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One of the corrolation diagrams featured on the iPod Touch and iPhone App “Exoplanet”.
The Host Star Metallicity represents the exoplanets’ stars’ (exoplanets meaning the planets outside our solar system) metallicity, meaning the amount of light which is given off of the star itself. The Eccentricity represents the host stars’ movement: How many degrees it moves away from a center point.
Each red dot represents one host star of an exoplanet.
May 1, 2008 — Astrophysicists used the Spitzer Space Telescope to scan a cluster of about 500 stars for evidence of a collision similar to the one that produced Earth's moon. The telescope searches in the infrared part of the spectrum, which allows researchers to search for the dust clouds created by massive collisions. The surface area of the dust would absorb light from the star and become warm. Researchers hypothesize that a maximum of five to ten percent of all moons form in the way that the Earth's did.
The moon is the brightest light in the night sky. We've sent space missions there, people have written countless songs and poems about it and now, astrophysicists are providing new insight on how the Earth's moon was created and what makes it special.
"Well, the moon is certainly the most dramatic thing in the sky, so I'm sure people have had ideas about where it came from the beginning," George Rieke, Ph.D., an astrophysicist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz., told Ivanhoe.
Dr. Rieke says our moon is unique -- formed by a massive collision in space. "There was another planet about the size of Mars that was on a disastrous orbit across the Earth's orbit and so the Earth and this other planet ran into each other," he says.
It happened 30 to 50 million years after the formation of the sun. "It was a huge collision that threw dust and debris out into space and some of that material somehow reassembled and orbited around the Earth and eventually built up a moon," Dr. Rieke explained.
Now, an infrared detector like this one on NASA's Spitzer Telescope is giving University of Arizona astrophysicists a wealth of new information from space. Researchers looked for evidence of dust debris around 430-million-year-old stars. Surprisingly, only one star was surrounded by dust, revealing that no other moon was formed like or since ours. "Nothing like that occurred around any of the other planets in our solar system," Dr. Rieke said.
Scientists believe our moon set the stage for life on earth as we know it. But it could have been very different. "It could have been, if the other planet was a little bit bigger that it would have just destroyed the Earth and there wouldn't be any Earth left," Dr. Rieke explained.
You may never look at the moon quite the same way again. "We should be a lot more thankful when we go out at night and find our way around through the full moonlight or just admire what it looks like," Dr. Rieke said. Astrophysicists believe that moons like the Earth's form in only five to ten percent of planetary systems in our universe.
THE FORMATION OF THE MOON: The Earth’s moon formed just 30 to 50 million years after the sun was formed, when an object the size of Mars collided with Earth, and released a giant cloud of dust along with the moon. After examining a cluster of about 500 stars with the Spitzer Space Telescope, the researchers found very little evidence of collisions. If there had been such an event, large amounts of dust would have remained in the solar system long after the creation of a moon. The telescope would have indirectly observed pieces of dust that had absorbed light from the star in their solar system and become warmer than the surroundings.
ABOUT THE SPITZER TELESCOPE: The Spitzer Space Telescope was launched on August 25, 2003. Spitzer detects the infrared energy radiated by objects in space. Most of this infrared radiation is blocked by the Earth's atmosphere and cannot be observed from the ground. Spitzer allows us to peer into regions of space that are hidden from optical telescopes. Many areas of space are filled with vast, dense clouds of gas and dust that block our view. Infrared light however can penetrate these clouds, allowing us to peer into regions of star formation, the centers of galaxies, and into newly forming planetary systems. Infrared also brings us information about the cooler objects in space, such as smaller stars which are too dim to be detected by their visible light, extrasolar planets, and giant molecular clouds.
ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2011) — NASA's Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of smaller, cooler stars than our sun.
Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets. Kepler also found six confirmed planets orbiting a sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of transiting planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our solar system.
"In one generation we have gone from extraterrestrial planets being a mainstay of science fiction, to the present, where Kepler has helped turn science fiction into today's reality," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "These discoveries underscore the importance of NASA's science missions, which consistently increase understanding of our place in the cosmos."
The discoveries are part of several hundred new planet candidates identified in new Kepler mission science data, released on Feb. 1. The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to-date to 1,235. Of these, 68 are approximately Earth-size; 288 are super-Earth-size; 662 are Neptune-size; 165 are the size of Jupiter and 19 are larger than Jupiter.
Of the 54 new planet candidates found in the habitable zone, five are near Earth-sized. The remaining 49 habitable zone candidates range from super-Earth size -- up to twice the size of Earth -- to larger than Jupiter.
The findings are based on the results of observations conducted May 12 to Sept. 17, 2009, of more than 156,000 stars in Kepler's field of view, which covers approximately 1/400 of the sky.
"The fact that we've found so many planet candidates in such a tiny fraction of the sky suggests there are countless planets orbiting sun-like stars in our galaxy," said William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., the mission's science principal investigator. "We went from zero to 68 Earth-sized planet candidates and zero to 54 candidates in the habitable zone, some of which could have moons with liquid water."
Among the stars with planetary candidates, 170 show evidence of multiple planetary candidates. Kepler-11, located approximately 2,000 light years from Earth, is the most tightly packed planetary system yet discovered. All six of its confirmed planets have orbits smaller than Venus, and five of the six have orbits smaller than Mercury's. The only other star with more than one confirmed transiting planet is Kepler-9, which has three. The Kepler-11 findings will be published in the Feb. 3 issue of the journal Nature.
"Kepler-11 is a remarkable system whose architecture and dynamics provide clues about its formation," said Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist and Kepler science team member at Ames. "These six planets are mixtures of rock and gases, possibly including water. The rocky material accounts for most of the planets' mass, while the gas takes up most of their volume. By measuring the sizes and masses of the five inner planets, we determined they are among the lowest mass confirmed planets beyond our solar system."
All of the planets orbiting Kepler-11 are larger than Earth, with the largest ones being comparable in size to Uranus and Neptune. The innermost planet, Kepler-11b, is ten times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun. Moving outward, the other planets are Kepler-11c, Kepler-11d, Kepler-11e, Kepler-11f, and the outermost planet, Kepler-11g, which is half as far from its star as Earth is from the sun.
The planets Kepler-11d, Kepler-11e and Kepler-11f have a significant amount of light gas, which indicates that they formed within a few million years of the system's formation.
"The historic milestones Kepler makes with each new discovery will determine the course of every exoplanet mission to follow," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Kepler, a space telescope, looks for planet signatures by measuring tiny decreases in the brightness of stars caused by planets crossing in front of them. This is known as a transit.
Since transits of planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars occur about once a year and require three transits for verification, it is expected to take three years to locate and verify Earth-size planets orbiting sun-like stars.
The Kepler science team uses ground-based telescopes and the Spitzer Space Telescope to review observations on planetary candidates and other objects of interest the spacecraft finds.
The star field that Kepler observes in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra can only be seen from ground-based observatories in spring through early fall. The data from these other observations help determine which candidates can be validated as planets.
For more information about the Kepler mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by NASA.
ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2011) — NASA's Aqua satellite captured visible and infrared imagery of powerful Cyclone Yasi as it was making landfall in Queensland. The center of the monster cyclone Yasi made landfall on Australia's northeastern coast early Thursday (Australia local time) bringing heavy rainfall, severe winds and storm surge.
On Feb. 2 at 03:35 UTC/1:35 p.m. Australia local time, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Cyclone Yasi before it made landfall in Queensland, Australia. The eye of the cyclone was very clear and indicative of the power of this tropical cyclone. Damaged buildings, downed trees and power outages have been reported.
A Cyclone Warning is still in effect today for coastal and island communities from Cooktown to Proserpine, and west inland to the Northern Territory border. The Cyclone Warning was cancelled between Cape Flattery and Cooktown. The Australian Bureau of meteorology warned that flooding rains between Cairns and Proserpine will gradually move inland as Yasi tracks to the west. Flood Warnings are in effect for several rivers between Cairns and MacKay
At 03:29 UTC/1:29 p.m. Australia local time on February 2 (10:29 p.m. EST, Feb. 1), the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured an infrared image of Cyclone Yasi as its center was just southeast of Willis Island. The infrared image showed powerful thunderstorms with strong convection and heavy rainfall surrounding a large area around a very clear eye. The temperatures in the cloud tops were as cold as or colder than -63 Fahrenheit (-52 Celsius).
Tropical Cyclone Yasi was making landfall as a powerful Category Four cyclone with maximum sustained winds near 135 knots (155 mph/ 250 kmh) on Feb. 2, at 1500 UTC (10 a.m. EST/ 1 a.m. Australia local time on Feb. 3). It was located about 245 miles east of Cairns near 17.5 South and 146.8 East and moving west-southwest near 13 knots (15 mph/ 24 kmh). Maximum waveheights associated with Yasi were 42 feet (~13 meters) in the Coral Sea.
The automated Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) weather station on Willis Island provided amazing data this morning as Cyclone Yasi swept past. Willis Island is located east of Queensland, Australia. Rainfall exceeded 60 mm (2.36 inches) in one hour and pressure had fallen to near 938 millibars. Windspeed peaked at 75 knots (86 mph/138 kmh) before the equipment stopped working.
As Yasi made landfall and swept inland, Cairns, located to the north of Townsville, recorded a low reading of atmospheric pressure near 983 millibars. Rainfall was 16 mm (0.6 inch) in one hour, and maximum sustained winds were recorded as high as 34 knots (39 mph/63 kmh).
At 3 a.m. local time, the center of Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi had moved inland and was located near 18.1 South and 145.4 East. It was moving west-southwest near 33 kmh (20 mph) and had a minimum central pressure of 941 millibars. The storm is forecast to weaken and dissipate within 48 hours.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Russia has reportedly lost contact with its newest military satellite just hours after launching it into space today (Feb. 1), according to Russian reports.
The satellite, called Geo-IK-2, blasted off atop a three-stage Rocket booster from Russia's northern Plesetsk Cosmodrome at about 5 p.m. Moscow Time (9 a.m. EST, 1400 GMT). But just two hours after liftoff, the satellite went missing, according to Russia's Itar-Tass and Interfax news agencies.
"There is no contact with the satellite," Russia's Interfax-AVN news service quoted an unnamed Russian space industry source as saying.
The Geo-IK-2 spacecraft is reportedly an Earth-observation satellite designed to build three-dimensional maps to aid the Russian military. It was expected to launch into a circular orbit about 600 miles (1,000 km) above the Earth, according to Agence France-Press.
But the satellite did not enter the proper orbit, with some Russian reports suggesting its current flight path brings it as low as 205 miles (330 km) above the ground, AFP reported.
The satellite launch failure comes just five weeks after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev fired two top-ranking space officials and reprimanded Anatoly Perminov, chief of Russia's Federal Space Agency, following the botched launch of a Proton rocket carrying three new navigation satellites.
In the Dec. 5 launch failure, the Proton rocket's Block DM-3 upper stage was loaded with too much fuel. The basic miscalculation sent the Proton rocket off course. The new Glonass-M navigation satellites onboard that rocket crashed into the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii.
Today's launch failure, however, occurred on a different type of rocket.
The Rocket booster design is based on components built for Russia's SS-16 intercontinental ballistic missiles. It has two core stages topped with a Breeze-KM upper stage used to send satellite payloads into their final orbits.
According to Interfax, Russia's Defense Ministry is forming a commission to investigate today's launch failure. Russia's Federal Space Agency will form part of that commission, the news agency stated.
Source of Original Article: SPACE.com
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