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On the hunt for new exoplanets
the NEID spectrometer inside of a telescope dome

The NEID fiber feed mounted on the WIYN telescope obtained during commissioning of the instrument. This state-of-the-art spectrometer has officially started its scientific mission of discovering new exoplanets. (Image: NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory/KPNO/NSF/AURA)

On the hunt for new exoplanets

A state-of-the-art instrument called NEID, from the Tohono O’odham word meaning “to see,” has officially started its scientific mission: discovering new planets outside of the solar system.

Erica K. Brockmeier

The largest comet ever discovered in modern times is zooming toward the sun

The largest comet ever discovered in modern times is zooming toward the sun

Gary Bernstein of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about the giant comet he and Ph.D. candidate Pedro Bernardinelli discovered. "We have the privilege of having discovered perhaps the largest comet ever seen—or at least larger than any well-studied one—and caught it early enough for people to watch it evolve as it approaches and warms up," Bernstein said.

Giant comet found in outer solar system
an image of the night sky with an object circled and annotated with Bernardinelli-Bernstein (C/2014-UN271)

Giant comet found in outer solar system

The discovery of the comet estimated to 100-200 kilometers across was made by Penn researchers following a comprehensive search of data from the Dark Energy Survey. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is the most distant comet ever discovered and possibly the largest seen in modern times.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Connecting a star’s chemical composition and planet formation
a start in the center of a dark sky surrounded by orbiting planets and a ring of dust

Connecting a star’s chemical composition and planet formation

Along with developing a new statistical method for studying exoplanets, researchers from Penn found that the majority of stars in their dataset are similar to the sun, implying that many stars in the Milky Way could host their own Earthlike planets.

Erica K. Brockmeier