PlanetQuest - the Search for Another Earth

Most college finals end up in a stack on a professor's desk. For one group of MIT students, however, their three-semester long project has a slightly different destination - outer space.

Astronomers, including a NASA-funded team member, have discovered a new class of Jupiter-sized planets floating alone in the dark of space, away from the light of a star. The team believes these lone worlds were probably ejected from developing planetary systems.

New Alien vs. Editor blog, conversations with a Planet Hunter by Steve Edberg.

New Alien vs. Editor blog, conversations with a Planet Hunter by Steve Edberg.

Kepler's big annoucement of over 1,000 exoplanet candidates in early February continues to reverberate in the astronomy world. Here are some other news stories that are heating things up in the realm of exoplanets.

Kepler's latest data release included the discovery of an exotic six-planet solar system and five Earth-size worlds, but the bigger story may be in the hundreds of new "candidate planets" that were announced, The list, now at 1,235, is providing astronomers with tantalizing clues about what kinds of planets are out there and in what quantities.