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Warp Drive and Cloaking Devices: Not Just Science Fiction Anymore?

[/caption] Standard in almost every Star Trek episode are warp drives and cloaking devices. But in reality these science fiction gadgets defy the laws of physics. Or do they? Different scientists have been working on developing these two devices and they say they are getting closer to actually creating working prototypes. While warp drive won’t …

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Our Solar System: An Island of Calm in a Violent Universe (and it’s special, too)

[/caption] We humans like to think we’re special, but astronomically speaking we’ve been shot down quite severely and humbly put in our place. We’re not at the center of our solar system, nowhere near the center of our galaxy and certainly not at the center of the universe. But now comes great news for the …

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Unusual Exoplanet Dances in Sync With Its Sun-Like Star

[/caption] The European Space Agency’s COROT spacecraft has discovered an unusual exoplanet orbiting a star slightly more massive than our Sun. The planet, currently called COROT-exo-4b, is about the same size as Jupiter, and it takes 9.2 days to orbit its star. Most peculiar however, is that the planet and the star are in sync: …

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Super-Earths: How Much Are They Like Earth?

With yesterday’s announcement about finding a batch of so-called “super-Earths” – rocky alien worlds a few times more massive than our own – as well as another announcement back in May that 45 relatively low mass planets had been found, it’s obvious astronomers are constantly improving on their techniques to find new worlds. While the …

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Exoplanet Count Rises With New Discoveries

With several space- and ground-based telescopes, as well as dedicated space missions searching for exoplanets, or planets orbiting other stars, the count of new discoveries keeps rising. The current total now stands at 287 planets. The newest spacecraft dedicated to this search, the COROT Mission (Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits), announced the finding of two …

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