Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
How many planets exist in our galaxy? We have no precise answer, but we now have a far better idea and can now say “Billions” or even “Billions and Billions”. On what basis can we conclude this? Well here is some info you can dip into, JPL reports yesterday Billions and Billions of Planets … There they … Read more
Seth over at The Thinking Atheist has created a new visual translations of Cal Sagan’s famous words. The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of our home planet Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles). Earth is seen as a tiny … Read more
An international team of astronomers has used a new technique to study the bright disc of matter surrounding a faraway black hole. Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, combined with the gravitational lensing effect of stars in a distant galaxy, the team measured the disc’s size and studied the colors (and hence the temperatures) of … Read more
Now this is cool … University of Manchester astronomers think they’ve found a once-massive star that’s been transformed into a small planet made of diamond.
The researchers first detected a pulsar using the Parkes radio telescope of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
I’ve had the deep privilege of spending last night at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ (Now, least you consider night to be an odd time to be out and about and wonder if they might be open at night … well think telescopes, stars etc … they tend not to do days, that big yellow thing in the sky tends to get in the way a bit).
The actual location is of course ideal, Flagstaff itself is over 7000 ft above sea level, and so perched about the city on Mars hill is the Observatory. The site is a US National Historic Landmark, for this is the home of historical scientific discoveries. They have a 24-inch (0.61 m) Alvan Clark Telescope (pictured ) which is still in use today for public education. Now don’t misunderstand me, they still do real science, they currently operate four research telescopes at its Anderson Mesa dark sky site, located 20 km (12 miles) southeast of Flagstaff, including the 72-inch (1.8-meter) Perkins Telescope (in partnership with Boston University) and the 42-inch (1.1 m) John S. Hall Telescope. (But for visiting, you want the Flagstaff site).
Planets, found by an international group of researchers, do not orbit any star!!! … fascinating.
Astronomers have found a clutch of planets that wander alone through interstellar space. The discovery of the objects, which do not orbit any star, will help scientists better understand how planetary systems form and evolve.
The 10 free-floating planets are thousands of light years in the direction of the central bulge of the Milky Way, towards the constellation of Sagittarius. Their masses and compositions are thought to be equivalent to Jupiter and Saturn – mainly hydrogen and helium with trace amounts of heavier elements.