Researchers have found another planet (Wolf 1061c) that can sustain life: Located just 14 light-years away

Credit: The Wolf 1061 system. Credit: UNSW Sydney

An exoplanet with the prime conditions for life could be located just 14 light-years away, scientists report, in one of the closest neighbouring solar systems to our own.

New research suggests that a planet circling the star Wolf 1061 falls within what's called the star's habitable zone - making it one of the most likely neighbouring candidates for a planet that supports life.

This artist's concept illustrates a young, red dwarf star surrounded by three planets. Credit: wikipedia

"The Wolf 1061 system is important, because it is so close, and that gives other opportunities to do follow-up studies to see if it does indeed have life," says lead researcher Stephen Kane from San Francisco State University.

There are three planets orbiting Wolf 1061, but the planet Wolf 1061c is of particular interest.

Discovered in 2015, and with an estimated mass that's more than four times Earth's mass, Wolf 1061c is located right in the middle of Wolf 1061's habitable zone: the region where a planet's distance from its host star makes conditions suitable for liquid water and other life-supporting elements.

Our own Solar System runs by the same rules: conditions on Earth are just right for liquid water, whereas Mars is too cold.

To investigate whether Wolf 1061c might offer the same kind of habitability, the researchers analysed seven years of luminosity data from its host star and ran calculations of the exoplanet's orbit to figure out what the temperature and pressure on the surface could be.


The findings add weight to previous speculation that Wolf 1061c could be habitable – but just because the exoplanet is within a habitable zone, that doesn't necessarily mean it's one like Earth's.

The new data suggest that Wolf 1061c could have an atmosphere similar to what Venus had in its earliest days, meaning that any liquid water on the planet might not stick around for long. 

Previous research has suggested that high temperatures caused excessive water evaporation on Venus, and the newly formed water vapour in the atmosphere increased temperatures even further - a process known as a runaway greenhouse effect.

Now, the team thinks the same thing could be happening on Wolf 1061c, which is "close enough to the star that it's looking suspiciously like a runaway greenhouse", says Kane.

In addition, Wolf 1061c's orbit of its star varies much more quickly than Earth's orbit of the Sun, which would lead to chaotic climate changes such as a rapidly encroaching ice age (or warm phase).

So, is there life on Wolf 1061c?

We don't yet know, and to find out, we'll need more detailed measurements than what we have so far. To that end, Kane says NASA's James Webb telescope is one of the ways we'll be able to learn more about the exoplanet in the future.

Wolf 1061c Credit: Centauri Dreams

The telescope is launching next year, and its advanced optics should be able to reveal the atmospheric conditions on Wolf 1061c, and give us a better idea about whether water (and life) could really exist there.

Meanwhile, scientists from METI - the Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence organisation - are also interested in Wolf 1061c, and have been keeping a close eye on the exoplanet as they try to reach out to any alien life that might exist beyond our Solar System.

"I'm not holding my breath that we'll ever find evidence of life on Wolf 1061c," METI president Doug Vakoch told Rae Paoletta at Gizmodo.

"But the fact that there's a roughly Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of a star so close to our own Solar System is a good omen as we continue our search for life on other planets."

Other articles on the same theme:

• 4,000 confirmed exoplanets similar to Earth

• 10 fascinating planets outside the Solar System

• The newfound alien world named HD 131399Ab

• Mars could support extraterrestrial life. A new image published by the European Space Agency shows the place that would have hosted life

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Sciencealert . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Researchers have unraveled another mystery of the planet Ceres

Researchers in the United States have been causing disappearance of craters on Ceres, a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt in our solar system.

The new findings suggest that the disappearance of craters could be produced over a hundred million years due to the frozen surface of the planet and geothermal activity. ,, We concluded that a significant number of craters on Ceres was obliterated beyond the recognized geological measurements over time, due to which the resulting film composition and evolution in the earth, '' said Simone Marchi, from Southwasr Research Institute of Colorado.

Before you find out possible reasons for the huge craters missing from Ceres, the team used a computer simulation to see how many formations should be.

They concluded that the planet formation should be at least 10-15 big craters with a diameter of at least 400 km. Thanks to NASA mission, researchers have found that there are only 16 craters on Ceres, but none has a diameter greater than 100 km.

The only similar formations are planitiae ,, '' (extended depressions) which were probably created following severe impacts with other objects. The team tried to discover how he managed to ,, violate Ceres' computer simulated data. They have developed several theories, though none is yet concrete.

One hypothesis is that Ceres formed long before the solar system to arise during the impacts with other objects were more rare. Over time, the dwarf planet's orbit placed it in the asteroid belt.

Another theory is reflected by geothermal activity, complemented by the frosted surface of the planet.

Lack is not the only huge craters geological mystery that researchers have recently solved

Earlier this month, researchers at NASA have discovered evidence suggesting that small bright spots discovered in the crater of Ceres come from an impact which scraped some of the planet's surface and left behind traces of sodium carbonate.



Source: sciencealert

The newfound alien world named HD 131399Ab

The newfound alien world, named HD 131399Ab, resides in the HD 131399 system, about 320 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus.

Its orbit around HD 131399A, the brightest of the three stars, is by far the widest known within a multi-star system. Such orbits are often unstable, because of the complex and changing gravitational attraction from the other two stars in the system, and planets in stable orbits were thought to be very unlikely.

“For about half of the planet’s orbit, which lasts 550 Earth-years, three stars are visible in the sky,” said team member Kevin Wagner, from the University of Arizona.

“The fainter two stars are always much closer together, and change in apparent separation from the brightest star throughout the year.”

The astronomers estimate that HD 131399Ab is at least four times as massive as Jupiter and has a surface temperature of around 1,076 degrees Fahrenheit (580 degrees Celsius).

The planet is approximately 16 million years old, making it also one of the youngest exoplanets discovered to date, and one of very few directly imaged planets.

“HD 131399Ab is one of the few exoplanets that have been directly imaged, and it’s the first one in such an interesting dynamical configuration,” said team member Dr. Daniel Apai, also from the University of Arizona.

“The fainter two stars are always much closer together, and change in apparent separation from the brightest star throughout the year.”

The astronomers estimate that HD 131399Ab is at least four times as massive as Jupiter and has a surface temperature of around 1,076 degrees Fahrenheit (580 degrees Celsius).

The planet is approximately 16 million years old, making it also one of the youngest exoplanets discovered to date, and one of very few directly imaged planets.

“HD 131399Ab is one of the few exoplanets that have been directly imaged, and it’s the first one in such an interesting dynamical configuration,” said team member Dr. Daniel Apai, also from the University of Arizona.

Although repeated observations will be needed to precisely determine the trajectory of HD 131399Ab, VLT observations and simulations seem to suggest the following scenario:

(i) HD 131399A is orbited by the less massive stars, HD 131399B and HD 131399C, at about 300 astronomical units (AU);

(ii) HD 131399B and HD 131399C twirl around each other like a spinning dumbbell, separated by a distance roughly equal to that between the Sun and Saturn (10 AU);

(iii) the planet HD 131399Ab travels around the host star HD 131399A in an orbit with a radius of about 80 AU, about twice as large as Pluto’s in the Solar System, and brings the planet to about one third of the separation between star HD 131399A and the HD 131399B/C star pair.

Sourrce; sci-news

KEPLER SPOTS 100+ MORE EXOPLANETS, SOME POTENTIALLY HABITABLE WE'VE GOT EXOPLANETS ON EXOPLANETS

NASA announced today that its Kepler spacecraft has discovered a "crop of more than 100 planets" orbiting the M dwarf star K2-72, 181 light years away from Earth.

Of the 104 planets found outside of our solar system, four seem Earth-sized and rocky, and two of those are within the "habitable zone," with the potential for liquid water on their surfaces. They orbit their star closer than Mercury orbits ours, but because K2-72 is cooler and less than half the size of our sun, it keeps them in the sweet spot for temperature. One is 10 percent warmer than Earth, while the other is 6 percent cooler. All of the planets discovered are 20-50 percent larger than Earth in diameter.

These discoveries come after thousands of exoplanets landed in Kepler's sights, including three dozen planets or planet candidates in the habitable zone. The odds keep getting better for life outside of our own solar system.



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HD 131399Ab THIS COULD BE THE STRANGEST EXOPLANET FOUND YET

GIANT PLANET ORBITS THREE STARS AT ONCE

Imagine a planet, like Jupiter, but four times heavier. And it's got a huge orbit, maybe twice as wide as Pluto's. Oh, and it has three suns. That planet is real, and it's only 320 light years away. Meet HD 131399Ab.

A team of researchers found this strange planet using the Very Large Telescope run by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in the Atacama Desert in Chile, while looking for exoplanets around 100 young stars. The planet isn't the biggest exoplanet, nor is it the first found in a three-star system, and the so-called Scorpion Planet Survey isn't finished, so the researchers don't know whether they'll find other planets just like HD 131399Ab. But they think the combination of the planet's size and location among its three suns still make it especially strange to us earthlings.

"This is crazier than anything our dynamicist" -- the person who calculates how planets move -- "knows about," the study's first author and University of Arizona graduate student Kevin Wagner told Popular Science.


The three stars in the system are HD 131399A (which I'll call Sun A from now on), HD 131399B (Sun B) and HD 131399C (Sun C). The team won't know how the planet fits into the whole system until they make more observations, but has a few ideas. HD 131399Ab might orbit Sun A, which spins like a mobile in tandem with Sun B and C, which orbit tightly around each other. The team published their findings today in the journal Science.

From ESO: "This graphic shows the orbit of the planet in the HD 131399 system (red line) and the orbits of the stars (blue lines). The planet orbits the brightest star in the system, HD 131399A."

What makes HD 131399Ab unique is how far away the team found it from Sun A. The planet sits right on the border of the furthest possible place it could be without being flung into space by the gravity from Suns B and C, like a rubber band pulled as tight as possible right before snapping. "That the planet is so far away from the primary star (Sun A) and so close to the other stars (Suns B and C) is really surprising," said Wagner. "We don’t think the planet formed where we see it today. It’s not impossible but ... what’s more likely is it formed elsewhere, closer to [Sun A] or [Suns B and C], and then, through some scattering event, migrated to its current location"

The planet is also among the first batch of exoplanets discovered with direct imaging. Usually, astronomers just look at stars for a while and wait for the exoplanet to pass in front, like a distant eclipse. Direct imaging finds planets by detecting the heat the planets themselves give off instead. The thing is, direct imaging can only see big, hot planets far from their host star, since the filtering used to get rid of all the non-planet light might also filter out smaller closer planets, and colder planets won't emit enough infrared light. Even at four times Jupiter's mass, HD 131399Ab is still one of the lightest planets found with direct imaging.

From ESO: "This chart shows the location of the triple star HD 131399 in the large southern constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur). This star, whose brightest component is orbited by the unique planet HD 131399Ab, is too faint to be seen with the unaided eye, but can be found in binoculars. Its location is marked on this chart with a red circle."

Others agreed HD 131399Ab was a very interesting planet, but weren't surprised by its observation. "The more extreme crazy things are the biggest, brightest, closest to something else or furthest from something else," Alexander Mustill who models exoplanets and wasn't involved with the study told Popular Science. "Those are the ones you see first."


Mustill and Wagner both hope the direct imaging survey will give them more insight into how planets are formed in other star systems. We aren't so sure just how common hot, young and distant planets like HD 131399Ab are. "If these massive distant planet formations are very common then we’ll need a [theoretical] model that forms these things easily and often," said Mustill. "But if they only find one planet like this, then it becomes some kind of weird outlier that isn’t representative of how most other planetary systems form."




The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Popular Science. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.â

4,000 confirmed exoplanets similar to Earth

If you want to look at the incredible variety of exoplanets, this is your chance.

In the past, visual artists have produced infographics to show in the simplest way possible the ever-increasing number of planets and what we know about them. This latest iteration, called the Exoplanetary Orrery V, was created by Ph.D. student Alan Zucconi from Imperial College London. It presents all confirmed exoplanets with known orbits and temperature until January 2016. The visualizations also include the habitable zones (in green) for the systems based on the luminosity of the host stars.

There are over 4,000 confirmed exoplanets and many more potential candidates waiting for confirmation. An important goal is to find among them a planet similar to Earth. So far, we have found a few “cousins” of our home planet, but a true twin is still elusive. These visualizations show that any claim of a second Earth somewhere else in the Milky Way is still a bit premature.

“Something that I wanted to investigate myself was how close those exoplanets actually were to Earth, and most of them are actually very different,” Zucconi told IFLScience. “I've seen too many articles claiming that a ‘new Earth’ has been discovered... but the truth is that this visualization shows how different these ‘twin’ planets actually are.”

What about : kepler 22b, kepler-438b, kepler-186f, kepler-452b ??  They are all in habitable zone, life on other planets was theoretically discovered, who says it is not so, he lives in another reality or want to mislead.


The Exoplanetary Orrery V reproduces temperatures, stellar types, elliptical orbits, and the habitable zones of the exoplanetary systems. Distance and planetary size are also included, but the scaling is different for simplicity. Planets are considerably smaller than the distances to their stars, so they were made signficantly larger.

The Orrery is based on data from the Nasa Exoplanet Archive. As more data becomes available, the Orrery will be corrected.

“I got the data last month, but I keep on updating it,” said Zucconi. “So, I’ve only included all confirmed exoplanets for which the data plotted was there. Although not all the exoplanets have known eccentricity, so in those cases I plotted [the orbit] as a circle.”

You can check out the full scope of infographics at Zucconi's website.


Solar sytem with earth

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by iflscience. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Knowledge is power.

The universe: Reading the future from the distant past

Cosmic Calendar - Wikipedia

Scientists work at SLAC and Stanford are combining experimental data and theory to understand how the universe formed and what its future holds. Here, clumps and filaments of dark matter (black areas) serve as the scaffolding for the formation of cosmic structures made of regular matter (bright areas), including stars, galaxies and galaxy clusters.

The Dark Energy Survey World Scientific

These are the fundamental questions "astrophysical archeologists" like Risa Wechsler want to answer. At the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) of Stanford and the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, her team combines experimental data with theory in computer simulations that dig deeply into cosmic history and trace back how matter particles clumped together to form larger and larger structures in the expanding universe.

"Most of our calculations are done at KIPAC, and computing is a crucial aspect of the collaboration between SLAC and Stanford," says Wechsler, who is an associate professor of physics and of particle physics and astrophysics.

Wechsler's simulated journeys through spacetime use a variety of experimental data, including observations by the Dark Energy Survey (DES), which recently discovered a new set of ultra-faint companion galaxies of our Milky Way that are rich in what is known as dark matter. The gravitational pull from this invisible form of matter affects regular matter, which plays a crucial role in the formation and growth of galaxies.

Dark energy is another key ingredient shaping the universe: It inflates the universe like a balloon at an ever-increasing rate, but researchers don't know much about what causes the acceleration.


Two future projects will give Wechsler and other researchers new clues about the mysterious energy. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), whose science collaboration she is leading, will begin in 2018 to turn two-dimensional images of surveys like DES into a three-dimensional map of the universe. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), whose ultrasensitive 3,200-megapixel digital eye is being assembled at SLAC, will start a few years later to explore space more deeply than any telescope before.

"Looking at faraway galaxies means looking into the past and allows us to measure how the growth and distribution of galaxies were affected by dark energy at different points in time," Wechsler says. "Over the past 10 years, we've made a lot of progress in refining our cosmological model, which describes many of the properties of today's universe very well. Yet, if future data caused this model to break down, it would completely change our view of the universe."

The current model suggests that the universe is fated to expand forever, turning into a darker and darker cosmos faster and faster, with galaxies growing farther and farther apart. But is this acceleration a constant or changing property of spacetime? Or could it possibly be a breakdown of our theory of gravity on the largest scales? More data will help researchers find an answer to these fundamental questions.

Other articles on the same theme:

What form does the atomic nucleus? New discovery may explain the mysteries of the Universe.

A new theory on the Creation of the Universe, disprove the Big Bang

The First Stars in the Universe could provide clues about Dark Matter

NOBEL PHYSICS 2016. Nobel Prize winners are David DJ. Thouless, F. M. Duncan Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz

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The above post is reprinted from materials provided by SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The original item was written by Manuel Gnida. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

NASA's Space Launch System Booster Passes Major Milestone on Journey to Mars

A booster for the most powerful rocket in the world, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), successfully fired up Tuesday for its second qualification ground test at Orbital ATK's test facilities in Promontory, Utah. This was the last full-scale test for the booster before SLS’s first uncrewed test flight with NASA’s Orion spacecraft in late 2018, a key milestone on the agency’s Journey to Mars.

“This final qualification test of the booster system shows real progress in the development of the Space Launch System,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Seeing this test today, and experiencing the sound and feel of approximately 3.6 million pounds of thrust, helps us appreciate the progress we’re making to advance human exploration and open new frontiers for science and technology missions in deep space.”

The booster was tested at a cold motor conditioning target of 40 degrees Fahrenheit –the colder end of its accepted propellant temperature range. When ignited, temperatures inside the booster reached nearly 6,000 degrees. The two-minute, full-duration ground qualification test provided NASA with critical data on 82 qualification objectives that will support certification of the booster for flight. Engineers now will evaluate these data, captured by more than 530 instrumentation channels on the booster.

When completed, two five-segment boosters and four RS-25 main engines will power SLS on deep space missions. The solid rocket boosters, built by NASA contractor Orbital ATK, operate in parallel with SLS’s main engines for the first two minutes of flight. They will provide more than 75 percent of the thrust needed for the rocket and Orion spacecraft to escape Earth’s gravitational pull.

"Today's test is the pinnacle of years of hard work by the NASA team, Orbital ATK and commercial partners across the country," said John Honeycutt, SLS Program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “SLS hardware is currently in production for every part of the rocket. NASA also is making progress every day on Orion and the ground systems to support a launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We're on track to launch SLS on its first flight test with Orion and pave the way for a human presence in deep space."

The first full-scale booster qualification ground test was successfully completed in March 2015 and demonstrated acceptable performance of the booster design at 90 degrees Fahrenheit – the highest end of the booster’s accepted propellant temperature range. Testing at the thermal extremes experienced by the booster on the launch pad is important to understand the effect of temperature on how the propellant burns.

The initial SLS configuration will have a minimum 70-metric-ton (77-ton) lift capability. The next planned upgrade of SLS will use a powerful exploration upper stage for more ambitious missions, with a 105-metric-ton (115-ton) lift capacity. In each configuration, SLS will continue to use the same core stage and four RS-25 engines.

For more information about NASA’s Journey to Mars, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/journeytomars

For more information on SLS, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/sls

Source: NASA

Cloudy days on exoplanets may hide atmospheric water

Hot Jupiters, exoplanets around the same size as Jupiter that orbit very closely to their stars, often have cloud or haze layers in their atmospheres. This may prevent space telescopes from detecting atmospheric water that lies beneath the clouds, according to a study in the Astrophysical Journal.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Water is a hot topic in the study of exoplanets, including "hot Jupiters," whose masses are similar to that of Jupiter, but which are much closer to their parent star than Jupiter is to the sun. They can reach a scorching 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,100 degrees Celsius), meaning any water they host would take the form of water vapor.

Astronomers have found many hot Jupiters with water in their atmospheres, but others appear to have none. Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, wanted to find out what the atmospheres of these giant worlds have in common.

Researchers focused on a collection of hot Jupiters studied by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. They found that the atmospheres of about half of the planets were blocked by clouds or haze.

"The motivation of our study was to see what these planets would be like if they were grouped together, and to see whether they share any atmospheric properties," said Aishwarya Iyer, a JPL intern and master's degree candidate at California State University, Northridge, who led the study.

The new study, published in the June 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal, suggests that clouds or haze layers could be preventing a substantial amount of atmospheric water from being detected by space telescopes. The clouds themselves are likely not made of water, as the planets in this sample are too hot for water-based clouds.

"Clouds or haze seem to be on almost every planet we studied," Iyer said. "You have to be careful to take clouds or haze into account, or else you could underestimate the amount of water in an exoplanet's atmosphere by a factor of two."

In the study, scientists looked at a set of 19 hot Jupiters previously observed by Hubble. The telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 had detected water vapor in the atmospheres of 10 of these planets, and no water on the other nine. But that information was spread across more than a dozen studies. The methods of analyzing and interpretation varied because the studies were conducted separately. There had not been one overarching analysis of all these planets.

To compare the planets and look for patterns, the JPL team had to standardize the data: Researchers combined the datasets for all 19 hot Jupiters to create an average overall light spectrum for the group of planets. They then compared these data to models of clear, cloud-free atmospheres and those with various cloud thicknesses.

The scientists determined that, for almost every planet they studied, haze or clouds were blocking half of the atmosphere, on average.

"In some of these planets, you can see water peeking its head up above the clouds or haze, and there could still be more water below," Iyer said.

Scientists do not yet know the nature of these clouds or hazes, including what they are they made of.

"Clouds or haze being on almost all these planets is pretty surprising," said Robert Zellem, a postdoctoral fellow at JPL and co-author of the study.

The implications of this result agree with findings published in the Dec. 14, 2015, issue of the journal Nature. The Nature study used data from NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes to suggest that clouds or haze could be hiding undetected water in hot Jupiters. This new study uses exoplanet data from a single instrument on Hubble to uniformly characterize a larger group of hot Jupiters, and is the first to quantify how much of the atmosphere would be shielded as a result of clouds or haze.

The new research could have implications for follow-up studies with future space observatories, such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Exoplanets with thick cloud covers blocking the detection of water and other substances may be less desirable targets for more extensive study.

These results are also important for figuring out how planets form, scientists say.

"Did these planets form in their current positions or migrate toward their host stars from farther out? Understanding the abundances of molecules such as water helps us answer those questions," Zellem said.

"This paper is an exciting step forward for the study of exoplanets and comparing their properties," said Mark Swain, study co-author and group supervisor for the exoplanet discovery and science group at JPL.

Michael Line of the University of California, Santa Cruz, also contributed to the study. Other co-authors from JPL included Gael Roudier, Graca Rocha and John Livingston.


Source: sciencedaily

NASA's K2 Finds Newborn Exoplanet Around Young Star.

When a planet such as K2-33b passes in front of its host star, it blocks some of the star's light. Observing this periodic dimming, called a transit, from continual monitoring of a star's brightness, allows astronomers to detect planets outside our solar system with a high degree of certainty. This Neptune-sized planet orbits a star that is between 5 and 10 million years old. In addition to the planet, the star hosts a disk of planetary debris, seen as a bright ring encircling the star.

K2-33b, shown in this illustration, is one of the youngest exoplanets detected to date. It makes a complete orbit around its star in about five days.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This image shows the K2-33 system, and its planet K2-33b, compared to our own solar system. The planet has a five-day orbit, whereas Mercury orbits our sun in 88 days. The planet is also nearly 10 times closer to its star than Mercury is to the sun.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Astronomers have discovered the youngest fully formed exoplanet ever detected. The discovery was made using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope and its extended K2 mission, as well as the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars beyond our sun.

The newfound planet, K2-33b, is a bit larger than Neptune and whips tightly around its star every five days. It is only 5 to 10 million years old, making it one of a very few newborn planets found to date.

"Our Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old," said Trevor David of Caltech in Pasadena, lead author of a new study published online June 20, 2016, in the journal Nature. "By comparison, the planet K2-33b is very young. You might think of it as an infant." David is a graduate student working with astronomer Lynne Hillenbrand, also of Caltech.

Planet formation is a complex and tumultuous process that remains shrouded in mystery. Astronomers have discovered and confirmed roughly 3,000 exoplanets so far; however, nearly all of them are hosted by middle-aged stars, with ages of a billion years or more. For astronomers, attempting to understand the life cycles of planetary systems using existing examples is like trying to learn how people grow from babies to children to teenagers, by only studying adults.

"The newborn planet will help us better understand how planets form, which is important for understanding the processes that led to the formation of Earth," said co-author Erik Petigura of Caltech.

The first signals of the planet's existence were measured by K2. The telescope's camera detected a periodic dimming of the light emitted by the planet's host star, a sign that an orbiting planet could be regularly passing in front of the star and blocking the light. Data from the Keck Observatory validated that the dimming was indeed caused by a planet, and also helped confirm its youthful age.

Infrared measurements from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope showed that the system's star is surrounded by a thin disk of planetary debris, indicating that its planet-formation phase is wrapping up. Planets form out of thick disks of gas and dust, called protoplanetary disks, that surround young stars.

"Initially, this material may obscure any forming planets, but after a few million years, the dust starts to dissipate," said co-author Anne Marie Cody, a NASA Postdoctoral Program fellow at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. "It is during this time window that we can begin to detect the signatures of youthful planets with K2." 

A surprising feature in the discovery of K2-33b is how close the newborn planet lies to its star. The planet is nearly 10 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our sun, making it hot. While numerous older exoplanets have been found orbiting very tightly to their stars, astronomers have long struggled to understand how more massive planets like this one wind up in such small orbits. Some theories propose that it takes hundreds of millions of years to bring a planet from a more distant orbit into a close one -- and therefore cannot explain K2-33b, which is quite a bit younger.

The science team says there are two main theories that may explain how K2-33b wound up so close to its star. It could have migrated there in a process called disk migration that takes hundreds of thousands of years. Or, the planet could have formed "in situ" -- right where it is. The discovery of K2-33b therefore gives theorists a new data point to ponder.

"After the first discoveries of massive exoplanets on close orbits about 20 years ago, it was immediately suggested that they could absolutely not have formed there, but in the past several years, some momentum has grown for in situ formation theories, so the idea is not as wild as it once seemed," said David.

"The question we are answering is: Did those planets take a long time to get into those hot orbits, or could they have been there from a very early stage? We are saying, at least in this one case, that they can indeed be there at a very early stage," he said.

Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Source : NASA

10 fascinating planets outside the Solar System !

Extra-solar planets or exoplanets are planets located outside our solar system. When PSR1257 and PSR1257 + 12 B + 12 C (use uppercase for the first exoplanets discovered, as it was in force current terminology), and then 51 Pegasi b, the first exoplanet whose existence was confirmed, were discovered in the early 1990s, the success has been proclaimed as the most significant performance discovery in astronomy after Copernicus's heliocentric system.

51 Pegasi b discoverry

The allegations have created a tumult in the scientific world, reviving hopes of finding Earth-like planets, life forms probably outside the Solar System. Prior to these findings, the extrasolar planets were considered by astronomers known as non-existent, and their mere mention was fiction, so that no respectable scientist has not taken seriously until recently.

Since the advent of science exoplanetare study these celestial bodies evolved rapidly into a new branch of astronomy, cataloging more than 400 planets (30 of them documented in a single month, October 2009), only that many of them were in disappointingly, similar to the first: the hot gas giants orbiting close to their stars and revolutions taking only a few days.

The most plausible explanation for this is that the indirect method of detecting exoplanets is based on the hypothesis of the existence of massive objects with small orbital periods, which make them easy to identify. However, from time to time, with advanced technology and innovative methods, detection capability increases, so we have a few surprises:


The oldest planet

PSR B1620-26 b (found: May 30, 1993, state: July 10, 2003)
PSR B1620-26 b, nicknamed "Methuselah" after the famous biblical character who had lived nearly a thousand years, is the oldest exoplanet discovered with the age of 13 billion years. Considering that the universe itself does not exceed than 700 million years the leat, PSR B 1620 is likely to have even absolute record for the oldest existing planet.

Astronomical body was discovered in the center of what is called "globular cluster" of stars, cosmic entity made ​​up of the first stars formed immediately after the Big Bang. And based on what we know about planet formation, they are born shortly after the star around which orbits, so if exoplanet's star is as old as the universe, the planet gives him detour is characterized by a similar age .

PSR B1620-26 b 

PSR B1620-26 b photo: exoplanetkyoto.org

"Methuselah" was recognized as a planet only in 2003, confirming a sweet nectar dripped into the ears of planet hunters. The reason? If the planets could form as soon as the stars immediately after the Big Bang, also means that the universe is full of astronomical bodies waiting to be discovered.


The nearest exoplanet

Epsilon Eridani (Epsilon Eridani b, discovered on August 7, 2000)

It is situated at a distance of "only" ten light-years from Earth and is actually a system of planets, description employed and to define your own solar system. The name "Epsilon Eridani" stands for paternal star, or "sun" this "gear" cosmic, the composition of which is supposed to enter two worlds: one of them confirmed, Epsilon Eridani b, and the other not certified yet, Epsilon Eridani C.

Epsilon Eridani System is Remarkably Similar to Our Own photo: Sci-News.com

Join all these form the nearest planetary system in the universe. The whole surrounding Epsilon Eridani is even two asteroid belts, one indoor, between Epsilon Eridani b and star, and the other outside, between EE b and e.e. c, plus a cosmic dust ring beyond the orbit of Epsilon Eridani c, resulting probably from the impact of two comets.

Exoplanets with most suns
Aquarii b (16 Nov 2003)

When it comes to planets, we are accustomed to viewing an image in which several such heavenly bodies revolve around the sun in an monostelar.

Well, it seems that, in fact, an impressive number - about 50% of cases - the stars we see in the night sky are star systems, or groups of two or more incandescent orbiting the common center their masses.

Naturally, the reason that our eyes perceive these compounds as single light dots is due to the huge distance that separates us from them. In the system there are five star 91 Aquarii.

In November 2003, it was discovered that a gas giant planet orbiting the star 91 Aquarii the main planet is named 91 Aquarii Ab so that it can be distinguished from stars in the system, leaving room for possible undiscovered planets in the same gear.

Gas giant is special because detection methods surrounded by stars exoplanets requires absolute precision - often futile anyway - so by the 91 Aquarii Ab is one of the few planets discovered in such conditions.

Infrared detector of NASA's Space Telescope Spitzer found substantial amounts of rock evaporated together with the solidified lava fragments, known as Tekt and is formed generally as a result of impacts from meteorites.

However, the existence of such material in a quantity enough to block the glow of a star indicates a greater impact, as only a planetary collision could be.

According to this discovery, interplanetary collisions are not so unusual a phenomenon in the universe, supporting it by default, and the widespread theory that the Earth's moon itself appeared as a result of a similar event in the distant past. Moreover, computer simulations have predicted the possibility of future collisions in our solar system sometime in the next three billion years.

Twin planet to Earth
Gliese 581g (discovered in September 2010)

Recently discovered Gliese 581g, a planet the size of Earth, located in the habitable zone of its star, could host liquid water can be a life environment. If suspicions were confirmed, I have to do with the planet most similar to Earth and also the first case of alien orb with potential for human habitat.

Successful discovery of Gliese 581g is based on 11 years of scrutinizing the cosmos made ​​with the WM Observatory Keck in Hawaii. The performance started with the discovery astronomers red dwarf Gliese 581, two new planets orbit.

Among these, the most interesting turned Gliese 581g, with a mass three to four times that of Earth and a revolution period of only 37 days. Estimates indicate that its mass is probably about a solid planet with a definite surface and that it has sufficient gravitational force to maintain an atmosphere.

The planet is to its star, somehow, what is Terra Luna in that rotation around its axis of Gliese 581g coincinde to revolve the planet, so it is a hemisphere permanently facing light the other is forever steeped in gloom.

Researchers estimate that the average temperature of the outer body surface ranges between -31 and -12 degrees Celsius. Of course, absolute temperatures range from the mid from Star heat and cold on the dark surface.

The gravity of the surface of Gliese 581g may be similar or greater than that of the loose earth, such that a person would easily be able to move on two feet on the surface of the planet.

Super-Earth covered by lava
COROT-7b (found on 3 February 2009)

European astronomers discovered by COROT satellite, a Super Earth several times more massive than Earth, only 475 light years from Earth.

Researchers claim that the exoplanet, named COROT-Exo-7b is not yet even the most pleasant place to visit. Although at first glance, there is water on Exo-7b, this is a borderline state between gas and liquid due to the huge mass of lava that covers celestial body.

It is possible that the Exo-7b have been a frozen planet that has migrated through its own solar system, turning, upon heating, a huge water planet. Most likely, it was formed inside a gas giant, as appropriate Earth, Venus, Mercury and Mars. It is almost certain, however, that Exo-7b is in the same situation it was in the earth immediately after its formation, many experts believe.

The first planet photographed
Fomalhaut b (discovered on 13 November 2008)

Direct observation of exoplanets is so difficult that was compared with the pursuit of flying insects in the right of a reflector in a hazy day, from a distance of several kilometers. For this reason, the first image of a planet that is outside our solar system captured by Hubble, is paramount.

Called Fomalhaut b, exoplanet is the size of Jupiter, and a possible ring system orbiting the star Fomalhaut. Astronomers inferred its existence since 2005, based on gravitational forces in the area, but it is the first case in which they failed to achieve a proper picture.
Visibility on Fomalhaut b is hampered by a ring of dust surrounding the star that he owns.

 The latter has an age of 200 million years and is 16 times brighter than the Sun. Astronomers have approximated it will explode into a billion years in age rather than for a star. Although performance Hubble planet Fomalhaut b would have remained hidden had it not been so wide orbit around its star.

SurvivorV391 Pegasi b (discovered in March 2007)

This gas giant was found orbiting a white dwarf - a sort of dead star - which means that at some point in the past, during the red giant phase of the star (a red giant is a large dying star, preceding phase transformation into white dwarf) planet must have reached the surface of the sun or even have them inside your body orbiting astronomical dying.

Planet Survivor photo: Science News for Students

It is an event that is likely the planets of our solar system, including Earth, it is believed that our sun will enter the red giant phase sometime in the next five billion years, increasing its volume possible until assimilate orbits close to him, researchers believe that the sun could reach even to the orbit of Mars now.

Normally, many planets as "occupied" can fall apart, but others can keep the structure unchanged, as is the case of V391 Pegasi b, baptized, therefore, survivor. However, even if the earth will prove the same strength and survive in the sun become a red giant, its surface will be completely sterilized of huge temperatures.

Another gas giant "special" in the sense that its orbital plane aligns perfectly with our vision, so can be seen from Earth, the planet HD209458 b

Movement of "transition" of the planet through the right side to its star that we oriented afford to accurately calculate a size - by analyzing the amount of starlight blocked - and more importantly, to determine its atmospheric composition spectroscopy study interaction between radiation and matter (in this case, the interaction of gases and vapors in the atmosphere of the planet and its sun starlight).

Hubble measures atmospheric structure of extrasolar planet HD 209458b photo: ESA/Hubble

With this method, researchers have detected the presence of sodium and, more recently, in October 2009, and that of water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane in the upper atmosphere of the planet. This is the second astronomical body which was found to possess organic compounds, HD 189733 b was the first planet discovered by humans which is characterized by it.

First 'Super-Earth'

Mu Arae c (discovered on 25 August 2004)

The planet's first "super-Earth" (or large rocky exoplanet) found, has brought researchers closer to discovering Earth-like planets outside the Solar System.

A "super-Earth" is defined as an exoplanet with mass between the Earth and the giant planets in our solar system. Why are these planets are considered to be "rock"? Weak gravitational force of an object the size of Earth materials tends to attract mainly massive, dense (rock and metal), and much less light materials such as gases, which are easily scattered radiation of astronomical phenomena such as stars, escape atmospheric or strong impacts with asteroids.

As this solid protoplanet increases, reaching a mass close to that of Jupiter's gravitational pull allows you to draw more objects on its surface and take captive the light gases, thus creating a spiral will turn in finally, another giant planet gas.

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