planet – News Stories About planet - Page 5

Jul 11, 2007 3:57 PM CDT

Planet with Water Discovered

HD 189733b holds superheated water vapor but is too hot for aliens

(Newser) - Astronomers located the first planet beyond our solar system that hosts water—a giant gas ball bigger than Jupiter and named HD 189733b. Its sizzling climate, which can reach upwards of 3,600 degrees, renders it uninhabitable to any extraterrestrials, but the discovery shows that water is more common in...

Scientists Find Cold Dwarf Star

Jun 5, 2007 8:51 AM CDT

Scientists Find Cold Dwarf Star

Failed star has temperature a tenth of the sun's

(Newser) - Scientists are over the moon with the discovery of a cold brown dwarf in the Cetus constellation. The star-like body, spotted by a British team using the UKIRT telescope in Hawaii, is the coldest of its kind ever seen, the BBC reports, tipping thermometers at just 800 degrees F, a...

Crop of New Planets Means Better Chance of Life

May 29, 2007 7:07 AM CDT

Crop of New Planets Means Better Chance of Life

Rapid discovery of planets outside our solar system ups odds one has liquid water

(Newser) - Astronomers who've spotted 28 new planets in the past year are gaining confidence that other solar systems may be able to support life like ours. One researcher estimated that there are probably "tens of billions" of planets with habitable conditions, most important of which is hospitality to water.

Earth-Like Planet Could Sustain Life

Apr 25, 2007 7:29 AM CDT

Earth-Like Planet Could Sustain Life

Scientists claim major breakthrough in search for extraterrestrial life

(Newser) - Astronomers have discovered a planet that can sustain liquid water, the prerequisite for life as we understand it. Named Gliese 581 C, the new planet orbits a red dwarf star in what's called the "Goldilocks zone"—not so close that water melts, and not so far that it...

NASA Shutters Ideas Factory

Mar 22, 2007 8:47 AM CDT

NASA Shutters Ideas Factory

(Newser) - In a cost-cutting move, NASA is shutting down its futuristic think tank, source of way-ahead-of-the-curve ideas, many of them worthy of a Star Trek script. Closing the Institute for Advanced Concepts will save $4 million out of NASA’s $16 billion dollar budget. But former NASA scientist Keith Cowing describes...