A Dot in the Void
Astronomers have constructed an image of material around the star AB Aurigae that appears to be coalescing into a celestial body. The finding will help scientists understand the early stages of planetary formation.

Witnessing a Planet's Birth
Astronomers have identified the youngest forming planet yet seen. The discovery is providing a window into the early stages of planet formation and may help in the search for distant, habitable worlds.

Searching for Earth
More than 250 planets have been found orbiting distant stars. Most of them are “hot Jupiters,” giant planets orbiting close to their stars, unlikely places for life to take hold. NASA’s Kepler mission hopes to find habitable planets like Earth. Or, perhaps, to discover that there aren’t many of them around to find.

An Earth Hidden in Dust
Astronomers are hoping that a small, dusty disk around a nearby star is hiding Earth-like planets. Using the Subaru telescope, the team is hoping to obtain the first image of a terrestrial exoplanet by observing the young star FN Tau.

Planets of Scale
Astronomers have found two planets that resemble small versions of Jupiter and Saturn in a distant solar system. The discovery suggests that solar systems like our own may not be rare in the Universe.

Hunting Earths with EPOXI
In 2005, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft directed an impactor into comet Tempel 1 and collected valuable information about the composition of comets. Now the spacecraft is turning its largest telescope toward the stars in order to search for exosolar planets.

MARVELS of the Stars
A new sky survey may double the number of known extrasolar planets. The MARVELS survey, a component of the recently announced Sloan Digital Sky Survey III, is scheduled to begin mid-year and will last until mid-2014.

Astrobiology Top 10: Astronomers Find Habitable Earth-like Planet
Astrobiology Magazine is looking back over 2007, highlighting the Top 10 astrobiology stories of the year. At number 1 is the announcement that astronomers had found a habitable Earth-like world in another solar system. Since this discovery, some have said the planet may have a runaway greenhouse effect and therefore would not be habitable. Even if true, there is another planet in the same system that could possibly support life as we know it. (This story was originally published on April 25, 2007.)

Astrobiology Top 10: COROT Sets its Sights on the Stars
Astrobiology Magazine is looking back over 2007, highlighting the Top 10 astrobiology stories of the year. At number 3 is the COROT space telescope. Launched in late December of 2006, COROT opened its telescope eye in January and detected its first extrasolar planet in May. Scientists hope COROT will find small rocky worlds similar to the Earth orbiting other stars.

Radio Astrobiology: Looking Beyond
In Astrobiology Magazine’s latest podcast, Pascale Ehrenfreund talks about newly discovered exoplanets, and explains what we still need to learn about the evolution of solar systems.