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Big Beautiful Saturn
Composition Credit: Mattias Malmer, Image Data: Cassini Imaging Team
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Now Entering The Exoplanet Catalog: Kepler-20e & Kepler-20f
Two Earth-Size Alien Planets, the Smallest Exoplanets Yet
Imaged Above: An artist’s rendering of the newfound alien planet Kepler-20e, which scientists say is smaller than Earth, at about 0.87 times the width of our planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
Two planets orbiting a star 950 light-years from Earth are the smallest, most Earth-size alien worlds known, astronomers announced today (Dec. 20). One of the planets is actually smaller than Earth, scientists say.
These planets, while roughly the size of our planet Earth, are circling very close to their star, giving them fiery temperatures that are most likely too hot to support life, researchers said. The discovery, however, brings scientists one step closer to finding a true twin of Earth that may be habitable.
“We’ve crossed a threshold: For the first time, we’ve been able to detect planets smaller than the Earth around another star,” said lead researcher François Fressin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. “We proved that Earth-size planets exist around other stars like the sun, and most importantly, we proved that humanity is able to detect them. It’s the beginning of an era.”
To discover the new planets, Fressin and his colleagues used NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which noticed the tiny dips in the parent star’s brightness when the planets passed in front of it, blocking some of its light (this is called the transit method). The researchers then used ground-based observatories to confirm that the planets actually exist by measuring minute wobbles in the star’s position caused by gravitational tugs from its planets.
The Crescent Earth Reflected sunlight glows through the clouds over the far South Pacific. Parts of South America and Antarctica are visible though the clouds. This image was taken from 217,500 miles away, or almost the distance to the Moon.
(source)
Absolutely gorgeous. I can’t tell you how much I love seeing the water of the oceans reflecting the Sun’s light from so far away - one of my favorite aspects of far-away pictures of Earth.
This is one of the most beautiful pictures I’ve ever seen, okay?
New Study Says Large Regions of Mars Could Sustain Life
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The question of whether present-day Mars could be habitable, and to what extent, has been the focus of long-running and intense debates. The surface, comparable to the dry valleys of Antarctica and the Atacama desert on Earth, is harsh, with well-below freezing temperatures most of the time (at an average of minus 63 degrees Celsius or minus 81 Fahrenheit), extreme dryness and a very thin atmosphere offering little protection from the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation. Most scientists would agree that the best place that any organisms could hope to survive and flourish would be underground. Now, a new study says that scenario is not only correct, but that large regions of Mars’ subsurface could be even more sustainable for life than previously thought.
Scientists from the Australian National University modeled conditions on Mars on a global scale and found that large regions could be capable of sustaining life – three percent of the planet actually, albeit mostly underground. By comparison, just one percent of Earth’s volume, from the central core to the upper atmosphere, is inhabited by some kind of life. They compared pressure and temperature conditions on Earth to those of Mars to come up with the surprising results.
The paper is currently available for free here.
(via universetoday)
Moon and Planets Align in Korea
Moon and planets align in the evening sky as seen from Geojedo Island of Korea. The crescent Moon is the lowest, while Venus (in conjunction with the Moon) is second on the line, then Mars, and last Jupiter among stars of Capricornus.
By Kwon O Chul
Moon - 46.5% First Quarter Moon - 12/01/11 (by mikelynaugh)
cwnl:
Full Rotation of Jupiter
Jupiter observed with the 1 meter Telescope at the Pic du Midi observatory, and a Basler Scout Camera.
Copyright & Credit: S2P/IMCCE/OPM/JL Dauvergne/Elie Rousset/Eric Meza/Philippe Tosi/François Colas/Jean Pajus/Xavi Nogués/Emil Kraaikamp
cwnl:
Relative Sizes of Stars and Planets
—1. Mercury, Mars, Venus, Earth
—2. Earth, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter
—3. Jupiter, Wolf 359, Sol, Sirius
—4. Sirius, Alderamin, Maia, Kraz
—5. Kraz, Arcturus, Canopus, Rigel
—6. Rigel, Sadir, Pistol star, Mira
—7. Mira, x Carinae, Mu Cephei, VY Canis Majoris
“Science is the best tool we have by far, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: There are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: Whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.” —Carl Sagan
Copyright: Dave Jarvis
The spot is likely a tall methane cloud that reaches high enough for us to see sunlight scattered by its icy particles, said Uranus expert Heidi Hammel, executive vice president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA).
The Uranian cloud is probably similar to an anvil cloud, the type of towering cumulonimbus cloud (picture) that’s associated with severe thunderstorms on Earth.
The cloud is also at a lower latitude on Uranus than any that have been observed before. That could mean the spot is a storm that has migrated south.
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NASA’s Next Mars Rover to Launch in 15 Days
The Mars Science Laboratory, the largest and most complex machine that has ever landed on another planet, is on target to launch on Nov. 25 at 7:25 a.m. PST.
“MSL has been assembled, tested, encapsulated, placed atop an ATLAS rocket and is ready to go,” said Doug McCuistion, director of NASA’s Mars Program, during a briefing at NASA headquarters on Nov. 10.
The rover, nicknamed Curiosity, weighs in at nearly 1 ton and is a little bigger than a Mini Cooper. The probe is expected to survey the Martian landscape with HD cameras, examine the chemical surface composition within 20 feet of the rover, monitor the planet’s weather, and search for signs of habitability and life, past or present.
Curiosity also has a six-foot arm that can reach down to place sensors on Martian rocks to investigate their chemical makeup. It will be able to drill inside rocks and deliver samples back to a suite of laboratory instruments carried inside the rover, something never done before in Mars.
“This is a Mars scientists’ dream machine,” said Ashwin Vasavada, MSL deputy project scientist, at the briefing.
