How Do We Find Planets We Can’t Even See?

June 8, 2026

How Do We Find Planets We Can’t Even See?

We almost never see exoplanets directly. Here are the two clever tricks scientists use to find hidden planets — the tiny dip and the wobble.

KEEP READING

Habitable Worlds

June 8, 2026

What Makes a Planet Habitable?

The habitable zone is only the first step. What scientists really mean by 'habitable' — and why a planet in the zone, like Venus, can still be hostile.

KEEP READING

Could Kepler-991 b Be Friendly to Life?
Kepler-991 b is a planet more than 1,200 light-years away that scientists discovered in 2016. It's bigger than Earth, orbits a calm orange star, and has a temperature that might not rule out life — but there's still a lot we don't know.
TOI-1718 b: A New World Around TOI-1718
TOI-1718 b is a scorching hot planet nearly four times wider than Earth, racing around its star in less than six days. It belongs to a type of world that doesn't exist in our solar system — and scientists are just beginning to uncover its secrets.
How Long Would It Take to Reach Gl 725 A b?
Gl 725 A b is one of the closest exoplanets to Earth, but even at 11.5 light-years away, it would take our fastest spacecraft about 209,000 years to get there. Find out what that distance really means and what we know about this nearby world.
HD 85426 c: Getting to Know a Mini-Neptune
HD 85426 c is a faraway world bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, and scientists have already figured out some surprising things about it. Find out what it might be made of, how hot it gets, and why this planet is such a great example of how space science works.
Inside TOI-178: A Family of 6 Planets
About 205 light-years away, a cool orange star is home to six planets packed tightly together and moving in a perfectly timed rhythm. This amazing system breaks many rules scientists expected — and it has a lot to teach us about how planetary families form.