

12 Jul 2017

A star about the size of Saturn – the smallest ever measured – has been identified by astronomers.

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Artist's impression of TRAPPIST-1

New details of TRAPPIST-1 system’s outermost planet confirm earlier predictions

22 May 2017

An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the University of Cambridge, used data gathered by the Kepler Space Telescope to...

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Icy ring around young planetary system has similar chemical fingerprint to our solar system

18 May 2017

An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the University of Cambridge, has made the most detailed image of the ring of dusty...

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Opinion: Aliens, very strange universes and Brexit – Martin Rees

03 Apr 2017

Martin Rees is Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, the Astronomer Royal, a member of Britain’s House of...

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Newly discovered planets could have water on their surfaces

22 Feb 2017

An international team of astronomers has found a system of seven potentially habitable planets orbiting a star 39 light years away three of which...

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Artist’s impression of the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 from the surface of one of its planets

New exoplanet think tank will ask the big questions about extra-terrestrial worlds

05 Sep 2016

An international exoplanet ‘think tank’ is meeting this week in Cambridge to deliberate on the ten most important questions that humanity could...

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Illustration of the dust ring surrounding HD 181327

First evidence of icy comets orbiting a sun-like star

19 May 2016

Astronomers have found the first evidence of comets around a star similar to the sun, providing an opportunity to study what our solar system was...

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