In this week's space science news, NASA announced a new launch date for the shuttle, pending safety approval on hydrogen flow control valves. The tentative date is March 12. They have also named a chair of the investigation committee for the failed launch of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory.
Anticipation is building for the March 6 launch of the Kepler spacecraft. You'll be hearing lots more about this one next week because I'm very excited about it, but in a sentence, it's a spacecraft designed to look for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has gone into safe mode after the automated safety response registered an anomalous event. Some conjectures as to the event include cosmic rays hitting the electronics panel. In the meantime, it continues to function and engineers hope to have it functioning normally again by early next week.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory has found the oldest pulsar ever observed. Despite its age (about 200 million years old), it's surprisingly active. It's also one of the nearest pulsars to us, at a mere 770 light years from Earth.
Finally, we'll end with the most controversial story of the week, the inclusion of $2 million for "the promotion of astronomy" in Hawaii at the Imiloa Science Center as part of the Omnibus spending bill. While certainly not one of the bigger ticket items, conservatives like John McCain have criticized this as pork. In fact, Sen. McCain went as far as to label it the #2 Porkiest Porkiest Project in a recent tweet. He says, "...because nothing says new jobs for average Americans like investing in astronomy." This isn't the first time McCain has expressed displeasure at spending in astronomical arenas. Towards the end of his campaign, he made frequent disparaging remarks about then-Senator Obama's proposed $3 million for renovations at America's first planetarium, the Adler Planetarium in Chicago; unfortunately, McCain repeatedly referred the the planetarium as an "overhead projector." The astronomy community is once again abuzz with discussion of the importance (or lack thereof) of astronomy education in our country.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sad News For NASA Mission
NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory launched from Vanderberg Air Force Base at 1:55 AM local time, but as it headed its orbital path intended to study Earth's atmosphere, the shroud (a hard casing that protected the instrument during launch) failed to separate. This caused the satellite to crash into the Pacific Ocean near Antarctica. This 8 year project had an estimated cost of $278 million. NASA's press release is available at this link.
It's always interesting to me that when a spacecraft launches/lands/arrives successfully, NASA releases very exciting headlines. See this release from January 2004, when Spirit arrived on Mars. But when a mission goes badly, they come up with the most boring headline ever, as if they would prefer that you skip right over it. If you read the link I posted above for this most recent press release, you'll see that it avoids colorful terms like "crash," or "ruined;" it simply "failed to reach orbit." However, this Reuters release isn't nearly as circumspect; look for phrases like "dooming the mission" and "botched satellite launch." In the end, I guess NASA is only human.
Also, if you're the kind of person who thinks NASA is a huge waste of taxpayers' dollars and this is just one of many examples of that, now's the time to post your rant in the comments section. If you disagree, please feel free to say so as well. (Let's keep it civil, please.)
R.I.P.
Orbiting Carbon Observatory
It's always interesting to me that when a spacecraft launches/lands/arrives successfully, NASA releases very exciting headlines. See this release from January 2004, when Spirit arrived on Mars. But when a mission goes badly, they come up with the most boring headline ever, as if they would prefer that you skip right over it. If you read the link I posted above for this most recent press release, you'll see that it avoids colorful terms like "crash," or "ruined;" it simply "failed to reach orbit." However, this Reuters release isn't nearly as circumspect; look for phrases like "dooming the mission" and "botched satellite launch." In the end, I guess NASA is only human.
Also, if you're the kind of person who thinks NASA is a huge waste of taxpayers' dollars and this is just one of many examples of that, now's the time to post your rant in the comments section. If you disagree, please feel free to say so as well. (Let's keep it civil, please.)
Orbiting Carbon Observatory
Saturday, February 21, 2009
More Questions and an Announcement
Bob in Goleta, CA asks: "What is happening with the rover today? What are the people in the space shuttle doing? What is the recent dust storm on Mars doing to the solar system?"
Great questions, Bob! I'm so glad you asked, because your timely questions bring me to my announcement: today is the official kick-off of my weekly news round up. In an effort to make sure you at least see a headline and know where to get more info on some of the top happenings of the week, I'm going to post a round up of all the cool stuff you might have accidentally missed. And I promise that this week's edition will answer your questions, Bob.
Let's start with the rovers. Spirit recently got a quick cleaning from a two recent dust storms that reduced the amount of dust on the solar panels significantly. Interestingly, when the rovers arrived, engineers from JPL were concerned that Mars' frequent and intense dust storms would cake the solar panels with dust and reduce their battery life; however, just the opposite has been true - the dust storms have repeatedly given the rovers new life as they've swept away some of the layers of dirt from the panels. Opportunity is also doing well; its right front wheel has had some issues for over three years, and recent diagnostic mobility drives have kept Opportunity and JPL engineers busy analyzing the degree of damage. Status reports for both rovers are updated weekly here.
In shuttle news, the launch of STS-119 (the next shuttle launch) has been deferred. Because of damage to a flow control valve that occurred during Endeavor's Nov. 2008 flight, NASA officials have decided that further investigation is needed before setting a launch date. STS-119 will carry a truss for the ISS as well as a new crew member to the space station. More info here. There are no current shuttle missions at this time.
In astronomical headlines, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (formerly known as GLAST) saw the largest gamma-ray burst ever recorded, and it saw it in hi-res. Gamma rays can be ejected from dying stars as they collapse and form black holes, sending huge amounts of energy into space travelling at nearly the speed of light. These bursts can be up to 5 billion times as energetic as visible light. While the processes that produce these gamma ray bursts aren't well understood, the Fermi telescope is helping scientists learn more by studying wavelengths of light not visible to the human eye. For more info, see the press release here.
And finally, NASA wants you to help name the new node on the International Space Station. Nodes 1 and 2 are named Harmony and Unity respectively, and submissions for the name of the new node will be accepted here. The winning name will be announced on April 28th. No prizes for picking the winning name, just the satisfaction of knowing you are awesome.
Great questions, Bob! I'm so glad you asked, because your timely questions bring me to my announcement: today is the official kick-off of my weekly news round up. In an effort to make sure you at least see a headline and know where to get more info on some of the top happenings of the week, I'm going to post a round up of all the cool stuff you might have accidentally missed. And I promise that this week's edition will answer your questions, Bob.
Let's start with the rovers. Spirit recently got a quick cleaning from a two recent dust storms that reduced the amount of dust on the solar panels significantly. Interestingly, when the rovers arrived, engineers from JPL were concerned that Mars' frequent and intense dust storms would cake the solar panels with dust and reduce their battery life; however, just the opposite has been true - the dust storms have repeatedly given the rovers new life as they've swept away some of the layers of dirt from the panels. Opportunity is also doing well; its right front wheel has had some issues for over three years, and recent diagnostic mobility drives have kept Opportunity and JPL engineers busy analyzing the degree of damage. Status reports for both rovers are updated weekly here.
In shuttle news, the launch of STS-119 (the next shuttle launch) has been deferred. Because of damage to a flow control valve that occurred during Endeavor's Nov. 2008 flight, NASA officials have decided that further investigation is needed before setting a launch date. STS-119 will carry a truss for the ISS as well as a new crew member to the space station. More info here. There are no current shuttle missions at this time.
In astronomical headlines, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (formerly known as GLAST) saw the largest gamma-ray burst ever recorded, and it saw it in hi-res. Gamma rays can be ejected from dying stars as they collapse and form black holes, sending huge amounts of energy into space travelling at nearly the speed of light. These bursts can be up to 5 billion times as energetic as visible light. While the processes that produce these gamma ray bursts aren't well understood, the Fermi telescope is helping scientists learn more by studying wavelengths of light not visible to the human eye. For more info, see the press release here.
And finally, NASA wants you to help name the new node on the International Space Station. Nodes 1 and 2 are named Harmony and Unity respectively, and submissions for the name of the new node will be accepted here. The winning name will be announced on April 28th. No prizes for picking the winning name, just the satisfaction of knowing you are awesome.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
It's the Taxonomy, Stupid!
My recent post about sorting a purple fork is a parable about taxonomy. Taxonomy is the scientific word for sorting things. And while it sounds simple, sorting can get complicated quickly, and is sometimes subjective. Which is why scientists try to define a taxonomic system, a universal way of sorting things.
You're probably familiar with this system, at least in terms of biologic taxonomy. For example, plants and animals are part of different kingdoms. Delving deeper into taxonomy, cats and dogs are sorted into different families. If you want to break that down further, everyone can see that a chihuahua has some things in common with a Great Dane, but they definitely aren't the same thing.
In order to get a better grip on taxonomy, and taxonomic changes, I called my friend Dr. Paul Valentich-Scott, curator of malacology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. He knows more about clams than just about anyone on Earth. When I asked him about taxonomy, he said, "It changes. All the time." He doesn't mean that different species of clams are evolving into something new all the time; he simply means that scientists sort them differently as they get new information.
One example of this he gave me was the Pacific littleneck clam. He told me that in doing some research into the history of scientists who had described this clam, the name was changed at the genus level. Before this research had been done, the scientific name was given by the person thought to have described it first. However, it turns out that it had been described by someone earlier, and precedence was given to the original classifier.
Another example he cited was a type of clam he is working on in the order pandora. As malacologists have made new discoveries about this clam, they have found that it makes more sense to change what was a single species into four different species. Again, the clam didn't change; scientists are just relabeling it. Paul told me that as we are doing more and more DNA research, this type of taxonomic splintering is more and more common.
I know this seems like a lot of biology for an astronomy blog, but by now I think you've figured it out. Today marks the 79th anniversary of the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh. Although it was celebrated as a planet then, it has infamously been "de-classified" as a planet. I could make this long post longer by telling you all about it, but I did myself a favor three years ago and made a movie about it. So watch the clip below and please remember that the movie is 3 years old. Since then, 2003UB313 has been named Eris; Pluto has been reclassified as a dwarf planet (and even more recently as a plutoid); and two more larger-than-Pluto objects have been discovered in the Kuiper Belt (Haumea and Makemake).
Pluto: Planet or Not? from Krissie Cook on Vimeo.
You're probably familiar with this system, at least in terms of biologic taxonomy. For example, plants and animals are part of different kingdoms. Delving deeper into taxonomy, cats and dogs are sorted into different families. If you want to break that down further, everyone can see that a chihuahua has some things in common with a Great Dane, but they definitely aren't the same thing.
In order to get a better grip on taxonomy, and taxonomic changes, I called my friend Dr. Paul Valentich-Scott, curator of malacology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. He knows more about clams than just about anyone on Earth. When I asked him about taxonomy, he said, "It changes. All the time." He doesn't mean that different species of clams are evolving into something new all the time; he simply means that scientists sort them differently as they get new information.
One example of this he gave me was the Pacific littleneck clam. He told me that in doing some research into the history of scientists who had described this clam, the name was changed at the genus level. Before this research had been done, the scientific name was given by the person thought to have described it first. However, it turns out that it had been described by someone earlier, and precedence was given to the original classifier.
Another example he cited was a type of clam he is working on in the order pandora. As malacologists have made new discoveries about this clam, they have found that it makes more sense to change what was a single species into four different species. Again, the clam didn't change; scientists are just relabeling it. Paul told me that as we are doing more and more DNA research, this type of taxonomic splintering is more and more common.
I know this seems like a lot of biology for an astronomy blog, but by now I think you've figured it out. Today marks the 79th anniversary of the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh. Although it was celebrated as a planet then, it has infamously been "de-classified" as a planet. I could make this long post longer by telling you all about it, but I did myself a favor three years ago and made a movie about it. So watch the clip below and please remember that the movie is 3 years old. Since then, 2003UB313 has been named Eris; Pluto has been reclassified as a dwarf planet (and even more recently as a plutoid); and two more larger-than-Pluto objects have been discovered in the Kuiper Belt (Haumea and Makemake).
Pluto: Planet or Not? from Krissie Cook on Vimeo.
Comet Lulin
In case you haven't heard yet, there is a comet heading away from the sun, but towards us, that is lighting up the early morning sky. Visible with binoculars, it will probably be bright enough that you'll see it even without if you know where to look. The peak time for viewing is February 24th, so I'm giving you due warning. Tonight it's in the constellation Virgo at rises at about 10 PM. But please don't look for it then; it will be right on the horizon and will have to battle light pollution and trees in the line of sight. Wait a few hours for best viewing.
Lulin will be rising about 20 minutes earlier every night, so it will be in a better position by the 24th. However, February 24th isn't the only time to see the comet. It will be visible before and after, so don't stress if you miss it on the peak observing night.
You can find the full story and lots of other cool stuff I've left out for brevity's sake at this link.
Lulin will be rising about 20 minutes earlier every night, so it will be in a better position by the 24th. However, February 24th isn't the only time to see the comet. It will be visible before and after, so don't stress if you miss it on the peak observing night.
You can find the full story and lots of other cool stuff I've left out for brevity's sake at this link.
Friday, February 13, 2009
The Parable of the Purple Fork
[This was partly inspired by Little Dudestronomer's experiences in intermediate dining techniques.]
Let's say that you have spoons. Lots of spoons. Some are big, some are small; some are silver, some are plastic, some are wooden; some are yellow, some are purple. And you keep them all together in your spoon drawer.
One day while you are preparing to eat, you see that at your place setting there is something similar, but a little different. It's clearly used for eating food, just like your spoons; but it isn't rounded like your spoons at the end. Instead, it has four sharpish points. But the other end is almost exactly like your spoons.
What is this new thing? You're not entirely sure about what to call it. But more importantly, you don't know where to put it. You have a spoon drawer, a bowl drawer and a cup drawer; no "random pointy sorta spoon thingy" drawer. But you decide that it's more like a spoon than a bowl or a cup. So you keep it in the spoon drawer for now. After all, it's used for eating food, it has a handle, and it's purple, like some of your spoons.
Time passes. In fact, lots of time passes. So much time has passed that you're now much older and much more sophisticated. You have a lot of drawers now; you have one for your spatulas and one for your ladles. You have so many drawers that it's time to reorganize. So you're going back through your drawers and you come across that purple fork.
By now of course you realize it's a fork, and you have many more of them. In fact, you have a whole drawer of nothing but forks. You think back fondly of your early utensil days and remember your wonder at this new device and you pause to ask yourself a question: where should you keep your fork?
On the one hand, it's just like those other forks, with its pointy tines. On the other, you've kept it with the spoons all these years; what's the point in changing things now?
Now, dear readers, a question for you: where would you keep the purple fork? Post your opinion in the comments section.
And bonus points to anyone who guesses where I'm going with this. It's an astronomical direction, I promise. All will be revealed next week.
Let's say that you have spoons. Lots of spoons. Some are big, some are small; some are silver, some are plastic, some are wooden; some are yellow, some are purple. And you keep them all together in your spoon drawer.
One day while you are preparing to eat, you see that at your place setting there is something similar, but a little different. It's clearly used for eating food, just like your spoons; but it isn't rounded like your spoons at the end. Instead, it has four sharpish points. But the other end is almost exactly like your spoons.
What is this new thing? You're not entirely sure about what to call it. But more importantly, you don't know where to put it. You have a spoon drawer, a bowl drawer and a cup drawer; no "random pointy sorta spoon thingy" drawer. But you decide that it's more like a spoon than a bowl or a cup. So you keep it in the spoon drawer for now. After all, it's used for eating food, it has a handle, and it's purple, like some of your spoons.
Time passes. In fact, lots of time passes. So much time has passed that you're now much older and much more sophisticated. You have a lot of drawers now; you have one for your spatulas and one for your ladles. You have so many drawers that it's time to reorganize. So you're going back through your drawers and you come across that purple fork.
By now of course you realize it's a fork, and you have many more of them. In fact, you have a whole drawer of nothing but forks. You think back fondly of your early utensil days and remember your wonder at this new device and you pause to ask yourself a question: where should you keep your fork?
On the one hand, it's just like those other forks, with its pointy tines. On the other, you've kept it with the spoons all these years; what's the point in changing things now?
Now, dear readers, a question for you: where would you keep the purple fork? Post your opinion in the comments section.
And bonus points to anyone who guesses where I'm going with this. It's an astronomical direction, I promise. All will be revealed next week.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Full Moon Fun
Last night I spent some time outreaching. No, this is not a form of calisthenics. Outreach is the term people use to describe going out into the community and raising awareness about an issue or teaching people about something specific. I love astronomy outreach more than most things in life, so I was very excited to spend some time on the Hollywood Broadwalk during the Full Moon Concert talking to people about astronomy.
I was there as part of SFAAA, and most of the other members had telescopes. But since I don't own a telescope (and I prefer packing light anyway), I brought some outreach tools from the Night Sky Network toolkits. I was also packing some heat with a great activity from Astronomy From the Ground Up called "Sizing Up the Moon." I adapted it for this occasion and spent the better part of the night inviting people to take what I called the Moon Challenge. Instead of the more intensive classroom-based (or family-based) program, I did a simplified version that suits a drop-in audience quite well.
It was a hit with all ages. I'm pretty sure it's a combination of learning something interesting and enjoying the playdough used for the activity. People are always surprised to see how the moon and Earth size up to each other, and almost no one can accurately place their distance. I definitely recommend it. In fact, if you're interested in the activity, you can get it as well as a suite of others through the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's Family ASTRO.
This activity works well with older kids (younger if they are interested and you are ready to be very engaged with them) and adults quite well. And younger kids will have a good time just playing the dough, making spheres and perhaps even poking craters onto the moon ball.
I was there as part of SFAAA, and most of the other members had telescopes. But since I don't own a telescope (and I prefer packing light anyway), I brought some outreach tools from the Night Sky Network toolkits. I was also packing some heat with a great activity from Astronomy From the Ground Up called "Sizing Up the Moon." I adapted it for this occasion and spent the better part of the night inviting people to take what I called the Moon Challenge. Instead of the more intensive classroom-based (or family-based) program, I did a simplified version that suits a drop-in audience quite well.
It was a hit with all ages. I'm pretty sure it's a combination of learning something interesting and enjoying the playdough used for the activity. People are always surprised to see how the moon and Earth size up to each other, and almost no one can accurately place their distance. I definitely recommend it. In fact, if you're interested in the activity, you can get it as well as a suite of others through the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's Family ASTRO.
This activity works well with older kids (younger if they are interested and you are ready to be very engaged with them) and adults quite well. And younger kids will have a good time just playing the dough, making spheres and perhaps even poking craters onto the moon ball.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Everyday Astronomy
One of this month's IYA themes is the solar system. And I'll bet you think that the topic doesn't have much to do with your everyday life. Unless you're an astrogeek like me, or you're unlucky enough to have a momstronomer like Little Dudestronomer. (Fortunately, he's too young to know that he's being submitted to torturous geekery every day of his life.) But even if you are not as nerdy as I am, I'm here to tell you that you and the solar system are closer than you think every single day.
Here is just one of the ways that the solar system affects your life. What day of the week is it? No matter what you answered, your response is something in our solar system. Give it a moment; I'll even give you a hint: can you think of any days that might be associated with the sun, the moon or Saturn?
[Waiting for your moment to pass...]
OK, so you have realized that Sunday is really Sun Day. Named after the sun. Monday is really Moon Day. And Saturday is Saturn Day.
This goes back to the Greeks, who named the days of the week after the sun, moon and five known planets (each of which were named after gods). The other days get a little trickier, because we have to trace them back to other languages. The first three are almost direct translations, but from here on out, we're going on an astrolinguistic journey. (I'm pretty sure that's not a real word.)
Tuesday comes from Tui - Tui's Day, which is the Germanicized version of the Norse god of war, Tyr. That Norse god can be traced back further to the Roman god of war, Mars. In fact, if you're a Spanish speaker*, you know that Tuesday in Spanish is martes, which is an even closer link. (Days of the week are not capitalized in Spanish.) If you're Greek, you'll be angry if I leave out the fact that the Romans' Mars was originally the Greeks' Ares.
Wednesday comes from Woden, the Ango-Saxon relative of the Norse God, Odin. Odin was the the counterpart of the Roman god Mercury (Hermes to the Greeks). Again, Spanish speakers might now see the connection with miércoles.
Thursday comes from Thor (Thor's Day). Thor is the Norse version of Jupiter, which is the Roman version of the Greek Zeus. For Spanish speakers, you will want to know that Jupiter has another Roman name, Jove.
Friday comes from Freya, the Norse goddess of love and beauty. Process of elimination will lead to know that the Roman goddess of love and beauty is Venus (Aphrodite to the Greeks).
So there you have it. Whether you knew it or not, you've been proudly displaying the solar system on your calendar. You probably plan events in your life around the planets; for example, you might watch American Idol on the day of Mars and the day of Mercury, but football is king on the day of the moon. You call your mom on the day of the sun, you go to yoga on the day of Jupiter and you TGI Venus.
*This goes for French and Latin as well, but interestingly not for Portuguese.
Here is just one of the ways that the solar system affects your life. What day of the week is it? No matter what you answered, your response is something in our solar system. Give it a moment; I'll even give you a hint: can you think of any days that might be associated with the sun, the moon or Saturn?
[Waiting for your moment to pass...]
OK, so you have realized that Sunday is really Sun Day. Named after the sun. Monday is really Moon Day. And Saturday is Saturn Day.
This goes back to the Greeks, who named the days of the week after the sun, moon and five known planets (each of which were named after gods). The other days get a little trickier, because we have to trace them back to other languages. The first three are almost direct translations, but from here on out, we're going on an astrolinguistic journey. (I'm pretty sure that's not a real word.)
Tuesday comes from Tui - Tui's Day, which is the Germanicized version of the Norse god of war, Tyr. That Norse god can be traced back further to the Roman god of war, Mars. In fact, if you're a Spanish speaker*, you know that Tuesday in Spanish is martes, which is an even closer link. (Days of the week are not capitalized in Spanish.) If you're Greek, you'll be angry if I leave out the fact that the Romans' Mars was originally the Greeks' Ares.
Wednesday comes from Woden, the Ango-Saxon relative of the Norse God, Odin. Odin was the the counterpart of the Roman god Mercury (Hermes to the Greeks). Again, Spanish speakers might now see the connection with miércoles.
Thursday comes from Thor (Thor's Day). Thor is the Norse version of Jupiter, which is the Roman version of the Greek Zeus. For Spanish speakers, you will want to know that Jupiter has another Roman name, Jove.
Friday comes from Freya, the Norse goddess of love and beauty. Process of elimination will lead to know that the Roman goddess of love and beauty is Venus (Aphrodite to the Greeks).
So there you have it. Whether you knew it or not, you've been proudly displaying the solar system on your calendar. You probably plan events in your life around the planets; for example, you might watch American Idol on the day of Mars and the day of Mercury, but football is king on the day of the moon. You call your mom on the day of the sun, you go to yoga on the day of Jupiter and you TGI Venus.
*This goes for French and Latin as well, but interestingly not for Portuguese.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Earth-like Planet Found Orbiting Sun-like Star
This is big news, people!
I'm planning a lengthy post on the subject of exoplanets eventually because it is one of my favorite topics in astronomy. However, with this breaking news just released, I have to fill you in a bit now.
For the last 15 years or so, we've been able to detect planets orbiting stars that are not our Sun. We call them extrasolar planets, or exoplanets for short (meaning when we're too excited to actually say the full name because what we're about to say about them is just too amazing). However, the vast majority that we have found are much larger than Earth; most are in the magnitude of Jupiter, which could fit 1,300 Earths inside it. This is not because most exoplanets are huge; instead, it's because our technology is still limited at this time and we can only detect really massive exoplanets.
That said, technology in this field has dramatically improved in the last decade plus and we are detecting smaller and smaller worlds. In fact, we have detected 336 planets orbiting 285 stars to date. This number will only increase exponentially as we continue to develop more precise and more sensitive equipment.
Today's announcement is really big news. The COROT space telescope has identified a small (less than twice the size of Earth) planet orbiting a sun-like star. We've never seen that before (outside our solar system). Early data suggests that it may well be a rocky planet like Earth, as opposed to a gas giant like most other exoplanets detected to date.
One of the biggest differences between this planet, called COROT-Exo-7b (gotta love those super-creative astronomers!), and our home world is that it is very close to its host star. In fact, its year is about 20 Earth hours. To put that in perspective, Mercury takes about 3 Earth months to orbit the sun. The close proximity to its host star makes this newly discovered world's temperature range from 1,000 to 1,500 degrees C. I'll never complain about South Florida summers again. OK, I might.
This system is 457 lights years from Earth, and COROT-Exo-7b is the first Earth-like exoplanet discovered using the transit method. If that doesn't make sense to you, good! It means you'll just have to check back for more sciency goodness.
I'm planning a lengthy post on the subject of exoplanets eventually because it is one of my favorite topics in astronomy. However, with this breaking news just released, I have to fill you in a bit now.
For the last 15 years or so, we've been able to detect planets orbiting stars that are not our Sun. We call them extrasolar planets, or exoplanets for short (meaning when we're too excited to actually say the full name because what we're about to say about them is just too amazing). However, the vast majority that we have found are much larger than Earth; most are in the magnitude of Jupiter, which could fit 1,300 Earths inside it. This is not because most exoplanets are huge; instead, it's because our technology is still limited at this time and we can only detect really massive exoplanets.
That said, technology in this field has dramatically improved in the last decade plus and we are detecting smaller and smaller worlds. In fact, we have detected 336 planets orbiting 285 stars to date. This number will only increase exponentially as we continue to develop more precise and more sensitive equipment.
Today's announcement is really big news. The COROT space telescope has identified a small (less than twice the size of Earth) planet orbiting a sun-like star. We've never seen that before (outside our solar system). Early data suggests that it may well be a rocky planet like Earth, as opposed to a gas giant like most other exoplanets detected to date.
One of the biggest differences between this planet, called COROT-Exo-7b (gotta love those super-creative astronomers!), and our home world is that it is very close to its host star. In fact, its year is about 20 Earth hours. To put that in perspective, Mercury takes about 3 Earth months to orbit the sun. The close proximity to its host star makes this newly discovered world's temperature range from 1,000 to 1,500 degrees C. I'll never complain about South Florida summers again. OK, I might.
This system is 457 lights years from Earth, and COROT-Exo-7b is the first Earth-like exoplanet discovered using the transit method. If that doesn't make sense to you, good! It means you'll just have to check back for more sciency goodness.
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