Space and astronomy news
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 …
This image shows the brown dwarf ISO-Oph 102, or Rho-Oph 102, in the Rho Ophiuchi star-forming region. Its position is marked by the crosshairs. This visible-light view was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin Brown dwarfs inhabit a kind of …
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”
[/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] NASA’s Kepler mission has detected no shortage of planets; more than a thousand candidates were discovered in 2011, a handful of which were Earth-like in size. As data from the mission keeps pouring in, astronomers are continuing to confirm and classify these possible exoplanets. Today, a team of astronomers from the California Institute of …
[/caption] It’s only a few days into 2012 and already some new exoplanet discoveries have been announced. As 2011 ended, there were a total of 716 confirmed exoplanets and 2,326 planetary candidates, found by both orbiting space telescopes like Kepler and ground-based observatories. The pace of new discoveries has accelerated enormously in the past few …
Continue reading “Four New Exoplanets to Start Off the New Year!”
[/caption] December 2011 will go down in history as the first time humanity was able to detect an Earth-sized planet around another Sun-like star, said Francois Fressin, an astronomer from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Fressin and his team used the Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft to find two rocky worlds – one just a bit bigger than …
Continue reading “First Earth-Sized Exoplanets Found by Kepler”
[/caption] Ever since a study conducted back in 1993, it has been proposed that in order for a planet to support more complex life, it would be most advantageous for that planet to have a large moon orbiting it, much like the Earth’s moon. Our moon helps to stabilize the Earth’s rotational axis against perturbations caused by …
Continue reading “Life on Alien Planets May Not Require a Large Moon After All”