Astronomers Claim Discovery of Earth like Planet: related news

Astronomers Claim Discovery of Earth-like Planet

Raver32 writes "A team of astronomers announced they have discovered the smallest and potentially most Earth-like extrasolar planet yet. Five times as massive as Earth, it orbits a relatively cool star at a distance that would provide earthly temperatures as well, signaling the possibility of liquid water. "The separation between the planet and its star is just right for having liquid water at its surface," says astronomer and team spokesperson Stephane Udry of the Observatory of Geneva in Versoix, Switzerland. "That's why we are a bit excited." But researchers do not yet know if the planet contains water, if it is truly rocky like Earth, which might make it hospitable to life as we know it, or whether it is blanketed by a thick atmosphere. "What we have," Udry says, "is the minimum mass of the planet and its separation" from its star.

If Life Exists on Venus, Could it be Blown to Earth?

We've heard about the possibility of extraterrestrial life arriving on Earth from another planet, asteroid or comet, but the mode of transport usually includes a chunk of rock falling through the atmosphere as a meteorite. But there could be another form of interplanetary transportation. What if there are microbial forms of alien life floating in the upper atmosphere of Venus (the planet's clouds contain compounds that could indicate presence of micro organisms)? Could they make the trip to Earth? Apparently it is possible, if Earth and Venus are correctly aligned, the solar wind may carry microbes from the upstream Venus to downstream Earth in a matter of days…

Mars will not come closer to Earth: UAE astronomers

Astronomers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have rejected reports that the planet Mars would come closer to Earth Aug 27 and look like a second moon.

Applied Discovery(R) Enhances E-Discovery Online Law Library

a leader in comprehensive electronic discovery products and services, today announced the relaunch of its corporate website, which serves in part as a comprehensive e-discovery resource. In 2000, Applied Discovery was the first to offer an online law library dedicated to the topic of e-discovery, and the website has been continually updated through the years. Today

Binary Asteroid Glides Past Earth

A rare event has given astronomers a great view of a binary asteroid system. Tonight, asteroid 2008 BT18 passed 1.4 million miles from Earth, shining like a 13th magnitude star. Before July 7th, astronomers believed 2008 BT18 was "just another" near-Earth asteroid, but then the Arecibo radio telescope obtained a "delay-Doppler" image of the asteroid and found it in fact had a binary partner. Although binaries are fairly common in the Solar System, this was a rare opportunity for a ground-based telescope to capture such a clear view…

Journey to the Center of the Earth with THQ's New Game for Nintendo DS(TM)

Handheld Gamers Can Experience All of the Excitement from the Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D Film From New Line Cinema AGOURA HILLS, Calif.--(Business Wire)-- THQ Inc. (NASDAQ: THQI) today announced that Journey to the Center of the Earth(TM) has shipped to retailers worldwide. The game is based on the upcoming film Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D by New Line Cinema and is available exclusively for Nintendo DS(TM). In Journey to the Center of the Earth, players can use the Nintendo DS stylus to search for a passage to the surface of the earth while navigating through all seven of the exotic underground worlds from the movie. A wide variety of mini-games will allow players to rock climb, dig for dinosaur bones and raft across an ancient sea.

An Alien View of the Moon Transiting Earth

Ever wonder what an approaching alien spacecraft would see as it comes within tracking range of our Earth/Moon system? NASA's EXPOXI mission, which uses the old Deep Impact spacecraft, has created a video of the moon transiting (passing in front of) Earth as seen from the spacecraft's point of view 50 million kilometers (31 million miles) away. Scientists are using the video to develop techniques to study alien worlds. "Making a video of Earth from so far away helps the search for other life-bearing planets in the Universe by giving insights into how a distant, Earth-like alien world would appear to us," said astronomer Michael A’Hearn, principal investigator for the Deep Impact extended mission, called EPOXI. The video is pretty amazing and there's actually two versions of the video; the first one uses a red-green-blue filter, showing

Solving the Asteroid " Meteorite Puzzle

Astronomers studying ways to deal with incoming near-Earth asteroids (NEA) that might be on a collision course with our planet want to know in detail what these space rocks are made of. The better they "know the enemy" the better they can come up with ways to destroy or change the course of NEAs. Since we've only studied a couple of asteroids up close with spacecraft, the best way to learn more about the composition of asteroids should be fairly easy: just look at meteorites that fall to Earth, which are small chunks of asteroids. But in doing so, researchers discovered quite a huge discrepancy. The vast majority of asteroids that whiz by Earth are of a type that matches only a tiny fraction of the meteorites that most frequently hit our planet.

Applied Discovery(R) Enhances E-Discovery Online Law Library

BELLEVUE, Wash. - LexisNexis� Applied Discovery�, a leader in comprehensive electronic discovery products and services, today announced the relaunch of its corporate website, which serves in part as a comprehensive e-discovery resou

Astronomers Find Unusual New Denizen Of The Solar System

A "minor planet" with the prosaic name 2006 SQ372 is just over two billion miles from Earth, a bit closer than the planet Neptune. But this lump of ice and rock is beginning the return leg of a 22,500-year journey that will take it to a distance of 150 billion miles, nearly 1,600 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun, according to a team of researchers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II).

Earth and Moon From an Alien's Perspective

krygny writes "NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft (whose extended mission is called EPOXI) has created a video of the moon transiting Earth as seen from 31 million miles away. Scientists are using the video to develop techniques to study alien worlds. 'Our video shows some specific features that are important for observations of Earth-like planets orbiting other stars,' said Drake Deming of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center... 'A "sun glint'" can be seen in the movie, caused by light reflected from Earth's oceans, and similar glints to be observed from extrasolar planets could indicate alien oceans. Also, we used infrared light instead of the normal red light to make the color composite images, and that makes the land masses much more visible.'" Here are links to the two videos, one red-green-blue and the other infrared-green.

New planet discovery announced at International Astronomers Conference.

As the first space-based mission searching for extra-solar planets, CoRoT has now demonstrated its capability for looking into planet-star interactions.

Solar Systems Like Ours Are Likely To Be Rare

KentuckyFC writes "Astronomers have discovered some 250 planetary systems beyond our own, many of them with curious properties. In particular, our theories of planet formation are challenged by 'hot Jupiters,' gas giants that orbit close to their parent stars. Current thinking is that gas giants can only form far away from stars because gas and dust simply gets blown away from the inner regions. Now astronomers have used computer simulations of the way planetary systems form to understand what is going on (abstract). It looks as if gas giants often form a long way from stars and then migrate inwards. That has implications for us: a migrating gas giant sweeps away all in its path, including rocky planets in the habitable zone. And that means that solar systems like ours are likely to be rare.

Solar Systems Like Ours May Be Rare (SPACE.com)

As humans look farther into the universe and discover more and more planets beyond the sun, many wonder how typical our own solar system is. Often astronomers in the planet-hunting business say discoveries of Earth-like worlds are just around the corner.

Asteroid Apophis may hit the Earth in 2036 - astronomer

ST. PETERSBURG. June 30 (Interfax) - The asteroid Apophis may hit planet Earth in 2036, Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Applied Astronomy Institute Andrei Filkenstein told the media on Monday. "Apophis will reach the orbit of geostationary satellites in 2029. It may hit Earth later, as it makes a number of revolutions," he said. "It is highly probable that the asteroid will hit the Earth in 2036 if its trajectory passes through a 1.5-kilometer 'gate'," he said. There is no way to stave off this danger so far, but scientists have suggested a number of worthy ideas, the astronomer said. te md

How Old Am I? Star Cluster Perplexes Astronomers

Ever have one of those moments when you can't remember how old you are? A group of astronomers may have felt they were having a "senior moment" when they couldn't seem to figure out exactly the age of stars in the open star cluster NGC 6791, located in the constellation Lyra. Conventional thinking among astronomers is that stars in open clusters form at the same time, but in this particular cluster, researchers found stars at three different ages: one group of white dwarf stars appeared to be 4 billion years old, a second group of white dwarfs seemed to 6 billion years old, while the other regular stars were calculated to be 8 billion years of age. The astronomers say this dilemma may fundamentally challenge the way astronomers estimate cluster ages.

Astronomy (Somewhat) Explained

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The Moon's Violent History

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Astronaut Quiz

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Hull Man's Discovery is Talk of the Web ; A Surprising Discovery Made By a Mystery Hull Man on His New iPhone Has Become an Internet Sensation.

Hull Man's Discovery is Talk of the Web ; A Surprising Discovery Made By a Mystery Hull Man on His New iPhone Has Become an Internet Sensation.

NASA's Kepler Telescope Set to Use 3PAR in the Search for Distant Earth-Like Planets

3PAR INC ("PAR-N") - NASA's Kepler Telescope Set to Use 3PAR in the Search for Distant - Earth-Like Planets 3PAR, the leading global provider of utility storage, announced that NASA Ames Research Center has chosen 3PAR Utility Storage for a mission that will send the Kepler Space Telescope into orbit around the Sun to find planets in solar systems outside our own. Set to launch in February of 2009, the mission will use 3PAR Utility Storage to store digital images taken with the powerful telescope and its camera. NASA Ames chose the resilient 3PAR storage system to meet its strict cost and performance requirements while maintaining massive scalability and avoiding the need for a full-time, dedicated storage expert. "Even rocket launches have budget constraints," said Chris Middour, Deputy Manager for the Kepler Operations Science Center an

The Scream Aliens Hear From the Earth

onehitwonder writes "Astronomers have discovered that the Earth emits awful, ear-piercing chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, according to an article up at Space.com. The sounds are created by charged particles from the solar wind colliding with Earth's magnetic field. This article explains more about the sounds and links to an audio recording of it."

ESA launches programme in support of Earth observation science

How does Earth Observation work?ESA EO Programme: The Living PlanetHow to get Earth Observation dataIntegrating Earth Observation in your jobEarth Observation users speak

A planet-sized debate

Later this week the Applied Physics Laboratory of The Johns Hopkins University will host a three-day conference and educators’ workshop titled “The Great Planet Debate”. The purpose of the event, in the words of its organizers, is straightforward: “[T]o explore a basic, but controversial, question: What is a planet?” The highlight of the conference: a debate between planetary scientist Mark Sykes and astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson over whether Pluto should be classified as a planet.

Astronomers Locate High Energy Emissions from the Crab Nebula

Scientists studying the Crab Nebula have discovered high energy gamma rays around the rotation-powered pulsar, the neutron star at the center of this enigmatic nebula. Neutron stars accelerate particles to immense energies, typically one hundred times more than the most powerful accelerators on Earth. Scientists have been uncertain exactly how these systems work and where the particles are accelerated. But by using the gamma-ray telescope on the European Space Agency's INTEGRAL spacecraft orbiting Earth, astronomers have detected polarized gamma-rays emitting from near the pulsar.

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