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27 July 2010
Did Kepler Scientist Leak Data? Um, Not Really
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 announced [...]
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15 July 2010
Hubble Confirms Comet-like Tail on Vaporizing Planet
Next time you hear someone complaining that it's too hot outside, you can make them feel better by pointing out that at least their planet isn’t so hot it is vaporizing into space. Unless of course you happen to be speaking to someone from the gaseous extrasolar planet HD 209458b. New observations from the Hubble [...]
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23 June 2010
Astronomers Watch Superstorm Raging on Distant Exoplanet
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 definitely [...]
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15 June 2010
New Worlds to Explore? Kepler Spacecraft Finds 750 Exoplanet Candidates
The Kepler spacecraft has found over 750 candidates for extrasolar planets, and that is just from data collected in the first 43 days of the spacecraft's observations. "This is the biggest release of candidate planets that has ever happened," said William Borucki, Kepler's lead scientist. "The number of candidate planets is actually greater than [...]
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14 June 2010
Weird Collection of Worlds in the Latest Cache of CoRoT Expoplanets
The CoRoT (Convection, Rotation and Transits) spacecraft has been busy, and using this exoplanet-finding-machine astronomers recently found six new extrasolar planets, which contain an odd assortment of new worlds. They include shrunken-Saturns to bloated hot Jupiters, as well a rare brown dwarf with 60 times the mass of Jupiter. "Each of these planets [...]
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10 June 2010
Exoplanet Confirms Gas Giants Can Form Quickly
For the first time, astronomers have been able to directly follow the motion of an exoplanet as it moves from one side of its host star to the other. The planet has the smallest orbit so far of all directly imaged exoplanets, lying almost as close to its parent star as Saturn is to the [...]
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05 June 2010
Astronomy Without A Telescope – Exoplanet Weather Report
A detailed literature review by Showman et al available on arXiv, outlines the scant observational data available on exoplanet atmospheres and then explores in detail what exoplanet atmospheres might be like, based on solar system examples and associated theory.(...)Read the rest of Astronomy Without A Telescope – Exoplanet Weather Report (613 words)© Steve Nerlich for [...]
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24 May 2010
Wild and Crazy Multi-Planetary System Surprises Astronomers
Astronomers are finding that not only are there a wide range of different extrasolar planets, but there are different types of planetary systems, as well. "We're not in Kansas anymore as far as solar systems go," said Barbara McDonald from the University of Texas' McDonald Observatory, at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Miami, [...]
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20 May 2010
Hubble Confirms Star is Devouring Hot Exoplanet
We all like a hot meal, but this is really bizarre. Back in February, Jean wrote an article about WASP-12b, the hottest known planet in the Milky Way that is being ripped to shreds by its parent star. Shu-lin Li of the Department of Astronomy at the Peking University, Beijing, predicted that the [...]
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16 April 2010
Could An Amateur Astronomer Snap a Picture of an Exoplanet?
Using their backyard telescope, today? No; however this image of three exoplanets required just 1.5 meters (diameter; 60 inches) of a telescope mirror, not vastly larger than the biggest backyard 'scope. These particular exoplanets orbit the star HR 8799, and have been imaged directly before, by one of the 10-meter (33-foot) Keck telescopes and the 8.0-meter [...]
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13 April 2010
Dropping a Bomb About Exoplanets
Not all exoplanets are created equal, and new discoveries about the orbits of newly found extra solar planets could challenge the current theories of planet formation. The discoveries also suggest that systems with exoplanets of the type known as hot Jupiters are unlikely to contain Earth-like planets. “This is a real bomb we are dropping [...]
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06 April 2010
Mystery Object Found Orbiting Brown Dwarf
Big planet or companion brown dwarf? Using the Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini Observatory, astronomers have discovered an unusual object orbiting a brown dwarf, and its discovery could fuel additional debate about what exactly constitutes a planet. The object circles a nearby brown dwarf in the Taurus star-forming region with an orbit [...]
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18 March 2010
Finally, a "Normal" Exoplanet
Chalk up another exoplanet discovery for the CoRoT satellite. But this planet, while a gas giant, could have temperatures cool enough to host liquid water. Corot-9b orbits a sun-like star at a distance similar to Mercury – one of the largest orbits of any extrasolar planet yet found, and may have an interior [...]
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25 February 2010
Ripped to Shreds, Exoplanet Suffers Painful Death
WASP-12b, discovered in 2008, is a real outlier among the 400 or so exoplanets discovered to date. Not that it's particularly massive (it's a gas giant, not unlike Jupiter), nor that its homesun (host star) is particularly unusual (it's rather similar to our own Sun), but it orbits very close to its homesun, and is [...]
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20 February 2010
ESA's Tough Choice: Dark Matter, Sun Close Flyby, Exoplanets (Pick Two)
Key questions relevant to fundamental physics and cosmology, namely the nature of the mysterious dark energy and dark matter (Euclid); the frequency of exoplanets around other stars, including Earth-analogs (PLATO); take the closest look at our Sun yet possible, approaching to just 62 solar radii (Solar Orbiter) … but only two! What would be your [...]
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