Contrary to previous thought, a giant planet in a wild orbit doesn’t mean there can’t be an Earth-like planet in the same system. What's more, the view from that Earth-like world as its giant neighbor moves past would be unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
Artist’s concept of Venus – brightest planet visible from Earth and a dazzling light low in the west after sunset now – in contrast to the brightness of the giant planet in the distant star system HR 5183. Image via UC Riverside .
And here's another article:
Is Hygiea now the smallest dwarf planet? | Space | EarthSky
New images from ESO’s Very Large Telescope show that asteroid Hygiea is round, meaning that it may now be classified as the smallest-known dwarf planet in our solar system.
This is the best view yet of asteroid Hygiea in the main asteroid belt, from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). Hygiea is now seen to be nearly spherical, meaning it could possibly be classified as a dwarf planet. Image via ESO /P. Vernazza et al./MISTRAL algorithm (ONERA/CNRS).
This Is What Plants Would Look Like on Other Planets
Well, it would all depend on the strength of its star and the nature of its atmosphere. Therefore plants on other planets could look very different from here on Earth.
Motions of the planets put new limit on graviton mass – Physics World
The motions of the planets have been used to make the best estimate yet of the upper limit of the mass of the graviton – a hypothetical particle that is a quantum of the gravitational field. That is the claim of Leo Bernus at the Paris Observatory and colleagues, who used over a century's worth of data in their calculations.
If gravitational fields have an infinite range – as Einstein's general theory of relativity dictates – gravitons must be massless and travel at the speed of light. However, some theories of quantum gravity suggest that the graviton could have an extremely small mass. If this were true, it would limit the range of the gravitational force and impose a subluminal speed limit on the graviton.
Many things are taking place:
A NASA report finds planetary contamination rules may be too strict | Science News
Some policies for protecting the moon, Mars and other places in the solar system from contamination by visiting missions may be too strict.
At least one astrobiologist cautioned, however, against relaxing current guidelines too much. Spacecraft landing in areas deemed sterile could still contaminate areas that are potentially interesting for astrobiology, says John Rummel of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. If a lunar probe crashes on the moon's surface, "you end up with material that's taken into the lunar atmosphere and deposited in the cold traps at the south and north anyway," he says.
Spot six planets in the sky this week: Mercury, Mars, Uranus and more | New Scientist
THE coming week is a great time to look for planets. A new moon on 28 October means no moonlight and, with the exception of Neptune , every planet is visible at some point in the coming days. Even distant Uranus, which at 8 pm GMT on 27 October will be a mere 2.8 billion kilometres away.
Venus is the easiest to find, with an apparent magnitude of -4.6. In the magnitude scale, objects with lower numbers are brighter. It is close to the sun, …
India Has a New Planetary Target in Mind: Venus | Space
India has launched just three planetary-science spacecraft, but the country is already eyeing a new destination: Venus .
Scientists and engineers at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have sent plans for a Venus orbiter to the Indian national government and are hoping they'll get approval to go ahead with the mission. The spacecraft could launch in just a few years and would carry more than a dozen instruments.
"The major objective is to map the Venusian surface and subsurface," Nigar Shaji, an ISRO scientist, told a group of Venus experts during a meeting held this week in Colorado.
Planetary 'autopsies' indicate worlds like Earth common in the cosmos - Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new way of studying planets in other solar systems - by doing sort of an autopsy on planetary wreckage devoured by a type of star called a white dwarf - is showing that rocky worlds with geochemistry similar to Earth may be quite common in the cosmos.
In a study published on Thursday, researchers studied six white dwarfs whose strong gravitational pull had sucked in shredded remnants of planets and other rocky bodies that had been in orbit. This material, they found, was very much like that present in rocky planets such as Earth and Mars in our solar system.
No comments:
Post a Comment