Kepler

Scientists have discovered a 'pitch black' planet 470 light-years away that absorbs 99 per cent of light, making it one of the darkest planets ever found.

Nasa is planning to launch a telescope that will ride on a SpaceX rocket designed to hunt for 20,000 new worlds, the Guardian writes.

The planet-hunting spacecraft Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, baptised Tess, is set to take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The US space agency has discovered a whole solar system with the same number of planets as ours, reports BNT. 

NASA scientists have discovered more than 20 planets beyond the solar system with Kepler telescope data, which could have life, according to Independent.

The discovery shows that the potentially inhabited worlds are more than we originally thought.

A team of astronomers has potentially discovered the first known moon beyond the Solar System, reported BBC.
If confirmed, the "exomoon" is likely to be about the size and mass of Neptune, and circles a planet the size of Jupiter but with 10 times the mass.

Nasa has announced the discovery of 219 new suspected planets outside our solar system.

The figure includes 10 that are “rocky” like Earth and which exist in their solar system’s ‘Goldilocks zone’, neither too close to their star, and therefore too hot, nor too far away and too cold for liquid water to exist.

KIC 8462852 continues to puzzle and fascinate scientists. Its unusual flickering has provoked an outpour of explanation, ranging from comets to an alien megastructure. Although we are pretty confident that it’s not artificial in origin, all the natural explanations have yet to be confirmed.

Astronomers have spotted more than 100 new potential alien planets, including one in the fourth-closest star system to the sun, a new study reports.

Astronomers hunting for another Earth have found the closest match yet, a potentially rocky planet circling its star at the same distance as our home orbits the Sun, NASA said July 23.

The Milky Way galaxy may be home to billions of planets orbiting their host stars in a "habitable zone" where life could theoretically exist, researchers said Wednesday.