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Read MoreJWST identifies tiniest free-floating brown dwarf
CEHW Professor Kevin Luhman led a study identifying the new record-holder for the smallest object that forms like a star: a tiny, free-floating brown dwarf with only three to four times the mass of Jupiter. NASA Press Release Penn State Press Release Paper the Astronomical...
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Read MoreMassive planet too big for its own sun pushes astronomers to rethink exoplanet formation
Congrats to former CEHW graduate student, Dr. Gudmundur Stefansson, and the rest of the team on their recent paper in Science that reports the discovery of a Neptune-mass exoplanet in close orbit around a very low-mass star using the Habitable Zone Planet Finder and Hobby-Eberly Telescope. Artistic rendering of the possible view from LHS 3154b towards its low mass host star. Given its large mass, LHS...
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Read MoreEarth-like planets could form even in the harshest environments
CEHW Professor Eric Feigelson is a member of the XUE (eXtreme UV environments) collaboration that found potentially planets with water could form even in the harshest known planet-forming environments using JWST. Earth-like planets, including planets with water, could form even in the harshest known planet-forming environments, according to a new study by an international team that includes Penn State...
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Read MoreMany exoplanets have nearly circular orbits
New analysis of observational data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope catalogs planetary properties; informs climate of planets Most near-Earth-sized planets travel around their host stars on nearly circular orbits, and the more small planets orbiting close to a star, the more, nearly circular their orbits. These are just two of many findings based on a major new analysis of data from NASA’s retired...
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Read MoreNearby star could help explain why our sun didn’t have sunspots for 70 years
CEHW undergrad alumna Anna Baum and Prof. Jason Wright identified a nearby star whose sunspot cycles appear to have stopped. Read more in the Penn State press release.
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Read MoreBelatedly Habitable Planets
CEHW Graduate student Noah Tuchow and CEHW Professor Jason Wright introduce “Belatedly Habitable Planets”, a new type of planet to consider in the search for habitable worlds. Read more at New ideas on what makes a planet habitable could reshape the search for life – Science News 8/30/2021 How We Define Habitable Planets Could Change, Marking ‘Paradigm Shift’ in Search for...
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Read MoreNewly discovered gas giant moving closer to its star
A newly discovered gas giant planet with an elliptical, comet-like orbit is closing in on its host star, according to new research by a Penn State graduate student and a team of collaborators. The researchers believe the planet, discovered using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Satellite Survey (TESS), will eventually become a “hot Jupiter,” a Jupiter-sized planet located extremely close to its host...
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Read MoreA journey of exoplanet discovery begins as Penn State’s NEID spectrometer starts its scientific mission
Suvrath Mahadevan and Sam Sholtis The NEID spectrometer, a new tool for the discovery of planets outside of our solar system, has now started its scientific mission at the WIYN 3.5m telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, Arizona. “We are proud that NEID is available to the worldwide astronomical community for exoplanet discovery and characterization,” said Jason Wright, professor of astronomy and...
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