New Delhi: Scientists have confirmed the existence of an Earth-sized planet around the closest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri. The planet named Proxima b has a mass equivalent of 1.17 earths and orbits its star every 11.2 days. It is located in the habitable zone of the star.
According to the researchers, the findings have profound implications today as the climate crisis has led to the thinning of the ozone layer that shields the earth from damaging ultraviolet (UV) radiation. More on Science .
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An 8-year-old St. Paul girl is taking her neighborhood on a space walk - StarTribune.com
Eight-year-old Lilli Prouty of St. Paul took on something a bit more ambitious than sidewalk chalk drawings to give neighbors something to look at while taking a walk.
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To illustrate the vastness of space, Lilli (with help from her parents) recently made a scale model of the solar system, putting up laminated signs in her neighborhood to demonstrate the relative distance between the sun and the planets.
Even at a scale of about 2.6 billion to one — with Earth the size of a popcorn kernel, Jupiter as big as a racquetball and the sun the size of an extra-large beach ball — Lilli’s solar system model spans nearly a mile and a half from her sun to her Pluto.
Is 'Oumuamua a hydrogen comet? | Space
The weirdness of our solar system's first known interstellar visitor stems from a very unusual composition, a new study suggests.
That visitor is 'Oumuamua , which zoomed through Earth's neighborhood in the fall of 2017 and is now streaking toward the dark depths of the outer solar system. The interloper puzzled researchers shortly after its detection, and the air of mystery surrounding the object hasn't dissipated.
'Oumuamua's oddness is multilayered. For starters, it seems to be cigar- or pancake-shaped, which is definitely not the norm for space rocks that astronomers are familiar with.
Galactic crash may have triggered solar system formation
A new study, based on data gathered by ESA's galaxy mapping powerhouse Gaia, revealed for the first time that the influence of Sagittarius on the Milky Way may be even more substantial. The ripples caused by the collisions seem to have triggered major star formation episodes, one of which roughly coincided with the time of the formation of the Sun some 4.7 billion years ago.
"It is known from existing models that Sagittarius fell into the Milky Way three times—first about five or six billion years ago, then about two billion years ago, and finally one billion year ago," says Tomás Ruiz-Lara, a researcher in Astrophysics at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in Tenerife, Spain, and lead author of the new study published in Nature Astronomy .
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Maybe the Elusive Planet 9 Doesn't Exist After All - Universe Today
Whether you call it Planet Nine, Planet X, the Perturber, Jehoshaphat, “Phattie,” or any of the other proposed names—either serious or flippant—this scientific back and forth over its existence is getting exhausting.
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Though it’s never been observed, there’s been evidence that there’s another planet out there. That evidence is largely based on clustering of distant objects, way out in the reaches of our Solar System: Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO).
Exploration of the outer solar system with fast and small sailcraft
Slava G. Turyshev, Peter Klupar, Abraham Loeb, Zachary Manchester, Kevin Parkin, Edward Witten, S. Pete Worden
Two new interplanetary technologies have advanced in the past decade to the point where they may enable exciting, affordable missions that reach further and faster deep into the outer regions of our solar system: (i) small and capable interplanetary spacecraft and (ii) light-driven sails. Combination of these two technologies could drastically reduce travel times within the solar system.
Class of stellar explosions found to be galactic producers of lithium -- ScienceDaily
A team of researchers, led by astrophysicist Sumner Starrfield of Arizona State University (ASU), has combined theory with both observations and laboratory studies and determined that a class of stellar explosions, called classical novae, are responsible for most of the lithium in our galaxy and solar system.
The results of their study have been recently published in the Astrophysical Journal of the American Astronomical Society.
"Given the importance of lithium to common uses like heat-resistant glass and ceramics, lithium batteries and lithium-ion batteries, and mood altering chemicals; it is nice to know where this element comes from," says Starrfield who is a Regents Professor with ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration and a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society. "And improving our understanding of the sources of the elements out of which our bodies and the solar system are made is important."
Standard Solar installs 2.7-MW of PV in Maryland
June 1 (Renewables Now) - Standard Solar Inc has recently installed a 2.7-MW solar system for Fritz Family Farms LLC on a grain, hay and cattle farm in Maryland.
Standard Solar, which develops and finances solar systems, joined forces with Earth and Air Technologies LLC and Ogos Energy LLC to develop and construct the single-axis tracking solar system in New Windsor.
The array is configured for the state's Virtual Aggregate Net Energy Metering (ANEM) programme. Standard Solar financed and will own and operate the system, which consists of 7,336 panels with total annual generation of about 4,000 MWh. The power produced by the facility will be bought by water utility WSSC Water.
Happening on Twitter
There's no star closer to us than Proxima Centauri — and now we know it has an Earth-mass planet in its habitable z… https://t.co/rx2A4prWeK AstronomyMag (from Our tiny corner of the cosmos) Sun May 31 22:00:26 +0000 2020
A coleta de novos dados mostrou de forma conclusiva a presença do planeta, refinando a estimativa de sua massa míni… https://t.co/fXrvUmWp0w folha (from São Paulo, Brazil) Mon Jun 01 19:15:00 +0000 2020
Scientists confirm there is 'an Earth' around our nearest star https://t.co/8em5WX7tON Independent (from London, England) Thu May 28 21:56:08 +0000 2020
I feel obliged to point out that our very nearest stellar neighbour, Proxima Centauri, has at least one, probably t… https://t.co/KFyDjliJr0 aussiastronomer (from Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA) Tue May 26 19:17:16 +0000 2020
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