Saturday, October 19, 2019

Ancient stars shed light on Earth's similarities to other planets: New method used to study

Earth-like planets may be common in the universe, a new UCLA study implies. The team of astrophysicists and geochemists presents new evidence that the Earth is not unique! Ancient stars shed light on Earth's similarities to other ...earth ...to...The closest white dwarf star Doyle studied is about 200 light-years from Earth and the farthest is 665 light-years away. "By observing these white dwarfs and the elements present in their atmosphere, we are observing the elements that are in the body that orbited the white dwarf," Doyle said.!! The study was published in the journal Science on Oct. 18.

"We have just raised the probability that many rocky planets are like the Earth, and there's a very large number of rocky planets in the universe," said co-author Edward Young, UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry.

The scientists, led by Alexandra Doyle, a UCLA graduate student of geochemistry and astrochemistry, developed a new method to analyze in detail the geochemistry of planets outside of our solar system! Ancient stars shed light on Earth's similarities to other ...www.sciencedaily.com ...Ancient stars shed light on Earth's similarities to other planets: New method used to study planets ' geochemistry implies that Earth is not unique.!! Doyle did so by analyzing the elements in rocks from asteroids or rocky planet fragments that orbited six white dwarf stars.

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"Learning the composition of planets outside our solar system is very difficult," said co-author Hilke Schlichting, UCLA associate professor of astrophysics and planetary science. "We used the only method possible -- a method we pioneered -- to determine the geochemistry of rocks outside of the solar system."

Publisher: ScienceDaily
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Not to change the topic here:

Space Missions | The Planetary Society

The Planetary Society's vision is to know the cosmos and our place within it. We follow the world's space exploration missions and produce news and resources you won't find anywhere else.

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This map, updated with quarterly releases of The Planetary Report , shows all spacecraft operating beyond Earth.

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Twitter: @exploreplanets
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Computing and the search for new planets | MIT News

Worlds orbiting stars other than our sun are "exoplanets," and they come in many sizes, from gas giants larger than Jupiter to small, rocky planets! Ancient stars shed light on Earth's similarities to other ...sciencebulletin.org/ ...The closest white dwarf star Doyle studied is about 200 light-years from Earth and the farthest is 665 light-years away. "By observing these white dwarfs and the elements present in their atmosphere, we are observing the elements that are in the body that orbited the white dwarf," Doyle said.!! This illustration of a "super-Earth" represents the type of planet that the TESS mission aims to find outside our solar system.

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A set of flight camera electronics on one of the TESS cameras, developed by the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, transmits exoplanet data from the camera to a computer aboard the spacecraft that processes it before transmitting it back to scientists on Earth.

Liang Yu, PhD '19, a recent physics graduate, built upon an existing code to write the machine learning tool that the TESS team is now using to identify exoplanets.

Computation has already proven useful for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a NASA-funded mission led by MIT. Launched from Cape Canaveral in April 2018, TESS is a satellite that takes images of the sky as it orbits the Earth. These images can help researchers find planets orbiting stars beyond our sun, called exoplanets! Ancient stars shed light on Earth's similarities to other ...knowridge.com/2019/10/ ...Ancient stars shed light on Earth's similarities to other planets Earth-like planets may be common in the universe, a new UCLA study implies. The team of astrophysicists and geochemists presents...!! This work, which is now halfway complete, will reveal more about the other planets within what NASA calls our "solar neighborhood."

Publisher: MIT News
Author: Brittany Flaherty School of Science
Twitter: @mit
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'Impossible' exoplanet and an alternate planet-formation theory | Space | EarthSky

The discovery of exoplanet GJ 3512b – a planet “too big for its star” – adds fuel to the competition between 2 theoretical models of how planets form. It suggests many more Jupiter-like planets are waiting to be found, orbiting nearby sunlike stars.

Notice the spiral structure here? This isn’t a galaxy; it’s a computer simulation of a newly forming solar system! Ancient Stars Shed Light on Earth's Similarities to Other ...beforeitsnews.com ...ancient - stars - shed - light -on...Ancient Stars Shed Light on Earth's Similarities to Other Planets and Likely Abundant Cousins Tesla's two Model S 'Plaid' variants are being benchmarked against each other Halloween Craft: An Upcycled Ghostly Winter Queen wx20191018!! It’s part of the disk instability model of how planets form, a model that’s been less accepted by astronomers – until now. A new discovery suggests this model may be correct. If so, Jupiter-like worlds may be common around nearby sunlike stars. Image via astronomical theorist Alan Boss/ Carnegie Science .

Boss’s new work is supported by a September 27, 2019, paper, published in the peer-reviewed journal Science , reporting on the discovery of a new exoplanet labeled GJ 3512b . This confirmed, massive, Jupiter-like planet orbits a very low-mass red dwarf star. And thus this planet – sometimes called the planet that shouldn’t exist – belies the previously most-popular theory of planetary formation, which had suggested it was impossible for such a massive planet to form around such a small star. From the September 27 paper:

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Publisher: EarthSky
Date: 2019-10-08T06:58:46-05:00
Author: Paul Scott Anderson
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Other things to check out:

What moons in other solar systems reveal about planets like Neptune and Jupiter

Bradley Hansen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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What is the difference between a planet-satellite system as we have with the Earth and Moon, versus a binary planet – two planets orbiting each other in a cosmic do-si-do?

In 2018, two astronomers from Columbia University reported the first tentative observation of an exomoon – a satellite orbiting a planet that itself orbits another star. One curious feature was that this exomoon Kepler-1625b-i was much more massive than any moon found in our solar system. It has a mass similar to Neptune and orbits a planet similar in size to Jupiter.

Astronomers expect moons of planets like Jupiter and Saturn to have masses only a few percent of Earth. But this new exomoon was almost a thousand times larger than the corresponding bodies of our solar system – moons like Ganymede and Titan which orbit Jupiter and Saturn, respectively. It is very difficult to explain the formation of such a large satellite using current models of moon formation.

Publisher: The Conversation
Date: 20191002
Author: Bradley Hansen
Twitter: @ConversationUS
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Gas Waterfalls Reveal Infant Planets Around Young Star - SpaceRef

Astronomers study these so-called protoplanetary disks to understand the processes of planet formation. Beautiful images of disks made with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) how distinct gaps and ring features in dust, which may be caused by infant planets.

To get more certainty that these gaps are actually caused by planets, and to get a more complete view of planet formation, scientists study the gas in the disks in addition to dust. 99 percent of a protoplanetary disk's mass is gas, of which carbon monoxide (CO) gas is the brightest component, emitting at a very distinctive millimeter-wavelength light that ALMA can observe.

Last year, two teams of astronomers demonstrated a new planet-hunting technique using this gas. They measured the velocity of CO gas rotating in the disk around the young star HD 163296. Localized disturbances in the movements of the gas revealed three planet-like patterns in the disk.

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