For thinking about the enormity of the canvas of potential suns and exoplanets, I find images like this and what they tell us to be an awkward combination of fascinating and daunting. This is an image that, using the combined capabilities of NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, shows what is being described as the …
Exoplanet Earth
Some two billion years ago, all of Earth may well have been covered in snow and ice. Oceans, continents, everything, and for many millions of years. Observed from afar, the planet would be pretty low on the list of planets that might conceivably support life. But we know that it did. Five hundred to seven …
Many Worlds, Subterranean Edition
One of the richest lines of research for those thinking about life beyond Earth has been the world of microscopic creatures that live in especially extreme and hostile environments here. The realm of extremophiles has exploded in roughly the period that exoplanet discoveries have exploded, and both serve to significantly change our view of what's …
On Super-Earths, Sub-Neptunes and Some Lessons They Teach
Part 2 of 2 With such a large proportion of identified exoplanets in the super-Earth to sub-Neptune class, an inescapable question arises: how conducive might they be to the origin and maintenance of life? So little is actually know about the characteristics of these planets that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune …
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On Super-Earths, Sub-Neptunes and Some Lessons They Teach
Part 1 of 2 When the first exoplanet was identified and confirmed 20 years ago, there was enormous excitement, a sense of historic breakthrough and, with almost parallel intensity, sheer bewilderment. The planet, 51 Pegasi B, was larger than Jupiter yet orbited its parent star in 4 days. In other words, it was much closer …
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The Exoplanet Era
Throughout the history of science, moments periodically arrive when new fields of knowledge and discovery just explode. Cosmology was a kind of dream world until Edwin Hubble established that the universe was expanding, and doing so at an ever-faster rate. A far more vibrant and scientific discipline was born. On a more practical level, it …
Many Worlds 