New NASA Exoplanet Catalog Features Diverse Worlds

Earth Twin or Evil Twin?

Discovered just 40 light-years away is a world similar in size to Earth and Venus. Its characteristics make it one of the most ideal exoplanets discovered thus far for the James Webb Space Telescope and future next generation ground-based telescopes to investigate whether it has retained its atmosphere, and if so, whether its atmosphere contains biosignature gases like water vapor and oxygen – elements that could point to life on the planet.

For the first time, astronomers have chronicled a red supergiant star going supernova (the most blue object in the rectangle pictured above), from the final stages of its life to its explosive death – thus creating the most complete portrait of a supernova ever.

• NASA TESS-Keck Survey: W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko
• Earth Twin or Evil Twin: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (Caltech-IPAC)
• Ursa Major III/UNIONS 1 Satellite: Canada-France-Hawai’i Telescope/S. Gwyn
• Supernova Portrait: E. Zimmerman et al., Weizmann Institute of Science/Liverpool Telescope

The W. M. Keck Observatory telescopes are among the most scientifically productive on Earth. The two 10-meter optical/infrared telescopes atop Maunakea on the Island of Hawaiʻi feature a suite of advanced instruments including imagers, multi-object spectrographs, high-resolution spectrographs, integral-field spectrometers, and world-leading laser guide star adaptive optics systems. The data presented herein were obtained at Keck Observatory, which is a private 501(c) 3 non-profit organization operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The authors recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Maunakea has always had within the Native Hawaiian community.  We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain.