9th Transiting Extrasolar Planet & More Space News
If you want to participate in these discussions you must sign up (it's free) or login first.
|
Started by
|
Message
|
Lydia
Site Admin
Posted:
Sat Oct 08, 2005 1:18 pm
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Posts: 610
|
|
9th Transiting Extrasolar Planet & More Space News
|
|
|
|
|
|
Several interesting articles
From SKY and TELESCOPE Weekly News Bulletin
LL
THE BEST TRANSITING EXOPLANET YET
The European planet-hunting team founded by Michel Mayor (Geneva
Observatory, Switzerland) has just announced a new extrasolar planet that
crosses the face of its host star -- the ninth transiting exoplanet found
to date. But this one is special. The planet, which orbits the
7.7-magnitude type-K star HD 189733 in Vulpecula, offers professional
astronomers their best prospects for studying an exoplanet's atmosphere
and temperature. It also gives amateurs their easiest opportunity to
detect a world orbiting another star. Moreover, the host star is located
just 0.3 degrees from the Dumbbell Nebula (M27), ideally positioned for
Northern Hemisphere observers during early evening this season....
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1606_1.asp
****
A MOON FOR THE "10TH PLANET"
The solar system's largest known Kuiper Belt object (KBO), the recently
discovered body known as 2003 UB313, isn't wandering through space alone.
Michael E. Brown (Caltech) and his colleagues have discovered that it has
a small companion, by using the newly commissioned Laser Guide Star
Adaptive Optics system on the Keck II telescope atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii, on
September 10th. The team doesn't yet know the moon's orbit, since they
have only a single night of images. But observations with the Hubble Space
Telescope planned for November and December should help determine the
moon's orbital period and distance from 2003 UB313, and thus that object's
mass. Due to scheduling constraints the team can't observe the system with
Keck again for several months. Still, Brown says, "by January we should
know the orbit...."
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1603_1.asp
******
FAST COSMIC BLASTS LINKED TO BINARY MERGERS
Compelling new evidence strongly supports the prevailing theory that most
short gamma-ray bursts (those lasting 2 seconds or less) are triggered
when two compact objects in a binary system spiral and then smash into
each other in a cosmic cataclysm. In some cases, two neutron stars collide
and form a black hole. In others, a black hole swallows a neutron star.
Either way, material is ejected in two oppositely directed high-speed jets
along the black hole's rotational axis, creating the GRB.
The latest evidence for the merger theory comes from five short GRBs
observed since May 2005....
> http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1605_1.asp
|
|
|
|
Forum Options
Login
Forum Search
