Despite the ongoing hunt for Planet Nine and the general dissatisfaction with Pluto’s demotion more than a decade ago, there are still just eight planets in our solar system. You’ve probably seen diagrams of the solar system that place the planets in nice, orderly lines, but the truth is they’re often on the other side of the sun from Earth. We happen to be going through a period during which all the planets are visible, many without a telescope .
Mercury : The closest planet to the sun appears like a bright, yellowish star in the sky. Currently, you can spot Mercury unaided by a telescope for the remainder of this year in the early morning right before dawn in the eastern sky. It will be at its brightest for the next week or so.
Were you following this:
We've seen a planet being born while its star is still forming | New Scientist
In an astronomical first, we may have directly observed a star forming at the same time as a world that orbits it, proving a long-held theory about planet formation .
Planets are thought to form in a disc of dust and gas, also known as a protoplanetary disc , surrounding a host star. Theoretical models suggest planets should begin to take shape while the host star is still growing – but until now, we have only seen active evidence of planet formation after the star itself had formed.
Earthshine, meteor showers, and all 7 planets to make appearances in Southern Utah sky – St
The year 2020 has been anything but typical, and the same holds true for skywatchers across Southern Utah and beyond. So buckle up — there are amazing sights to see from now through the end of the year.
A video of celestial and planetary events to watch for in the coming days and weeks courtesy of NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory can be seen at the top of this report.
* * *
The planets in the solar system are among the brightest “stars” in the evening sky, and Jupiter, the largest planet, about 1,300 times the mass of Earth, is the fourth brightest object visible from Earth. It is surpassed only by the sun, moon and of course, Venus. Jupiter is so big, in fact, that all the other planets in the solar system could fit inside of it — with room to spare.
What if Earth shared its orbit with another planet? | Space
One of the most unusual ways in which two planets might "co-orbit," or share the same zone around their star, are so-called horseshoe orbits. Instead of both worlds moving in a circle around a star, each would move along the edge of their own somewhat horseshoe-shaped track, with these crescents facing each other like two halves of a broken ring.
* * *
Let's imagine what horseshoe orbits might look like with a pair of Earth-size worlds in the sun's habitable zone — the area surrounding a star temperate enough for liquid water to survive on a planet's surface. Let's name these worlds Terra and Tellus, both Latin words for "Earth."
In case you are keeping track:
Ancient zircon minerals from Mars reveal the elusive internal structure of the red planet --
The uranium-bearing mineral zircon is an abundant constituent of Earth's continental crust, providing information about the age and origin of the continents and large geological features such as mountain chains and giant volcanoes. But unlike Earth, Mars's crust is not evolved and is compositionally similar to the crust found under the Earth's oceans, where zircon is rare. Therefore, zircon is not expected to be a common mineral on Mars.
"We were quite surprised and excited when we found so many zircons in this martian meteorite. Zircon are incredible durable crystals that can be dated and preserve information that tell us about their origins. Having access to so many zircons is like opening a time window into the geologic history of planet," describes Professor Martin Bizzarro from the GLOBE Institute, who led the study.
New project to explore how planets get their atmospheres | CU Boulder Today | University of
Images of "circumstellar" disks circling young stars as seen by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). (Credit: ALMA, ESO/NAOJ/NRAO, S. Andrews et al.; NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello)
* * *
This story was adapted from a version published by the University of California, Santa Cruz. Read the original story .
"Energy from stars can ionize and even erode the atmosphere of a planet, turning a habitable world into a barren wasteland," MacGregor said. "In this project, we hope to better understand how this happens and how many worlds could be affected."
There are Planets So Close to Their Stars That They Have Magma Oceans 100km Deep and Winds that
200 light years away, " super earth " exoplanet K2-141b orbits a star so closely that its “year” is only 7 hours long. Not its day…its YEAR! K2-141b orbits a mere million kilometers from the fiery surface of its star. Earth is 150 million km from our Sun. Even Mercury, the planet closest to our Sun, is never less than 47 million km.
* * *
Of all these lava worlds observed, K2-141b is ideal to study. Discovered in 2018, this world has one of the closest and shortest orbital periods of any known rocky exoplanet. It also has the best signal-to-noise ratios of all these worlds providing the best quality data to scientists.
Yale astronomers venture on quest for Planet Nine
Yale astronomers are joining the scientific effort to search for Planet Nine — a hypothesized planet in the outskirts of the solar system — despite some skepticism in the field about its existence.
Malena Rice GRD '23, a graduate student in the Yale astronomy department, and Gregory Laughlin, a professor in the department, are attempting to map the path of the hypothetical planet using a "shifting and stacking" technique, which involves a detailed survey of the sky. Rice, who is the first author of the study, presented the research alongside Laughlin, the study's senior author, at the annual meeting of the Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences.
Happening on Twitter
You see a dog advertised to be rehomed, you look closer & read that she has a broken leg! What would you do?… https://t.co/megEb3Ckbt BC_SPCA (from British Columbia, Canada) Tue Nov 17 22:09:02 +0000 2020
Look there is plenty of blame to go around for the #Seahawks loss today but allowing 44 points is inexcusable. You… https://t.co/hX1FlLdMFF SamuelRGold Sun Nov 08 21:21:16 +0000 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment