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News articles tagged with 'planet'

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Artist's impression of a baby star still surrounded by a protoplanetary disc in which planets are forming. Using ESO's very successful HARPS spectrograph, a team of astronomers has found that Sun-like stars which host planets have destroyed their lithium much more efficiently than planet-free stars. This finding does not only shed light on the low levels of this chemical element in the Sun, solving a long-standing mystery, but also provides astronomers with a very efficient way to pick out the stars most likely to host planets. It is not clear what causes the lithium to be destroyed. The general idea is that the planets or the presence of the protoplanetary disc disturb the interior of the star, bringing the lithium deeper down into the star than usual, into regions where the temperature is so hot that it is destroyed, (c) ESO/L. CalcadaExoplanets clue to sun's curious chemistry

— 12 Nov 2009 09:47 | Astronomy

'For almost 10 years we have tried to find out what distinguishes stars with planetary systems from their barren cousins,' says Garik Israelian, lead author of a paper appearing this... — full story

On 19 October 2009, the team who built the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, better known as HARPS, the spectrograph for ESO's 3.6-metre telescope, reported on the incredible discovery of some 32 new exoplanets, cementing HARPS's position as the world's foremost exoplanet hunter. One of these is surrounding the star Gliese 667 C, which belongs to a triple system. The 6 Earth-mass exoplanet circulates around its low-mass host star at a distance equal to only 1/20th of the Earth-Sun distance. The host star is a companion to two other low-mass stars, which are seen here in the distance, (c) ESO32 new exoplanets found

— 20 Oct 2009 13:56 | Astronomy

'HARPS is a unique, extremely high precision instrument that is ideal for discovering alien worlds,' says Stephane Udry, who made the announcement. 'We have now completed our initial... — full story

This artist's conception shows a nearly invisible ring around Saturn - the largest of the giant planet's many rings. It was discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, (c) NASA, JPL-Caltech, KeckSpitzer discovers an enormous ring around Saturn

— 8 Oct 2009 06:16 | Astronomy

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered an enormous ring around Saturn - by far the largest of the giant planet's many rings. The new belt lies at the far reaches of the Saturnian... — full story

Dirty stars make good solar system hosts

— 7 Oct 2009 15:00 | Astronomy

Some stars are lonely behemoths, with no surrounding planets or asteroids, while others sport a skirt of attendant planetary bodies. New research published this week in The Astrophysical... — full story

Sea level stargazing: Astronomers make key sighting with Florida telescope

— 29 Sep 2009 17:56 | Astronomy

This summer, University of Florida astronomers inaugurated the world's largest optical telescope on a nearly 8,000-foot mountaintop 3,480 miles away... — full story

This artist's conception shows a lump of material in a swirling, planet-forming disk, (c) NASA, JPL-CaltechSpitzer spots clump of swirling planetary material

— 24 Sep 2009 09:01 | Astronomy

Astronomers have witnessed odd behaviour around a young star. Something, perhaps another star or a planet, appears to be pushing a clump of planet-forming material around. The observations,... — full story

Exotic life beyond Earth? Looking for life as we don't know it

— 19 Sep 2009 12:00 | Astronomy

Scientists at a new interdisciplinary research institute in Austria are working to uncover how life might evolve with 'exotic' biochemistry and solvents, such as sulphuric acid instead... — full story

It's a grind to make Mars red

— 19 Sep 2009 11:08 | Astronomy

The widespread idea that Mars is red due to rocks being rusted by the water that once flooded the red planet may be wrong. Recent laboratory studies show that the red dust may be formed... — full story

Reconstruct Mars automatically in minutes!

— 17 Sep 2009 13:54 | Astronomy

A computer system is under development that can automatically combine images of the Martian surface, captured by landers or rovers, in order to reproduce a three dimensional view of... — full story

The exoplanet CoRoT-7b is so close to its Sun-like host star that it must experience extreme conditions. This planet has a mass five times that of Earth's and is in fact the closest known exoplanet to its host star, which also makes it the fastest - it orbits its star at a speed of more than 750 000 kilometres per hour. The probable temperature on its 'day-face' is above 2000 degrees, but minus 200 degrees on its night face. Theoretical models suggest that the planet may have lava or boiling oceans on its surface. Our artist has provided an impression of how it may look like if it were covered by lava. The sister planet, CoRoT-7c, is seen in the distance, (c) ESOFirst solid evidence for a rocky exoplanet

— 16 Sep 2009 13:54 | Astronomy

The longest set of HARPS measurements ever made has firmly established the nature of the smallest and fastest-orbiting exoplanet known, CoRoT-7b, revealing its mass as five times that... — full story

News articles tagged with 'planet' — 204
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