Operating under this principle, Kepler looks for disruption in the light from a star which can indicate that there’s a planet in orbit around it. With careful observation it’s possible to ...

Planets change orbit shape around Neptune’s size. Metal-rich stars help giant planets form. Eccentric orbits suggest chaotic planet formation.

IT’S been nearly 40 years since the first planet outside of our Solar System was discovered. Since then, more than 5,800 weird and wonderful worlds across 4,300 planetary systems have been ...

To see this, recall the definition of angular momentum: Kepler's second law states that the area swept out by the line connecting the satellite to the Earth's center over a given time Δt is a constant ...

Keep your eye on the ball” is a motto for many athletes—and for astronomers trying to find Earth-threatening space rocks ...

A 128-minute orbit, according to Kepler's third law, works out to a semi-major axis of 8,413 km (5,228 mi). Such an object with less than 0.25 eccentricity (a roughly circular orbit), therefore ...

The shape of a planet's orbit is one of its fundamental properties, along with its size and distance from its host star.

Together with precise optical ranging between selected satellites, this provides orbit determination capabilities with unprecedented accuracy. The Kepler infrastructure thus consists of three main ...

Moreover, with truly prescient insight, Kepler suggested that the planets were kept in orbit by a force emanating from the sun itself. This radical idea was eventually demonstrated by Isaac ...

while Kepler-62's exoplanet has a 155-day rotation period. While both planets would likely be locked into a synchronous orbit -- with a permanent dayside and a perpetual nightside -- the ultrafast ...

As previously reported, thanks to the massive trove of exoplanets discovered by the Kepler mission, we now have a good idea of what kinds of planets are out there, where they orbit, and how common ...