And here's another article:
Young giant planet offers clues to formation of exotic worlds
To answer those questions, scientists will need to observe many of these hot giants very early in their formation. Now, a new study in the Astronomical Journal reports on the detection of the exoplanet HIP 67522 b, which appears to be the youngest hot Jupiter ever found. It orbits a well-studied star that is about 17 million years old, meaning the hot Jupiter is likely only a few million years younger, whereas most known hot Jupiters are more than a billion years old.
HIP 67522 b was identified as a planet candidate by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which detects planets via the transit method : Scientists look for small dips in the brightness of a star, indicating that an orbiting planet has passed between the observer and the star. But young stars tend to have a lot of dark splotches on their surfaces—starspots, also called sunspots when they appear on the Sun—that can look similar to transiting planets.
Mason researchers part of a team that discovered a new planet the size of Neptune | Articles |
Peter Plavchan , an assistant professor within the Department of Astronomy and Physics within the College of Science and the director of the Mason Observatory, and doctoral student Bryson Cale helped author a study in the journal Nature that detailed the discovery of AU Mic b.
"Since this planet is so young, we know its atmosphere is 'primordial,' so it will be very interesting to learn what its atmosphere is made of to better understand the planet formation process," said Plavchan, the study's lead. "We'd also like to know whether or not the planet formed where it is today, or if it formed in a different location, but quickly migrated to its current location. Since the planet is so young, dynamical changes to the planet's orbit had to take place very quickly.
Planets Close to Their Host Stars May Be Habitable, but There's a Catch | Daily Planet |
In a new study published in Nature Communications , Ian Boutle from the University of Exeter in the U.K. and his British colleagues showed that mineral dust can increase the habitability of Earth-like exoplanets, especially those that are tidally “locked,” meaning that they always keep the same face toward their host star.
This is a common scenario, especially for planets around M-dwarf (Red dwarf) stars, which are the most abundant spectral type in our galaxy. Because these stars are small and relatively cool, their habitable zone (the zone where water can be stably liquid on a planetary surface) is very close to the star. The same thing can apply to exo-moons: In fact, Earth’s Moon is tidally locked, and always shows the same side to Earth.
Other things to check out:
JPL Recruiting ‘Citizen Scientists’ to Help Discover Planet-Forming Disks of Stellar
NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are looking for citizen scientists to help identify planet-forming disks of dust around far away stars.
Using an online tool called Disk Detective , anyone with an interest in astronomy and an internet connection can take part in the project to help humankind unlock the mysteries of the universe.
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"But because this process takes millions of years, scientists can only learn about these disks by finding and studying a lot of different examples," JPL said in a written statement .
Artificial intelligence predicts which planetary systems will survive
"Separating the stable from the unstable configurations turns out to be a fascinating and brutally hard problem," said Daniel Tamayo, a NASA Hubble Fellowship Program Sagan Fellow in astrophysical sciences at Princeton. To make sure a planetary system is stable, astronomers need to calculate the motions of multiple interacting planets over billions of years and check each possible configuration for stability—a computationally prohibitive undertaking.
Astronomers since Isaac Newton have wrestled with the problem of orbital stability, but while the struggle contributed to many mathematical revolutions, including calculus and chaos theory, no one has found a way to predict stable configurations theoretically. Modern astronomers still have to "brute-force" the calculations, albeit with supercomputers instead of abaci or slide rules.
Governments' dietary guidelines are harming the planet, study finds | Food | The Guardian
Official dietary advice across the world is harming both the environment and people's health, according to scientists who have carried out the most comprehensive assessment of national dietary guidelines to date.
In every country studied, the study found the diets people are eating today contain more red and processed meat than recommended by national or World Health Organization guidelines, and too little fruit and vegetables, beans, nuts and whole grains in all but a few countries.
Is Planet Nine a black hole or a planet? Harvard scientists suggest a way to find out.
Since 2016, some scientists have suspected that a massive, unseen world may be lurking in the outer solar system — a world called Planet Nine . The evidence comes from the strange orbits of some smaller objects past Neptune that all seem to be influenced by a bulky, hidden planet far beyond Pluto. But then, just last year, scientists thought of another explanation, and it’s straight out of sci-fi.
Now, Harvard scientists have proposed a way to determine, once and for all, whether Planet Nine actually could be a black hole . Specifically, the new method would scour the outer solar system for evidence of telltale flares that are emitted when a black hole devours a comet or other distant object. Such flares, they say, should be detectable by the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which is expected to begin a 10-year survey of the southern sky within the next few years.
Happening on Twitter
You'll Be Able to See Five Planets and the Moon Without a Telescope This Weekend https://t.co/GnA5wCgR2z harpersbazaarus (from New York City) Thu Jul 16 18:17:08 +0000 2020
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