Space and astronomy news
[/caption] Scientists from the Kepler mission announced this morning the first confirmed exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star, the region where liquid water could exist on the surface of a rocky planet like Earth. Evidence for others has already been found by Kepler, but this is the first confirmation. The planet, Kepler-22b, …
Continue reading “Kepler Confirms First Planet in Habitable Zone of Sun-Like Star”
[/caption] Some supermassive black holes are obscured by oddly shaped dust clouds which resemble doughnuts. These clouds have been an unsolved puzzle, but last week a scientist at the University of Leicester proposed a new theory to explain the origins of these clouds, saying that they could be the results of high-speed collisions between planets …
[/caption] Back a couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article highlighting the debate between scientists on which dwarf planet is bigger, Pluto or Eris. During a planetary science conference earlier this month in France, word “leaked” out that Eris was still more massive, but likely smaller in diameter. Today, the latest findings were published …
[/caption] No. This isn’t an ancient raisin sponge cake you found at the back of your breadbox. It’s a closeup of a rare mineral called jarosite… a hydrated iron sulfate composite which takes on some very specific properties when it is exposed to a wet environment. It was discovered here on Earth in 1852 in …
Continue reading “Rare Mineral Points To Martian Water History”
[/caption] Planetary scientists have not been able to agree that a turbulent period in our solar system’s history called the Late Heavy Bombardment actually occurred. But now, using observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have detected activity resembling a similar type of event where icy bodies from the outer solar system are possibly pummeling …
Continue reading “Evidence of a Late Heavy Bombardment Occuring in Another Solar System”
[/caption] The controversy between Pluto and Eris regarding their status as “largest dwarf planet” continues. During a joint meeting of the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences and the European Planetary Science Congress last week in Nantes, France, new data was presented that may help settle the debate. The new findings regarding this size …
As the number of discovered extrasolar planets grows, astronomers begin looking at the next step: finding rocky Earth-like planets. In addition, astronomers would ideally like to block out the parent star and detect some of the reflected glow from the planet’s atmosphere in an attempt to characterize the chemical makeup. But what would an “Earth-like” …
Continue reading “What Would Earth Look Like from a Distant Star?”
[/caption] The idea isn’t new that Earth’s oceans originated from comets bombarding our planet back in its early days. But astronomers have now found the best evidence yet for this scenario. The Herschel infrared space observatory detected that comet Hartley 2, which originates from the distant Kuiper Belt, contains water with the same chemical signature …
Continue reading “Best Evidence Yet That Comets Delivered Water for Earth’s Oceans”
[/caption] Originally discovered by the Wide Angle Search for exoPlanets (WASP) survey in 2008, the eclipsing exoplanet WASP 10b has been reluctant to allow its properties to be pinned down. While its mass has been pinned down by two independent groups to right around 3 times the mass of Jupiter, the radius and thus, the …
Continue reading “High Precision Study of Exoplanet WASP 10b”
[/caption] Venus, Earth’s hotheaded neighbor, may have more variability in its weather patterns than previously believed. Using infrared data obtained by ground-based telescopes in Hawaii and Arizona researchers have found that Venus’ mesosphere and thermosphere are less consistent in temperature than layers closer to its surface. But first let’s talk about Venus itself. Possibly …
Continue reading “New Research Finds Venus’ Winds, They Are A-Changin’”