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Howdy Neighbor!
European astronomers yesterday announced the discovery of an Earth size planet orbiting one of the stars in Alpha Centauri. Alpha Centauri is the nearest star system to the Earth, and the famed...
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What’s in a name?
If you are a member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), alot. With the large amounts of exoplanets being discovered a subtle, but important issue has arrisen. What do we call all those...
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Down, but not out?
By now you have heard the Kepler space telescope is in trouble. It may have to cease operations soon. There won’t be any repair mission because a) we no longer have any operational shuttles and b)...
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Smaller IS Better.
At least when you are talking about habitable planets. Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics that the nearest planet in a habitable zone probably lies within fifteen...
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Cloudy With A Chance Of Science For Kepler-7b
The data collected from the Kepler spacecraft is still producing spectacular results even after the spacecraft can no longer function in its exo-planet hunt. One of the first five exo-planets...
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The 9 Lives of Kepler.
Like the fabled phoenix, the Kepler spacecraft may be rising from the ashes. Previously, Kepler was going to be re-purposed for near Earth object and asteroid research. However, NASA has proposed an...
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More Watery Worlds Found.
Researchers spectrographically analyzed data from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 to find five more exoplanets. The fiveplanets (WASP-17b, HD209458b, WASP-12b, WASP-19b and XO-1b) are called “hot Jupiter”...
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Exomoons?
If you have seen the movie Avatar (if you are reading this blog I will assume that you have), then you know the mythical planet of Pandora seems to be orbiting a large gas giant planet. Although the...
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A Weighty Problem.
After all the holiday cheer, and eating, you may find yourself (like me) with a few extra things that you didn’t ask Santa for…like pounds. Around the middle, not currency. It turns out that science...
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I’m Kinda Sensitive.
No, not me. I’m a ruff an tumble sort of fellow. Except when I am sick (like now) and want some mothering. Oh well, such is life. The sensitive kind I am referring to is a new Gemini Planet Imager...
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Let The Battle Begin!
In this corner, the newcomer, SPHERE! The Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch telescope trained and managed exclusively by the European Space Agency. And in this corner, another...
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RAS General Meeting Recap.
This month’s speaker for the RAS, was Heather A. Knutson. She is an assistant professor in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. She is working...
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Don’t Eat Me!!!
Exoplanets Kepler-56b and Kepler-56c are on the dinner plate for the star that they orbit. Soon, as far as astronomical terms go, the planets will just be destroyed by the ever expanding star as its...
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The Challenge In Finding New Earth-Like Exoplanets.
A couple of things happened this month that may make it easier to find other Earth-like planets. Probably the more important of the two was that for the first time, a ground based telescope has found a...
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