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Exoplanet Confirms Gas Giants Can Form Quickly |
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Written by Nancy Atkinson (Universe Today)
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Thursday, 10 June 2010 |
 For the first time, astronomers have been able to directly follow the motion of an exoplanet as it moves to the other side of its host star. Credit: ESO/A.-M. Lagrange For the first time, astronomers have been able to directly follow the motion of an exoplanet as it moves from one side of its host star to the other. The planet has the smallest orbit so far of all directly imaged exoplanets, lying almost as close to its parent star as Saturn is to the Sun. The star, beta Pictoris is only 12 million years old, and so this exoplanet confirms that gas giant planets can form very rapidly—in only a few million years—within such circumstellar disks, and experts say that this discovery validates the theory that these unique, gaseous disk structures can be used as a sort of “fingerprint” to characterize their embedded planets. |
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Strange Discovery on Titan Leads to Speculation of Alien Life |
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Written by Site Admin
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Thursday, 10 June 2010 |
 | Strange Discovery on Titan Leads to Speculation of Alien Life
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SPACE.com Contributor
posted: 07 June 2010
09:44 am ET New findings have roused a great deal of hoopla over the possibility of life on Saturn's moon Titan, which some news reports have further hyped up as hints of extraterrestrials. However, scientists also caution that aliens might have nothing to do with these findings. All this excitement is rooted in analyses of chemical data returned by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. One study suggested that hydrogen was flowing down through Titan's atmosphere and disappearing at the surface. Astrobiologist Chris McKay at NASA Ames Research Center speculated this could be a tantalizing hint that hydrogen is getting consumed by life. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 10 June 2010 )
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The Milky Way unveiled as we have never seen it before |
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Written by Steve Daly
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Friday, 02 October 2009 |
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Herschel has recently achieved another major milestone in the currently ongoing performance verification phase. Building on the already demonstrated photometric capabilities of the PACS and SPIRE science instruments employed in the 'sneak preview' and 'first-light' observations, for the first time Herschel has now observed in the 'SPIRE/PACS parallel mode'. One outcome is spectacular views in five different far infrared colours of an area near the galactic plane about 60 degrees away from the direction towards the centre of the Galaxy in the constellation of the Southern Cross, considered a suitable region for demonstration and verification purposes, being representative in having a range in structure sizes and temperatures. The area imaged is about 2x2 degrees on the sky, and a total of just over six hours was used to perform the observation. The resulting data unveil a part of the Milky Way galaxy in spectacularly detailed images as we have never seen it before!   |
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