Space and astronomy news
Captain Kirk has nothing on the “strange new worlds” the Kepler space telescope has found. NASA’s planet-probing orbiting observatory launched its quest to find more Earths four years ago this week. Since then, it’s found thousands of planets ranging from ginormous gas giants to tiny rocky worlds that are even smaller than our planet. NASA …
Despite advances in exoplanet research over the past decade much remains unknown. For example, how do the detection rates of giant planets vary as a function of the host star’s metal content? Are giant planets more frequent around massive stars? Do giant planets form under different mechanisms depending on the star’s metal content? To that end …
Continue reading “Narrowing Down the Hunt for Giant Exoplanets”
Artist’s impression of a rocky planet orbiting a red dwarf. Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA) We may literally be surrounded by potentially habitable exoplanets, according to new research by a team from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Using data gathered by NASA’s exoplanet-hunting Kepler spacecraft, the CfA researchers discovered that many red dwarf stars harbor planets, and …
Artistic representation of the current five known potential habitable worlds. Will this list broaden under a new habitability model? Credit: The Planetary Habitability Laboratory (PHL) When we think of life on other planets, we tend to imagine things (microbes, plant life and yes, humanoids) that exist on the surface. But Earth’s biosphere doesn’t stop at …
Continue reading “Possible Subterranean Life Means More Exoplanets Could Harbor Life”
Planetary Resources is the private company that wants to eventually mine asteroids for profit. But initially, the group will focus on developing Earth orbiting telescopes to scan for the best asteroids, and then later, create low-cost robotic spacecraft for surveying missions and then actual spacecraft to do the mining. But in the meantime, Planetary Resources …
Continue reading “How Planetary Resource’s Asteroid Search Could Help Find Exoplanets”
That’s exactly the scenario shown by a mesmerizing animation called “Worlds” by Alex Parker — a single system containing 2299 multiple-transit planetary candidates identified to date by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which is currently scrutinizing a field of view within the constellation Cygnus to detect the oh-so-faint reductions in brightness caused by planets passing in …
Continue reading “What If All of Kepler’s Exoplanets Orbited the Same Star?”
Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s proposed FINESSE space telescope may not hunt for exoplanets, but it will find out what they’re made of. Part of NASA’s Explorers program, FINESSE — which stands for (take a deep breath) Fast INfrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer — would gather spectroscopic data from 200 known exoplanets over a two-year period, helping …
Continue reading “JPL Wants To FINESSE Info From Exoplanets”
[/caption] As we learned in science class in school, the Earth has a molten interior (the outer core) deep beneath its mantle and crust. The temperatures and pressures are increasingly extreme, the farther down you go. The liquid magmas can “melt” into different types, a process referred to as pressure-induced liquid-liquid phase separation. Graphite can turn …
Continue reading “Scientists Find New Clues About the Interiors of ‘Super-Earth’ Exoplanets”
[/caption] As the number of exoplanets being discovered continues to increase dramatically, a growing number are now being found which orbit within their stars’ habitable zones. For smaller, rocky worlds, this makes it more likely that some of them could harbour life of some kind, as this is the region where temperatures (albeit depending on …
Continue reading “Tidal Heating on Some Exoplanets May Leave Them Waterless”
[/caption] For exoplanet fans, this week has been an exciting one, with some amazing new discoveries being announced at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas – our galaxy is brimming with planets, probably billions, and the smallest known planets have been found (again), with one about the size of Mars. But that’s not all; …
Continue reading “Tatooine the Sequel: Kepler Finds Two More Exoplanets Orbiting Binary Stars”