-- The Dwarf that Carries a World
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18414
"A team of French and Swiss astronomers have discovered one of the lightest exoplanets ever
found using the HARPS instrument on ESO's 3.6-m telescope at La Silla (Chile). The new planet
orbits a star belonging to the class of red dwarfs. As these stars are very common, this discovery
proves crucial in the census of other planetary systems."
An international team of astronomers has discovered a planet more similar to Earth than any found to date. This groundbreaking discovery of a new extra solar planet, or exoplanet has been made by scientists searching for Earth-like planets capable of supporting life.
The first details of this discovery are made in today's edition of Nature.
Full story:
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMDJ3NZCIE_index_0.html
The Hubble Space Telescope has found circumstantial evidence for a Jupiter-sized orbiting nearby star, Beta Pictoris, in a new image showing two dust disks orbiting the star.
Scientists have speculated that what appeared to be a warp in the main disk of dust was in fact a second disk. Confirmation of its existence has sparked new speculation that there is at least one gas giant in the stellar system.
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/28/dusty_ring_planet/
Would-be galactic colonists got a boost this week when a paper in the journal Science suggested that Earth-like planets might be more common than previously thought.
Despite the fact that almost all of the extra-solar planets we have detected have been gas giants - often much bigger than Jupiter - research from the US suggests many of these extra-solar solar systems could also harbour smaller, rocky worlds like Earth.
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/08/earthlike_planets/
The Dwarf Carried Other Worlds Too!
Astronomers have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, an exoplanet with a radius only 50% larger than the Earth and capable of having liquid water. Using the ESO 3.6-m telescope, a team of Swiss, French and Portuguese scientists discovered a super-Earth about 5 times the mass of the Earth that orbits a red dwarf, already known to harbour a Neptune-mass planet. The astronomers have also strong evidence for the presence of a third planet with a mass about 8 Earth masses.
More: http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2007/pr-22-07.html
Astronomers have discovered the biggest transiting exoplanet yet. Orbiting a fading star in the constellation of Hercules, planet TrES-4 is a whopping 70 per cent bigger than Jupiter.
To put these numbers in context, Jupiter is a mere 16 per cent (or so) bigger than Saturn, but is almost four times the mass. Although volume scales as the cube of the radius increases, as a planet gets heavier its increased gravity tends to collapse it inwards, and so the stepwise increase in mass is even steeper that you would expect.
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/07/planet_cork/
...and from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6934603.stm
Planet-hunting boffins based in the UK have announced the discovery of three more spinning globes to add to the more than 200 extrasolar planets already known to science. The planets turned up during the Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP).
All are gas giants, roughly the size of Jupiter, and are orbiting their parent stars so tightly that they whip around them in a matter of days.
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/31/superwasp_planets/
Astronomers have spotted a fifth planet orbiting 55 Cancri, making the (relatively) nearby star the centre of the most populous extrasolar system to date, New Scientist reports.
55 Cancri lies 41 light years from Earth, and is "slightly cooler and dimmer than our own Sun". It was already known to boast four planets, three giants orbiting closer than Mercury is to the Sun, and a fourth at roughly Jupiter's distance from the Sun, but four times as massive as the former.
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/07/largest_extrasolar_system/
More than 10 years after the discovery of the first extra-solar planet, a European team of astronomers have confirmed that one of the planets might indeed be located within the habitable zone around the star Gliese 581.
Until a few years ago, most of the newly discovered exo-planets were Jupiter-mass, probably gaseous, planets. Recently, astronomers have announced the discovery of several planets that are potentially much smaller super-Earths with a minimum mass lower than 10 Earth masses.
In April, a European team announced in Astronomy & Astrophysics the discovery of two new planets orbiting the M star Gliese 581 (a red dwarf), with masses of at least 5 and 8 Earth masses. Given their distance to their parent star, these new planets -Gliese 581c and Gliese 581d- were the first ever possible candidates for habitable planets.
Continue reading here......... http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/12/return-to-earth.html
The discovery of a Jupiter-like planet and another about the size of Saturn has astronomers suggesting that solar systems like our own may be common.
The newfound worlds both appear to be gaseous and are about 80 percent the sizes of Jupiter and Saturn, the astronomers said today. They orbit a star that is about half the size of our sun and is dimmer and much cooler.
"This is the first discovery of a multi-planet system that could be analogous to our solar system," said research team member Alison Crocker, a Dartmouth College graduate now studying at Oxford University.
More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080214/sc_space/solarsystemlikeoursfound
Astronomers have peered into the womb of a stellar disk to capture an image of material falling onto what could be a planet in an early stage of formation.
The new image shows a somewhat horseshoe-shaped void in the disk surrounding a young star called AB Aurigae. Within the void, a barely visible bright spot could indicate a developing object that's currently between 5 and 37 times the mass of Jupiter
More: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080326-planet-progress.html
An embryonic planet detected outside our Solar System could be less than 2,000 years old, astronomers say.
The ball of dust and gas, which is in the process of turning into a Jupiter-like giant, was detected around the star HL Tau, by a UK team.
Research leader Dr Jane Greaves said the planet's growth may have been kickstarted when another young star passed the system 1,600 years ago.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7326318.stm
Astronomers have discovered a planetary system orbiting a distant star which looks much like our own.
They found two planets that were close matches for Jupiter and Saturn orbiting a star about half the size of our Sun.
Martin Dominik, from St Andrews University in the UK, said the finding suggested systems like our own could be much more common than we thought.
And he told a major meeting that astronomers were on the brink of finding many more of them.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7333155.stm
Astronomers have discovered possibly the smallest extrasolar planet yet, a rocky world that's orbiting a star in the constellation Leo.
"After final confirmation, the new exoplanet will be the smallest found to date," said lead researcher Ignasi Ribas of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC). "The study opens a new path that should lead to the discovery of even smaller planets in the near future, with the goal of eventually finding worlds more and more similar to the Earth."
More: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080409-smallest-exoplanet.html
Astronomers have sighted the smallest extrasolar planet yet orbiting a normal star - a distant world just three times the size of our own.
Discovering a planet with a similar mass to that of Earth is considered the "holy grail" of research into planets that lie outside our Solar System.
It is vital because researchers want to find other worlds that could host life.
The planet orbits a star which is itself of such low mass it may in fact be a "failed star", or brown dwarf.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7432114.stm
European researchers said on Monday they discovered a batch of three "super-Earths" orbiting a nearby star, and two other solar systems with small planets as well.
They said their findings, presented at a conference in France, suggest that Earth-like planets may be very common.
"Does every single star harbour planets and, if yes, how many?" asked Michel Mayor of Switzerland's Geneva Observatory. "We may not yet know the answer but we are making huge progress towards it," Mayor said in a statement.
The trio of planets orbit a star slightly less massive than our Sun, 42 light-years away towards the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations. A light-year is the distance light can travel in one year at a speed of 186,000 miles (300,000 km) a second, or about 6 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).
More: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080616/tsc-uk-space-planets-011ccfa.html
A trio of planets called super-Earths has been spotted orbiting a sun-like star, astrophysicists announced today at an international conference in France.
Super-Earths are more massive than Earth but less massive than Uranus and Neptune. Spotting true Earth-sized planets is challenging with current technology, but the presence of super-Earths suggests finding a world like ours is just a matter of time, researchers say.
More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080616/sc_space/threesuperearthsfoundorbitingonestar
Astronomers have identified a trio of so-called "super-Earths" - rocky planets between two and 10 times the mass of Earth.
The three new planets were detected using the Harps instrument at the La Silla Observatory in central Chile.
The star they circle is slightly smaller than our Sun, and is located 42 light-years away near the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations.
The discoveries were announced at an astronomy conference in Nantes, France.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7457307.stm
Little more than a decade ago, astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz announced the discovery of a planet in orbit about 51 Pegasi. It rushes around its sun in just over 4 days, seared to a temperature of 1,000 degrees Celsius (about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit). Today, we call this sort of planet a "hot Jupiter." This was the first planet found orbiting a main sequence star — a star similar to our Sun. Earlier, the irregular beat of a pulsar revealed the cindered remains of planets orbiting the corpse of a dead star. Most likely, they formed after the supernova death of their parent star, which indicates that planet formation is a likely outcome from a disk of material. These pulsar planets are not good places to live. But discovering 51 Pegasi around a more ordinary star kicked off a great planetary gold rush.
More: http://www.space.com/searchforlife/080619-seti-extrasolar-earths.html
Astronomers have taken what may the first picture of a planet orbiting a star similar to the sun.
This distant world is giant (about eight times the mass of Jupiter) and lies far out from its star (about 330 times the Earth-Sun distance). But for all the planet's strangeness, its star is quite like our own sun.
Previously, the only photographed extrasolar planets have belonged to tiny, dim stars known as brown dwarfs. And while hundreds of exoplanets have been detected by noting their gravitational tug on their parent stars, it is rare to find one large enough to image directly.
More: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080915-first-exoplanet-picture.html
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible light snapshot of a planet circling another star.
Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Austrinus (the Southern Fish).
Fomalhaut has been a candidate for planet hunting ever since an excess of dust was discovered around the star in the early 1980s by the US-UK-Dutch Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS).
More: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=43721 (http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=43721)
Amazing. Just makes you wonder what we will be seeing once there are orbiting sscopes good enough to see detail on earth sized planets!
The first pictures of planets outside our Solar System have been taken, two groups report in the journal Science.
Visible and infrared images have been snapped of a planet orbiting a star 25 light-years away.
The planet is believed to be the coolest, lowest-mass object ever seen outside our own solar neighbourhood.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7725584.stm
APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081114.html
The Hubble space telescope has captured the first visible-light image of an exoplanet orbiting a star - a body no greater than three Jupiter masses, gravitationally-bound to Fomalhaut in the constellation Piscis Australis.
Dubbed Fomalhaut b, the planet lies at 10.7 billion miles from Fomalhaut and 1.8 billion miles inside the inner edge of a debris disk surrounding the star, described by NASA as "similar to the Kuiper Belt".
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/14/fomalhaut_b/
What's the strange gap at 11 o'clock. I would have thought this could be the arm of the occlusion disc except there is a patch of dust on it and Formalhaut is still visible.
Any thoughts?
No comment: http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20081117
Quote from: Carolepope on Nov 16, 2008, 11:15:45
Any thoughts?
I suspect the images are composites...
QuoteI suspect the images are composites...
Ah yes, that might explain it, never thought of that.
Thanks Rick
The Hubble Space Telescope has detected carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a star 63 light years away. NASA says this is "an important step toward finding chemical biotracers of extraterrestrial life".
The planet in question is of the type known as a "hot Jupiter", because such planets are like Jupiter but much hotter*. It is a huge ball of gas rather than a solid world, and orbits so closely to its sun that the year is only a couple of Earth days long. Its parent star, the orange dwarf HD189733, lies in the constellation Vulpecula.
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/10/nasa_co2_gas_giant/
*Duh. :roll:
The world in question orbits the far-off yellow dwarf star HD 80606, 190-odd lightyears from here in the constellation Ursa Major. The planet, HD80606b, is several times heavier than Jupiter and so is believed to be a gas giant world.
More (and a piccie): http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/29/heatwave_superhurricane_snapped/
As astronomers become more adept at hunting for, and finding, exoplanets orbiting stars beyond the Solar System, international astronomers have figured out just what we should be looking for using the increasingly sophisticated technologies being developed.
Two exoplanets and an unknown celestial object, findings of the European Space Agency's COROT mission, an important stepping stones in the European effort to find habitable, Earth-like planets around other stars. These discoveries mean that the mission has now found a total of four new exoplanets.
COROT has now been operating for 510 days, and the mission started observations of its sixth star field at the beginning of May this year. During this observation phase, which will last 5 months, the spacecraft will simultaneously observe 12,000 stars.
Future telescopes such as NASA's Kepler, set for launch in 2009, would be able to discover dozens or hundreds of Earth-like worlds. The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), to be launched early in the next decade, consists of multiple telescopes placed along a 30 foot structure. With an unprecedented resolution approaching the physical limits of optics, the SIM is so sensitive that it almost defies belief: orbiting the earth, it can detect the motion of a lantern being waved by an astronaut on Mars
More... http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/02/new-planets-an.html
Quote from: Mike
... it can detect the motion of a lantern being waved by an astronaut on Mars
So if you're ever stranded on Mars, just wave a torch and they'll spot you.
Quote... it can detect the motion of a lantern being waved by an astronaut on Mars
that's mind boggling.
Carole
There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard.
Dr Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science said many of these worlds could be inhabited by simple lifeforms.
He was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.
So far, telescopes have been able to detect just over 300 planets outside our Solar System.
Very few of these would be capable of supporting life, however. Most are gas giants like our Jupiter; and many orbit so close to their parent stars that any microbes would have to survive roasting temperatures.
But, based on the limited numbers of planets found so far, Dr Boss has estimated that each Sun-like star has on average one "Earth-like" planet.
This simple calculation means there would be huge numbers capable of supporting life.
More..... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7891132.stm
A heavyweight American boffin says that Earthlike worlds will soon be discovered within 30 light-years of our Solar System, and that such worlds' abundance across the universe means that the existence of alien life is a racing cert.
Speaking in advance of the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, where a major symposium on the subject took place at the weekend, Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution laid out his view.
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/17/earthlike_worlds_nearby/
A new technique has uncovered an extrasolar planet hidden in Hubble Space Telescope images taken 11 years ago
The new strategy may allow researchers to uncover other distant alien worlds potentially lurking in over a decade's worth of Hubble archival data.
The method was used to find an exoplanet that went undetected in Hubble images taken in 1998 with its Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). Astronomers knew of the planet's existence from images taken with the Keck and Gemini North telescopes in 2007 and 2008, long after Hubble snapped its first picture of the system.
More: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090401-hubble-exoplanets.html (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090401-hubble-exoplanets.html)
Astronomers have announced the discovery of the lightest planet ever detected outside our Solar System.
Situated in the constellation Libra, it is only about twice as massive as the Earth, whereas most other exoplanets identified have been far bigger.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8008683.stm
Apparently, scientists have discovered a new planet just outside the solar system. The article goes on to say it "has been found in a galaxy far from here"
Wish they'd make up their minds :roll:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23679311-details/article.do
Typical moronic journalism when it comes to science.
Quote from: Mike on Apr 22, 2009, 22:30:03
Typical moronic journalism when it comes to science.
First-order Cluelessness. :roll: Compare and contrast the BBC and Evening Standard reports of the same story... :roll:
Web-2.0 tomfoolery could trigger alien jellyfish attack
Astronomers believe that there may be a "water world" capable of harbouring intelligent alien life orbiting a star just 20 lightyears from Earth. Unfortunately, it appears that the first communication any aliens will receive from the human race will be a multimedia compilation assembled by Bebo users.
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/22/gliese_581_water_world_bebo_threat/
(It's The Register... Nuff said. :D )
at least they don't make any real effort to be completely accurate.
...and at least they know they're not being completely accurate. ;)
well, with a bunch of commentators who a) know what they're talking about and b) like to show it The Reg would have sunk a long time ago if they didn't take that approach
Gliese 581d 'too crusty' for civilisation to arise
Astroplanet boffins in America say that humanity may not, as had been expected, soon be the target of an interstellar assault from alien civilisations unwisely enraged by Web-2.0 teenybopper portal Bebo. It appears that the planet Gliese 581d - which might have mounted an invasion of the Solar System as soon as 2049 - cannot after all support life.
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/11/gliese_581_not_habitable_after_all/
Planets orbit stars in the same direction that the stars rotate. They all do. Except one.
A newfound planet orbits the wrong way, backward compared to the rotation of its host star. Its discoverers think a near-collision may have created the retrograde orbit, as it is called.
The star and its planet, WASP-17, are about 1,000 light-years away. The setup was found by the UK's Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) project in collaboration with Geneva Observatory. The discovery was announced today but has not yet been published in a journal.
More: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090812-backward-planet.html (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090812-backward-planet.html)
Astronomers have discovered the first planet that orbits in the opposite direction to the spin of its star.
Planets form out of the same swirling gas cloud that creates a star, so they are expected to orbit in the same direction that the star rotates.
The new planet is thought to have been flung into its "retrograde" orbit by a close encounter with either another planet or with a passing star.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8197683.stm
Astronomers have spotted what they claim is the first exoplanet in a retrograde orbit around a star - a bloated body which is also the "least-dense planet currently known".
Dubbed WASP-17b, the body measures 1.5-2 Jupiter radii but weighs in at just half its mass, meaning it's about a dense as polystyrene and "if you could place it in a bathtub, it would bob like a beach ball", as New Scientist nicely puts it.
More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/13/retrograde_exoplanet/
One of the smallest exoplanets yet discovered has just been confirmed as a rocky world, scientists announced.
The planet, called CoRoT-7b, is the first planet beyond our solar system with a proven density similar to Earth's, astronomers say. Most known exoplanets are large gas giants like Jupiter.
"We have indications that other exoplanets could be rocky, but it's the first time that the density of such a planet has been measured," said study team member Claire Moutou of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille in France. "We are really sure it's rocky."
More: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090916-rocky-exoplanet.html (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090916-rocky-exoplanet.html)
Astronomers confirm first planet made of rock discovered outside our solar system
Astronomers have found a rocky planet in a distant solar system, in a discovery that raises hopes of finding alien life.
Corot 7b is similar in size to Earth, but daytime temperatures of 1,500C mean it is far
too hot for anything to flourish there.
However the discovery suggests there may be planets with more hospitable conditions throughout the galaxy.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1213942/More-proof-Astronomers-confirmed-planet-rock--raising-prospect-alien-life.html#ixzz0RJ5zP9Tq
On Earth, strange things, including frogs and fish, sometimes fall from the sky, but on a distant extrasolar planet, the weather could be even weirder: When a front moves in, small rocks rain down on the surface, a new study suggests.
The exoplanet, COROT-7b, was discovered in February by the COROT space telescope launched by the French and European space agencies. Last month is became the first planet outside our solar system to be confirmed as a rocky body — most other known exoplanets are gas giants.
The planet is nearly twice the size of Earth and about five times the mass of our world. Calculations have indicated it has a density about that of Earth's, which means it is likely made up of silicate rocks, just as Earth's crust is.
The planet is likely much less hospitable to life though, as it is only about 1.6 million miles (2.6 million km) away from its parent star — 23 times closer than Mercury sits to the sun.
More: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091001-rock-rain.html (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091001-rock-rain.html)
Astronomers have announced a haul of planets found beyond our Solar System.
The 32 "exoplanets" ranged in size from five times the mass of Earth to 5-10 times the mass of Jupiter, the researchers said.
They were found using a very sensitive instrument on a 3.6m telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla facility in Chile.
The discovery is exciting because it suggests that low-mass planets could be numerous in our galaxy.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8314581.stm
A young star observed by the Spitzer Space Telescope appears to be home to a wild – and young – planetary system that shares some of the frenetic dynamics thought to have shaped the early years of our own solar system.
The Spitzer observations suggest young planets circling the star are disturbing smaller comet-like bodies, causing them to collide and kick up a huge halo of dust.
The star, called HR 8799, became one of the first of two stars with planets that were directly imaged from Earth in November 2008. Ground-based telescopes at the W.M. Keck Observatory and the Gemini Observatory, both in Hawaii, took images of three planets orbiting in the far reaches of the system. Each of the three distant worlds is roughly 10 times the mass of Jupiter.
HR 8799 is younger and more massive than our sun, which is more than 4.5 billion years old and more than 300,000 times the mass of Earth. It is about 129 light-years from Earth, so scientists weren't sure if Spitzer would be able to snap a picture of its debris disk. But to their amazement, it succeeded.
More: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091110-st-chaotic-planet-system.html (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091110-st-chaotic-planet-system.html)
Astronomers have discovered hundreds of Jupiter-like planets in our galaxy. However, a handful of the planets found orbiting distant stars are more Earth-sized. This gives hope to astrobiologists, who think we are more likely to find life on rocky planets with liquid water.
The rocky planets found so far are actually more massive than our own. Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, coined the term "Super-Earths" to reflect their mass rather than any superior qualities.
But Sasselov says that these planets – which range from about 2 to 10 Earth masses – could be superior to the Earth when it comes to sustaining life.
More: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091201-am-super-earths-alien-life.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+spaceheadlines+%28SPACE.com+Headline+Feed%29 (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/091201-am-super-earths-alien-life.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+spaceheadlines+%28SPACE.com+Headline+Feed%29)
Astronomers have published an image of the coolest planet outside our solar system that has been pictured directly.
The new find is more similar to our own Solar System than prior pictured exoplanets, in terms of the parent star's type and the planet's size.
However, the surface temperature is a scorching 280-370C, and could still prove to be a brown dwarf star.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8393607.stm
Planet-hunters have discovered two "super-Earths" orbiting two nearby Sun-like stars.
These rocky planets are larger than the Earth but much smaller than ice giants such as Uranus and Neptune.
Scientists say the discoveries are a step towards finding potentially habitable planets - smaller planets that are comparable to the Earth.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8414476.stm
WASHINGTON — The list of known exoplanets in the galaxy just got bigger, thanks to the first observations of NASA's Kepler space telescope, which found five new lightweight worlds orbiting distant stars.
"I would like to announce today the discovery of five exoplanets by Kepler," said Kepler science director William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., here today at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
The planet-hunting Kepler, which hopes to discover alien Earths, also found an odd object orbiting a star and is measuring the quakes that ripple across stellar surface.
The five newfound planets are all much larger than the Earth-sized bodies Kepler was designed to find, with one coming in at around the size of Neptune, and the other four measuring larger than Jupiter.
More: on Space.Com (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/100104-aas-kepler-discoveries.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+spaceheadlines+(SPACE.com+Headline+Feed))
A rocky extrasolar planet known to have wild temperature extremes may also covered in volcanoes.
The planet, CoRoT-7b was confirmed to be orbiting a star some 480 light-years away in October. While it has a rocky surface, it is unlikely to harbor life because it sits so close to its parent star – temperatures may be as high as 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,200 degrees Celsius) on its day side and as low as minus 350 F (minus 210 C) on its night side.
New evidence suggest that this forbidding world is even more unfriendly to life: Unless the planet's orbit is almost perfectly circular, it could also be undergoing fierce volcanic eruptions, astronomers announced here at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society
More on Space.Com (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/100106-corot-7b-planet.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+spaceheadlines+(SPACE.com+Headline+Feed))
For the first time, astronomers have directly detected the light signature of a planet orbiting an almost sun-like star. This signature can tell scientists the chemical makeup of the planet, which can help them understand how it formed. in the future these signatures could be used to look for signs of life on other planets.
The planet is a giant, about 10 times as massive as Jupiter, and it orbits between two other giants around a star similar to our sun in a scaled-up version of our own solar system.
The three giant companions were detected in 2008 and range in mass from seven to 10 times that of Jupiter, with orbits between 20 and 70 times as far from their host star as Earth is from the sun. The system also features two belts of smaller objects, similar to the asteroid and Kuiper belts around our sun. The system's star is about 1.5 times as massive as the sun.
More: a short link 8o) (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/exoplanet-light-fingerprint-100113.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+spaceheadlines+(SPACE.com+Headline+Feed))
Astronomers have used a new ground-based technique to study the atmosphere of a planet outside our Solar System.
The work could assist the search for Earth-like planets with traces of organic, or carbon-rich, molecules.
Gases have previously been discerned on exoplanets before, but only by using space-based telescopes.
Astronomers reporting in Nature say their method of spotting methane gas on exoplanets could be extended to many other, ground-based telescopes.
Methane was first spotted on an exoplanet named HD 189733b in 2008 by a group led by Mark Swain of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the US.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8493674.stm
Astronomers have discovered a planetary system containing at least five planets that orbit a star called HD 10180, which is much like our own Sun.
The star is 127 light years away, in the southern constellation of Hydrus.
The researchers used the European Southern Observatory (Eso) to monitor light emitted from the system and identify and characterise the planets.
They say this is the "richest" system of exoplanets - planets outside our own Solar System - ever found.
Christophe Lovis from Geneva University's observatory in Switzerland was lead researcher on the study. He said that his team had probably found "the system with the most planets yet discovered".
MORE......... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11070991
http://www.wimp.com/systemdiscovery/ (http://www.wimp.com/systemdiscovery/)
Tony G
An Earth-size planet has been spotted orbiting a nearby star at a distance that would makes it not too hot and not too cold — comfortable enough for life to exist, researchers announced today (Sept. 29).
If confirmed, the exoplanet, named Gliese 581g, would be the first Earth-like world found residing in a star's habitable zone — a region where a planet's temperature could sustain liquid water on its surface.
(http://i.space.com/images/earth-like-planet-100929-02.jpg)
And the planet's discoverers are optimistic about the prospects for finding life there.
"Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent," said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, during a press briefing today. "I have almost no doubt about it."
His colleague, Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in Washington, D.C., wasn't willing to put a number on the odds of life, though he admitted he's optimistic.
"It's both an incremental and monumental discovery," Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told SPACE.com. Incremental because the method used to find Gliese 581g already has found several planets most of the known planets, both super-Earths, more massive than our own world outside their stars' habitable zone, along with non-Earth-like planets within the habitable zone.
"It really is monumental if you accept this as the first Earth-like planet ever found in the star's habitable zone," said Seager, who was not directly involved in the discovery.
Vogt, Butler and their colleagues will detail the planet finding in the Astrophysical Journal.
The newfound planet joins more than 400 other alien worlds known to date. Most are huge gas giants, though several are just a few times the mass of Earth.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/earth-like-exoplanet-possibly-habitable-100929.html
It would need a moon to stabilise it's wobble to make it viable for life. But it shows how it won't be long before Earth sized planets are routine discovery.
A group of boffins claims to have spied the "first discovered terrestrial-mass exoplanet in the habitable zone", the BBC reports.
The planet in question is orbiting the much-studied star Gliese 581, some 20 light-years away in the constellation Libra. Of the possible worlds orbiting the red M-class sun, Gliese 581d had already been proposed as a repository of water, although studies suggested its distance from the solar system's centre means it would be too cold for liquid H2O.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/17/blighty_exoplanet/ (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/17/blighty_exoplanet/)
Tony G
PS......................................I don't suppose they would be doing any decent observing from there then. :D
NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers a World Orbiting Two Stars
The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA's Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet -- a planet orbiting two stars -- 200 light-years from Earth.
Unlike Star Wars' Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-16b, by observing transits, where the brightness of a parent star dims from the planet crossing in front of it.
More: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler-16b.html
Astronomers Find Elusive Planets in Decade-Old Hubble Data
In a painstaking reanalysis of images taken in 1998 by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have found visual evidence for two exoplanets that went undetected back then. Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars beyond our sun.
Finding these hidden gems in the Hubble archive gives astronomers an invaluable time machine for comparing much earlier planet orbital motion data to more recent observations. It also demonstrates a novel approach for planet hunting in archival Hubble data.
By finding the planets in multiple images spaced over years of time, the orbits of the planets can be tracked. Knowing the orbits is critical to understanding the behavior of multiple-planet systems because massive planets can perturb each other's orbits.
More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-315
Kepler 22-b: Earth-like planet confirmed
Astronomers have confirmed the existence of an Earth-like planet in the "habitable zone" around a star not unlike our own.
The planet, Kepler 22-b, lies about 600 light-years away and is about 2.4 times the size of Earth, and has a temperature of about 22C.
It is the closest confirmed planet yet to one like ours - an "Earth 2.0".
However, the team does not yet know if Kepler 22-b is made mostly of rock, gas or liquid.
During the conference at which the result was announced, the Kepler team said that it had spotted some 1,094 new candidate planets.
More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16040655
Anyone know if it is possible to image the star that Kepler 22b orbits - if so what are the coords...?
Looks like it:
From Wikipedia....
Kepler 22 (aka Kepler-22a) is a G-type star, approximately 600 light years from Earth that holds within its solar system the first planet identified to be within an Earth-like habitable zone. Kepler 22 is slightly smaller and cooler than the Sun. It is located between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra at Right Ascension 19h 16m 52.2sec and Declination +47deg 53min 4.2sec.[2]
Apparently it is 11th Magnitude. So well within the reach of a modest scope and a fairly short exposure on a cooled cam.
Citizens Discover Four-Star Planet with NASA's Kepler
The discovery of planets continues to expand beyond the domain of professional astronomers. A joint effort of amateur astronomers and scientists has led to the first reported case of a planet orbiting a double star that, in turn, is orbited by a second distant pair of stars.
Aided by volunteer citizen scientists using the Planethunters.org website, a Yale-led international team of astronomers identified and confirmed discovery of the phenomenon, called a circumbinary planet in a four-star system. Only six planets are known to orbit two stars but none of these are orbited by a distant binary.
Coined PH1, the planet was identified by the citizen scientists participating in Planet Hunters, a Yale-led program that enlists the public to review astronomical data from NASA's Kepler spacecraft for signs of planet transits of distant stars.
More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-324
Exoplanet around Alpha Centauri is nearest-ever
Astronomers have found the nearest planet outside our Solar System, circling one of the stars of Alpha Centauri just four light-years away.
The planet has at minimum the same mass as Earth, but circles its star far closer than Mercury orbits our Sun.
It is therefore outside the "habitable zone" denoting the possibility of life, as the researchers report in Nature.
However, studies on exoplanets increasingly show that a star with one planet is likely to have several.
At the very least, the work answers the question first posed in ancient times about planets around our nearest stellar neighbours.
The closest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri, which is believed to be part of a three-star system that includes the brighter stars Alpha Centauri A and B.
The planet was found near Alpha Centauri B by the Harps instrument at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla facility in Chile.
More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19959531
Closest Star System Found in a Century
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has discovered a pair of stars that has taken over the title for the third-closest star system to the sun. The duo is the closest star system discovered since 1916.
Both stars in the new binary system are "brown dwarfs," which are stars that are too small in mass to ever become hot enough to ignite hydrogen fusion. As a result, they are very cool and dim, resembling a giant planet like Jupiter more than a bright star like the sun.
"The distance to this brown dwarf pair is 6.5 light-years -- so close that Earth's television transmissions from 2006 are now arriving there," said Kevin Luhman, an associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University, University Park, Pa., and a researcher in Penn State's Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds.
More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-090
Quote from: Rick
"The distance to this brown dwarf pair is 6.5 light-years -- so close that Earth's television transmissions from 2006 are now arriving there," said Kevin Luhman,
Cool!
That means they can begin watching the first series of "Life on Mars".
Seems kind of appropriate!
Quote from: MarkS on Mar 12, 2013, 09:21:54
Cool!
That means they can begin watching the first series of "Life on Mars".
Seems kind of appropriate!
That means if they were to keep watching transmissions, when Comet C/2013 A1 hit Mars next year, in 2021 the can watch "No Life on Mars" :lol:
Tony G
Rare Stellar Alignment Offers Opportunity To Hunt For Planets
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope will have two opportunities in the next few years to hunt for Earth-sized planets around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri.
The opportunities will occur in October 2014 and February 2016 when Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our sun, passes in front of two other stars. Astronomers plotted Proxima Centauri's precise path in the heavens and predicted the two close encounters using data from Hubble.
"Proxima Centauri's trajectory offers a most interesting opportunity because of its extremely close passage to the two stars,"
More: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/proxima-centauri.html
Watery Asteroid Discovered in Dying Star Points to Habitable Exoplanets
stronomers have found the shattered remains of an asteroid that contained huge amounts of water orbiting an exhausted star, or white dwarf. This suggests that the star GD 61 and its planetary system – located about 150 light years away and at the end of its life – had the potential to contain Earth-like exoplanets.
The new research findings used data collected from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, both of W. M. Keck Observatory's Keck I and Keck II telescopes, as well NASA's FUSE telescope, and are reported today in the journal Science.
This is the first time both water and a rocky surface - two key ingredients for habitable planets - have been found together beyond our solar system.
More (http://www.keckobservatory.org/recent/entry/watery_asteroid_discovered_in_dying_star_points_to_habitable_exoplanets)
Using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the "habitable zone" -- the range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet.
FULL STORY: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/17apr_firstearth/
NASA Telescopes Find Clear Skies and Water Vapor on Exoplanet
Astronomers using data from three of NASA's space telescopes -- Hubble, Spitzer and Kepler -- have discovered clear skies and steamy water vapor on a gaseous planet outside our solar system. The planet is about the size of Neptune, making it the smallest planet from which molecules of any kind have been detected.
"This discovery is a significant milepost on the road to eventually analyzing the atmospheric composition of smaller, rocky planets more like Earth," said John Grunsfeld, assistant administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "Such achievements are only possible today with the combined capabilities of these unique and powerful observatories."
Clouds in a planet's atmosphere can block the view to underlying molecules that reveal information about the planet's composition and history. Finding clear skies on a Neptune-size planet is a good sign that smaller planets might have similarly good visibility.
More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-322
Hubble Maps the Temperature and Water Vapor on an Extreme Exoplanet
A team of scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have made the most detailed global map yet of the glow from a planet orbiting another star, revealing secrets of air temperatures and water.
The map provides information about temperatures at different layers of the world's atmosphere and traces the amount and distribution of water vapor on the planet. The findings have ramifications for the understanding of atmospheric dynamics and the formation of giant planets like Jupiter.
"These measurements have opened the door for a new kind of comparative planetology," said team leader Jacob Bean of the University of Chicago.
"Our observations are the first of their kind in terms of providing a two-dimensional map of the planet's thermal structure that can be used to constrain atmospheric circulation and dynamical models for hot exoplanets," said team member Kevin Stevenson of the University of Chicago.
The Hubble observations show that the planet, called WASP-43b, is no place to call home. It's a world of extremes, where seething winds howl at the speed of sound from a 3,000-degree-Fahrenheit day side that is hot enough to melt steel to a pitch-black night side that sees temperatures plunge below a relatively cool 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
More: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/28/full/
NASA's Kepler Marks 1,000th Exoplanet Discovery, Uncovers More Small Worlds in Habitable Zones
How many stars like our sun host planets like our Earth? NASA's Kepler Space Telescope continuously monitored more than 150,000 stars beyond our solar system, and to date has offered scientists an assortment of more than 4,000 candidate planets for further study -- the 1,000th of which was recently verified.
Using Kepler data, scientists reached this millenary milestone after validating that eight more candidates spotted by the planet-hunting telescope are, in fact, planets. The Kepler team also has added another 554 candidates to the roll of potential planets, six of which are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of stars similar to our sun.
Three of the newly-validated planets are located in their distant suns' habitable zone, the range of distances from the host star where liquid water might exist on the surface of an orbiting planet. Of the three, two are likely made of rock, like Earth.
"Each result from the planet-hunting Kepler mission's treasure trove of data takes us another step closer to answering the question of whether we are alone in the universe," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "The Kepler team and its science community continue to produce impressive results with the data from this venerable explorer."
More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4429
Volunteer 'Disk Detectives' Classify Possible Planetary Habitats
A NASA-sponsored website designed to crowdsource analysis of data from the agency's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission has reached an impressive milestone. In less than a year, citizen scientists using DiskDetective.org have logged 1 million classifications of potential debris disks and disks surrounding young stellar objects (YSO). This data will help provide a crucial set of targets for future planet-hunting missions.
"This is absolutely mind-boggling," said Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the project's principal investigator. "We've already broken new ground with the data, and we are hugely grateful to everyone who has contributed to Disk Detective so far."
More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4430
Amazing progress, it wasn't so long ago that the first exo planet was discovered.
Carole
Not sure about the text as one minute it is talking about a star and then next a planet and then it goes on to says it has Moons orbitting it. Hopefully there will be some better reports around.
"Scientists have discovered an enormous ring system around a star, the first of its kind outside our solar system.
New research shows that the system around the star - called J1407 - consists of over 30 rings, each of them tens of millions of kilometres across."
"This planet is much larger than Jupiter or Saturn," said Eric Mamajek, who helped write the research.
"Its ring system is roughly 200 times larger than Saturn's rings. You could think of it as kind of a super Saturn."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/31001078
Here's another:
http://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/gigantic-ring-system-around-j1407b/
(http://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/fea-J1407_RonMiller_2015.jpg)
conception of the extrasolar ring system circling the young giant planet or brown dwarf J1407b. The rings are shown eclipsing the young sun-like star J1407, as they would have appeared in early 2007. Credit: Ron Miller
Huffington Post had a go at this story...
Stupendous Ring System Discovered Around 'Super Saturn' Exoplanet
Call it Saturn on steroids! Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet with an enormous ring system that far surpasses Saturn's.
"This planet is much larger than Jupiter or Saturn, and its ring system is roughly 200 times larger than Saturn's rings are today," Dr. Eric Mamajek, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester and the leader of the team of astronomers, said in a written statement. "You could think of it as kind of a super Saturn."
....
To learn more about the strange planet and its rings, the astronomers are asking amateurs to help monitor the light coming from J1407.
More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/28/ring-system-super-saturn-exoplanet_n_6556310.html
An ancient solar system similar to our own has been discovered by scientists.
Studying data from the Kepler telescope, the team, led by the University of Birmingham, found a star orbited by five planets similar in size to Earth.
The system, 117 light-years away, is the oldest known of its kind, formed 11.2 billion years ago.
Dr Tiago Campante said it could provide a clue to "the existence of ancient life in the galaxy".
"By the time the Earth formed, the planets in this system were already older than our planet is today," he said.
More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-31002598 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-31002598)
NASA's Hubble Telescope Detects 'Sunscreen' Layer on Distant Planet
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has detected a stratosphere, one of the primary layers of Earth's atmosphere, on a massive and blazing-hot exoplanet known as WASP-33b.
The presence of a stratosphere can provide clues about the composition of a planet and how it formed. This atmospheric layer includes molecules that absorb ultraviolet and visible light, acting as a kind of "sunscreen" for the planet it surrounds. Until now, scientists were uncertain whether these molecules would be found in the atmospheres of large, extremely hot planets in other star systems.
These findings will appear in the June 12 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
"Some of these planets are so hot in their upper atmospheres, they're essentially boiling off into space," said Avi Mandell, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a co-author of the study. "At these temperatures, we don't necessarily expect to find an atmosphere that has molecules that can lead to these multilayered structures."
More from NASA (http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-hubble-telescope-detects-sunscreen-layer-on-distant-planet).
Helium-Shrouded Planets May Be Common in Our Galaxy
They wouldn't float like balloons or give you the chance to talk in high, squeaky voices, but planets with helium skies may constitute an exotic planetary class in our Milky Way galaxy. Researchers using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope propose that warm Neptune-size planets with clouds of helium may be strewn about the galaxy by the thousands.
"We don't have any planets like this in our own solar system," said Renyu Hu, NASA Hubble Fellow at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and lead author of a new study on the findings accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. "But we think planets with helium atmospheres could be common around other stars."
More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4620
NASA Telescopes Detect Jupiter-Like Storm on Small Star
Astronomers have discovered what appears to be a tiny star with a giant, cloudy storm, using data from NASA's Spitzer and Kepler space telescopes. The dark storm is akin to Jupiter's Great Red Spot: a persistent, raging storm larger than Earth.
"The star is the size of Jupiter, and its storm is the size of Jupiter's Great Red Spot," said John Gizis of the University of Delaware, Newark. "We know this newfound storm has lasted at least two years, and probably longer." Gizis is the lead author of a new study appearing in The Astrophysical Journal.
While planets have been known to have cloudy storms, this is the best evidence yet for a star that has one. The star, referred to as W1906+40, belongs to a thermally cool class of objects called L-dwarfs. Some L-dwarfs are considered stars because they fuse atoms and generate light, as our sun does, while others, called brown dwarfs, are known as "failed stars" for their lack of atomic fusion.
More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4786
Missing Water Mystery Solved in Comprehensive Survey of Exoplanets
A survey of 10 hot, Jupiter-sized exoplanets conducted with NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes has led a team to solve a long-standing mystery -- why some of these worlds seem to have less water than expected. The findings offer new insights into the wide range of planetary atmospheres in our galaxy and how planets are assembled.
Of the nearly 2,000 planets confirmed to be orbiting other stars, a subset of them are gaseous planets with characteristics similar to those of Jupiter. However, they orbit very close to their stars, making them blistering hot.
Their close proximity to the star makes them difficult to observe in the glare of starlight. Due to this difficulty, Hubble has only explored a handful of hot Jupiters in the past. These initial studies have found several planets to hold less water than predicted by atmospheric models.
Read on: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4788
Investigating the Mystery of Migrating 'Hot Jupiters'
The last decade has seen a bonanza of exoplanet discoveries. Nearly 2,000 exoplanets -- planets outside our solar system -- have been confirmed so far, and more than 5,000 candidate exoplanets have been identified. Many of these exotic worlds belong to a class known as "hot Jupiters." These are gas giants like Jupiter but much hotter, with orbits that take them feverishly close to their stars.
At first, hot Jupiters were considered oddballs, since we don't have anything like them in our own solar system. But as more were found, in addition to many other smaller planets that orbit very closely to their stars, our solar system started to seem like the real misfit.
More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6182
NASA's Spitzer Maps Climate Patterns on a Super-Earth
Observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have led to the first temperature map of a super-Earth planet -- a rocky planet nearly two times as big as ours. The map reveals extreme temperature swings from one side of the planet to the other, and hints that a possible reason for this is the presence of lava flows.
"Our view of this planet keeps evolving," said Brice Olivier Demory of the University of Cambridge, England, lead author of a new report appearing in the March 30 issue of the journal Nature. "The latest findings tell us the planet has hot nights and significantly hotter days. This indicates the planet inefficiently transports heat around the planet. We propose this could be explained by an atmosphere that would exist only on the day side of the planet, or by lava flows at the planet surface."
More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6223
Astronomers Catalog Planets That May Be Earthlike
Using public data collected by NASA's Kepler mission, astronomers have catalogued the planet candidates that may be similar to our third rock from the sun. The tabulation of candidates will help astronomers focus their research efforts in the search for life.
The analysis, led by Stephen Kane, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at San Francisco State University in California, highlights 20 candidates in the Kepler trove that are less than twice the size of Earth and orbit their star in the conservative habitable zone -- the range of distances where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. Of these 20 candidates, nine have been previously investigated and determined to be verified planets, including notables like Kepler-62f, Kepler-186f, Kepler-283c, Kepler-296f and Kepler-442b.
More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6586
New Planet Imager Delivers First Science
A new device on the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii has delivered its first images, showing a ring of planet-forming dust around a star, and separately, a cool, star-like body, called a brown dwarf, lying near its companion star.
The device, called a vortex coronagraph, was recently installed inside NIRC2 (Near Infrared Camera 2), the workhorse infrared imaging camera at Keck. It has the potential to image planetary systems and brown dwarfs closer to their host stars than any other instrument in the world.
"The vortex coronagraph allows us to peer into the regions around stars where giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn supposedly form," said Dmitri Mawet, research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, both in Pasadena. "Before now, we were only able to image gas giants that are born much farther out. With the vortex, we will be able to see planets orbiting as close to their stars as Jupiter is to our sun, or about two to three times closer than what was possible before."
More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6730
NASA's Kepler Provides Another Peek at Ultra-cool Neighbor
On Feb. 22, astronomers announced that the ultra-cool dwarf star, TRAPPIST-1, hosts a total of seven Earth-size planets that are likely rocky, a discovery made by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in combination with ground-based telescopes. NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope also has been observing this star since December 2016. Today these additional data about TRAPPIST-1 from Kepler are available to the scientific community.
During the period of Dec. 15, 2016 to March 4, the Kepler spacecraft, operating as the K2 mission, collected data on the star's minuscule changes in brightness due to transiting planets. These additional observations are expected to allow astronomers to refine the previous measurements of six planets, pin down the orbital period and mass of the seventh and farthest planet, TRAPPIST-1h, and learn more about the magnetic activity of the host star.
More: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6767
TRAPPIST-1 is Older Than Our Solar System
If we want to know more about whether life could survive on a planet outside our solar system, it's important to know the age of its star. Young stars have frequent releases of high-energy radiation called flares that can zap their planets' surfaces. If the planets are newly formed, their orbits may also be unstable. On the other hand, planets orbiting older stars have survived the spate of youthful flares, but have also been exposed to the ravages of stellar radiation for a longer period of time.
Scientists now have a good estimate for the age of one of the most intriguing planetary systems discovered to date -- TRAPPIST-1, a system of seven Earth-size worlds orbiting an ultra-cool dwarf star about 40 light-years away. Researchers say in a new study that the TRAPPIST-1 star is quite old: between 5.4 and 9.8 billion years. This is up to twice as old as our own solar system, which formed some 4.5 billion years ago.
More: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6919