tagged w/ Solar System
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The unequivocal signature of water vapor has been found on a planet beyond our solar system.
Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers detected the steamy signature of water vapor in the light coming from a large exoplanet circling around a star about 63 light-years from Earth. Though it's not the first sign of water vapor around this planet, it's the strongest evidence yet.
The planet, HD 189733b, is what's called a "Hot Jupiter" — a boiling, gigantic gas planet more akin to our own Jupiter or Saturn than to a terrestrial planet like Earth. It's not a good candidate itself for alien life, but the successful detection of water vapor here, in the location and quantities that theorists predicted, bodes well for further studies of more promising locales for extraterrestrial life.The unequivocal signature of water vapor has been found on a planet beyond our solar... more
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The Hubble Space Telescope has detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside of the solar system, a significant step in the search for extraterrestrial life.
Though the planet is more similar to Jupiter than Earth and is too hot to harbor life, the ability to identify organic compounds on other planets is key to being able to find other habitable worlds, and potentially life.
"The carbon dioxide is kind of the main focus of the excitement, because that is a molecule that under the right circumstances could have a connection to biological activity as it does on Earth," astronomer Mark Swain of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a press release. "The very fact that we're able to detect it, and estimate its abundance, is significant for the long-term effort of characterizing planets both to find out what they're made of and to find out if they could be a possible host for life."The Hubble Space Telescope has detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet... more
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Astronomers who have taken a long, close-up look at the heart of the Milky Way claim they have now proven ‘beyond any reasonable doubt’ that our galaxy has a giant black hole at its core.
They tracked the motions of 28 stars circling the centre of the Milky Way for 16 years, and gathered the best evidence yet that black holes exist and we have one at the centre of our galaxy.
Just as swirling leaves caught in a gust of wind can provide clues about air currents, so the stars' movements reveal information about forces at work at the galactic centre.Astronomers who have taken a long, close-up look at the heart of the Milky Way claim... more
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An unexpected amount of very high energy cosmic ray electrons coming from an unknown source within about 3,000 light years of the solar system.An unexpected amount of very high energy cosmic ray electrons coming from an unknown... more
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Astronomers reported Thursday that they have the first snapshot of another solar system — one with three planets larger than Jupiter — orbiting a nearby star.
Circling the star HR 8799, the three planets "are a scaled-up version of our own solar system," says study leader Christian Marois of the National Research Council Canada. A large star about 128 light years away (a light year is about 6 trillion miles), HR 8799 resides in the constellation Pegasus, according to the online report released Thursday by the journal, Science.
"This is the first image of a multi-planet solar system," says Marois, who headed a U.S.-Canadian team that sifted light measurements from the star in 2004 and 2006 to photograph the planets in infrared light. "Here we are actually seeing the light, temperature and size of these planets."Astronomers reported Thursday that they have the first snapshot of another solar... more
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Astronomers reported Thursday that they have the first snapshot of another solar system — one with three planets larger than Jupiter — orbiting a nearby star.
Circling the star HR 8799, the three planets "are a scaled-up version of our own solar system," says study leader Christian Marois of the National Research Council Canada. A large star about 128 light years away (a light year is about 6 trillion miles), HR 8799 resides in the constellation Pegasus, according to the online report released Thursday by the journal, Science.
Marois and colleagues essentially collected infrared light from the star over time, and then subtracted light emanating directly from the star, to leave behind an image of the three orbiting planets. They also looked at 19 other "A"-type stars, similar to HR 8799 in weighing about twice as much as our sun.Astronomers reported Thursday that they have the first snapshot of another solar... more
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Earth seems to have its first fuzzy photos of alien planets outside our solar system, images captured by two teams of astronomers. The pictures show four likely planets that appear as specks of white, nearly indecipherable except to the most eagle-eyed experts. All are trillions of miles away — three of them orbiting the same star, and the fourth circling a different star.
None of the four giant gaseous planets are remotely habitable or remotely like Earth. But they raise the possibility of others more hospitable.
It's only a matter of time before "we get a dot that's blue and Earthlike," said astronomer Bruce Macintosh of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. He led one of the two teams of photographers.Earth seems to have its first fuzzy photos of alien planets outside our solar system,... more
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Kepano
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3 years ago
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The first-ever pictures of planets outside our solar system were released today in two studies.
Using the latest techniques in space technology, astronomers at NASA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used direct-imaging techniques to capture pictures of four newly discovered planets orbiting stars outside our solar system.
None of the planets is remotely habitable, scientists said.
Both sets of research findings were published Thursday in Science Express, a journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
A team of American and British astronomers and physicists, using the Gemini North and Keck telescopes on the Mauna Kea mountaintop in Hawaii, observed host star HR8799 to find three of the new planets.
Scientists estimate that HR8799, roughly 1.5 times the size of the sun, is 130 light years from Earth in the constellation of Pegasus. The individual planets in this planetary family are estimated to be seven to 10 times the mass of Jupiter.
Astronomers say the star is too faint to detect with the human eye, but observers could probably see it through binoculars or small telescopes
About the same time, NASA astronomers using the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope surprised the space community by locating a fourth planet.
NASA's newly discovered planet, Fomalhaut b, is estimated to be roughly three times Jupiter's mass and 10.7 billion miles from its host star, Fomalhaut. NASA's images show Fomalhaut b orbiting the bright southern star Fomalhaut, which is said to be 16 times brighter than our sun and 25 light years away in the constellation Piscis Australis (Southern Fish).The first-ever pictures of planets outside our solar system were released today in two... more
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Discovery-News.com: After a three-billion mile journey into the outer reaches of the solar system, the Stardust spacecraft has landed at it's permanent home. Dave Mosher brings us up to speed. Kasey-Dee Gardner produces. Discovery-News.com: After a three-billion mile journey into the outer reaches of the... more
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"Someday the sun will be a white dwarf," said Judith Provencal, an astronomer at the University of Delaware in Newark. "It's forming the white dwarf in its core right now."
Most stars become white dwarfs after they exhaust their nuclear fuel. They aren't burning anymore, as the sun is, but glowing like embers in a dying fire. Dwarfs are extremely dense, holding as much material as the sun in a body the size of our planet. Astronomers say that a teaspoon of white dwarf material would weigh about a ton on Earth.
The target, a white dwarf known as IU Vir, some 300 trillion miles from Earth, alternately brightens and dims as huge blobs of material in its interior rise and fall, rather like a lava lamp.
The goal of the observations is to determine the rate of changes in the star's brightness over time, which will let astronomers figure out how fast it's cooling. The rate slows slightly as the star cools.
"Once a white dwarf forms, all it does is sit there and cool," Provencal said. "So we can measure the temperature of a white dwarf, and we can figure out how long it took to cool to that temperature and hence determine how old it is."
Currently, the temperature of IU Vir is thought to be about 21,500 degrees Fahrenheit. The coolest known white dwarf is about 2,500 degrees.
Astronomers think that white dwarfs are the final stage in the evolution of a low- or medium-mass star, such as our sun. When the sun burns up all its hydrogen, it will swell into an enormous "red giant" that will swallow everything in the solar system as far out as Mars.
In time, the red giant will shed its outer layers, forming a ringlike object called a planetary nebula. Its core will be a white dwarf.
By the time that happens, the Earth will have been destroyed and mankind with it, unless our descendants have found a way to reach a planet circling another, younger star.
"Someday the sun will be a white dwarf," said Judith Provencal, an... more
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rat420
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3 years ago
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The heliosphere is a protective shield of energy that surounds our solar system, New data shows that the heliosphere has weakened by twenty-five percent in the last ten years. This is the lowest it has been since the beginning of the space race, 50 years ago. It is unclear what has caused the decrease.
The Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, will be launched into an orbit 150,000 miles above the Earth where it will "listen" for the shock wave that forms as our solar system meets the interstellar radiation.
The heliosphere is created when the solar wind, a combination of electrically charged particles and magnetic fields meet the intergalactic gas that fills the gaps in space between solar systems.
The heliosphere is a protective shield of energy that surounds our solar system, New... more
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An account of a road trip (with pictures) to see Maine's Solar System Model, stretched out over 40 miles along Route 1, from Houlton to the University of Maine at Presque Isle.
I know what I'm going to do next time I'm in Maine...An account of a road trip (with pictures) to see Maine's Solar System Model,... more
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The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is about to release 3-D maps of galaxies, quasars and other celestial bodies. Jorge Ribas finds out what's next.The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is about to release 3-D maps of galaxies, quasars and... more
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European scientists and engineers are working on a potential new mission to bring back material from an asteroid.
The venture, known as Marco Polo, could launch in the next decade, and would be designed to learn more about how our Solar System evolved.
The plan is to select a small asteroid - less than 1km across - near Earth and send a spacecraft there to drill for dust and rubble for analysis.
Mission plans are being worked on by UK Astrium and OHB in Germany.
Both satellite manufacturers have been asked to undertake a feasibility study, to assess the type of spacecraft architecture that would be needed to carry out the project.
A final decision on whether to approve the mission will be made by the European Space Agency (Esa) in a few years' time. The mission would launch towards the end of the next decade, in about 2017.
Asteroids are the debris left over from the formation of the Solar System about 4.6 billion years ago.
Studying their pristine material should provide new insights on how the Solar System came into being and how planets like Earth evolved.
"We'll be looking at the best solution for getting there and back," UK Astrium's Dr Ralph Cordey told BBC News.
"We've got to look at all elements of the mission - how we would design the mission, how to design the trajectory to one of a number of possible asteroids, how to optimise that so we use the smallest spacecraft, the least fuel and the smallest rocket."
Marco Polo might work like this:
• After the launch on a Soyuz rocket from Europe's Kourou spaceport, a propulsion unit would take the mission out to its target asteroid
• The main spacecraft unit would undertake a remote-sensing campaign, gathering key information on shape, size, mass, spin and global composition
• It would then attempt to land, drilling a few cm into the surface. Up to 300g of dust and pebbles would be stored away in a sealed capsule
• After lifting off the asteroid, the spacecraft would put itself on a homeward trajectory, releasing the capsule close to Earth for a re-entry
• The capsule would land without parachutes. It would be opened in a clean facility to ensure there was no Earth contamination
Esa has an exploration roadmap for the missions it wishes to conduct in the coming years. Marco Polo is being considered under its Cosmic Visions programme, and is one of a number of competing ideas in a class of missions that could cost in the region of 300 million euros.
It is quite possible that Marco Polo, if approved, could be undertaken in partnership with Japan.
Sample return missions are of significant interest to scientists. Although in-situ measurements provide remarkable insights, so much more would be learnt if materials were brought back to Earth laboratories, where the full panoply of modern analytical technologies can be deployed.
European scientists and engineers are working on a potential new mission to bring back... more
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MOSCOW - Moscow is ready to help Cuba develop its own space center, Russia's space agency chief said on Wednesday after talks in Caracas with Venezuelan and Cuban officials, Itar-Tass news agency reportedMOSCOW - Moscow is ready to help Cuba develop its own space center, Russia's... more
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"Parts of ancient Mars may have been wet for a billion years longer than scientists previously thought, a new study of images of the red planet's surface suggests.
Along with Earth and the other inner planets of our solar system, Mars formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists have long known that flowing water formed many of the features seen on Mars today, but previous studies suggested that water runoff from precipitation had ceased after the first billion years of Mars' history, called the Noachian Epoch.
But one team of scientists thinks these rains and floods persisted into more recent — geologically speaking — periods in Mars' history
"Parts of ancient Mars may have been wet for a billion years longer than... more
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LOS ANGELES - NASA's Phoenix spacecraft has detected the presence of a chemically reactive salt in the Martian soil, a finding that if confirmed could make it less friendly to potential life than once believed.
Scientists previously reported that the soil near Mars' north pole was similar to backyard gardens on Earth where plants such as asparagus, green beans and turnips could grow. But preliminary results from a second lab test found perchlorate, a highly oxidizing salt, that would create a harsh environment.
The first test "suggested Earth-like soil. Further analysis has revealed un-Earthlike aspects of the soil chemistry," chief scientist Peter Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson said in a statement Monday.
On Earth, perchlorate is a natural and manmade contaminant sometimes found in soil and groundwater. It is the main ingredient in solid rocket fuel and can be found in fireworks, pyrotechnics and other explosives.
It's unclear how perchlorate forms on Mars or how much there is of it. NASA is investigating whether the substance could have gotten there by contamination before launch. Phoenix used another fuel, hydrazine, to power its thrusters and land on the red planet on May 25.
Phoenix detected the salt through a chemistry experiment. The lander mixed soil with water brought from Earth into a teacup-size beaker and stirred it. Two dozen sensors inside the beaker detect the soil's pH and probe for traces of mineral nutrients.
The first test determined the soil was slightly alkaline and contained nutrients such as magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride necessary for living things. The second test found the highly reactive perchlorate.
Scientists want to confirm their results because another Phoenix instrument that bakes and sniffs soil samples found no evidence of perchlorate during a run on Sunday.
Brown University geologist John Mustard, who has no role in the mission, said judgment about the soil's potential to support life should be reserved until all the data are in.
But at first glance, "it is a reactive compound. It's not usually considered an ingredient for life," Mustard said.
The latest soil finding comes less than a week after NASA extended Phoenix's three-month mission by another five weeks through the end of September.
Since arriving at Mars, the three-legged lander has impressed scientists by confirming that ice exists in the Martian arctic plains. Its main task is to study whether the landing site could be a habitable zone for primitive life forms to emerge.
LOS ANGELES - NASA's Phoenix spacecraft has detected the presence of a chemically... more
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KefKef
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added this
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3 years ago
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People have long marveled at the majestic and mysterious northern lights that light up the skies over the polar regions of countries like Canada and in Scandinavia. Scientists have known for years that these undulating auroras are caused by a storm of charged particles high above Earth. And although a sight to behold, the forces triggering these lights can endanger satellites and air travelers near the poles. But researchers were in the dark about just what forces acted on these so-called magnetic substorms to produce the shimmering lightshows that dazzle us—until now.
Scientists have debated for decades whether local electrical disruptions in Earth's magnetic field or far-flung happenings in the so-called magnetotail (the tapering region of the magnetic field that points away from the sun) lead to the flare-ups of these substorms and their associated auroras.
Researchers say they were able to pinpoint the source by using measurements of magnetic fields recorded by five satellites that were sent into space as part of NASA's THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) project, which is designed to track "space weather" events called substorms as they unfold. The answer: these substorms form when Earth's magnetic field lines collapse on each other, showering the upper atmosphere with captured radiation from the sun where it sparks the auroras primarily over Earth's polar regions known as the northern and southern lights (aka the aurora borealis and aurora australis, respectively).
"Charged particles from the sun blow up Earth's magnetic tail like a balloon, and then for some reason the balloon leaks," says study co-author Stephen Mende, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley.
You can read more by clicking the link- it's a multi page story or by visiting the links below
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=:ePkh8BM9E2IRYipIFeJ2YjW0NDQ39tjTbiBEhLWsQGsNWITEtISKS4tLEjPzEpNyUhVS81KL0isNOIW4tdgzMgsKMlOLgRx2Leac4hQgA2hVag7MsUYCqTpibG09q_ZciFZuMy_RlfvFBpT-xcaak5-cCKSZi1KTAfVYJmY/0-0&fp=48892215db63f29e&ei=jEGJSJrAMILUyQSD0pzBCw&url=http%3A//www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/science/space/25aurora.html%3Fhp&cid=1229631588&sig2=_eF-koQgRbyFV0q8YCweBg&usg=AFQjCNFMlEZ54xbcYZ7LqCqAf6vyB0RXpg
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=:ePkh8BM9E2IRYipIFeJ2YjW0NDQ39tjTbiBEhLWsQGsNWITEtISKS4tLEjPzEpNyUhVS81KL0isNOIW4tdgzMgsKMlOLgRx2Leac4hQgA2hVag7MsUYCqTpibG09q_ZciFZuMy_RlfvFBpT-xcaak5-cCKSZi1KTAfVYJmY/1-0&fp=48892215db63f29e&ei=jEGJSJrAMILUyQSD0pzBCw&url=http%3A//www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi%3Ff%3D/c/a/2008/07/24/MND111UVSM.DTL&cid=1229631588&sig2=yIcxdLG-wGGFT1fcANg2wQ&usg=AFQjCNF2n0-YIjKSfkZgKMjd4YvImHQSfg
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=:ePkh8BM9E2IRYipIFeJ2YjW0NDQ39tjTbiBEhLWsQGsNWITEtISKS4tLEjPzEpNyUhVS81KL0isNOIW4tdgzMgsKMlOLgRx2Leac4hQgA2hVag7MsUYCqTpibG09q_ZciFZuMy_RlfvFBpT-xcaak5-cCKSZi1KTAfVYJmY/6-0&fp=48892215db63f29e&ei=jEGJSJrAMILUyQSD0pzBCw&url=http%3A//www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/07/24_reconn.shtml&cid=1229631588&sig2=z0HvcJ0XLozk_QIQ_wCfSw&usg=AFQjCNE4VFBJ3czktCrDabJf_TCm0MF3-A
Please join the conversation by commenting below.People have long marveled at the majestic and mysterious northern lights that light up... more
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"Some of you may have heard me talk about colonizing Venus. Well, for those who haven't, Universe Today is running story about floating cities on Venus. It's a reasonable alternative for space colonies — after all, the atmosphere of Venus (at about 50 km) is the most Earth-like environment in the solar system (other than Earth, of course). '50 km above the surface, Venus has air pressure of approximately 1 bar and temperatures in the 0C-50C range, a quite comfortable environment for humans. Humans wouldn't require pressurized suits when outside, but it wouldn't quite be a shirtsleeves environment. We'd need air to breathe and protection from the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere.'"
This link was a sum up, the link to the actual article is on this site. Pretty neato."Some of you may have heard me talk about colonizing Venus. Well, for those who... more
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Last week, a star was born. Or, more accurately, a planetoid was born. Makemake is the newest member of our solar system. The International Astronomical Union recently recognized the reddish object covered with frozen methane and ethane gases as a dwarf planet and classified it as a plutoid last week.
MakeMake, pronounced "Mah-keh Mak-keh" (rhymes with wakka-wakka?), was named after the creator god of Easter Island mythology because it was discovered around Easter in 2005. The plutoid's hobbies include orbiting Neptune, not having any satellites of its own, and being the second brightest Tran-Neptunian Object in our solar system. It is our solar system's fourth plutoid, joining Pluto, Ceres, and Eris in the heavens...and in our heart.
Don't let Pluto push you around, Makemake; dude's a hater. He's still angry over being demoted. You keep on orbiting, guy. We have your back.
DigitalJournal.com: Makemake, a Pluto-size non-planet, is named, despite the Easter Bunny
Last week, a star was born. Or, more accurately, a planetoid was born. Makemake is the... more
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Mihrab
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3 years ago
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