Universe Today » Extrasolar Planets

Multi-Planet System is Chaotic, Dusty

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:27:36 +0000

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope captured this infrared image of a giant halo of very fine dust around the young star HR 8799. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Ariz.

Just what is going on over at the star HR 8799? The place is a mess! But we can just blame it on the kids. Young, hyperactive planets circling the star are thought to be disturbing smaller comet-like bodies, causing them to collide and kick up a huge halo of dust. HR 8799 was in the news in November 2008, for being one of the first with imaged planets. Now, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has taken a closer look at this planetary system and found it to be a very active, chaotic and dusty system. Ah, youth: our solar system was likely in a similar mess before our planets found their way to the stable orbits they circle in today.
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Post tags: Extrasolar Planets, Spitzer Space Telescope

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No Earth-Sized Planet Hunting for Kepler Until 2011

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:25:48 +0000

A glitch in the Kepler spacecraft's electronics means the space telescope will not have the ability to spot an Earth-sized planet until 2011, according to principal investigator William Borucki. Noisy amplifiers are creating noise that compromises Kepler's view, and the team will have to generate and upload a software fix for the spacecraft. "We're not going to be able to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zone — or it's going to be very difficult — until that work gets done," said Borucki, who revealed the problem last week to the NASA Advisory Council.
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Organic Molecules Detected in Exoplanet Atmosphere

Nancy Atkinson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:10:24 +0000

The basic chemistry for life has been detected the atmosphere of a second hot gas planet, HD 209458b. Data from the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes provided spectral observations that revealed molecules of carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor in the planet's atmosphere. The Jupiter-sized planet – which occupies a tight, 3.5-day orbit around a sun-like star — is not habitable but it has the same chemistry that, if found around a rocky planet in the future, could indicate the presence of life. Astronomers are excited about the detection, as it shows the potential of being able to characterize planets where life could exist.
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2009. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Astrobiology, Extrasolar Planets

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HARPS Discovers 32 New Exoplanets

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:44:39 +0000

Astronomers have found 32 new planets outside our solar system with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, better known as HARPS, the spectrograph for the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) 3.6-metre telescope. The number of known exoplanets is now at 406, and HARPS itself has discovered more than 75 exoplanets in 30 different planetary systems. Included in this most recent batch are several low-mass planets – so-called "Super Earths" about the size of Neptune. The image above is an artist's impression of a planet discovered that is 6 times the mass of Earth, which circles the low-mass host star, Gliese 667 C, at a distance equal to only 1/20th of the Earth-Sun distance. Two other planets were discovered previously around this star.

"HARPS is a unique, extremely high precision instrument that is ideal for discovering alien worlds," said ESO astronomer Stéphane Udry. “We have now completed our initial five-year program, which has succeeded well beyond our expectations.”
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Rocky World COROT-7b Rains Rocks

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:56:37 +0000

If any creature lives on COROT-7b, the recently confirmed rocky exoplanet, they might think the sky is falling. This planet is close enough to its star that its "day-face" is hot enough to melt rock, and according to models by scientists at Washington University in St. Louis, COROT-7b's atmosphere is made up of the ingredients of rocks and when "a front moves in," pebbles condense out of the air and rain into lakes of molten lava below. Yikes!
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Smallest Expoplanet Yet Has Rocky Surface

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:59:37 +0000

More details are emerging on the extrasolar planet that was discovered by the CoRot satellite back in February. New information about this planet make it first in many respects: It is the smallest known exoplanet, it is the closest exoplanet yet to its host star, which also makes it the fastest; it orbits its star at a speed of more than 750,000 kilometers per hour. Plus, data reveal the presence of twin sister planet, another so-called super-Earth called CoRot-7c in this alien solar system. Was Obi-wan wise to conceal it?

(Sorry, couldn't resist the twin sister/Star Wars reference….)
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Send a Tweet to our Alien Friends on Gliese 581 D

Nancy Atkinson — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:31:09 +0000

If you've ever wanted to communicate with aliens, here's your chance. Cosmos Magazine is offering the chance to send a message to another planet, Gliese 581 d. This exoplanet is about 20.3 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Libra, and some have said if life is elsewhere in the Universe, this is the mostly likely place that we currently know about. It was first discovered in 2007, and astronomers say this planet is well within the habitable zone around its star, where liquid water oceans could exist. Cosmos is collecting short, 160 character messages to be transmitted out to the vicinity of Gliese 581 d with the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex in Tidbinbilla, Australia. Cosmos says it will take about 20 years for the message to reach its destination, and admits there is no guarantee of a response. If interested, check out Cosmos' "Hello From Earth" webpage. Hurry, as the deadline is 5pm Monday August 24, 2009 Sydney time (07:00 GMT Monday 24 August 2009).

This is Cosmos' way of celebrating the IYA and National Science Week in Australia. However, we've had lively discussions here on before UT about if we are sending too much information out into the cosmos. What do you think?

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Biggest Exoplanet Yet Orbits the Wrong Way

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:07:13 +0000

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Planet hunters from the UK have discovered the largest exoplanet yet, and its uniqueness doesn't end there. Dubbed WASP-17, this extra large world is twice the size of Jupiter but is super-lightweight, "as dense as expanded polystyrene" one astronomer said. Plus it is going the wrong way around its home sun, making it the first exoplanet known to have a retrograde orbit. As a likely a victim of planetary billiards, astronomers say this unusual planet casts new light on how planetary systems form and evolve.
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Kepler Scores its First Exoplanet Sighting

Anne Minard — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:06:00 +0000

First results from the Kepler mission. Credit: NASA

NASA researchers have published confirmation this week that the Kepler mission will be able to reveal the presence of Earth-sized planets around Sun-like stars. The mission's first scientific results appear today in the journal Science.

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Exoplanet Has Oddball Orbit

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:53:11 +0000

In what might be a evidence of planetary billiards, astronomers have found an exoplanet with an extremely odd orbit. The question is, was this planet the cue ball or the object ball? While most planets orbit around a star's mid-section, this one – called XO-3b — is tilted about 37 degrees from the star's equator. It's also a massive planet, about 10 times the size of Jupiter. Such a misalignment must have occurred as a result of a disturbance, such as a collision with another object, sometime after the planet's formation. But astronomers say they don't yet know what caused the unusual orbit of XO-3b.
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Life on Earth — and Other Worlds — Could Last Longer Than Expected

Nancy Atkinson — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:10:35 +0000

Most scientists predict that in about a billion years, the sun's ever-increasing radiation will have scorched the Earth beyond habitability. The breathable air will be toast, the carbon dioxide that serves as food for plant life will disappear, the oceans will evaporate; and all living things will disappear. Or maybe not. A group of researchers from Caltech have studied a mechanism which would cause any planet with living organisms to remain habitable longer than originally thought, perhaps doubling the lifespan. This sounds like good news for future inhabitants of Earth, but also, this mechanism could increase the chance that life elsewhere in the Universe might have the time to progress to advanced levels.
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Add Heat, Then Tectonics: Narrowing the Hunt for Life in Space

Anne Minard — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:13:54 +0000

In order to support life, an exoplanet should simply hang out where heat from its star is just right for liquid water. Right?

Not necessarily. New research is suggesting that in order to support life, such a planet might also need plate tectonics, and those are triggered in a narrower band of distance from the parent star.

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Planet-Forming Disk Discovered Orbiting Binary System

Nicholos Wethington — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:42:19 +0000

Science fiction is lousy with examples of planets that orbit a system of two suns. Tatooine, in the Star Wars saga, is endowed with a pair of suns to light up the sky, as is the planet Magrathea in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It would indeed be quite a spectacle to wake up to more than one Sun every day for us who have only one. This sight may entirely be possible to view around the young binary star system V4046 Sagittarii, as new images from the Smithsonian's Submillimeter Array (SMA) have confirmed the existence of a molecular cloud – which could harbor, or later produce planets - orbiting the twin stars. This is the first time that evidence of planetary formation around a binary system of stars has been uncovered.

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First Extra-Galactic Planet May Have Been Detected

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:10:26 +0000

Using a technique called Pixel-lensing, a group of astronomers in Italy may have detected a planet orbiting another star. But this planet is unique among the 300-plus exoplanets discovered so far, as it and its parent star are in another galaxy. The Andromeda Galaxy, to be exact. Technically, the star in M31 was found to have a companion about 6 times the mass of Jupiter, so it could be either a brown dwarf or a planet. But either way, this is a remarkable feat, to find an object of that size in another galaxy.
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Astrometry Finally Finds an Exoplanet

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:08:35 +0000

Using the method of astrometry to find planets orbiting other stars has been around for 50 years, and until now it hasn't bagged a single exoplanet. But finally, astronomers found a Jupiter-sized planet , called VB 10b, using this method. Astrometry is difficult and requires very precise measurements over long periods of time. So why did they keep trying for so long? "This method is optimal for finding solar-system configurations like ours that might harbor other Earths," said astronomer Steven Pravdo of JPL. "We found a Jupiter-like planet at around the same relative place as our Jupiter, only around a much smaller star. It's possible this star also has inner rocky planets. And since more than seven out of 10 stars are small like this one, this could mean planets are more common than we thought."
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New Technique Could Find Another "Pale Blue Dot"

Nancy Atkinson — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:30:45 +0000

By looking back at Earth from alien's point of view, scientists have developed a new technique to look for other worlds that might harbor oceans, and therefore life. Using the old Deep Impact spacecraft, which is now being used for the EPOXI mission, scientists are able to look at the spectrum of an extrasolar planet's light which would reveal the presence of water. "We used the High Resolution Imager telescope on Deep Impact to look at Earth from tens of millions of miles away," said Nicolas B. Cowan, of the University of Washington, " and developed a method to indicate the presence of oceans by analyzing how Earth's light changes as the planet rotates. This method can be used to identify extrasolar ocean-bearing Earths."
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On Your Mark, Get Set, Let's Find Planets!

Nancy Atkinson — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:58:35 +0000

The checkout and calibration phase for the Kepler spacecraft has been completed, and now the telescope will begin one of the longest and most important stare-downs ever attempted. Kepler will spend the next three-and-a-half years staring at more than 100,000 stars searching for telltale signs of planets. Kepler should have the ability to find planets as small as Earth that orbit sun-like stars at distances where temperatures are right for possible lakes and oceans. "Now the fun begins," said William Borucki, Kepler science principal investigator for the mission. "We are all really excited to start sorting through the data and discovering the planets."
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The Case of the Missing Planets: Are Stars Eating Their Young?

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:32:30 +0000

A new era on astronomy began in 1995 when the first extrasolar planet was detected. To date, 346 planets have been found orbiting stars other than our sun. But new research indicates astronomers might have found even more extrasolar planets except for one thing: some planets have either been pulled into their parent star and devoured or gravitationally torn apart. .And astronomers say the most Earth-like planet detected so far, CoRoT-7 B will inevitably be destroyed by the star it orbits.
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Nearly Earth-sized Planet, Possible Watery World Spotted Near Another Star

Anne Minard — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:35:59 +0000

Astronomers are announcing a newly discovered exoplanet in the habitable zone of its star, and another one — in the same system — that's just twice the size of Earth.

The Gliese 581 planetary system now has four known planets, with masses of about 1.9 (planet e, left in the foreground), 16 (planet b, nearest to the star), 5 (planet c, center), and 7 Earth-masses (planet d, with the bluish colour).

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Ancient Solar Systems Found Around Dead Stars

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 02:31:21 +0000

Were there once habitable planets long ago around stars that are now dead? A team of astronomers have found evidence that between 1-3 percent of white dwarf stars are orbited by rocky planets and asteroids, suggesting these objects once hosted solar systems similar to our own. White dwarf stars are the compact, hot remnants left behind when stars like our Sun reach the end of their lives. Using data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers have determined that asteroids are found in orbit around a large number of white dwarfs, perhaps as many as 5 million in our own Milky Way Galaxy.
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Kepler's "First Light" Images

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:39:48 +0000

W00t! Kepler has seen first light! The spacecraft has taken its first images of the star-rich sky where it will soon begin hunting for planets like Earth. These first images show the mission's target patch of sky, a vast starry field in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our Milky Way galaxy. One image shows millions of stars in Kepler's full field of view, while two others zoom in on portions of the larger region. "Kepler's first glimpse of the sky is awe-inspiring," said Lia LaPiana, Kepler's program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "To be able to see millions of stars in a single snapshot is simply breathtaking."

The image above zooms into a small portion — just 0.2 percent –of Kepler's full field of view, and shows an an expansive, 100-square-degree patch of sky in our Milky Way galaxy, and a cluster of stars located about 13,000 light-years from Earth, called NGC 6791, can be seen in the upper right corner. These images were taken on April 8, 2009, one day after Kepler's dust cover was jettisoned. See more below.
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Kepler Will Be Used to Measure the Size of the Universe

Ian O'Neill — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:30:59 +0000

Artist's rendering of the Kepler Mission (NASA)

On April 7th, commands were sent to NASA's exoplanet-hunting Kepler telescope to eject the 1.3×1.7 metre lens cap so the unprecedented mission could begin its hunt for Earth-like alien worlds orbiting distant stars. However, one UK astronomer won't be using the Kepler data to detect the faint transits of rocky exoplanets in front of their host stars. He'll be using it to monitor the light from a special class of variable star, and through the extreme precision of Kepler's optics he will be joining an international team of collaborators to redefine the size of the Universe…
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Kepler Flips Its Lid; Soon Ready for Planet Hunt

Nancy Atkinson — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:03:02 +0000

Artist concept of the Kepler spacecraft's dust cover coming off. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Engineers successfully ejected the dust cover from NASA's Kepler telescope last night and the space observatory will soon begin searching for Earth-like planets. "The cover released and flew away exactly as we designed it to do," said Kepler Project Manager James Fanson from JPL. "This is a critical step toward answering a question that has come down to us across 100 generations of human history — are there other planets like Earth, or are we alone in the galaxy?"

Click here for an animation of the event.
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Moon Reveals New Way to Find Oceans, Land on Other Earths

Anne Minard — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:08:09 +0000

An Australian doctoral researcher using a backyard telescope has made a potentially big discovery: Earth's oceans and continents shine differently on the dark side of the moon.

Now, Sally Langford, a doctoral candidate in physics at the University of Melbourne, is suggesting the "earthshine" of planets around other stars could provide long-distance windows into their surface features.

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JWST Will Provide Capability to Search for Biomarkers on Earth-like Worlds

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:45:12 +0000

Does another Earth exist somewhere in our galaxy? With the recent lauch of the Kepler spacecraft, astronomers are getting closer and closer to finding an Earth-sized planet in an Earth-like orbit. But once that search succeeds, the next questions driving research will be: Is that planet habitable? Does it have an Earth-like atmosphere? Answering those questions will not be easy. But the telescope up for the task is the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), set for a planned launch in 2013. Two researchers recently examined the ability of JWST to characterize the atmospheres of hypothetical Earth-like planets, and found this is the telescope that would be able to detect certain gases called biomarkers, such as ozone and methane, for close Earth-size worlds. (See our related article: Q&A with Dr. John Mather on JWST.)
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