Astron

The Open Exoplanet Catalogue is a catalogue of all discovered extra-solar planets. It is a new kind of astronomical database. It is decentralized and completely open. We welcome contributions and corrections from both professional astronomers and the general public.  http://www.openexoplanetcatalogue.com/  

TRAPPIST-1, also known as 2MASS J23062928-0502285, [6] is an ultracool dwarf star [4] [7] located 39.13 light-years (12.0 pc) away in the constellation Aquarius . A team of astronomers headed by Michaël Gillon of the Institut d’Astrophysique et Géophysique at the University of Liège [8] in Belgium used the TRAPPIST (Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope) telescope at the La Silla Observatory in the Atacama desert , Chile , [9] to observe TRAPPIST-1 and search for orbiting planets. By utilising transit photometry , they discovered seven Earth-sized planets orbiting the dwarf star; the innermost two are tidally locked to their host star while the outermost appears to lie either within the system's habitable zone or just outside of it. [7] [10] The team made their observations from September to December 2015 and published its findings in the May 2016 issue of the journal Nature . [9] [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRAPPIST-1   Portal  ...

Betelgeuse, also designated Alpha Orionis (α Orionis, abbreviated Alpha Ori, α Ori), is the ninth-brightest star in the night sky and second-brightest in the constellation of Orion . Distinctly reddish, it is a semiregular variable star whose apparent magnitude varies between 0.0 and 1.3, the widest range of any first-magnitude star . Betelgeuse is one of three stars that make up the Winter Triangle asterism, and it marks the center of the Winter Hexagon . It would be the brightest star in the night sky if the human eye could view all wavelengths of radiation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse   Portal  

The Solar System [a] is the gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. [b] Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets , [c] with the remainder being significantly smaller objects, such as dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies . Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly, the moons , two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury . [d] The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud . The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with most of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter . The four smaller inner planets, Mercury , Venus , Earth and Mars , are terrestrial planets , being primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets are giant planets , being substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest, Jupiter and Saturn , are gas giants , being compose...