The abundance of low-mass compact objects, at or below the hydrogen-burning mass limit of 0.08M ⊙ (where M ⊙ is the solar mass), remains an open question. This abundance has implications for such ...

A new statistical study of planets found by a technique called gravitational microlensing suggests that Neptune-mass worlds are likely the most common type of planet to form in the icy outer realms of ...

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii have made independent confirmations of an exoplanet orbiting far from its central star. The planet was discovered through a ...

Astronomers observe light bending around an isolated white dwarf Astronomers have directly measured the mass of a dead star using an effect known as gravitational microlensing, first predicted by ...