Space and astronomy news
We have just begun to try and image distant solar systems around other stars, and hopefully our techniques and technology will improve in the near future so that we can one day find — and take pictures of — planets as small as Earth. But what if another civilization from a distant star was looking …
One of the surprises coming from the discoveries of the class of exoplanets known as “Hot Jupiters” is that they are puffed up beyond what would be expected from their temperature alone. The interpretation of these inflated radii is that extra energy must be being deposited in the regions of the atmosphere with large amounts …
Continue reading “Electric Resistance May Make Hot Jupiters Puffy”
[/caption] Two astronomers have written a paper and say that the first Earth-like, habitable exoplanet will be announced in May of 2011. Do they have inside information, a crystal ball, or amazing powers of prediction? No, they base their projection on math and trends from the past 15 years of exoplanet discoveries. And if the …
Continue reading “Scientists Predict Earth-Like Habitable Exoplanet Will Be Found in 2011”
[/caption] Back in 2008, the first multi-planet system of extrasolar planets was imaged, and further study of the planets in this very young system is yielding some puzzling results. Astronomers using the Keck Observatory have been able to obtain the spectrum of one planet, HR 8799 b, revealing the temperature, chemical composition, and atmospheric properties …
Continue reading “Young Exoplanet is Cloudy With a Chance of Heat Waves”
[/caption] The Kepler mission has discovered a system of two Saturn size planets with perhaps a third planet that is only 1.5 times the radius of Earth. While the news of this discovery is tempered somewhat with the announcement by a team from the European Southern Observatory of a system with five confirmed Neptune-sized planets …
There is another Sun-like star out there with an intriguing family of planets orbiting about and it could be the closest parallel to our own solar system that astronomers have found yet. European astronomers discovered a planetary system containing at least five planets, orbiting the star HD 10180, with evidence that two other planets may …
[/caption] Mainstream media (MSM) is funny. Well, maybe funny isn’t the right word, especially when they hose things up and create a story when there really isn’t one. Or when they miss the real story. MSM recently succeeded in spades on both accounts in regards to the Kepler mission. Just last month, the Kepler team …
Continue reading “Did Kepler Scientist Leak Data? Um, Not Really”
[/caption] I feel a certain empathy for brown dwarfs. The first confirmed finding of one was only fifteen years ago and they remain frequently overlooked in most significant astronomical surveys. I mean OK, they can only (stifles laughter) burn deuterium but that’s something, isn’t it? It has been suggested that a clever way of finding …
Continue reading “Astronomy Without A Telescope – Brown Dwarfs Are Magnetic Too”
[/caption] Likely, future interstellar flights will not include the exoplanet HD209458b as a featured get-away destination. Not only is this extrasolar planet a scorchingly hot world where the poisonous carbon monoxide atmosphere is being evaporated, but new observations show this gas giant also has superstorms with winds of 5,000 to 10,000 km per hour. “It’s …
Continue reading “Astronomers Watch Superstorm Raging on Distant Exoplanet”
[/caption] To date, SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) has focused on ETs who ‘phone home’ using the radio part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and even a very small region within that. But what if ET’s phone doesn’t use radio waves? Sure the xkcd comic, is funny, but maybe it points to a deep flaw in …
Continue reading “Maybe ET’s Calling, But We Have the Wrong Phone”