quote:Amateur scientists just found a new planet, and it might even be habitable
NASA’s Kepler space telescope is dead. It ran out of fuel back in October of last year, but the incredible wealth of data that it sent back during its life is still being sifted through, and new discoveries are just waiting to be made.
A timely reminder of that fact comes in the form of an all-new exoplanet discovery made by citizen scientists who dedicated their time to combing through Kepler’s logs. The world, called K2-288Bb, appears to be quite special, and researchers who have looked at the data think it might even host liquid water, raising the possibility that the newfound planet is habitable.
The research, which was published in The Astronomical Journal, reveals that K2-288Bb resides in the constellation Taurus and sits around 226 light years away from Earth. The planet orbits a binary star system consisting of two stars that are smaller than our own Sun. Compared to the Sun, the larger of the two stars in the binary system is around half as massive, while the smaller is only about one-third as massive.
As far as what the planet may be like, the jury is still out. It’s clear that the world is significantly larger than Earth, about twice the size, but it’s located within what scientists consider the habitable zone of its system. If it’s a rocky world like Earth, chances are good that it could support water on its surface, but it might also be a gassy “sub-Neptune” planet which would be hostile to life as we know it.
The discovery is unique for a number of reasons — not least of which is that it was made by amateur astronomers — but the biggest surprise for scientists was its size. As NASA’s JPL notes in a blog post, planets between 1.5 and 2 times the size of Earth are seemingly rare based on the exoplanet data we’ve gathered thus far.
quote:Earth-like Planet 'TOI-1452 B' Potentially Covered With 'Giant Ocean' Discovered
Astronomers’ hunt to find an Earth-like terrain has got them closer to a new small exoplanet which is being termed the ‘Super-Earth’. Called TOI-1452b, this exoplanet is located 100 light years away from the Earth and appears to be the best candidate for a watery world like our own.
The interesting findings were published in The Astronomical Journal by the American Astronomical Society. The team of researchers was led by Charles Cadieux, a PhD student at the University of Montreal. The transits were first detected by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and later observed by the PESTO camera installed on the telescope of the Mont Mégantic Observatory.
TOI-1452b has a size and mass slightly larger than that of the Earth. It is located at a distance from its star where its temperature would neither be too hot nor too cold. Astronomers are believing it to be an ‘ocean planet’, which means a planet that is covered with a thick layer of water. The measured planetary mass and bulk density are suggestive of the planet having a rocky core surrounded by a volatile-rich envelope. As per the reports, a year on this exoplanet will last only for a span of 11 days. “But because the red-dwarf star is smaller and cooler than our Sun, the planet receives a similar amount of light from its star as Venus does from our Sun,” reported NASA.
quote:Astronomen ontdekken een mogelijke exoplaneet ‘waterwereld’ dicht bij de aarde die leven zou kunnen ondersteunen
Deze week kondigden wetenschappers de ontdekking aan van een nabijgelegen “Super Aarde“Het kan leven ondersteunen, en het wordt de ‘aquatische wereld’ genoemd.”
het team, Onder leiding van de Universiteit van MontrealWaarnemingen van NASA’s Transiting Satellite werden gebruikt om exoplaneten te onderzoeken (hij-geit), evenals telescopen op aarde om te detecteren extrasolaire planeet, die wordt beschreven als potentieel rotsachtig als de aarde, maar groter. Nagesynchroniseerd met TOI-1452 b, draait het om een rode dwergster op ongeveer 100 lichtjaar van onze planeet, die volgens wetenschappers ‘redelijk dichtbij’ is.
Wetenschappers hebben lang getheoretiseerd over de mogelijkheid van andere oceanische planeten, maar het was moeilijk te bevestigen. TOI-1452 b is ongeveer 70% groter dan de aarde en ongeveer vijf keer zo groot, wat overeenkomt met een extreem diepe oceaan – maar er is nog meer onderzoek nodig.
NASA zegt Een planeet kan ook een massieve rots zijn met weinig of geen atmosfeer – of zelfs een rotsachtige planeet met een atmosfeer die bestaat uit waterstof of helium.
Een jaar op TOI-1452 b duurt slechts 11 dagen, maar het krijgt een vergelijkbare hoeveelheid licht van zijn kleinere, koelere ster als Venus van de zon. Ondanks de nabijheid van zijn baan, bevindt het zich in de “bewoonbare zone”, wat betekent dat het zeer wenselijk vloeibaar water op het oppervlak kan hebben.
Als wordt bevestigd dat deze “unieke” exoplaneet een waterwereld is, zal zijn omtrek veel dieper zijn dan die van de aarde. Terwijl onze planeet voor 70% uit water bestaat, nemen de oceanen minder dan 1% van de massa van de planeet voor hun rekening – terwijl water op TOI-1452 b volgens één simulatie maar liefst 30% van zijn massa kan uitmaken.
“TOI-1452 b is een van de beste kandidaten voor de oceaanplaneet die we tot nu toe hebben ontdekt”, zei hij. studie leiderschap Charles Dio. “De straal en massa wijzen op een veel lagere dichtheid dan je zou verwachten voor een planeet die voornamelijk uit metaal en gesteente bestaat, zoals de aarde.”
Als deze simulatie nauwkeurig is, zou de planeet lijken op de waterige manen in ons zonnestelsel, zoals: Jupiter Ganymedes en Callisto, waarvan wetenschappers denken dat ze de oceaandiepten onder hun oppervlak verbergen.
De James Webb Ruimtetelescoop Op een missie om de oorsprong van ons universum te begrijpen, maar de onderzoekers zeggen dat het enige tijd kan duren om TOI-1452 b te observeren, die “met een meevaller” verschijnt in het Draco-sterrenbeeld, een deel van de lucht dat Webb kan het hele jaar door zien.
“Onze waarnemingen met de Webb Telescope zullen essentieel zijn voor een beter begrip van de TOI-1452b”, zegt onderzoeker Rene Doyon, die ook werkt met een van de vier wetenschappelijke instrumenten van de James Webb Space Telescope. “Zo snel mogelijk zullen we tijd op het web reserveren om getuige te zijn van deze vreemde en wonderbaarlijke wereld.”
quote:Earth-size exoplanet spotted just 72 light-years away
An international team of researchers searching for transiting exoplanets (those that cross their host star's face from our perspective) has made its latest discovery — an Earth-size body just 72 light-years away from us.
K2-415b, as the newly discovered world has been named, orbits the nearby red dwarf star K2-415. Researchers identified the exoplanet in the data of NASA's now-defunct Kepler space telescope, its secondary mission K2, and its successor, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. While K2-415b is not the closest known exoplanet to Earth, it is, on a cosmic scale, one of our close neighbors. And it's a particularly intriguing exoplanet for astronomers to study.
"The K2-415 system is unique in that K2-415 is one of the coolest, or lowest-mass, stars known to host an exoplanet," Teruyuki Hirano of the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI) in Japan, lead author on a paper about the discovery, told Space.com. In fact, there are only four stars cooler than K2-415 that are known to host at least one exoplanet, including the famous TRAPPIST-1, which has seven known exoplanets.
"One motivation for investigating the planets around such low-mass stars is to understand and clarify whether those planets form and evolve just like the planets around solar-type stars," said Hirano.
Solar-type stars are stars akin to our sun. Red dwarf stars (also known as M-dwarfs), on the other hand, are far cooler and much smaller. K2-415 is thought to have a surface temperature of about 5,250 degrees Fahrenheit (2,900 degrees Celsius), compared to our sun's 9,900 degrees F (5,480 degrees C), with a diameter of 0.2 solar radii and a mass just 0.16 times that of the sun.
Ultimately, the more exoplanets we discover — and the more we learn about their star systems — the higher the chance we'll find more potentially habitable exoplanets. K2-415b is not in the habitable zone of its star, or the distance from a star at which liquid water can exist on a world's surface. The exoplanet is extremely close to K2-415, so close that it only takes about four Earth days to complete an orbit. "But there is a possibility that there is another planet lurking in the system that sits inside the habitable zone," said Hirano.
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Hirano hopes to study K2-415b further, determining its mass and internal structure. Preliminary estimates peg the exoplanet as about three times more massive than Earth, despite having a radius just 1.015 times that of Earth. But he also wants to turn to the orbit and architecture of the system at large.
"So far, only one transiting planet was found in the system, but this does not
necessarily mean the system is a 'single' one," he said. "Further radial velocity observations, as well as photometric monitoring, will be able to constrain the presence of outer planets in the system."
A paper on the team's research has been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal and is currently available on the preprint server arXiv(opens in new tab).
quote:Veelbelovende exoplaneet TRAPPIST-1b heeft geen atmosfeer en dus geen leven
De aardachtige exoplaneet TRAPPIST-1b heeft geen atmosfeer. Dat betekent dat er geen water en dus geen leven kan zijn. Astronomen hebben hun hoop op buitenaards leven nu gericht op de zes andere rotsachtige planeten die rond de rode dwergster TRAPPIST-1 cirkelen.
De ontdekking is gedaan met de James Webb-ruimtetelescoop. Sommige sterrenkundigen hadden verwacht dat er een dikke atmosfeer zou zijn. Maar de infraroodogen van de James Webb vonden geen bewijs voor zo'n dampkring. Dat betekent dat de planeet niet beschermd is tegen kosmische straling.
1b staat van alle planeten het dichtst bij TRAPPIST-1; veel dichter dan de aarde bij de zon. Bovendien staat de planeet altijd met dezelfde kant naar haar ster gericht. Toch werd gedacht dat er mogelijk leven op de planeet was, omdat de rode dwergster veel zwakker is dan onze zon. Maar zonder atmosfeer kan het aan de lichtkant alsnog 230 graden worden.
Wetenschappers hebben nog altijd de hoop dat de andere planeten in het zonnestelsel wel leefbaar zijn. Drie van de zeven planeten bevinden zich in de bewoonbare zone van hun ster. Dat betekent dat er in theorie water kan stromen en dat er mogelijk leven is.
NASA noemt de missie hoe dan ook al een succes. Nooit eerder wist een telescoop straling van zo'n kleine planeet, zo ver weg op te pikken. Volgens de ruimtevaartorganisatie belooft dit heel veel voor de toekomstige zoektocht naar andere exoplaneten.
In 2017 ontdekten astronomen dat TRAPPIST-1 maar liefst zeven planeten heeft die op de aarde lijken. Dat maakte het zonnestelsel, dat op veertig lichtjaar van de aarde staat, zeer interessant voor sterrenkundigen die op zoek zijn naar buitenaards leven.
Scientists have discovered an Earth-sized planet, GJ 1132b, just 39 light years away, offering a unique opportunity to study its atmosphere for potential signs of life. Despite its inhospitable temperatures, its proximity makes it a crucial target for future space telescopes like James Webb and Giant Magellan.quote:Op donderdag 12 november 2015 01:03 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
EARTH-LIKE WORLD COULD BE 'MOST IMPORTANT PLANET FOUND OUTSIDE SOLAR SYSTEM'
GJ 1132b is close enough for telescopes to observe any atmosphere it might have, which could help scientists spot signs of life on other planets in the future
[ afbeelding ]
In this artist’s conception GJ 1132b, a rocky planet very similar to Earth in size and mass, circles a red dwarf star. Photograph: Dana Berry
A rocky Earth-sized planet that circles a small, nearby star could be the most important world ever found beyond the solar system, astronomers say.
The planet lies in the constellation of Vela in the southern sky and is close enough for telescopes to observe any atmosphere it has, a procedure that could help spot life on other planets in the future.
Named GJ 1132b, the alien world is about 16% larger than Earth, and at 39 light years distant, is three times closer than any other Earth-sized rocky planet yet found around another star. At that distance, it is hoped that telescopes will be able to make out the chemistry of its atmosphere, the speed of its winds and the colours of its sunsets.
Astronomers spotted the planet as it moved across the face of a red dwarf star only a fifth the size of the sun. Though much cooler and fainter than the sun, GJ 1132b orbits so close to its star that surface temperatures reach 260C.
The searing temperatures are too hot for the surface to retain liquid water, making it inhospitable to life, but not so hot as to burn off any atmosphere that formed on the planet.
“If this planet still has an atmosphere, then we might find other, cooler planets that also have atmospheres and orbit small stars. We can then imagine interrogating the atmospheres for molecules that come from life,” said Zachory Berta-Thompson at the MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.
This time-lapse video shows MEarth-South discovering the planet GJ 1132b. Credit: Jonathan Irwin
Researchers used the MEarth-South array, a group of eight 40cm robotic telescopes at the Cerro-Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, to detect the planet. As it whipped around its star, completing an orbit every 1.6 days, it produced a faint 0.3% dip in the starlight picked up by the telescopes, according to a report in Nature.
The planet is tidally locked to its star, much as the moon is to Earth, and has one face in permanent daylight, the other in darkness. Given the world’s size and mass, researchers suspect it is rocky, like the inner planets of our solar system. It orbits 1.4m miles from its star, far closer than Mercury, which is never less than 36m miles from the sun.
Because the red dwarf is so small, and the planet is on such a close orbit, astronomers should find it fairly easy to detect and study any atmosphere the world has. The team has already requested time on the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to observe the planet in more detail.
This animation shows the distances to known transiting exoplanet systems, in units of lightyears. GJ 1132b is much closer than most other transiting planets. Credit: Zach Berta-Thompson
Drake Deming, an astronomer at the University of Maryland, said GJ 1132b was “arguably the most important planet ever found outside the solar system”. Its proximity and orbit around a red dwarf will allow astronomers to study the planet with unprecedented fidelity. “It’s nearby, it’s Earth-like, and its star won’t interfere,” Drake said.
“GJ 1132b is too warm to be habitable, but scientists have yet to fully explore our cosmic neighbourhood for worlds that potentially harbour life,” he notes in an accompanying article in Nature.
The planet will become a prime target for future missions too, including the James Webb Space Telescope, which is expected to launch in 2018, and the Giant Magellan Telescope, which is due to start operations in Chile in 2025.
The discovery came as scientists announced they had found the most distant object in the solar system, a frozen body that lies more than 100 times farther from the Sun than Earth does. The object lies beyond the edge of the Kuiper belt, home to the dwarf planet Pluto, and into the realm of space dominated by the so-called Oort cloud, a vast shell of icy objects where comets such as Hale-Bopp are thought to have formed.
Spotted from the Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the distant object is at least 500km across, but has not been tracked long enough to work out the full path of its orbit.
http://www.theguardian.co(...)e-solar-system#img-1
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