Category Archives: Exoplanets

In Other News: We Can Analyze Atmospheres of Super-Earths

Posted on February 16, 2016 by andyastronomer

(Feature Image courtesy of ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser) In the past week, the big news in astronomy was the first detection of gravitational waves, a phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity. No doubt within a few years students will be reading in textbooks about how the LIGO experiment measured the gravitational […] Continue reading →

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Blog #4

Posted on February 16, 2016 by astronomer0110

A topic I’ve always found interesting is the idea of the likelihood of extraterrestrial life in the universe. Many scientists in recent history have noted that there is an extremely high probability of life elsewhere in the universe due to the immense amount of stars and planets that must exist with favorable circumstances for the […] Continue reading →

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The Serial Killer Known as Light

Posted on February 15, 2016 by astr2110geoffren

Pretty Much a Giant Lightsaber Gamma Radiation Bursts (GRB) make up the brightest flashes of light from outer space and it isn’t even a contest. If we had the ability to see them we would probably all instantaneously go blind. These flashes of light can last anywhere from a few milliseconds to a few minutes […] Continue reading →

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Your Zodiac Sign is Wrong: 3 Misconceptions You Have About the Night-Sky

Posted on January 26, 2016 by harperastronomyblog

We all get it. You’re a Capricorn or a Taurus or a Sagittarius or a(n) [any other zodiac constellation]. You’ve read all of your horoscopes, and they fit your personality soooo well. “This is so me,” you might yell to your friends, completely disregarding the fact that they don’t care which vague internet prediction you identify with. […] Continue reading →

Posted in Aliens, Class, Dwarf Planets, Exoplanets, Galaxies, General, Historical, Instruments, Jovians, Light, Moons, Observables, Outreach, Physics, Planet Rings, Public Policy, Science, Small SS Objects, SolarSystem, Space Travel, Stars, Sun, Terrestrials, Universe | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Your Zodiac Sign is Wrong: 3 Misconceptions You Have About the Night-Sky

New Horizon’s Approaches Pluto: So What?

Posted on April 28, 2015 by agiantchicken

NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft is only three months approaching Pluto, and for the first time, we have a true color picture of the Pluto/Charon dwarf planet system. As I sit here typing this, I say, “so what?” Well, it turns out that this is the first time that any spacecraft has traveled so long and […] Continue reading →

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NASA’s NExSS Project to Lead the Way for the Search for Alien Life

Posted on April 28, 2015 by agiantchicken

NASA is currently assembling a group that it plans to call the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS), which will be a group of specialists from various scientific fields in hopes to study the nature of exoplanets and figure out if some might be suitable for life. Currently the project has garnered support among planetary and […] Continue reading →

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Earth’s Cousin

Posted on April 23, 2015 by jamej00

Source: slate.com This picture is an artist’s depiction of what the rocky planet Kepler-186f might look like.  On April 17, 2014 astronomer’s announced that they had found this planet using the transit method, making it the first confirmed earth-size exoplanet in the habitable zone!  There is no data yet on whether or not Kepler-186f has… Continue reading →

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Some pretty extreme(“ophiles”)

Posted on April 23, 2015 by karenagrebenc

Image from wikipedia.com That above picture is of a water bear, one of multiple really cool extremophiles discussed in this article.  The article makes a really cool comment about how we are lucky that water bears, and the same probably holds true for other extremophiles as well, are so small.  Otherwise, it is likely that […] Continue reading →

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‘Definite Evidence’ Of Alien Life Within 20-30 Years

Posted on April 22, 2015 by jclyncmp

In a panel discussion earlier this month, NASA Chief Scientist, Ellen Stofan, said that there is definite evidence that we will find alien life within the next 20-30 years. She defines life not as ‘little green men’ but microbes, which…

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The Exoplanet Gold Rush

Posted on April 7, 2015 by pMurs

The discovery and study of exoplanets, or planets in other solar systems, is one of the newest sub-fields of astronomy. The reason for this is that, prior to the mid 1990’s, we didn’t really have the technology to find these planets. Through various means, the discovery of exoplanets has taken off at an exponential rate […] Continue reading →

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