Exoplanets News

The star Beta Pictoris and its surrounding debris disk in near-infrared light. Image credit: ESO/A.-M. Lagrange et al. Besides providing an excuse to eat all varieties of pie, Pi Day gives us a chance to appreciate some of the ways NASA uses pi to explore the solar system and beyond.

To our latest coronavirus/COVID-19 research, commentary, and news. A nearby exoplanet with rainclouds in its atmosphere may have. News June 8, 2017 The Art of Exoplanets. The moon hanging in the night sky sent Robert Hurt's mind into deep space - to a region some 40 light years away, in fact, where seven Earth-sized planets crowded close to a dim, red sun.

You can do the math for yourself – or get students doing it – by taking part in the. Find out below how to test your pi skills with real-world problems faced by NASA space explorers, plus get lessons and resources for educators. How It WorksThe ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter is equal to pi, which is often rounded to 3.14. But pi is what is known as an irrational number, so its decimal representation never ends, and it never repeats.

Though it has been calculated to trillions of digits,.Pi is useful for all sorts of things, like calculating the circumference and area of circular objects and the volume of cylinders. That's helpful information for everyone from farmers irrigating crops to tire manufacturers to soup-makers filling their cans. To calculate the densities of planets, point space telescopes at distant stars and galaxies, steer rovers on the Red Planet, put spacecraft into orbit and so much more! With so many practical applications, it's no wonder so many people love pi!In the U.S., 3.14 is also how we refer to March 14, which is why we celebrate the mathematical marvel that is pi on that date each year. In 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution officially designating March 14 as Pi Day and encouraging teachers and students to celebrate the day with activities that teach students about pi. The NASA Pi Day ChallengeThis year's NASA Pi Day Challenge poses four puzzlers that require pi to compare the sizes of Mars landing areas, calculate the length of a year for one of the most distant objects in the solar system, measure the depth of the ocean from an airplane, and determine the diameter of a distant debris disk.

Learn more about the science and engineering behind the problems below or click the link to jump right into the challenge.Mars ManeuverLong before a Mars rover touches down on the Red Planet, scientists and engineers must determine where to land. Rather than choosing a specific landing spot,. A Mars rover could land anywhere within this ellipse.

Requires compromising between getting as close as possible to interesting science targets and avoiding hazards like steep slopes and large boulders, which could quickly bring a mission to its end. In the Mars Maneuver problem, students use pi to see how new technologies have reduced the size of landing ellipses from one Mars rover mission to the next. Cold CaseIn January 2019, a frigid, primitive object that orbits within the Kuiper Belt, a doughnut-shaped ring of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. Arrokoth is the most distant Kuiper Belt object to be visited by a spacecraft and only the second object in the region to have been explored up close. To get New Horizons to Arrokoth, mission navigators needed to know the orbital properties of the object, such as its speed, distance from the Sun, and the tilt and shape of its orbit.

This information is also important for scientists studying the object. In the Cold Case problem, students can use pi to determine how long it takes the distant object to make one trip around the Sun.

Coral CalculusCoral reefs provide food and shelter to many ocean species and protect coastal communities against extreme weather events. Ocean warming, invasive species, pollutants, and acidification caused by climate change can harm the tiny living coral organisms responsible for building coral reefs. To better understand the health of Earth's coral reefs, or CORAL, mission maps them from the air using spectroscopy, studying how light interacts with the reefs. To make accurate maps, CORAL must be able to differentiate among coral, algae and sand on the ocean floor from an airplane. And to do that, it needs to calculate the depth of the ocean at every point it maps by measuring how much sunlight passes through the ocean and is reflected upward from the ocean floor.

In Coral Calculus, students use pi to measure the water depth of an area mapped by the CORAL mission and help scientists better understand the status of Earth's coral reefs. Planet PinpointerOur galaxy contains billions of stars, many of which are likely home to exoplanets – planets outside our solar system. So how do scientists decide where to look for these worlds? Using data gathered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which are made up of material similar to what's found in the asteroid belt and Kuiper Belt in our solar system. Sure enough, after discovering a debris disk around the star Beta Pictoris, researchers later confirmed that it is home to at least. Learning more about Beta Pictoris' debris disk could give scientists insight into the formation of these giant worlds.

In Planet Pinpointer, put yourself in the role of a NASA scientist to learn more about Beta Pictoris' debris disk, using pi to calculate the distance across it. Participate.Join the conversation and share your Pi Day Challenge answers with on social media using the hashtag Blogs and Features.Related Lessons for Educators.Related Activities for Students.Multimedia.Facts and Figures.Missions and Instruments.Websites.TAGS:,. Whether discovering something about our own planet or phenomena billions of miles away, NASA missions and scientists unveiled a vast universe of mysteries this past decade. And with each daring landing, visit to a new world and journey into the unknown came new opportunities to inspire the next generation of explorers. Read on for a look at some of NASA's most teachable moments of the decade from missions studying Earth, the solar system and beyond. Plus, find out what's next in space exploration and how to continue engaging students into the 2020s with related lessons, activities and resources.

Shrinking ice caps, higher temperatures and continued to impact our lives this past decade, making studying Earth’s changing climate more important than ever. During the 2010s, NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, led the way by adding new to their fleets to. Meanwhile, satellites such as and continued their work monitoring various aspects of the Earth system such as land cover, the atmosphere, water, clouds and ice. NASA's airborne missions, such as, and, returned data on water movement, providing decision makers with more accurate data than ever before.

But there's still more to be done in the future to understand the complex systems that make up Earth's climate and improve the scientific models that will help the world prepare for a warmer future. Using these missions and the science they're gathering as a jumping-off point, students can learn about the water cycle, build data-based scientific models and develop an understanding of Earth's energy systems.Explore More.2. Teachable Moments in the Sky. Astronomical events are a sure-fire way to engage students, and this past decade delivered with exciting solar and lunar eclipses that provided real-world lessons about the Sun, the Moon and lunar exploration.

The gave students a chance to learn about the dynamic interactions between the Sun and Moon, while year after year provided students with lessons in lunar science. There's more to look forward to in the decade ahead as another solar eclipse comes to the U.S. In 2024 – one of nine total solar eclipses around the world in the 2020s. There will be 10 total lunar eclipses in the 2020s, but observing the Moon at any time provides a great opportunity to study celestial patterns and inspire future explorers.

Using the lessons below, students can develop and study models to understand the size and scale of the Earth-Moon system, predict future Moon phases and engage in engineering challenges to solve problems that will be faced by!Explore More.3. Missions to Mars. The past decade showed us the Red Planet in a whole new light. We discovered, and we developed a better understanding of.

The continued exploring long past its expected lifespan of 90 days as NASA sent a larger, more technologically advanced rover, to take the next steps in understanding the planet's ability to support life. ( after a global dust storm engulfed Mars, blocking the critical sunlight the rover needed to stay powered.) The to begin exploring interior features of the Red Planet, including marsquakes, while high above, long-lived spacecraft like the and were joined by NASA's, and missions from the European Space Agency and the Indian Space Research Organization. The next decade on Mars will get a kick-start with the July launch of the souped-up, which will look for signs of ancient life and begin collecting samples designed to one day be returned to Earth. Mars provides students with countless opportunities to do some of the same engineering as the folks at NASA and design ideas for future Mars exploration.

They can also use Mars as a basis for coding activities, real-world math, and lessons in biology and geology.Explore More.4. Ocean Worlds and the Search for Life. This decade marked the, during which it made countless discoveries about the planet, its rings and its fascinating moons. Some of the most exciting findings highlighted new frontiers in our search for life beyond Earth. Erupting from cracks in the icy shell of Saturn's moon Enceladus, suggesting the presence of an ocean below. At the moon Titan, the spacecraft peered through the hazy atmosphere to discover an in which liquid methane and ethane take the place of water.

Meanwhile, evidence for another ocean world came to light when the Hubble Space Telescope spotted what appear to be. NASA is currently developing, a mission that will explore the icy moon of Jupiter to reveal even more about the fascinating world. For students, these discoveries and the moons themselves provide opportunities to build scientific models and improve them as they learn more information.

Students can also use math to calculate physical properties of moons throughout the solar system and identify the characteristics that define life as we know it.Explore More.5. Asteroids, Comets and Dwarf Planets, Oh My! The past decade was a big deal for small objects in space. Started 2010 as a new arrival in the main asteroid belt. The next eight years saw, the giant asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. On its way to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, ESA's (with contributions from NASA) flew by the asteroid Luticia in 2010. After more than two years at its destination – during which time it measured comet properties, captured breathtaking photos and deposited a lander on the comet – when it touched down on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

In 2013, as scientists around the world eagerly anticipated the near-Earth flyby of asteroid Duende, residents of, got a surprising mid-morning wake-up call when a small, previously undetected asteroid entered the atmosphere, burned as a bright fireball and disintegrated. The team from NASA's OSIRIS-Rex mission wrapped up the decade and set the stage for discoveries in 2020 by in the new year to collect a sample of asteroid Bennu for eventual return to Earth. And in 2022, NASA's will launch for a rendezvous with a type of object never before explored up close: a metal asteroid. The small objects in our solar system present students with chances to explore the composition of comets, use math to calculate properties such as volume, density and kinetic energy of asteroids, and use Newton's Laws in real-world applications, such as spacecraft acceleration.Explore More.6. Uncovering Pluto's Mysteries.

In 2015, after nearly a decade of travel, NASA's arrived at Pluto for its planned flyby and became the. The images and scientific data the spacecraft returned brought into focus a complex and dynamic world, including seas of ice and mountain ranges. And there's still more left to explore. But New Horizons' journey is far from over. After its flyby of Pluto, the spacecraft continued deep into the Kuiper Belt, the band of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune.

In 2019, the spacecraft flew by a later named. In the 2020s, New Horizons will continue studying distant Kuiper Belt objects to better understand their physical properties and the region they call home. The new information gathered from the Pluto and Arrokoth flybys provides students with real-life examples of the ways in which scientific understanding changes as additional data is collected and gives them a chance to engage with the data themselves. At the same time, New Horizons' long-distance voyage through the Solar System serves as a good launchpad for discussions of solar system size and scale.Explore More.7.

The Voyagers' Journey Into Interstellar Space. In 1977, two spacecraft left Earth on a journey to explore the outer planets. In the 2010s, decades after their prime mission ended, by becoming the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space – the region beyond the influence of solar wind from our Sun. The Voyager spacecraft are expected to continue operating into the 2020s, until their fuel and power run out. In the meantime, they will continue sending data back to Earth, shaping our understanding of the structure of the solar system and interstellar space. The can help engage students as they learn about and model the structure of the solar system and use math to understand the challenges of communicating with spacecraft so far away.Explore More.8.

The Search for Planets Beyond Our Solar System. It was only a few decades ago that the. The 2010s saw the number of known exoplanets skyrocket in large part thanks to the.

A space telescope designed to seek out Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zone – the region around a star where liquid water could exist – Kepler was used to discover more than 2,600 exoplanets. Discoveries from other observatories and amateur astronomers added to the count, now at more than 4,100.

In one of the most momentous exoplanet findings of the decade, the – three of which were in the star’s habitable zone. With thousands of candidates discovered by Kepler waiting to be confirmed as exoplanets and NASA's latest space telescope, the, or TESS, surveying the entire sky, the 2020s promise to be a decade filled with exoplanet science. And we may not have to wait long for exciting new discoveries from the, set to launch in 2021. Exoplanets are a great way to get students exploring concepts in science and mathematics.

In the lessons linked to below, students use math to find the size and orbital period of planets, learn how scientists are using spectrometry to determine what makes up exoplanet atmospheres and more.Explore More.9. Shining a Light on Black Holes. Even from millions and billions of light-years away, black holes made big news in the 2010s.

First, a collision of two black holes 1.3 billion light-years away sent gravitational waves across the universe that finally reached Earth in 2015, where the waves were detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO. This was the and confirmed a prediction Einstein made 100 years earlier in his Theory of General Relativity. Then, in 2019, a team of researchers working on the Event Horizon Telescope project announced they had taken the. To take the historic image of the supermassive black hole (named M87.

after its location at the center of the M87 galaxy), the team had to create a virtual telescope as large as Earth itself. In addition to capturing the world's attention, the image gave scientists new information about scientific concepts and measurements they had only been able to theorize about in the past. The innovations that led to these discoveries are changing the way scientists can study black holes and how they interact with the space around them. More revelations are likely in the years ahead as scientists continue to analyze the data from these projects.

For students, black holes and gravitational waves provide a basis for developing and modifying scientific models. Since they are a topic of immense interest to students, they can also be used to encourage independent research.Explore More.TAGS:,. In the NewsIt only happens about 13 times a century and won’t happen again until 2032, so don’t miss the transit of Mercury on Monday, Nov. A transit happens when a planet crosses in front of a star. From our perspective on Earth, we only ever see two planets transit the Sun: Mercury and Venus.

This is because these are the only planets between us and the Sun. (Transits of Venus are especially rare. The next one won’t happen until 2117.) During the upcoming transit of Mercury, viewers around Earth (using ) will be able to see a tiny dark spot moving slowly across the disk of the Sun.Read on to learn how transits contributed to past scientific discoveries and for a look at how scientists use them today. Plus, find resources for engaging students in this rare celestial event! Why It's ImportantThen and NowIn the early 1600s, Johannes Kepler discovered that both Mercury and Venus would transit the Sun in 1631.

It was fortunate timing: The telescope had been invented just 23 years earlier, and the transits of both planets wouldn’t happen in the same year again until 13425. Kepler didn’t survive to see the transits, but French astronomer Pierre Gassendi became the first person to see the transit of Mercury. Poor weather kept other astronomers in Europe from seeing it. (Gassendi attempted to view the transit of Venus the following month, but inaccurate astronomical data led him to mistakenly believe it would be visible from his location.) It was soon understood that transits could be used as an opportunity to measure apparent diameter – how large a planet appears from Earth – with great accuracy. After observing the transit of Mercury in 1677, Edmond Halley predicted that transits could be used to accurately measure the distance between the Sun and Earth, which wasn’t known at the time. This could be done by having observers at distant points on Earth look at the variation in a planet’s apparent position against the disk of the Sun – a phenomenon known as parallax shift.

This phenomenon is what makes nearby objects appear to shift more than distant objects when you look out the window of a car, for example.Today, radar is used to measure the distance between Earth and the Sun with greater precision than transit observations. But the transits of Mercury and Venus still provide scientists with opportunities for scientific investigation in two important areas: exospheres and exoplanets.Exosphere ScienceSome objects, like the Moon and Mercury, were originally thought to have no atmosphere. But scientists have discovered that these bodies are actually surrounded by an ultrathin atmosphere of gases called an exosphere. Scientists want to better understand the composition and density of the gases in Mercury’s exosphere, and transits make that possible.“When Mercury is in front of the Sun, we can study the exosphere close to the planet,” said NASA scientist Rosemary Killen. “Sodium in the exosphere absorbs and re-emits a yellow-orange color from sunlight, and by measuring that absorption, we can learn about the density of gas there.”Exoplanet DiscoveriesWhen Mercury transits the Sun, it causes a slight dip in the Sun’s brightness as it blocks a tiny portion of the Sun’s light.

Scientists discovered they could use that phenomenon to search for planets orbiting distant stars. These planets, called exoplanets, are otherwise obscured from view by the light of their star. When measuring the brightness of far-off stars, a slight recurring dip in the light curve (a graph of light intensity) could indicate an exoplanet orbiting and transiting its star.

Found more than 2,700 exoplanets by looking for this telltale drop in brightness. Is surveying 200,000 of the brightest stars near our solar system and is expected to potentially discover more than 10,000 transiting exoplanets. This animation shows one method scientists use to hunt for planets outside our solar system. When exoplanets transit their parent star, we can detect the dip in the star’s brightness using space telescopes. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Additionally, scientists have been exploring the atmospheres of exoplanets. Similarly to how we study Mercury’s exosphere, scientists can observe the spectra – – that passes through an exoplanet’s atmosphere. As a result, they’re beginning to understand the evolution and composition of exoplanet atmospheres, as well as the influence of and magnetic fields.

Using the transit method and other techniques, scientists are learning more and more about planets beyond our solar system. These discoveries have even inspired a series of posters created by artists at NASA, who imagine what future explorers might encounter on these faraway worlds. Credit: NASA Watch ItDuring the transit of Mercury, the planet will appear as a tiny dot on the Sun’s surface. To see it, you’ll need a telescope or binoculars outfitted with a special solar filter.WARNING! Looking at the Sun directly or through a telescope without proper protection can lead to serious and permanent vision damage. Do not look directly at the Sun without a.The transit of Mercury will be partly or fully visible across much of the globe.

However, it won’t be visible from Australia or most of Asia and Alaska. The transit of Mercury on Nov.

11, 2019, begins at 4:35 a.m. PST (7:35 a.m. EST), but it won’t be visible to West Coast viewers until after sunrise. Luckily, viewers will have several more hours to take in the stellar show, which lasts until 10:04 a.m.

PST (1:04 p.m. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Mercury’s trek across the Sun begins at 4:35 a.m. PST (7:35 a.m. EST), meaning viewers on the East Coast of the U.S.

Can experience the entire event, as the Sun will have already risen before the transit begins. By the time the Sun rises on the West Coast, Mercury will have been transiting the Sun for nearly two hours. Fortunately, the planet will take almost 5.5 hours to completely cross the face of the Sun, so there will be plenty of time for West Coast viewers to witness this event. See the transit map below to learn when and where the transit will be visible.

This map shows where and when the transit will be visible on November 11. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Don’t have access to a telescope or binoculars with a solar filter? Visit the to find events near you where amateur astronomers will have viewing opportunities available.During the transit,. Beginning at 4:41 a.m.

PST (7:41 a.m. EST) you can see images of Mercury passing in front of the Sun at NASA’s 2019 Mercury Transit page, with updates through the end of the transit at 10:04 a.m. PST (1:04 p.m. EST).If you’re in the U.S., don’t miss the show, as this is the last time a transit will be visible from the continental United States until 2049! The Starshade project aims to do pretty much what the name suggests: suppress the light from distant stars so scientists can learn more about the planets that surround them – including whether they’re likely to support life. In practice, it requires building a giant, precisely shaped structure that can unfurl from a relatively tiny package and fly in perfect sequence with a space telescope.

Interns have been key to making the idea a reality. The team has brought in more than 40 interns in the past seven years., who is using his origami skills to help a full-scale model of the giant sunflower-shaped structure unfurl. Meanwhile, intern Allison Ayad, a mechanical engineering student at Pasadena City College, is creating a working miniature model to narrow in on the design. Fellow intern Evan Kramer met up with Ayad to find out how she’s contributing to the project and how she’s bringing what she’s learning back to school. What are you working on at JPL?I'm working on a project called Starshade, which is a 26-meter diameter, flower-shaped structure we want to send to space to help us get images of exoplanets, planets outside our solar system.

With these images, we could learn more about exoplanets and see if they could potentially harbor life. So Starshade is a sort of spacecraft?Yeah, it is! Starshade would fly out and position itself between a space telescope and a star. Its shape would suppress the light from the star so the spacecraft could get direct images of the exoplanets around it. It's similar to when you try to take a picture outside, and the Sun washes out the image. If you block the light from the Sun, then you can see everything in more detail. That's pretty much what Starshade would do.

What’s a typical day like for you?Every day is very different. What I am working on is making a mini, fully deployable Starshade for interactive purposes, so we can show all the different stages of deployment. It will sort of be the first of its kind.When I come in, I usually do work on my computer with software like Solidworks.

Then, I do a lot of rapid prototyping with the use of 3D printers and laser cutters to test out all the little, moving components that are going into the real model.I spend some of my time helping with the big structure that's out here. She points to the warehouse-like space where the team is assembling a full-scale version of Starshade, which is about the size of a baseball diamond fully unfurled. But most of the time, I'm working on the mini one.

At least once a day, I’ll talk with my mentor, David Webb, about the ideas that I have on how to make things work. We'll bounce ideas off each other, then I'll have stuff to think about for the next day. Ayad stands under the support structure for the full-scale model of Starshade. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Evan Kramer What's been the most JPL- or NASA-unique experience you've had so far?I’ve been here for a year and a half now, and I think the Starshade lab is the coolest at JPL, but I'm a little bit biased.

It's really cool because we have a bunch of prototypes everywhere, so you get to see what Starshade would look like in real life. And there are a bunch of interactive models that you can play with to see all the different deployment stages. How do you think you're contributing to NASA/JPL missions and science?The full Starshade isn’t really finished being designed yet, so a lot of the problems that the team that is building the full-scale model is facing, I'm also facing with the mini one. The ideas that I'm thinking through could potentially help with the real flight-model design. How has the work you’ve done here influenced you back at school?When I first started interning here, I actually didn't have a lot of the core class requirements for my major done. So a lot of the terms and concepts that people were using at JPL were still new to me. Then when I took the classes, all the lessons from my internship came back, and I was like, whoa, I already kind of learned this stuff and got a hands-on approach to it.

I'm a very hands-on learner, so having that previous experience and then learning more of the math behind it helped with that learning process. If you could travel to any place in space, where would you go? And what would you do there?I’d like to go to Mars just because we're so close to doing it. It'd be cool to see what's there. I personally think there's a really good chance there was once life on Mars. If I could go and see for myself, that would be pretty awesome.Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at:The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of Education’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.TAGS:,.

What are you working on at JPL?My project this summer is studying exoplanet atmospheres and the chemical components that are present in those atmospheres. I'm running a bunch of simulations, or models, using a computer code that my JPL mentor, Renyu Hu, published back when he was in grad school. I change a few things, run the models, look at the results, compile them and analyze what they can tell me about oxygen, which is a possible sign of life on these planets outside our solar system. So in that way, it's really pushing the field forward in terms of finding out if life could exist on similar planets. What’s the ultimate goal of the project?The parameters we put into the model are to simulate a terrestrial, habitable exoplanet. Scientists have discovered exoplanets that are terrestrial, but we don't yet know if there's life on them. So this model is a theoretical basis that we can apply to many exoplanets that are discovered to see if they could support life.

We just submitted the paper on our findings a couple weeks ago. What's an average day like for you?Right before we submitted the paper, we were working nonstop on that. It was the hardest I’ve worked in such a short time. But it was very rewarding.

It was the first time I’ve been an author on a science paper, so it was pretty cool. I learned a lot.Typically, I'd come in and look at my code. Sometimes it would run a couple hours and it would be done or it would run a couple days, so I was always anxious to see where it was when I get to my desk. If it was done running, I’d take the results, make graphs, make figures and analyze what I could. And if wasn’t done, I'd usually just start a new simulation. How do you feel you're contributing to NASA/JPL missions and science?I feel that with the publication, I will contribute a lot, especially because we're scratching surfaces that have never been explored before.I also feel that I’m contributing as an African American, female engineer doing work in planetary science.

I was looking up women in planetary science, specifically African American women, and the only one I could find passed away in 2015. So I feel as though just being here, exploring this field, is pushing the boundaries, and I'm excited about that. How did you find out about the JPL internship?I'm a member of a group called, Creating Opportunities in Science and Math for Occidental Students. They put me in contact with the in the JPL Education Office last year. Before that, I didn’t even know that JPL existed. What's been your impression of JPL?It's kind of like school. It's like going to school with your professors.

It’s pretty cool, the collaborative environment. OK, now for the fun question: If you could travel anywhere in space, where would you go and what would you do there?I would like to go to Saturn, mostly because I think it's beautiful, and it's one of the first planets that I ever learned about. What would I do there? I don't know exactly.

It’s funny because I never really had a real interest in space until I started interning here. So everything is still kind of new to me, and I'm just learning about new missions and worlds every day. What about any of the exoplanets that you're studying?

Would you want to go check out any of them?One thing we're looking to do is study the atmospheres of. That would be really cool, especially because it's so close and it's one of the most recent planet-system discoveries. The make it hard not to want to visit these places.Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at:The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of Education’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.TAGS:,.

A team of transatlantic scientists, using reanalyzed data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, has discovered an Earth-size orbiting in its star's habitable zone, the area around a star where a rocky planet could support liquid water.Scientists discovered this planet, called Kepler-1649c, when looking through old observations from Kepler, which the agency retired in 2018. While previous searches with a computer algorithm misidentified it, researchers reviewing Kepler data took a second look at the signature and recognized it as a planet.

Out of all the exoplanets found by Kepler, this distant world – located 300 light-years from Earth – is most similar to Earth in size and estimated temperature. A comparison of Earth and Kepler-1649c, an exoplanet only 1.06 times Earth's radius. Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/Daniel RutterThis newly revealed world is only 1.06 times larger than our own planet. Also, the amount of starlight it receives from its host star is 75% of the amount of light Earth receives from our Sun – meaning the exoplanet's temperature may be similar to our planet’s, as well.

But unlike Earth, it orbits a red dwarf. Though none have been observed in this system, this type of star is known for stellar flare-ups that may make a planet's environment challenging for any potential life.' This intriguing, distant world gives us even greater hope that a second Earth lies among the stars, waiting to be found,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “The data gathered by missions like Kepler and our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will continue to yield amazing discoveries as the science community refines its abilities to look for promising planets year after year.'

There is still much that is unknown about Kepler-1649c, including its atmosphere, which could affect the planet's temperature. Current calculations of the planet's size have significant margins of error, as do all values in astronomy when studying objects so far away.

But based on what is known, Kepler-1649c is especially intriguing for scientists looking for worlds with potentially habitable conditions.There are other exoplanets estimated to be closer to Earth in size, such as and, by some calculations,. Others may be closer to Earth in temperature, such as. But there is no other exoplanet that is considered to be closer to Earth in both of these values that also lies in the habitable zone of its system.'

Out of all the mislabeled planets we've recovered, this one's particularly exciting – not just because it's in the habitable zone and Earth-size, but because of how it might interact with this neighboring planet,' said Andrew Vanderburg, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin and first author on the released today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 'If we hadn't looked over the algorithm's work by hand, we would have missed it.' Kepler-1649c orbits its small red dwarf star so closely that a year on Kepler-1649c is equivalent to only 19.5 Earth days. The system has another rocky planet of about the same size, but it orbits the star at about half the distance of Kepler-1649c, similar to how Venus orbits our Sun at about half the distance that Earth does. Red dwarf stars are among the most common in the galaxy, meaning planets like this one could be more common that we previously thought.

An artist's concept of Kepler-1649c orbiting around its host red dwarf star. This newly discovered exoplanet is in its star’s habitable zone and is the closest to Earth in size and temperature found yet in Kepler's data. Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/Daniel RutterLooking for False PositivesPreviously, scientists on the Kepler mission developed an algorithm called Robovetter to help sort through the massive amounts of data produced by the Kepler spacecraft, managed by NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. Kepler searched for planets using the transit method, staring at stars, looking for dips in brightness as planets passed in front of their host stars.Most of the time, those dips come from phenomena other than planets – ranging from natural changes in a star's brightness to other cosmic objects passing by – making it look like a planet is there when it's not. Robovetter's job was to distinguish the 12% of dips that were real planets from the rest. Those signatures Robovetter determined to be from other sources were labeled 'false positives,' the term for a test result mistakenly classified as positive.With an enormous number of tricky signals, astronomers knew the algorithm would make mistakes and would need to be double-checked – a perfect job for the Kepler False Positive Working Group. That team reviews Robovetter's work, going through each false positive to ensure they are truly errors and not exoplanets, ensuring fewer potential discoveries are overlooked.

As it turns out, Robovetter had mislabeled Kepler-1649c.Even as scientists work to further automate analysis processes to get the most science as possible out of any given dataset, this discovery shows the value of double-checking automated work. Even six years after Kepler stopped collecting data from the original Kepler field – a patch of sky it stared at from 2009 to 2013, before going on to study many more regions – this rigorous analysis uncovered one of the most unique Earth-analogs discovered yet.

A Possible Third PlanetKepler-1649c not only is one of the best matches to Earth in terms of size and energy received from its star, but it provides an entirely new look at its home system. For every nine times the outer planet in the system orbits the host star, the inner planet orbits almost exactly four times. The fact that their orbits match up in such a stable ratio indicates the system itself is extremely stable, and likely to survive for a long time.Nearly perfect period ratios are often caused by a phenomenon called orbital resonance, but a nine-to-four ratio is relatively unique among planetary systems. Usually resonances take the form of ratios such as two-to-one or three-to-two. Though unconfirmed, the rarity of this ratio could hint to the presence of a middle planet with which both the inner and outer planets revolve in synchronicity, creating a pair of three-to-two resonances.The team looked for evidence of such a mystery third planet, with no results. However, that could be because the planet is too small to see or at an orbital tilt that makes it impossible to find using Kepler's transit method.Either way, this system provides yet another example of an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star. These small and dim stars require planets to orbit extremely close to be within that zone – not too warm and not too cold – for life as we know it to potentially exist.

Though this single example is only, there is that such planets are common around red dwarfs.' The more data we get, the more signs we see pointing to the notion that potentially habitable and Earth-size exoplanets are common around these kinds of stars,' said Vanderburg. 'With red dwarfs almost everywhere around our galaxy, and these small, potentially habitable and rocky planets around them, the chance one of them isn't too different than our Earth looks a bit brighter.' For more information about Kepler and its discoveries, go to:Headquarters, Washington202-358-0257Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley, Calif.650-604-4789.