NASA's Kepler space telescope has discovered its first alien planet since malfunctioning in May 2013, and it's a big one: HIP 116454b is a "super Earth" about 20,000 miles wide and 12 times more massive than our planet.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
US won its war on 'murder hornets,' officials saySpeed Read The announcement comes five years after the hornets were first spotted in the US
-
Dark energy data suggest Einstein was rightSpeed Read Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity has been proven correct, according to data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
-
New DNA tests of Pompeii dead upend popular storiesSpeed Read An analysis of skeletal remains reveals that some Mount Vesuvius victims have been wrongly identified
-
NASA's Europa Clipper blasts off, seeking an oceanSpeed Read The ship is headed toward Jupiter on a yearslong journey
-
Detailed map of fly's brain holds clues to human mindSpeed Read This remarkable fruit fly brain analysis will aid in future human brain research
-
Why water on Mars is so significantThe Explainer Enough water has been found to cover the surface of the Red Planet – but there's a catch
-
What is NASA working on?In Depth A running list of the space agency's most exciting developments
-
Liquid water detected on Mars raises hopes of lifeSpeed Read A new study suggests huge amounts of water could be trapped beneath the surface of Mars
