What do Super Earths look like?

Ever since we started finding planets outside our Solar System, we have discovered that they are much more varied than those that are close and known to us. Among the most common and also most intriguing are surely them: the Super Earths! Super Earths are worlds larger than our Earth, but [...]
How do we find exoplanets?

Outside our solar system, orbiting more than 3,000 stars in our Galaxy, we have found and are finding a multitude of worlds. Rocky, gaseous, swollen, dark, bright, hot... To discover them, astronomers use various techniques. The most common is the transit method. When a planet passes in front of its star, it blocks [...]
LTT9779b, the very bright “mirror” exoplanet”

In our Solar System, the brightest planet of all is Venus: its proximity to the Sun and its atmosphere mean that it has a very high reflectivity of about 75%. There is, however, one planet, which we discovered in 2020, that exceeds this value: it is called LTT 9779 b and is known [...]
TRAPPIST-1, a star system with 7 planets

40 light years from us shines a star a little larger than Jupiter, a few billion years older than the Sun, and home to a rich planetary system of seven Earth-like worlds: TRAPPIST-1. The seven planets of TRAPPIST-1, discovered between 2016 and 2017, orbit very close [...]
51 Pegasi b, the first exoplanet ever discovered

Until 1995, despite the many hypotheses put forward over the years, no one had ever confirmed the presence of other worlds outside our Solar System. With the official discovery of the first among them, therefore, a veritable new era for astronomy has begun! We are talking about 51 Pegasi b, about 50 light years from [...].
Proxima Centauri b, the closest exoplanet

We have discovered over 5,000 planets outside the Solar System, and the closest of these is Proxima Centauri b, just over 4 light years from us. Discovered in 2016, it is slightly larger than Earth and is located in the habitable zone of its star, Proxima Centauri, where there may be temperatures suitable for the presence [...]