Space news and Exploration II

[ScienceRocks]

WASP-47: A Hot Jupiter System with Two Additional Planets Discovered by K2
Juliette C. Becker, Andrew Vanderburg, Fred C. Adams, Saul A. Rappaport, Hans Martin Schwengeler
(Submitted on 10 Aug 2015)

Using new data from the K2 mission, we show that WASP-47, a previously known hot Jupiter host, also hosts two additional transiting planets: a Neptune-sized outer planet and a super-Earth inner companion. We measure planetary properties from the K2 light curve and detect transit timing variations, confirming the planetary nature of the outer planet. We performed a large number of numerical simulations to study the dynamical stability of the system and to find the theoretically expected transit timing variations (TTVs). The theoretically predicted TTVs are in good agreement with those observed, and we use the TTVs to determine the masses of two planets, and place a limit on the third. The WASP-47 planetary system is important because companion planets can both be inferred by TTVs and are also detected directly through transit observations. The depth of the hot Jupiter's transits make ground-based TTV measurements possible, and the brightness of the host star makes it amenable for precise radial velocity measurements. The system serves as a Rosetta Stone for understanding TTVs as a planet detection technique.

1508.02411 WASP-47 A Hot Jupiter System with Two Additional Planets Discovered by K2

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.02411v1.pdf

 

[ScienceRocks]

'Young Jupiter' 51 Eridani b: Why Directly Imaging an Exoplanet Is Big (Kavli Q+A)
Young Jupiter 51 Eridani b Why Directly Imaging an Exoplanet Is Big

Adam Hadhazy, The Kavli Foundation | August 13, 2015 02:00pm ET

Adam Hadhazy, writer and editor for The Kavli Foundation, contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Astronomers have spied a new alien world, 51 Eridani b, that they believe strikingly resembles a young Jupiter. With a mass only about twice that of our Solar System's king planet, 51 Eridani b stands as perhaps the coldest and smallest exoplanet ever to be directly imaged. What's more, it bears the strongest exoplanetary signatures so far of the gas methane, which is prominent in Jupiter's atmosphere.

51 Eridani b is the first world discovered using the Gemini Planet Imager, an international project led by Bruce Macintosh of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) at Stanford University. The results appear today in the journal Science and in the Stanford news story "Astronomers discover 'young Jupiter' exoplanet."

Mounted on the 8-meter Gemini South Telescope in Chile, the Imager began searching for giant planets circling 600 young stars in November 2014. In December, 51 Eridani b turned up around a star approximately 100 light years away. The newfound world orbits its parent star at a distance a bit farther than that of Saturn around our sun. Overall, the planet and its star are just 20 million years young — spring chickens compared to our 4.6-billion-year-old Solar System.

Because of its youth, 51 Eridani b smolders at 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius), but it is still more than three million times less luminous than its stellar host. The Imager was specifically designed to spot fledging exoplanets by separating their faint light from the overwhelming glare of their host stars, thus offering a revealing look back into the early, murky eras of planetary formation.

Methane, water enshroud nearby Jupiter-like exoplanet

The Gemini Planet Imager has discovered and photographed its first planet, a methane-enshrouded gas giant much like Jupiter that may hold the key to understanding how large planets form in the swirling accretion disks around stars.

The GPI instrument, which is mounted on the 8-meter Gemini South telescope in Chile, is the size of a small car and was designed, built and optimized for imaging and analyzing the atmospheres of faint Jupiter-like planets next to bright stars, thanks to a device that masks the star's glare.

In December 2104, GPI began searching hundreds of nearby young stars, and after a mere month, University of California, Berkeley, postdoctoral fellow Robert De Rosa began looking at the initial data. He soon noticed something large orbiting a young star in a triple-star system only 100 light years from Earth. He and graduate student Jason Wang summoned the GPI team, which confirmed the planet.

Read more at: Methane water enshroud nearby Jupiter-like exoplanet

 

[ScienceRocks]

Powerful comet activity pushes back solar wind
By Anthony Wood - August 13, 2015 4 Pictures

Rosetta has detected a powerful jet of activity emitted from the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P). The force of the outburst, which is believed to be travelling at 10 m per sec (32 ft per sec), was strong enough to temporarily repel the solar wind – a constant stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun, that work to convey our star's magnetic field across the solar system.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Scientists Discover High Levels of Crystalline Silicate Material on Mars. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1844…

 

[ScienceRocks]

SLS Engine Roars through Flight Test in Mississippi http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2015/20150813-sls-engine-roars-through-test.html…

 

[ScienceRocks]

Space Technology Ireland is to design and build Ireland's very first spacecraft. http://www.joe.ie/news/ireland-is-joining-the-space-race-with-our-first-ever-spacecraft/508119?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=onsite_share…

 

[ScienceRocks]

India's Mars Orbiter Captures Striking View of Red Planet's Canyons

India's Mars Orbiter, which arrived at the Red Planet late last year, has just sent back a beautiful shot of the Ophir Chasma, a system of deep valleys and scalloped terrain in the Valles Marineris region. Areas with major geological features like this tend to show off the various layers of materials making up the surface. The picture above was taken July 19 from 1,857 kilometers (1,154 miles), but the scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation also reconstructed what it might look like from nearby.

The "Mangalyaan" orbiter has been a major success story. It was constructed on a budget a fraction the size of most space missions — in fact, it cost less than the blockbuster space film "Gravity." It's not carrying state-of-the-art equipment like NASA's Maven orbiter, which entered orbit at nearly the same time. India's mission is more of a proof of concept, showing that the country is more than capable of undertaking serious space exploration.

This success not only means great views like this one, but validation of ISRO's technology and methods. Mangalyaan's original six-month mission is long over, but the orbiter will continue sending data as long as it remains functional.

India s Mars Orbiter Captures Striking View of Red Planet s Canyons - NBC News

 

[Vikrant]

^

Those pictures are nice. Aren't they?

But it is about much more than just pretty pictures. It is about developing cutting edge technology to lift up the nation and humanity.

 

[ScienceRocks]

^

Those pictures are nice. Aren't they?

But it is about much more than just pretty pictures. It is about developing cutting edge technology to lift up the nation and humanity.

You're right about that! This is one hell of a achievement of human kind and it directly leads to lifting humanity out of poverty. Education and high paying jobs is the best way to do that!

 

[ScienceRocks]

Cassini to Make Last Close Flyby of Saturn Moon Dione - Astrobiology Magazine http://buff.ly/1PgAcHv




In prep for #JourneyToMars, engineers weld the @NASA_Orion crew module for EM-1 mission: http://go.nasa.gov/1J2yPrn






Astronomers discover the biggest thing in the Universe
By David Szondy - August 16, 2015 1 Picture

There's some pretty big stuff out there in the Universe, but how big is the biggest? According to a team of Hungarian-US scientists led by Lajos Balazs, the largest regular formation in the Universe is a ring of nine galaxies 7 billion light years away and 5 billion light years wide. Though not visible from Earth, the newly discovered feature covers a third of our sky.

 

[Vikrant]

Wow! That is huge.

 

[ScienceRocks]

'Mini-Atmosphere’ Detected Around Bright Spots On Ceres

The odd bright spots perched upon the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres have revealed an unexpected quality, as NASA recently observed the largest of them generating a localized “mini-atmosphere” within their respective crater.

The observation was made by the Dawn spacecraft, according to Space.com, as it focused on the odd formations at the base of Ceres’ Occator crater. When viewed from the proper angle, the bright spots appear to be undergoing a process of sublimation, generating a haze within the 57-mile-wide (92 kilometers) crater that represents a de facto atmosphere as Dawn’s principal investigator, Christopher Russell, pointed out in a presentation on Tuesday.
“If you look at a glancing angle, you can see what seems to be haze, and it comes back in a regular pattern,” he observed.

 

[ScienceRocks]

LADEE spacecraft finds neon in lunar atmosphere
August 17, 2015 by William Steigerwald

Artist’s concept of NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft in orbit above the moon. Credit: NASA Ames / Dana Berry

The moon's thin atmosphere contains neon, a gas commonly used in electric signs on Earth because of its intense glow. While scientists have speculated on the presence of neon in the lunar atmosphere for decades, NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft has confirmed its existence for the first time.

Read more at: LADEE spacecraft finds neon in lunar atmosphere

 

[ScienceRocks]

Earth-Like Alien World Could Have Vast Oceans

A small, rocky planet could host liquid water on its surface, if it also contains a carbon-dioxide atmosphere, researchers say.
The planet, which scientists have dubbed Kepler-62f, has a diameter 40 percent larger than that of Earth, and could contain oceans of water if its atmosphere keeps the planet warm

 

[ScienceRocks]

A Farewell Look at Dione: http://www.universetoday.com/121938/cassinis-farewell-look-at-dione/… @CassiniSaturn 's fifth and final flyby of the Saturnian moon.

Cassini just encountered Saturn's moon Dione for the last time. Raw images here http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/index.cfm…





Images from Cassini's last flyby of Dione are coming in! Check them out here: http://1.usa.gov/1cYcqgy

 

[ScienceRocks]

Scientists think 'planetary pebbles' were the building blocks for the largest planets

Researchers at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and Queen's University in Canada have unraveled the mystery of how Jupiter and Saturn likely formed. This discovery, which changes our view of how all planets might have ...

Mystery of exploding stars yields to astrophysicists

A longstanding mystery about the tiny stars that let loose powerful explosions known as Type Ia supernovae might finally be solved.

High-energy observatory launches this week

If everything goes according to plan, on Wednesday, Aug. 19, at 6:45 a.m. St. Louis time, NASA TV will broadcast the launch of a cargo container at the Tanegashima Space Center off the southern coast of Japan. In addition ...

 

[ScienceRocks]

PIA19809: Curiosity Finds Hydrogen-Rich Area of Mars Subsurface

Catalog Page for PIA19809

Curiosity's Russian-made instrument for checking hydration levels in the ground beneath the rover detected an unusually high amount at a site near "Marias Pass," prompting repeated passes over the area to map the hydrogen amounts.

The instrument is named Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons, or DAN. It detects hydrogen by the effect of hydrogen atoms on neutrons entering the ground either from cosmic rays and Curiosity's power source (DAN's passive mode) or from the instrument's neutron pulse generator (DAN's active mode). DAN recognizes which neutrons have bounced off hydrogen from their rerduced energy level.

This map, covering an area about 130 feet (40 meters) across, shows results from DAN's multiple traverses over the area, with color coding for levels of hydrogen detected. The red coding indicates amounts of hydrogen three to four times as high as the amounts detected anywhere previously along Curiosity's traverse of about 6.9 miles (11.1 kilometers) since landing in August 2012. The inset map at lower right shows the full traverse through Sol 1051 (July 21, 2015), with names assigned to rectangles within Gale Crater for geological mapping purposes. The vertical bar at left indicates the color coding according to counts per second in DAN's passive mode.

The hydrogen detected by DAN is interpreted as water molecules or hydroxyl ions bound within minerals or water absorbed onto minerals in the rocks and soil, to a depth of about 3 feet (1 meter) beneath the rover. The amount of hydrogen is often expressed as "water equivalent hydrogen" based on two hydrogen atoms per molecule of water.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Rare alignment of Jupiter's three largest moons causes a triple eclipse.




Curiosity Rover Snaps Awesome Selfies on Mars During Mountain Trek http://dlvr.it/BvNszl

 

[Vikrant]

^ Exotic looking view!

 

[ScienceRocks]

Germany ramping up mach 20 hypersonic commercial plane and spaceplane project

SpaceLiner is an advanced concept for a suborbital, hypersonic, winged passenger transport, which is currently under investigation at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, or DLR) since 2005. The DLR projected that, if funded and development is continued, it could field an operational spaceplane in the 2035-2040s. It...

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