Three of the past week's top stories are all related to space. Can you guess what they are? (Photo : NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Right Mastcam-Z camera.
A Golden Target For Planet-Hunters? Unique Alien Planet With No Known Equivalent Photobombs Study Of Close Sun-Like Star forbes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from forbes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT researchers have discovered four new exoplanets orbiting a sun-like star just over 200 light-years from Earth. Because of the diversity of these planets and brightness of their star, this system could be an ideal target for atmospheric characterization with NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. Tansu Daylan, a postdoc at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, led the study published in The Astronomical Journal on Jan. 25.
With further study, says Daylan, this bright star and its many planets could be critical to understanding how planets take shape and evolve. “When it comes to characterizing planetary atmospheres around sun-like stars, this is likely one of the best targets we will ever get,” he says of the results he presented earlier in the month at the 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.