Hidden Planets in Our Galaxy: 18 Terrestrial Planets Discovered

Hidden Planets in Our Galaxy: 18 Terrestrial Planets Discovered

 
This diagram shows the newly discovered exoplanets compared to the Earth and Neptune. (Photo Credit: NASA/JPL (Neptune) NASA/SOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/ Norman Kuring (Earth), MPS/Rene Heller)

Using the Kepler Telescope, Scientists have collected data on 18 exoplanets. Most of the planets discovered orbit close to their parent star and have varying surface temperatures that exceed more than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1000 Degrees Celsius). One planet in particular orbits a red dwarf star in the area scientists dubbed "the habitable zone". The habitable zone is the area in which a planet could host liquid water on its surface, as it orbits its parent star but this does not mean that life could flourish on this planet. This world would be particularly difficult for life to develop on due to the fact that red dwarfs emit strong x-rays that make it hard for even the hardiest of microbes to develop.

K2 is the computer  program developed by scientists where Kepler space telescope uses solar winds to stabilize the telescope's pointing in a direction, examining a field of view for months. Using this method, Kepler has examined more than 100,000 stars, including 517 stars with planets orbiting them. Among the planets discovered using this method was the famous TRAPPIST-1 system (CLICK HERE: to read more about TRAPPIST-1). Researchers decided to look at the data gathered with this method using a new data processing algorithm.

Rene Heller, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research stated "In reality, however, a stellar disk appears slightly darker at the edge than in the center. When a planet moves in front of a star, it therefore initially blocks less starlight than at the mid-time if the transit. The maximum dimming of the star occurs in the center of the transit just before the star becomes gradually brighter again."



Kepler data identifies the exoplanets by spotting small dips in brightness caused when a planet passes between a star and the telescope. Scientists are developing new algorithms to try and uncover more planets within the data.
(Image: NASA/SDO (Sun), MPS/Rene Heller)

The reason why this new algorithm was created was to try and create a more realistic dimming pattern as a planet transits across the face of a star. Using this new algorithm it became easier to detect smaller planets. The new planets discovered range from just slightly smaller than the Earth to nearly double the size of the Earth. The new algorithm even makes it easier for scientists to discover planets when fluctuations of light from a star is altered by sunspots.

If we continue to use this algorithm and discover newer ways to interpret the Kepler data, more planets could be out there, waiting to be discovered. Who knows, some may even harbor life.

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Betelgeuse Will Supernova!

Betelgeuse Will Supernova!

By: Aubrey Pennington

A direct sky image of Betelgeuse. The star is shedding mass as it approaches exploding into a supernova.

(Image: © ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide de Martin)

Betelgeuse is a bright star located in Orion. It is one of the largest known stars we have observed with a diameter of 700 times the size of the Sun. That is a whopping 600 million miles in diameter. It is classified as a red super giant and it is about 640 light years from Earth. Betelgeuse has a surface temperature of 6000 degrees Fahrenheit (3,316 degrees Celsius) which is less when compared to the Sun’s surface temperature of 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,538 degrees Celsius). This low temperature is what gives the star its red glow. Betelgeuse is only a baby star compared to our Sun (4.6 billion years old), at only 10 million years old.

So, what exactly is happening to Betelgeuse, well it is about to go Supernova. Betelgeuse is shedding so much mass (seen in the picture above). This phenomenon is known as Stellar Mass Loss. It is observed in some massive stars where their mass is ejected into space. We do not know much information as to why stars go through this phase but my speculation, after reading different sources, is that once the stars run out of hydrogen to fuse and begin to fuse heavier elements such as helium. This causes the star to become hotter and it begins to swell. This causes the surface of the star to become weak and it begins to leak mass through the surface and eject it into space. But what we do know for sure, is that Betelgeuse is its final stages of life. Looking at the track of a Sun with at least 25 times the mass we can see that Betelgeuse is a Super red giant and we are expecting it to go supernova. Betelgeuse began to shed its outer layers and we began measuring what we could in 1993 for about 15 years. We noticed that Betelgeuse shed about 15 percent of its mass in that short amount of time.

Dr Haley Gomez explains how Herschel will help us understand the life-cycle of stars

http://herschel.cf.ac.uk/science/agbstars

I have written a blog post on Supernovae here: Supernova. I will briefly reiterate a little below:

The before a supernova can happen, the star must stop fusing hydrogen at the core. It will expand and become a red giant and the core will become hot enough to begin fusing helium into carbon. This process in massive stars is like stars like our Sun. But this is where the similarities end. The star will continue to fuse carbon into heavier elements such as oxygen, neon, silicon, magnesium, sulfur, and finally iron. Once a star begins to fuse atoms into iron, the star is at its end and it can no longer burin fuel. The star then collapses under its own gravity and the iron core begins to heat up. In a fraction of a second, the Earth sized iron core shrinks to about 6 miles across (10 kilometers). The outer layers of the star will fall inwards onto the core which will heat it to billions of degrees and then…. BOOM. The star explodes releasing large amounts of energy and tons of materials into space forming interstellar clouds. What remains of the star can form a neutron star or a black hole depending on how massive the star was.

With all that said, we know what will happen to Betelgeuse, but I am sure you want to know exactly how long that will be from now? The number is difficult to gauge but the consensus from multiple sources say in about 100,000 years Betelgeuse will go supernova.

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Simple Guide to our Solar System: The Sun

THE SUN

The Basics

The Sun is at the center of our solar system. It is a hot ball of glowing gas and its influence extends to the outer edges of our solar system. The Earth, weather, climate, and life as we know it would not be the same without the Sun! Our sun is middle-aged, it is about 4.6 billion years old and it is the largest object in our solar system.

Characteristics

The Sun is a G-type main sequence star also known as a yellow dwarf. The surface temperature is about 5200 - 6000 K (8900 - 10340 F) and its luminosity is stellar classification V of spectral type G.

To simplify this classification, a G type star is going through a process of converting the element hydrogen to helium. Believe it or not, the Sun is actually white! It appears yellow through the Earth's atmosphere, but if you were to go into outer space, past the Earth's atmosphere you would see a white Sun. As a matter of fact, G type stars range from white to a very light yellow color. Really, the most important thing about the Sun's G type is that it converts hydrogen to helium, it is 5200- 6000 K, and it's color ranges from white to a very light yellow.

Our Sun is also known as a Main Sequence star this is explained well in the You Are Made of Star Dust! post. The Sun is nearly 1.4 million miles in diameter, and the mass is an incredible 333,060 kilograms TIMES the Earth. The Sun is huge compared to all other objects in our solar system as depicted by the image below! 

Compared to the Earth, the Sun is so large, 1 million times more large, that it would take about 1.3 million Earths to fill the Sun.

 There are 6 layers that make up the Sun. We will start from the inside and move outward. The Inner core is where nuclear fusion occurs and creates energy. The Radiative zone is where that energy is transmitted through radiation. The convective zone is the area of convection currents where heat is. Those three layers compose the internal structures of the Sun.  The Photosphere is the visible surface of the Sun, it is what we are most familiar with when we see photographs of the Sun. The chromosphere appears red and is visible at the time of a solar eclipse it also releases UV radiation. Lastly, the corona is a plasma that surrounds the Sun and is visible during a total solar eclipse, observable with a coronagraph. The corona extends millions of kilometers into space. 

When will the Sun die?

Sadly, all things come to an end. Fortunately for us, our star does not have enough mass to go supernova. Our Sun is a main sequence star which means it is fusing hydrogen into helium. After about 5 billion years, there will be no more hydrogen to fuse and the Sun will expand into a Red Giant. The Sun will engulf Mercury, Venus, and quite possibly the Earth. Even before the Sun becomes a Red Giant, the luminosity, or how bright the Sun shines, will have nearly doubled, and the Earth will be even hotter than Venus. 

There are many more sources out there about the Sun! If you want to know more information about the Sun, please use your resources appropriately! This is just a simple quick guide to understanding the Sun. 

The next stop on your journey through the solar system is Mercury; Click Here!!

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