Sentences with phrase «small planets outside our solar system»

Not exact matches

Van de Kamp pointed out that although Barnard's star and its companion are the third known «solar system» outside our own, they constitute the first such pair in which the companion is small enough to be classified confidently as a planet.»

Kepler - 10b The smallest known planet outside our solar system, it is just 1.4 times as wide as Earth and is as dense as solid iron.

Outside of our solar system, auroras, which indicate the presence of a magnetosphere, have been spotted on brown dwarfs — objects that are bigger than planets but smaller than stars.

This discovery marks a significant increase in the number of known small - sized planets more akin to Earth than previously identified exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system.

In a field where small is good — small meaning less like Jupiter and more like Earth — the latest batch of planets netted by the space observatory includes five of the eight smallest worlds now known outside the solar system.

The next challenge is to image smaller planets in the «habitable» zone around stars where possible life - bearing Earth - like planets outside the solar system could reside.

Planets are small and faint compared to their host stars; only a few have been observed directly outside our solar system.

SJSU Associate Professor Natalie Batalha, as a member of NASA's Kepler mission, contributed to the discovery of the smallest planet ever identified outside of our solar system.

This chart compares artists» concepts of the smallest known exoplanets (planets orbiting outside the solar system) as of January 2012 to our own planets Mars and Earth.