Smaller than our Sun, not one single red dwarf star is visible to the naked eye, not even the next star along, Proxima Centauri, which is just 4.24 light-years distant. Yet, being the most common and the longest-lasting stars of all, they dominate planet-hunting.
In fact, almost all of the 4,000+ exoplanets found by astronomers so far orbit red dwarf stars, which are dim and emit infrared radiation rather than visible light.
What if we could find an Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star? Isn't that the real prize among exoplanet-hunters?
And here's another article:
Is 'Planet Nine' Actually A Black Hole In The Solar System? There's Only One Way To Find Out
That would be the find of the century, arguably way more fundamental than the discovery of any "Planet Nine."
The Rubin Observatory under construction, as seen from inside the Gemini South Telescope dome, in ... [+] July 2019.
"Planet Nine" is considered unlikely to exist because it would be difficult for the solar system to collect enough material at such a distance from the Sun to form a super-Earth-sized planet. Which has led astronomers to think-up some even crazier-sounding theories about what, exactly, the observed "Planet Nine effect" could actually be.
Martian moon's orbit suggests the Red Planet had a ring | Space
Mars has two moons circling the planet, called Phobos and Deimos. For many years, scientists supposed that both of these moons were captured asteroids , or space rocks. But new research shows the orbit of Deimos would not make that possible.
Deimos is very slightly tilted to the Martian equator, by only two degrees. Initially, the difference was so small that many scientists overlooked the matter.
* * *
"The fact that Deimos' orbit is not exactly in plane with Mars' equator was considered unimportant, and nobody cared to try to explain it," study lead author Matija Cuk, a research scientist at the SETI Institute, said in a statement . "But once we had a big new idea and we looked at it with new eyes, Deimos' orbital tilt revealed its big secret."
ASTERIA – A Tiny CubeSat Spacecraft – Detected a Planet Outside Our Solar System
About the size of a briefcase, the CubeSat was built to test new technologies but exceeded expectations by spotting a planet outside our solar system.
Long before it was deployed into low-Earth orbit from the International Space Station in Nov. 2017, the tiny ASTERIA spacecraft had a big goal: to prove that a satellite roughly the size of a briefcase could perform some of the complex tasks much larger space observatories use to study exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system.
Other things to check out:
Can You Pinpoint The Planet? | FiveThirtyEight
The astronomers on planet Xiddler have made several remarkable discoveries. After inventing the telescope, they quickly discovered a new planet in their solar system!
Xiddler is very much like Earth. The planet orbits its star in a nearly circular path, with an average distance of 150 million kilometers, a period of one Earth year and a day that lasts 24 hours. But unlike Earth, there weren't any other known planets in the solar system…until now.
The rings of Saturn are 'ringing' like a bell | Space
Saturn's rings are ringing like a bell, which is making it possible for researchers to explore deep inside the heart of the planet.
Gravitational forces push seismic waves from Saturn's interior into its ring system , where NASA's Cassini mission was able to detect the minute tremors. According to a new study, a large part of the planet's interior is more layered than previously expected.
Planets hide their interior processes behind hard-to-penetrate layers. While rocky bodies like Earth and the moon can have their layers probed through the study of seismic waves created by quakes, gas giants have no solid surface to measure such waves. Instead, researchers have to employ other methods, such as studying a planet's magnetic field.
Chance of finding young Earth-like planets higher than previously thought
The research, published in The Astrophysical Journal , found that there are more stars like the Sun than expected in these groups, which would increase the chances of finding Earth-like planets in their early stages of formation.
In their early stages of formation these Earth-like planets, called magma ocean planets, are still being made from collisions with rocks and smaller planets, which causes them to heat up so much that their surfaces become molten rock.
Did Hubble Just Find New Stars Where Planets Are Impossible?
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the cluster Westerlund 2 and its surroundings was ... [+] released to celebrate Hubble's 25th year in orbit. The image's central region, containing the star cluster, blends visible-light data taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys and near-infrared exposures taken by the Wide Field Camera 3.
* * *
A stellar nursery in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This new, ... [+] nearby sign of star-formation produces stellar winds and blows the interior gas to greater distances and higher kinetic energy. New stars, in short, remove normal matter from around the star-forming region.
Happening on Twitter
Longstanding racism & sexism in the sciences -- including at the level of grants from @NIH. "Black scientists tend… https://t.co/J023qYcLFD Laurie_Garrett (from New York, NY) Thu Jun 04 17:58:54 +0000 2020
Scientists have found it oddly hard to say exactly why sleep loss is lethal. In a study publishing today in the jou… https://t.co/cVh6H4ax28 QuantaMagazine Thu Jun 04 15:01:50 +0000 2020
Scientists working in Mexico have discovered a colossal Mayan structure that's both the oldest and largest ever fou… https://t.co/UoiUJnabLn NHKWORLD_News (from Tokyo, Japan) Thu Jun 04 11:02:09 +0000 2020
The ancestor of the Novel Coronavirus strain from China may have entered India in November or December before the f… https://t.co/6I0hW2qNW9 OpIndia_com (from New Delhi) Fri Jun 05 11:50:00 +0000 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment