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“Extremely Little” Telescope Discovers Pair of Odd Planets

By Guest PostJune 17, 2012Sciencebinary system, bluish metal, brown dwarf, constellation andromeda, constellation auriga, david salisbury, digital camera, earth, extrasolar planets, failed star, hd 42176, jupiter, kelt 1b, kelt 2ab, kelt north telescope, mercury, osmium, planet, platinum ore, robert siverd, scott gaudi, small telescope, solar system, southern arizona, thomas beatty, transit method, vanderbilt university

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Even small telescopes can make big discoveries.

Though the KELT North telescope in southern Arizona carries a lens no more powerful than a high-end digital camera, it’s just revealed the existence of two very unusual faraway planets.

One planet is a massive, puffed-up oddity that could change ideas of how solar systems evolve. The other orbits a very bright star, and will allow astronomers to make detailed measurements of the atmospheres of these bizarre worlds. (more…)

Fastest Wind From Stellar Mass Black Hole Discovered

By Guest PostFebruary 25, 2012Scienceashley king, astronomer, binary system, black hole, chandra, chandra spectrum, chandra xray observatory, cosmic equivalent, earth, gas, hurricane, igr j17091, igr j17091 3624, iron molecules, jon miller, light years, magnetic fields, material flow, milky way galaxy, molecule, NASA, orbiting telescope, spectrum, speed of light, stars collapse, stellar mass black hole, super wind, supermassive black holes, university of michigan, wind, xrays

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— The fastest wind ever discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole has been observed by a team of astronomers that includes a University of Michigan doctoral student.

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, an orbiting telescope, they clocked the record-breaking super wind at about 20 million mph, or about 3 percent of the speed of light. This is nearly 10 times faster than astronomers had previously observed from a stellar-mass black hole. (more…)

NASA’s Kepler Discovery Confirms First Planet Orbiting Two Stars

By Guest PostSeptember 16, 2011Sciencebinary system, double sunset, Galaxy, gravitational pull, gravitational tug on stars, habitable zone, john knoll, kepler 16b, kepler mission, kepler space telescope, laurance doyle, NASA, planet orbiting two stars, san francisco, saturn, star wars, tatooine, visual effects, william borucki

PASADENA, Calif. — The existence of a world with a double sunset, as portrayed in the film Star Wars more than 30 years ago, is now scientific fact. NASA’s Kepler mission has made the first unambiguous detection of a circumbinary planet — a planet orbiting two stars — 200 light-years from Earth.

Unlike Star Wars’ Tatooine, the planet is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor life, but its discovery demonstrates the diversity of planets in our galaxy. Previous research has hinted at the existence of circumbinary planets, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Kepler detected such a planet, known as Kepler-16b, by observing transits, where the brightness of a parent star dims from the planet crossing in front of it. (more…)

Tag Archives: binary system

“Extremely Little” Telescope Discovers Pair of Odd Planets

Fastest Wind From Stellar Mass Black Hole Discovered

NASA’s Kepler Discovery Confirms First Planet Orbiting Two Stars