NASA telescopes discover clear skies and water vapor on distant exoplanet

(A Neptune-size planet with a clear atmosphere is shown crossing in front of its star in this artist’s depiction – Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Using data from NASA’s Hubble, Spitzer and Kepler space telescopes, astronomers have discovered clear skies and steamy water vapor on a gaseous Neptune-sized planet located outside our solar system, making it the smallest planet from which molecules of this kind have been detected.

Image of the Day: 17/9/14

(Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SAO)

The bright blue dot in this image is an energetic pulsar – the magnetic, spinning core of star that blew up in a supernova explosion – that was discovered by NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).

Image of the Day: 11/9/14

(Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

This image, a combination of infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (red) and visible-light data (blue and green) from Japan’s Subaru Telescope, shows millions of galaxies which populate a patch of the sky known as the COSMOS field, short for the Cosmic Evolution Survey.

Spitzer Space Telescope witnesses aftermath of a massive asteroid impact

(This artist’s concept shows the immediate aftermath of a large asteroid impact around NGC 2547-ID8, a 35-million-year-old sun-like star – Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted an eruption of dust around a young star, believed to be the result of a colossal collision between large asteroids that could, eventually, lead to the formation of planets.

Image of the Day: 29/8/14

(The galactic core, known as GOODS-N-774, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys – Photo Credit: NASA/ESA/E. Nelson)

The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted, for the first time, a dense galactic core with millions of newborn stars forming at a ferocious rate. 

Image of the Day: 21/8/14

(Photo Credit: NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/IAFE)

The results of a destructive supernova explosion have been captured in infrared and X-ray light in this image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton.

The Kepler and Spitzer Space Telescopes make their most precise measurements yet

(Artist’s illustration of Kepler 93-b – Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Using data from NASA’s Kepler and Spitzer Space Telescopes, scientists have made the most precise measurement ever of the size of a world outside our solar system. The radius of exoplanet Kepler-93b is now known, with a margin of uncertainty of just 74 miles on either side of the planetary body.