NASA doubles down on exoplanets and SETI institute will be part of the search
NASA's Astrophysics Explorer Program has selected the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Mission to fly in 2017. TESS will follow in the footsteps of NASA's pioneering Kepler Mission,...
View ArticleHas Kepler found ideal SETI-target planets?
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered a new planetary system that is home to five small planets around a slightly smaller star than our Sun. Two of them are super-Earth planets, most likely made of rock...
View ArticleField tests in Mojave Desert pave way for human exploration of small bodies
(Phys.org) —A team of researchers from the SETI Institute, the Mars Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, and the space robotics company Honeybee Robotics, has successfully completed a first series of...
View ArticleHot spells threaten ringtail habitat
THE potential impacts of anthropogenic global warming on the western ringtail possum (Pseudocheirus occidentals) have been explored in a recent Edith Cowan University research paper.
View ArticleArchival Hubble images reveal Neptune's 'lost' inner moon
(Phys.org) —Neptune's tiny, innermost moon, Naiad, has now been seen for the first time since it was discovered by Voyager's cameras in 1989. Dr. Mark Showalter, a senior research scientist at the SETI...
View ArticleDistant asteroid revealed to be a complex mini geological world
After 8 years of observations, scientists from the SETI Institute have found an exotic orbit for the largest Trojan asteroid, (624) Hektor—the only one known to possess a moon. The formation of this...
View ArticleSETI scientist will observe meteor shower from above the clouds
SETI Institute scientist Peter Jenniskens first predicted the May 23 Camelopardalid meteor shower 10 years ago. He is now ready to solve the mystery of the comet's past activity.
View ArticlePlanet bonanza hints at worlds similar to our own
(Phys.org) —For planet hunters, this has been a bountiful year. A team lead of astronomers at the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center have used data from NASA's Kepler space telescope to...
View ArticleNew meteor shower "just a memory" of what once was there
The weak display of last month's Camelopardalids meteor shower, the result of the close passage of comet 209P/LINEAR, may have disappointed backyard observers, but this never-before-seen shower now has...
View ArticleVideo: The diversity of habitable zones and the planets
The field of exoplanets has rapidly expanded from the exclusivity of exoplanet detection to include exoplanet characterization. A key step towards this characterization is the determination of which...
View ArticleHow can we find tiny particles in exoplanet atmospheres?
It may seem like magic, but astronomers have worked out a scheme that will allow them to detect and measure particles ten times smaller than the width of a human hair, even at many light-years...
View ArticleMoonlets created and destroyed in a ring of Saturn
There is an ongoing drama in the Saturnian ring system that causes small moons to be born and then destroyed on time scales that are but an eyeblink in the history of the solar system. SETI Institute...
View ArticleFingerprints of life on Mars
NASA's Astrobiology Institute (NAI) announced that the SETI Institute has been selected as a new member of the NAI for a 5-year research program, "Changing Planetary Environments and the Fingerprints...
View ArticleNew insights on the origin of the triple asteroid system (87) Sylvia
Combining observations from the world's largest telescopes with those from smaller instruments used by amateur astronomers, a team of scientists has discovered that the large main-belt asteroid (87)...
View ArticleNo signals from newest Kepler planet
A newly discovered planet has been observed with the Allen Telescope Array in a search for radio signals that would betray technically sophisticated inhabitants, but no transmissions have been detected.
View ArticleA new collaboration to aid the search for life on distant worlds
A new NASA initiative is embracing a team approach to the problem of finding life on planets around other stars.
View ArticleNASA doubles down on exoplanets and SETI institute will be part of the search
NASA's Astrophysics Explorer Program has selected the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Mission to fly in 2017. TESS will follow in the footsteps of NASA's pioneering Kepler Mission,...
View ArticleSoggy invaders from space
Is there a water shortage out there? It's an important question if you're looking for biology beyond Earth. Experts will tell you that, while other fluids may be able to incubate life (ammonia and...
View ArticleMystery at misfits flat
An amateur has discovered a trove of meteorites on Misfits Flat dry lake in Nevada. No meteorites had been found at this tiny lakebed before. In an unusual twist, at least some of those turn out to...
View ArticleVideo: Completing the census of exoplanetary systems with microlensing
Measurements of the demographics of exoplanets over a range of planet and host star properties provide fundamental empirical constraints on theories of planet formation and evolution. Because of its...
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