Enlarge / The TESS planet-finding observatory. (credit: NASA) For centuries, scientists only had a limited number of examples to look at when it came to understanding the formation of planets. As we’ve discovered ever-increasing numbers of worlds, however, we’ve found many that look like nothing what we have in our Solar System: hot gas giants, […]
Enlarge / This artist’s impression shows L 98-59b, one of the planets in the L 98-59 system 35 light-years away. (credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser) Most of the exoplanets we’ve discovered have been identified by large surveys like the Kepler mission or the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). While these projects are great at spotting stars that […]