... Makemake, a dwarf planet in our Solar System, appears to have no atmosphere; it is bald! ... Until a few years ago, Pluto was considered to be the most distant planet, until it was downgraded to a dwarf planet like Makemake. ... If there was an atmosphere around Makemake, the star would have slowly faded away as the dwarf planet blocked it. ... Cool fact: Beside Makemake there are four other known dwarf planets in our Solar System: Pluto, Ceres, Haumea and Eris. ...

... 2005 April 5 . Light From A Distant Planet . Illustration Credit: R. Hurt ( SSC-Caltech ), JPL-Caltech , NASA . Explanation: Light emitted by a planet far beyond our Solar System has been identified for the first time. The planet, illustrated in the above drawing , had its light detected by comparing the brightness of only the parent star, when the planet was behind the star, to the light emitted when both the planet and its parent star were visible. ... About APOD | ...

... BLG 109: A Distant Version of our own Solar System . ... Perhaps quite common, as the first system of planets like our own Solar System has been discovered using a newly adapted technique that, so far, has probed only six planetary systems . ... Recently a detailed analysis of microlensing system OGLE -2006-BLG-109 has related brightness variations to two planets that are similar to Jupiter and Saturn of our own Solar System. ... Water Claimed in Evaporating Planet HD 209458b . ...

... Planets . ... Earth Satellites . ... Looking in the direction of the constellation Cygnus the Swan and launched by NASA in 2009 is the Kepler Space Observatory.Many previous missions searching for exoplanets mainly detected large giant planets, like large hot Jupiters (it is easier to detect larger planets).However KeplerтАЩs main objective is to search for much smaller planets located in a habitable zone which is not too close nor too far from their star; planets which may be just like our Earth. ...

... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . ... This shows the Sun, Moon and Earth (not to scale) together with the . ... They have tested the technique on the Earthshine, the light reflected from the Earth by the Moon, and showed that it can reveal the presence of life in our planet. ... This technique uses the fact that the light reflected from the planet is polarised, whereas that emitted by the star is not. ... Polarised light can tell us about the reflecting surface...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Mad Science . ... Site Info . ... Public Talks . ... Keep Bad Astronomy close to your heart, and help make me filthy rich. ... Who is this guy who calls himself "The Bad Astronomer?" ... First, yes, I am a real live astronomer (when people ask me what astronomers do, I tell them "They astronom !" ... These are emitted by powerful objects like black holes, exploding stars, and super-dense neutrons stars. ... Finally, am I really a bad astronomer? ... 2008 Phil Plait. ...