Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and Vera Rubin all helped change the way we view the universe. So why don’t we hear more about them?
Category: space – Page 968
Despite being the very first candidate planet discovered by our Kepler Mission, Kepler-1658b had a rocky road to confirmation
Despite being the very first candidate planet discovered by our Kepler Mission, Kepler-1658b had a rocky road to confirmation. Ten years later, scientists have now confirmed that it is, in fact, a planet. It whips around its star every 3.85 days. Details: https://go.nasa.gov/2TDlaIl
Tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets in our galaxy, say astronomers
Circa 2013
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Artist’s representation of the “habitable zone,” the range of orbits where liquid water is permitted on the surface of a planet. The authors find that 22% of Sun-like stars harbor a planet between one and two times the size of Earth in the habitable zone. (Credit: UC Berkeley)
One in five stars in our galaxy like the Sun have planets about the size of Earth and a surface temperature conducive to life, astronomers at UC Berkeley and University of Hawaii, Manoa now estimate.
The estimate was based on a statistical analysis of all the Kepler observations of NASA’s Kepler space telescope of the 200 billion stars in our galaxy.
Exploring China’s latest space ambitions
China says it is working to develop a solar energy plant in space that could one day beam enough power back to Earth to light up an entire city.
If scientists can overcome the formidable technical challenges, the project would represent a monumental leap in combating the Earth’s addiction to dirty power sources which worsen air pollution and global warming.
A space-based solar power station could also provide an alternative to the current generation of earthbound and relatively ineffective renewable energy sources.
Imagine this: Your artwork 🎨 is one of the LAST things astronauts see before heading to space!
Find out how you can submit original artwork for our Astronaut Crew Quarters, one of the places where crew members will spend time before heading out to the launch pad: https://go.nasa.gov/2TxmBYq
Beautiful First Image Captured by a new telescope in the Chilean desert
The Atacama Desert in Chile has been a hotbed of astronomical activity of late. Not only is it the site of Martian environmental simulations to test rover capabilities, it is also home to an project called SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars).
SPECULOOS is part of the ESO, the European Southern Observatory, and involves the use of four robotic telescopes for planet hunting. In particular, the telescopes look near to ultracool stars and brown dwarfs to search for Earth-sized exoplanets which can then be investigated in more detail by another telescope such as ESO’s forthcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT).
The four telescopes of SPECULOOS are named after Jupiter’s moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, and each has a one meter primary mirror with cameras that are sensitive to near-infrared wavelengths. This accords with the type of light given off by the ultracool stars and brown dwarfs which are the telescopes’ targets.