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Extra-solar Planet Current Events | Extra-solar Planet News | 5

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Solar System's Young Twin Has Two Asteroid Belts
Astronomers have discovered that the nearby star Epsilon Eridani has two rocky asteroid belts and an outer icy ring, making it a triple-ring system. The inner asteroid belt is a virtual twin of the belt in our solar system, while the outer asteroid belt holds 20 times more material. Moreover, the presence of these three rings of material implies... view more... (2008-10-28)

Astronomers use ultra-sensitive camera to measure size of planet orbiting star
A team of astronomers led by John Johnson of the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy has used a new technique to measure the precise size of a planet around a distant star. They used a camera so sensitive that it could detect the passage of a moth in front of a lit window from a distance of 1,000 miles.   view more (2008-12-11)

Sunquakes Reveal The Solar Furnace
Most people are familiar with the fact that sensitive instruments known as seismographs can detect earthquakes taking place many hundreds or thousands of miles away. By studying the waves from these tremors, scientists can find out about the conditions deep inside our rocky planet. In the same way, astronomers are now able to measure millions... view more... (2003-03-31)

Biggest breach of Earth's solar storm shield discovered
Earth's magnetic field, which shields our planet from particles streaming outward from the Sun, often develops two holes that allow the largest leaks, according to researchers sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation.   view more (2008-12-17)

Are comets at the origin of life on earth ?
For over 60 years now, the University of Liege Astrophysics and Geophysics Institute (IAGL) has been concerned with the study of comets. Again today, four of its researchers have just made a major discovery for the understanding of these celestial objects : a lot of extra heavy nitrogen detected in two comets suggests the presence of great... view more... (2003-09-11)

Reading the planetary tea leaves
An international team of astronomers is one step closer to answering the question, "Will the world end with a bang or a whimper?"   view more (2007-09-24)

Mars and Venus are surprisingly similar
Using two ESA spacecraft, planetary scientists are watching the atmospheres of Mars and Venus being stripped away into space. The simultaneous observations by Mars Express and Venus Express give scientists the data they need to investigate the evolution of the two planets' atmospheres.   view more (2008-03-06)

Venus Express has reached final orbit
Less than one month after insertion into orbit, and after sixteen loops around the planet Venus, ESA's Venus Express spacecraft has reached its final operational orbit.   view more (2006-05-10)

NASA Supercomputer Shows How Dust Rings Point to Exo-Earths
Supercomputer simulations of dusty disks around sunlike stars show that planets nearly as small as Mars can create patterns that future telescopes may be able to detect. The research points to a new avenue in the search for habitable planets.   view more (2008-10-13)

Jupiter: A cloudy mirror for the Sun?
Astronomers using the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton telescope have discovered that observing the giant planet Jupiter may actually give them an insight in to solar activity on the far side of the Sun! In research reported in the most recent edition of Geophysical Research Letters, they discovered that Jupiter's x-ray glow is due to x-rays... view more... (2005-03-07)

The future of solar-powered houses is clear
People could live in glass houses and look at the world through rose-tinted windows while reducing their carbon emissions by 50% thanks to QUT Institute of Sustainable Resources (ISR) research.   view more (2008-04-10)

Lightest exoplanet yet discovered
Well-known exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor today announced the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, "e", in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of our Earth.   view more (2009-04-22)

Hazy red sunset on extrasolar planet
A team of astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to detect, for the first time, strong evidence of hazes in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant star. The discovery comes after extensive observations made recently with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).   view more (2007-12-11)

University of Hawaii at Manoa astronomers discover pair of solar systems in the making
Two University of Hawai'i at Mānoa astronomers have found a binary star-disk system in which each star is surrounded by the kind of dust disk that is frequently the precursor of a planetary system.   view more (2009-07-01)

Hubble finds first organic molecule on extrasolar planet
The tell-tale signature of the molecule methane in the atmosphere of the Jupiter-sized extrasolar planet HD 189733b has been found with the Hubble Space Telescope. Under the right circumstances methane can play a key role in prebiotic chemistry - the chemical reactions considered necessary to form life as we know it.   view more (2008-03-20)

Half-baked asteroids have Earth-like crust
Asteroids are hunks of rock that orbit in the outer reaches of space, and scientists have generally assumed that their small size limited the types of rock that could form in their crusts.   view more (2009-01-08)

Preparing for the Venus Express
The European Space Agency is planning its first mission to unveil the mysteries of Earth`s cloud-shrouded sister planet, Venus. On Wednesday 10 April, Professor Fred Taylor (University of Oxford) will be explaining to the UK National Astronomy Meeting why European scientists are hoping to be on board the Venus Express in 2005. Venus, the Earth`s... view more... (2002-04-03)

Icy Jupiter Moon Throws a Curve Ball at Formation Theories
Scientists studying data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft have found that Jupiter's moon Amalthea is a pile of icy rubble less dense than water. Scientists expected moons closer to the planet to be rocky and not icy. The finding shakes up long-held theories of how moons form around giant planets.   view more (2005-06-01)

Hubble finds carbon dioxide on an extrasolar planet
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has discovered carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star.   view more (2008-12-10)

ISO finding questions accepted theory that liquid water was present in young solar system
Planet-like bodies with liquid water formed very early in the history of the Solar System, or so scientists used to think. That scenario may now be due for revision after a finding with ESA`s Infrared Space Observatory, ISO. The theory was based on the presence of certain minerals called carbonates in primitive Solar System objects. Carbonates are... view more... (2002-01-17)
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