A new study from
the University of Toronto Scarborough suggests that finding extraterrestrial
life may be much more difficult than imagined. The leader of the study, UTSC Assistant
Professor Hanno Rein that the methods that are currently used to detect
biosignatures on planets may raise false alarms. If multiple chemicals, such as
methane or oxygen are present in an exoplanet, it is believed that there was or
is life. But the team that worked on the study says otherwise. They affirm that
a lifeless planet with a lifeless moon can mimic the same results as a planet
with detection of biosignature. "You wouldn't
be able to distinguish between them because they are so far away that you would
see both in one spectrum," says Rein.
Rein says that
the resolution that would be needed in order to properly measure the
biosignatures of exoplanets is almost impossible, even with technology getting
better through the years. Rein says that you would need a really large
telescope, about one hundred meters, and it would need to be constructed in
space. Rein says, "This telescope does not
exist, and there are no plans to build one any time soon." Researchers use
several models to estimate the atmosphere of the planet but Rein says that, "We
can't get an idea of what the atmosphere is actually like, not with the methods
we have at our disposal." Rein believes that we should continue to search
for life in our own solar system and continue to search for life on nearby
stars.
Sources:
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8:42 AM
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A Penn State
University astronomer using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)
has detected a new brown dwarf star at a distance of 7.2 light years away from
us. It is the fourth closest system to our Sun. What is peculiar about this
brown dwarf is it's temperature, which closely resemble the temperatures of our
North Pole at -53 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest brown dwarf discovered
was only at room temperatures. Kevin Luhman, an associate professor of
Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State and a researcher in the Penn State
Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, says that this discovery can tell
us the temperatures of the planets in that solar system. "Brown dwarfs start their lives like stars, as collapsing
balls of gas, but they lack the mass to burn nuclear fuel and radiate
starlight."
WISE
was able to detect this star because it surveyed the sky using infrared twice,
scanning some areas up to three times. Luhman says that this is not an ideal
place for human exploration because the planets are not habitable for humans.
Because the star is too cold, it would not be able to provide warmth to the
planets in its solar system. The star is predicted to be about 3 to 10 times
the size of Jupiter. This small mass makes some scientist believe that it might
be a gas giant but other scientists say otherwise. If the case is that it is a
brown dwarf, it would be one of the least massive brown dwarfs.
Sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140425162339.htm
Posted by Unknown
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10:05 AM
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NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has found planets, long ago, orbiting a star. It was believed that one of these planets would be able to harbor life. Recently, this has been confirmed through the W. M. Keck Observatory and the Gemini Observatory. The planet discovered is Earth-sized and is a reasonable distance away from its star. Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute and NASA AMES Research Center says that even though the star is cooler than our Sun, the planet might contain liquid water. Steve Howell, a co-author in this paper says that no telescope has been able to see the planet. "However, what we can do is eliminate essentially all other possibilities so that the validity of these planets is really the only viable option."
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| Gemini Observatory |
Because the host star is so small, the team decided to eliminate any suggestion of a
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| Keck Observatory |
background star mimicking what Kepler saw. They obtained extremely high spatial resolution images from the Gemini Observatory and the W. M. Keck Observatory. With these two telescopes observing the region, they were able to rule out several items and finally concluded that what Kepler detected was truly a planet. Quintana says that "Without these complementary observations we wouldn't have been able to confirm this Earth-sized planet. The host star is called Kepler 186 and the Earth-sized planet called Kepler-186f.
Sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140417141946.htm
https://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/02/images/gssnow.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/KeckTelescopes-hi.png
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6:42 AM
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Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile captured an image of the planetary nebula PN A66 33. This nebula is usually referred to as Abell 33. The nebula is aligned with a star in a foreground, which appears to have the resemblance of a diamond ring. This star's name is HD 83535 and it lies between Earth and Abell 33. Abell 33 is located about 2500 light years away from Earth. The nebula is very symmetrical, almost appearing to look like a circle in the sky. This is very uncommon because there always seems to be something that gives a nebula an irregular shape. The remnant of the Abell 33's star can be seen just a bit off of the center of the nebula. It is on it's way to becoming a white dwarf star. The remnant star is still very bright, shining brighter than the Sun, emitting enough ultraviolet radiation to make the nebula grow. Abell 33 is one of 86 objects in George Abell's catalogue of Planetary Nebulae. "Abell also scoured the skies for galaxy clusters, comping the Abell Catalogue of over 4000 of these clusters in both the northern and souther hemispheres of the sky." The image uses data from the Focal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph (FORS) that is hitched onto the Very Large Telescope.
Sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140409094228.htm
http://s273.photobucket.com/user/Astronomerica/media/SDSS-1/Abell33-wide-SDSS.jpg.html
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3:29 PM
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In ESO's La Silla Observatory, two contrasting galaxies were shown: NGC 1316 and NGC 1317. Both of these galaxies, even though very close to each other, share different histories. NGC 1316, the bigger galaxy has engulfed galaxies while NGC 1317 has had a very rough history. NGC 1316 is believed to have engulfed a dust-rich spiral galaxy because it has strange dust lanes and small globular star clusters. Very faint tidal tails have also been found within the galaxy. The tidal tails mean that the stars have been ripped off from their original location. This is what happens when a galaxy comes very close to another galaxy.
NGC 1316 is located 60 million light-years away from Earth. It resides in the southern constellation of Fornax and also takes the name because it is the brightest source of radio emission in that area. It is actually the fourth brightest radio emission in the night sky. The radio emission is steered by the material that is falling into the black hole. Because of several contacts with other galaxies, most likely it has extra fuel.
Sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140402095846.htm
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0809/ngc1316_pugh.jpg
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4:00 PM
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| The red green and blue dots represent the location of 2012 VP113 |
The Gemini Observatory has reported that they found a very far and distant Dwarf Planet. They named it 2012 VP113. This planet was found at the very edge of our solar system. This is most likely one of several thousands objects in deep space that form the Oort cloud. Researchers from the Gemini Observatory believe that this might bring proof that there is an even bigger planet out there influencing the orbit of 2012 VP113. It is thought to be ten time the size of Earth. The solar system is divided into three parts; the rocky planets, the gas planets, and the frozen objects. Sedna, which is categorized under the frozen objects was thought to be the farthest planet in our solar system, but 2012 VP113 is much further than Sedna.
The discovery of 2012 VP113 proves that Sedna was not something special. Instead, it might be part of several other planets that were formed by comets. The closest orbit to the sun of 2012 VP113 is 80 times the distance of the Earth to the Sun. Scott Sheppard believes that scientist should continue to search for planets like Sedna and 2012 VP113 because they can help us know more about the history of our solar system.Sedna and 2012 VP113 were found at their closest orbit to the Sun. If they were any farther it would be much more difficult to find them because the Sun's light wouldn't be able to reach them at a very long distance. Their AU's are in the hundreds range, while the rocky planets are within the first 5 AU.
Sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140326153725.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2012_VP113_discovery_image.jpg
Posted by Unknown
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10:49 AM
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While studying a nearby galaxy named M83, a team of
Australian and MAericans found a small yet powerful black hole and named it
MQ1. It’s the first black hole of its kind to be studied in this much detail.
Astronomers have found other objects similar to MQ1 but they were not able to
determine the size of the black hole. Previously, it was thought that MQ1 was a
bigger black hole because of its power but they found out that it was a normal
small black hole. It’s categorized as a microquazar. “Roberto Soria from Curtin
University in Australia, who led the team investigating MQ1, said it was
important to understand how stars were formed, how they evolved, and how they
died within a spiral shaped galaxy like M83.”
There is evidence that several black holes like MQ1 were
common when the universe first started. Astronomers believe that these type of
powerful black holes played an essential role in the early stages of the evolution
of the galaxy. The most powerful microquasar in our galaxy is 10 times weaker
than MQ1. By studying microquasars, astronomers get to see how ast quasars grew
and how much energy black holes provided to the environment. The MQ1 is 62
miles wide but the structure is much bigger than our solar system.
Sources:
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/02/new-fast-and-furious-black-hole-found
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Black_Hole_Milkyway.jpg
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1:57 PM
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