Category Archives: astronomy

astronomy, exoplanets

Spotting Planets Around Other Stars

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Clockwork Worlds: Recording Planets and their Orbits from a Distance

Wow, this is really cool. Watch this little video a few times…it’s a time-lapse sequence of planets orbiting a star about 129 light-years away from us in the direction of the constellation Pegasus. The time-lapse was made over a period of years starting in 2009. These planets — which are Jupiter-size and larger — lie quite far from their star; their orbits range from 40-year periods for the closest one to 400 years for the most distant one. You can read more about their discovery and the work astronomers have done to chart their orbits at NASA Astrobiology

Not so long ago, worlds like these were lost in the glare of their stars, and it fell to astronomers to devise ways to block out the starlight so they could even have a chance of spotting distant planets. Now, using such instruments as the Gemini Planet Imager, they can do that.

I find it remarkable that we can “see” these planets. Finding alien worlds is more than just a science-fiction adventure. It’s key to understanding many things about our own solar system and about the environment of our galaxy. Sure they look like dots of light, but they’re worlds. Maybe not just like our own, but they’re still distant worlds, and gives us yet more proof that our galaxy is a veritable treasure trove of exoplanets. It now appears that the galaxy is rich with them, as the Kepler mission showed us so dramatically when it surveyed just a tiny portion of the galaxy. I really think that more discoveries await. The next steps will be to study the planets we find in great detail to learn more about their atmospheres as well as their progression as they are born and evolve in their systems. All of this leads inexorably to looking for life.   That will be a huge challenge, but given how far we’ve come now in our planet searches, I’m sure that astronomers and astrobiologists will figure it out, perhaps within our lifetimes. Stay tuned!

astronomy

Exploration: From the Old Year to the New

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2016 Exploration

exploration
When we look out at the cosmos, we’re exploring not only new objects and events, but our very history.

It’s been a hell of a year, this 2016. We’ve gained new knowledge, lost heroes, confronted uncomfortable change, and are now pondering the new year ahead. It’s been a ride.

Yesterday I was in the Weekly Space Hangout with Fraser Cain and his friends, and we talked over the big space stories of the year. The show featured Nancy Atkinson, talking about her new book Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos, which looks like a good read!

During the hangout, we shared the stories we thought were important this past year. One participant talked about the matter/antimatter ‘problem’.  Another focused on SpaceX and its accomplishments and troubles in 2016. I focused on the planetary missions I’ve been following at Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the outer solar system. For each of us, the theme was exploration. Whether it was delving into the distant reaches of the cosmos to figure out early matter-antimatter annihilations or space mission accomplishments right here in the solar system, the idea was “exploration”.

Exploration in 2017

The new year continues our studies in the cosmos, ranging from the continued exploration of our own planet out to the limits of the observable universe.  Some missions will get started, others — such as the Cassini mission — will come to an end in 2017. Others, such as the New Horizons and various Mars missions, will keep on keepin’ on. Science will make giant leaps forward to improve not just our understanding of the universe, but also our knowledge about our planet, our lives, our bodies, and the life around us. That’s what science does. It explores. It explains. And, if we’re smart, we listen to it. And, we learn. That’s the way forward, not just in 2017, but in any age.

I wish everyone reading this a glorious new year and hope that you will come along with me and all the others who bring science to life as we continue to explore the cosmos, one story at a time.  Keep looking up!