Discoveries

Another exoplanet has been found, which is similar to a warm Jupiter type planet. What makes the discovery interesting this time is it was found by amateur astronomers.Amateur astronomers usually use the average telescope, something anyone can get their hands on. This new exoplanet was found by a group of citizen scientists, and is officially named TIC 393818343 b. It was then confirmed by both the UNISTELLAR Network, and NASA's Exoplanet Watch.It lies 300 light-years away from us, and is part of a new class of exoplanets called "Warm Jupiters". It seems this planet orbits very close to its star, meaning it will eventually turn into a "hot" jupiter-like planet.This just shows that anyone can have a serious passion for space. Interesting things are being found all the time, lik...

Scientists have made an intriguing discovery in the realm of stars. They have identified a white dwarf star that is currently undergoing a fascinating transformation into a celestial diamond.This white dwarf star is essentially the remnants of a sun-like star that has depleted most of its fuel and collapsed. When the core of a star predominantly consists of metallic oxygen and carbon, the subsequent cooling process after it becomes a white dwarf can lead to the formation of an enormous diamond. However, this transformation occurs at an exceptionally sluggish pace, estimated to take one quadrillion years. Given that the universe is a mere 13.6 billion years old, it is unlikely that any star has completed this dazzling metamorphosis. (Just to clarify, a quadrillion equals one thousand tr...

Astronomers have made an exciting discovery by spotting four new "mini-Neptune" planets around a distant star. These exoplanets are categorized as mini-Neptunes, a class of planets smaller and located farther from their stars compared to hot Jupiters.The newly found planets revolve around different stars and have a size similar to that of Neptune or slightly smaller, ranging from two to five times the size of Earth. Two of these exoplanets orbit the same orange dwarf star called HD 15906, situated approximately 149 light-years away from our solar system.A team led by researchers from the University of Bern and the University of Geneva in Switzerland identified the mini-Neptune using the Characterising Exoplanet Satellite (CHEOPS), the European Space Agency's spacecraft dedicated to...

A team of astronomers from the University of Birmingham has made an exciting discovery in the BEBOP-1 or TOI-1338 system—a rare multiplanetary circumbinary system. Using the Doppler method, they have found a second planet, which they have named BEBOP-1c. This finding provides valuable insights into the formation of planets around binary star systems.Circumbinary systems are unique because planets orbit around two stars at their center, unlike our Solar System where planets orbit around a single star. The researchers' findings have been published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Astronomy.The newly discovered planet, BEBOP-1c, is named after the project that collected the data—Binaries Escorted By Orbiting Planets (BEBOP). It is also referred to as TOI-1338. In 2020, a...