Archives for the 'extrasolar planets' Category
An even smaller super-earth
Published on 6 Jun 2008 at 2:33 pm.
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A few days ago, I wrote about a possible record setting small super-earth. Now, I have read about an even smaller super-earth discovered by a team of astronomers led by David Bennett of Notre Dame.
This newly announced planet is designated MOA-2007-BLG-192L b. Actually, everything in that string of letters and numbers refers […]
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The smallest super-earth?
Published on 31 May 2008 at 1:34 pm.
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Recently Christophe Lovis of Switzerland’s Geneva Observatory presented preliminary findings of work done with the European Southern Observatory’s High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) in which he reported several dozen extrasolar planet candidates. One extremely interesting point in this report is that these planets were all much smaller than Jupiter. The way […]
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Gliese 581d
Published on 16 Jun 2007 at 11:39 pm.
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Back in April, I posted about the star Gliese 581, and in particular about one of its planets, Gliese 581c. In that post, I reported on Udry et al’s announcement of a potentially habitable planet, Gliese 581c. In my previous post, I presented my doubts as to the habitability of this planet. […]
“Habitable” planet? Maybe not!
Published on 25 Apr 2007 at 6:01 pm.
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The news media have been all over the discovery of a “habitable” planet around a nearby star. I have heard all sorts of adjectives tossed around about the planet, and most make it sound like a twin of Earth. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that this newly discovered planet was […]
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Possible water on HD 209458b
Published on 18 Apr 2007 at 1:16 pm.
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Yesterday’s Astronomy Picture of the Day was an artists impression of the planet HD 209458b. The short blurb accompanying the picture said that water may have been found it the planet’s atmosphere. Then it went on to make a statement about what this means in the search for life in the universe. […]
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Multiple Suns?
Published on 31 Mar 2007 at 9:25 pm.
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It has long been a favorite in science fiction stories for the stories to be set in binary star systems. After all, that makes it all the more alien, right? You look up in the sky, and there are two suns, instead of just one. Even one of the early seens in the first Star […]
Radiobiological Damage in Circumstellar Disks
Published on 9 Oct 2006 at 2:11 pm.
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Now, that’s a scary looking title!Â
A while back, I posted about the effects of cosmic radiation on airline crew members. You can read that post, but the gist of it is that the higher you go, the less that the atmosphere protects you from radiation. The universe is filled with radiation of all types. Some of […]
