Stellary Starry Universe

 

NASA’s new planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has detected the changing phases and atmosphere of a planet a thousand light years away.

August 6, 2009: NASA’s new exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope has detected the atmosphere of a known giant gas planet, demonstrating the telescope’s extraordinary scientific capabilities. The discovery will be published Friday in the journal Science.

Launched March 6, 2009, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, Kepler will spend the next three-and-a-half years searching for planets as small as Earth, including those that orbit stars in a warm “Goldilocks zone” where there could be water. It will do this by looking for periodic dips in the brightness of stars, which occur when orbiting planets transit, or cross in front of, the stars. [...]

Source: Nasa Science – click here for full article

 

 

Astronomers have observed a planet some 200 light-years from Earth that, for a few hours, becomes 700 ºC hotter every time its elliptical orbit brings it close to its sun.

In a study today in the British journal Nature, the scientists say they have generated the most realistic images ever captured of an exoplanet.

Hotter than molten lava

They used infrared data collected from NASA’s space-based Spitzer telescope to gain pictures of a strange world exposed briefly to a raging inferno. The computer generated images show a thin blue crescent on the dark side of the planet, opposite its star, while the scorched side glows a deep, crimson red.

Known as HD 80606b, the planet is a giant ball of gas that has four times the mass of Jupiter, the biggest planet of our system. [...]

Source: Cosmos Online – click here for full article

 

 

New research reveals shock-waves storms echoing across an exoplanet.

One extrasolar planet takes heat waves to the extreme: Within six hours, temperatures on the gas giant can soar by more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (555 degrees C).

The intense baking triggers shock-wave storms that whip around the planet quicker than the speed of sound, carrying with them skyrocketing heat and high-speed winds.

Known as HD 80606b, the gaseous planet was discovered in 2001 by a Swiss planet-hunting team led by Dominique Naef of the Geneva Observatory. It is about four times the mass of Jupiter and is located 200 light-years from Earth. [...]

Wild orbit

HD 80606b’s orbit around its host star — it’s year — is 111.4 Earth-days long. Its day — one rotation about its axis — is thought to last about 34 hours (though the scientists don’t measure this value directly). The interesting thing is that its orbit is very elongated, the most eccentric of any known planet.

Source: Space.com – click here for full article