harlan j smith – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Astronomers Find Sun’s ‘Long-Lost Brother,’ Pave Way for Family Reunion

AUSTIN, Texas — A team of researchers led by astronomer Ivan Ramirez of The University of Texas at Austin has identified the first “sibling” of the sun — a star almost certainly born from the same cloud of gas and dust as our star. Ramirez’s methods will help astronomers find other solar siblings, which could lead to an understanding of how and where our sun formed, and how our solar system became hospitable for life. The work appears in the June 1 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

“We want to know where we were born,” Ramirez said. “If we can figure out in what part of the galaxy the sun formed, we can constrain conditions on the early solar system. That could help us understand why we are here.” (more…)

NASA, Texas Astronomers Find First Multi-Planet System Around a Binary Star

By Guest PostSeptember 3, 2012Scienceaustin, bill cochran, binary star, caroline caldwell, faint star, giant magellan telescope, habitable zone, harlan j smith, het, hobby eberly telescope, jerome orosz, kepler 47, kepler mission, largest telescope, m dwarf star, mcdonald observatory, michael endl, multi planet, NASA, one system, planet, primary star, san diego, secondary star, solar system, space telescope, state university, stellar eclipse, sun, tatooine, telescope, texas, transit, university, west texas, william welsh, world

FORT DAVIS, Texas — NASA’s Kepler mission has found the first multi-planet solar system orbiting a binary star, characterized in large part by University of Texas at Austin astronomers using two telescopes at the university’s McDonald Observatory in West Texas. The finding, which proves that whole planetary systems can form in a disk around a binary star, is published in today’s issue of the journal Science.

“It’s Tatooine, right?” said McDonald Observatory astronomer Michael Endl. “But this was not shown in Star Wars,” he said, referring to the periodic changes in the amount of daylight falling on a planet with two suns. Measurements of the star’s orbits showed that daylight on the planets would vary by a large margin over the 7.4-Earth-day period as the two stars completed their mutual orbits, each moving closer to, then farther from, the planets (which are themselves moving). (more…)

Tag Archives: harlan j smith

Astronomers Find Sun’s ‘Long-Lost Brother,’ Pave Way for Family Reunion

NASA, Texas Astronomers Find First Multi-Planet System Around a Binary Star