How the First Exoplanets Were Discovered

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The first exoplanets ever discovered were found orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. It took years for astronomers to find exoplanets around sun-like stars. (Credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech) In 1992, astronomers discovered the first exoplanet, or planet outside our solar system. But it didn’t come in any form they’d really anticipated. Neutron stars are the second densest type of object in the universe outside black holes. They form when a giant star dies and explodes outward as a result ...read more

How Many People Have Died in Outer Space?

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Following the only deaths to have ever occurred in space, the USSR started a policy requiring all cosmonauts to wear pressurized spacesuits during reentry. (Credit: Peakpx.com) For many wannabe astronauts, the idea of venturing into the great unknown would be a dream come true. But over the past 50 years, there's been a slew of spaceflight-related tragedies that are more akin to an astronaut's worst nightmare. In the last half-century, about 30 astronauts and cosmonauts have died while tr ...read more

Three Share Physics Nobel for Exoplanet and Cosmological Discoveries

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(Credit: Abigail Malate, Staff Illustrator/Courtesy American Institute of Physics) (Inside Science) -- The 2019 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to three scientists “for contribution to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth’s place in the cosmos."This year’s prize was awarded to James Peebles of Princeton University “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology, and Michel Mayor of the University of Geneva and Didier Queloz, of the Un ...read more

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