Exoplanet Discovery

Astronomers Discover 7 Potentially Habitable Exoplanets Orbiting Nearby Dwarf Star

... discover 7 potentially habitable exoplanets orbiting - WAOW - Newsline 9, Wausau News, Weather, Sports. Member Center. Astronomers discover 7 potentially habitable exoplanets orbiting nearby dwarf star. ABC NEWS -. An international team of astronomers has discovered seven potentially habitable exoplanets - or planets outside our solar system - that could have liquid water on their surfaces, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature. It is unclear whether any of the newly discovered planets can harbor life. However, scientists pointed out that the new planetary system orbits TRAPPIST-1, a dwarf star that is much younger than our sun and that will continue to burn for another 10 trillion years - more than 700 times longer than the universe has existed so far. Astronomers said that is "arguably enough time for life to evolve," the article reported. TRAPPIST-1 is about 39 light-years away, in the ...

Nasa Just Discovered 7 Earth-sized Exoplanets, 3 In The Habitable Zone Of A Dwarf Star

... 3 in the habitable zone of a dwarf star. Dyllan Furness. Seven Earth-sized planets have been discovered around a star that’s roughy 39 light-years from our solar system, by a team behind NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Three of these exoplanets are believed to orbit the star’s “Goldilocks zone,” the single largest haul of potentially habitable planets around a single star. The agency made the announcement today in a news conference and published the findings in the journal Nature. “This discovery could be a significant piece in the puzzle of finding habitable environments, places that are conducive to life,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a press release. “Answering the question ‘are we alone’ is a top science priority and finding so many planets like these for the first time in the ...

You Can Help Make The Next Great Exoplanet Discovery From Your Laptop

... light spectrum, called Doppler shifts. Such shifts are caused by slight changes in the star’s velocity, which scientists can use to deduce the gravitational tug of an exoplanet. The team has found 100 exoplanets using the HIRES data, including one orbiting the fourth-closest star to our solar system, GJ 411. The researchers’ findings have been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal. By giving the public access to the HIRES data, Burt and her team hope to bring in lots of fresh ideas—and eyeballs. Users simply install the team’s console, select a star they’d like to study, and manipulate a slider tool to increase or decrease the time window of stellar observations. If a user finds that their analysis is similar enough to the previously-recorded model measurements of “ stellar jitter ,” they’ve probably found a planet, and can report it here. “The big thing is that at this point, we’ve got so much data on so many stars, it turns out that just getting the data isn’t quite enough,” Burt explained. “There’s a lot of follow up that needs to be done to rule out false ...

More Alien Worlds? New Data Haul Identifies 100+ Possible Exoplanets

... do this type of exoplanet detective work, but has turned out to be a workhorse instrument of the field," study co-author Steve Vogt, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in a statement. "I am very happy to contribute to science that is fundamentally changing how we view ourselves in the universe," added Vogt, who designed and built HIRES. [ Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets ]. HIRES detects exoplanets using the "radial velocity" method: The instrument picks up the tiny gravitational wobbles that orbiting worlds induce in their parent stars. This strategy is different from that employed by the most prolific planet hunter of all time, NASA's Kepler space telescope ; Kepler watches for the tiny brightness dips caused when a planet crosses its star's face — called the "transit method.". In the new study, the researchers identified 60 so-called planet candidates, ...

It’s Life, But Not As We Know It

... and digs for buried tubers. The low-slung body and armoured carapace permit it to forage during the blistering windstorms that scour surface. The paddle-like tail and vestigial fins betray an aquatic larval stage in the cool lakes at the edge of the melting dark-zone glaciers. - Dr Brian Choo. EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. Earth-like evolution requires billions of years. Notably, red dwarfs live much longer than our own yellow star. But time is not enough. You need the right physical conditions. On top of that, life needs to thrive for it to become dominant enough for advanced evolution to begin to apply. Even the slightest variation in just one element could reshape such a world. A few degrees here, a little less water there — whether or not microbes emit C 02 — could tip the balance away from supporting advanced life and into a runaway greenhouse effect. Dr Caprarelli’s vision is for a thriving red dwarf world is one covered in oceans. Whatever the world, she says, the more water, the stronger the pulse of life. Graphic: Steve Grice Source: News Corp Australia. Advanced life only exploded on Earth when ...

Exoplanet Discovery Nedir? Google’dan Sürpriz Doodle

... bilgiler sağlayacak. Bilim insanları bu yıldız sistemini bir gezegen hazinesi olarak tanımlıyorlar. NASA gezegen bilimi açısından son yılların en büyük keşfini açıkladı. Dünya'mıza yaklaşık 40 ışık yılı uzaklıkta küçük bir yıldız çevresinde yaşama uygun bölgede ve Dünya gezegenin büyüklüğünde 7 gezegen keşfetti. Astronomlar daha önce de 7 gezegen barındıran yıldız sistemleri keşfetmişlerdi ama ilk defa bu kadar çok Dünya ile benzer büyüklükte gezegen barındıran hem de sadece 12 parsel yani 39 ışık yılı uzaklıkta bir sistem keşfediliyor. NASA'dan astrofizikçi Elisa Quintana bu yıldız sisteminin inanılmaz olduğunu ve yakınlarındaki yıldızların da benzer gezegenlere ev sahipliği yapıyor olabileceğini belirtiyor. TRAPPER-1 YILDIZI VE ÇEVRESİNDEKİ GEZEGENLER MERCEK ALTINDA. Trapper-1 adındaki bu küçük yıldız komik skalada Dünya'ya oldukça yakın olduğu için bilim insanları sistemdeki gezegenlerin ...

Newly Discovered Network Of Planets Could Harbor Water And Life, Scientists Say

... the main mirror, beyond which Hubble's science instruments wait to capture it. In this photo, the hole is covered up. This mosaic image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows the Crab Nebula, a 6-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. The Crab Nebula derived its name from its appearance in a drawing made by Irish astronomer Lord Rosse in 1844, using a 36-inch telescope. The composed image was assembled from 24 individual Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 exposures taken in October 1999, January 2000, and December 2000. A Hubble panoramic view of the Orion Nebula reveals thousands of stars. The Hubble telescope captured this display of starlight, glowing gas and silhouetted dark clouds of interstellar dust of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300. Barred spirals differ from normal spiral galaxies in that the arms of the galaxy do not spiral all the way into the center but are ...

Nasa Astronomers Discover New Solar System Called Trappist-1 Where Life May Have Evolved On Three Out Of Seven Of Its Planets

... said: “The planets are all close to each other and very close to the star, which is very reminiscent of the moons around Jupiter. “Still, the star is so small and cold that the seven planets are temperate, which means that they could have some liquid water – and maybe life, by extension – on the surface.”. The team determined that all the planets in the system are similar in size to Earth and Venus, or slightly smaller. And density measurements suggest that at least the innermost six planets are rocky. Because the star is so dim, the planets are warmed gently despite having orbits much smaller than that of Mercury, the planet closest to our Sun. The Trappist robotic telescope at La Silla, Chile. Key observations were made by the Trappist robotic telescope at La Silla, Chile which gives the system its name.  Three planets – classified as Trappist-1 e, f and g – orbit in the “habitable” or so-called “Goldilocks” zone where temperatures are suited to surface oceans of liquid water. The star at the center of the solar system has a temperature ...

Seven Earth-sized Worlds Found Orbiting One Ultra-cool Star

... once every 20 days or so. According to the research, there is still some uncertainty about the exact orbit of TRAPPIST-1 h. Last May, when the news first broke about TRAPPIST-1, the only members of the system known were the innermost three, but there was a slight quirk. The orbits of TRAPPIST-1 b and TRAPPIST-1 c were well known by then, but TRAPPIST-1 d was being difficult. The closest the researchers had come up with was a range of orbits where it could be, some of which were in the habitable zone of the star - that band of space around the star where it could be warm enough for liquid water to exist on a planet's surface. The initial speculation about this announcement, from this author, was that the astronomers had locked down TRAPPIST-1 d's orbit, revealing that it was, in fact, in the star's habitable zone. That speculation turned out to be partly correct, but with an added bonus: the reason for the uncertainty in 1 d's orbit was because the two transits the researchers had attributed to that one planet were actually from two planets! Further observations and analysis separated the two and went on to reveal three more, for the grand total - so far, ...