Astronomers Discover 6 Planets Orbiting The Same Star
eScience News reports:
A NASA team including three University of Florida astronomers has found six new planets in a distant solar system that in some ways resembles our own. The NASA team, including UF associate professor Eric Ford, postdoctoral associate Althea Moorhead and graduate student Robert Morehead, will announce its findings in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.
“This is the new prototype for a system of rocky planets beyond our own,” Ford said. “It changes our understanding of the frequency of solar systems like our own in deep space.”
The planets orbit Kepler-11, a sun-like star about 2,000 light years away. With temperatures hotter than Venus – likely more than 400 to 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit – the planets range in size from twice to 4½ times Earth’s diameter. The five confirmed planets are larger in mass but less dense than Earth, and closely packed, taking from 10 to 47 days to orbit the…
Planets Viewed From Earth As If They Were At The Moon’s Distance (Animation)
Great job by BradBlogSpeed.com. Have to say … I am afraid of Jupiter!:
Voyager Near Solar System’s Edge
Well done NASA. Looking forward to seeing this intrepid vehicle again when it returns to us as V’Ger. Jonathan Amos writes on BBC News:
Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, has reached a new milestone in its quest to leave the Solar System.
Now 17.4bn km (10.8bn miles) from home, the veteran probe has detected a distinct change in the flow of particles that surround it. These particles, which emanate from the Sun, are no longer travelling outwards but are moving sideways.
It means Voyager must be very close to making the jump to interstellar space — the space between the stars.
Edward Stone, the Voyager project scientist, lauded the explorer and the fascinating science it continues to return 33 years after launch. “When Voyager was launched, the space age itself was only 20 years old, so there was no basis to know that spacecraft could last so long,” he told BBC…
Spanish Woman Claims Ownership of the Sun
Reports the AFP via Google News:
MADRID— After billions of years the Sun finally has an owner — a woman from Spain’s soggy region of Galicia said Friday she had registered the star at a local notary public as being her property.
Angeles Duran, 49, told the online edition of daily El Mundo she took the step in September after reading about an American man who had registered himself as the owner of the moon and most planets in our Solar System.
There is an international agreement which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals, she added.
“There was no snag, I backed my claim legally, I am not stupid, I know the law. I did it but anyone else could have done it, it simply occurred to me first.”
The document issued by the notary public declares Duran to be the “owner of the…
Bad News for Super-Villains: Blotting Out The Sun May Soon Be Banned
Mr. Burns: Smithers, have The Rolling Stones killed.
Smithers: But sir, the UN is responsible…
Burns: Do as I say!
Bad news for super-villains everywhere. Tim Wall writes in Discovery News:
Blotting out the sun has been the dream of many arch-villains, including The Simpson’s Mr. Burns. Their schemes may soon be foiled by the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity.
Super villains aren’t the only ones who want to shade the Earth from the sun. Blocking some of the sun’s rays could slow climate change by reducing the amount of sunlight warming the Earth, say some researchers, such as Roger Angel of the University of Arizona.
The Convention may consider banning or limiting research into space sunshades. Some question their wisdom. A space sunshade would have a rapid effect on global warming and provide time to develop more permanent measures, they say. The technique has already received serious attention from NASA and other organizations.
But others, such as the…
How Halley’s Comet Has Changed History Over the Past 2,500 Years
What a great article from Alasdair Wilkins on io9.com. Truly insightful. Alasdair Wilkins writes:
Ancient Greek texts reveal the earliest recorded sighting of the solar system’s most famous comet 2,500 years ago.
Since then, Halley’s Comet has repeatedly cameoed in history, getting credit for toppling armies, birthing empires, and even killing Mark Twain.
Halley’s Comet is the most famous of the short-period comets, which are comets that complete their eccentric orbits in 200 years or less.
It’s the only short-period comet that’s visible to the naked eye, and its 76-year circuit means it’s the one comet that pretty much everyone can hope to see once, if not twice, during their lifetime. Because of this uniqueness and its often dazzling appearances, it’s become something of humanity’s companion throughout human history, popping up again and again in historical records.
Planet Earth As Seen From Planet Mercury
If the closest planet in the Solar System to the Sun was able to support life (as we understand it) this is what our homeworld would look like to them — a double planetary system (or more likely as perceived, a binary star) — from even our closest approach to them, 48 million miles away. So according to Mercurians, we are not a pale blue dot but instead a nearby, very bright, double-dotted neighbor. Ray Villard writes on Discovery News:
I never cease to be humbled and amazed when I see our Planet Earth reduced to a pinpoint when photographed from elsewhere in the solar system. So far, our planet-roaming spacecraft have taken tourist snapshots of Earth as seen from Mars, Saturn, and beyond Pluto’s obit.
But this latest view from NASA’s MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) spacecraft is a jaw-dropper. For the first time we see Earth — in…
Jupiter Swallowed A Super-Earth: It’s One BAMF
Everyone knows Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System, but new research suggests it was the baddest MF around, knocking off its competition before it could grow. David Shiga writes in New Scientist:
Jupiter might have secured its position as the solar system’s mightiest planet by killing an up-and-coming rival, new simulations suggest. The work could explain why the planet has a relatively small heart, and paints a grisly picture of the early solar system, where massive, rocky “super-Earths” were snuffed out before they could grow into gas giants.
Jupiter and Saturn are thought to have begun life as rocky worlds with the mass of at least a few Earths. Their gravity then pulled in gas from their birth nebula, giving them dense atmospheres.
In this picture, all gas giants should have cores of roughly the same size. Yet spacecraft-based gravity measurements suggest Jupiter’s core weighs just two to 10 Earth…
What Does The Sun Sound Like?
Scientists at the U.K.’s Sheffield University have released a recording of the sounds one would hear while standing inside the solar corona — the sun’s outer atmosphere. Giant magnetized plasma loops oscillate, creating a kind of music. This is what it sounds like to be on the sun:
NASA Scientists Discover Evidence ‘That Alien Life Exists’ on Saturn’s Moon Titan
Artist's impression of a mirror-smooth lake on Titan's surface. Credit: NASA
Andrew Hough writes in the Telegraph:
Researchers at the space agency believe they have discovered vital clues that appeared to indicate that primitive aliens could be living on the planet.
Data from Nasa’s Cassini probe has analysed the complex chemistry on the surface of Titan, which experts say is the only moon around the planet to have a dense atmosphere.
They have discovered that life forms have been breathing in the planet’s atmosphere and also feeding on its surface’s fuel. Astronomers claim the moon is generally too cold to support even liquid water on its surface.
The research has been detailed in two separate studies.
The first paper, in the journal Icarus, shows that hydrogen gas flowing throughout the planet’s atmosphere disappeared at the surface. This suggested that alien forms could in fact breathe. The second paper, in the Journal of Geophysical Research, concluded that…
Jupiter Loses A Stripe
David Shiga writes on New Scientist:
Jupiter has lost one of its prominent stripes, leaving its southern half looking unusually blank. Scientists are not sure what triggered the disappearance of the band.
Jupiter’s appearance is usually dominated by two dark bands in its atmosphere — one in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern hemisphere.
But recent images taken by amateur astronomers show that the southern band — called the south equatorial belt — has disappeared.
The band was present at the end of 2009, right before Jupiter moved too close to the sun in the sky to be observed from Earth. When the planet emerged from the sun’s glare again in early April, its south equatorial belt was nowhere to be seen.
Read More: New Scientist
Does the Sun Have A Jupiter-Sized Companion Star in the Far Reaches of Our Solar System?
Editor’s note: This paper submitted to arXiv, which is an electronic service for academic papers supported by Cornell University, is citing evidence for the controversial Nemesis star theory, which claims our solar system is actually a binary star system. Below is the abstract is this paper. The authors of this paper are claiming this star exists in the boundary of our solar system, the Oort cloud and is around (in astronomical terms) the size of Jupiter. John J. Matese and Daniel P. Whitmire write via arXiv.org:
We present an updated dynamical and statistical analysis of outer Oort cloud cometary evidence suggesting the sun has a wide-binary Jovian mass companion. The results support a conjecture that there exists a companion of mass ~1–4 M_Jup orbiting in the innermost region of the outer Oort cloud.
Our most restrictive prediction is that the orientation angles of the orbit normal in galactic coordinates are centered on the galactic longitude of the ascending node Omega = 319 degree and the galactic inclination i = 103 degree (or the opposite direction) with an uncertainty in the normal direction subtending ~2% of the sky.
Neptune May Have Eaten A Planet and Stolen Its Moon
David Shiga writes on New Scientist:
Neptune may have polished off a super-Earth that once roamed the outer solar system and stolen its moon to boot. The brutal deed could explain mysterious heat radiating from the icy planet and the odd orbit of its moon Triton.
Neptune’s own existence was a puzzle until recently. The dusty cloud that gave birth to the planets probably thinned out further from the sun. With building material so scarce, it is hard to understand how Uranus and Neptune, the two outermost planets, managed to get so big.
But what if they formed closer in? In 2005, a team of scientists proposed that the giant planets shifted positions in an early upheaval. In this scenario, Uranus and Neptune formed much closer to the sun and migrated outwards, possibly swapping places in the process.
That would have left behind enough material just beyond their birthplace to form a planet with…
Pacman Eats The Death Star!
From Universe Today:
Mimas has drawn a fair amount of attention with its “Death Star”-like appearance, but with new images from the Cassini spacecraft, this icy moon of Saturn has just gotten a lot more interesting. The highest-resolution-yet temperature map and images of Mimas reveal surprising patterns on the surface of the small moon, including unexpected hot regions that resemble “Pac-Man” eating the Death Star crater (officially known as Herschel Crater), as well as striking bands of light and dark in crater walls.
“After much deliberation, we have concluded: Mimas is NOT boring,” said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader, in an e-mail about the new images. “Who knew?!” And best of all, Porco added, “be sure you have a pair of red/green glasses handy ’cause you won’t want to miss peering into gigantic Herschel crater in 3D!”
Cassini collected the data on Feb. 13, and Porco said the team has spent some…
NASA Close to (Dis)Proving the Existence of a ‘Death Star’ in our Solar System
Charlie Jane Anders has a fun post on io9.com about the Nemesis theory, which the WISE telescope will prove or disprove, hopefully, soon.
The reason I say “fun” post is it’s very unlikely a Nemesis star does exist, as we have been able to figure out masses and orbits in the solar system with a high degree of accuracy for quite some time. Meaning if an object this massive was this close — Nemesis is thought to be a red dwarf star or brown dwarf — we’d have to account for it in the astronomy.
In any event, I do expect Nibiru devotees to disagree with this opinion, or if/when WISE doesn’t find it.
Charlie’s post refers to an article in Astrobiology Magazine, which is sponsored by NASA. Check out what they have to say, Leslie Mullen writes:
Is our Sun part of a binary star system? An unseen companion star, nicknamed “Nemesis,” may be sending comets…
