HD 40307g: Super Earth Skydiving
Twice as big in volume as the Earth, HD 40307g straddles the line between "Super-Earth" and "mini-Neptune" and scientists aren't sure if it has a rocky surface or one that's buried beneath thick layers of gas and ice.
Exoplanet Kepler-186f Travel Poster
A travel poster produced by NASA/JPL-Caltech depicts exoplanet Kepler-186f, the first one to potentially harbor liquid water. The image suggests a world where a red sun has created plant life much different in color than the greenery of Earth. Image released Dec. 30, 2014.
Nightlife on PSO J318.5-22
Discovered in October 2013 using direct imaging, PSO J318.5-22 belongs to a special class of planets called rogue, or free-floating, planets. Wandering alone in the galaxy, they do not orbit a parent star. Not much is known about how these planets come to exist, but scientists theorize that they may be either failed stars or planets ejected from very young systems after an encounter with another planet. These rogue planets glow faintly from the heat of their formation. Once they cool down, they will be dancing in the dark.
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