On the retirement of Kepler
NASA has announced the retirement of the Kepler spacecraft. After launch in March 2009, it began a continuous observation of a 115 square degree field of view (the diameter of the moon is 1/2 a degree) between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.
Exo-Moons and Goblins
The discovery of planets orbiting around other stars has been one of humankinds greatest achievements. The existance of these ‘exo-planets’ can challenge our perception of our place in the universe. Since the first confirmed detection of a planet around another normal star (51 Peg) in 1995, many thousands of planets have been discovered. Indeed, it is likely that most stars will have their own system of planets. It is important in answering the question – is there intelligent life out there?
10 things we used to believe about Space
Space is forever changing. Here is a list of 10 things we used to believe about Space.
K2 spots a rotating Helium Star
Recent observations of the helium star HD144941 have been obtained from space. Armagh astronomers Professor Simon Jeffery and Dr Gavin Ramsay have discovered that they show a light curve best explained by darker and lighter patches on the star’s surface coming into view as the star rotates with a period Read more…
E.T. Friend or Foe?
A team of scientists in Australia are scanning the Universe for signals from extraterrestrial life. Professor Matthew Bailes, based at Swinburne University in Melbourne, is the lead scientist in this project funded by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner. Milner has donated $100 million and has the support of Professor Stephen Hawking. Read more…
TRAPPIST-1 and the march of Science
The discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 exo-planetary system is a truly remarkable event in science. It is an exemplar of how an armada of telescopes – some located on the ground and some in space, and collectively owned by a league of nations – can work together to chart new frontiers Read more…
TRAPPIST-1 and its 7 Exoplanets
Are we alone in the Universe? This is an age old question that has been the driving force for our ventures into space exploration. And with the record breaking discovery of 7 exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, it definitely feels like we could be on the cusp of an Read more…
Proxima b: Meet Our New Neighbour
Astronomers have made the exciting discovery of an Earth-mass exoplanet in the habitable zone of our nearest neighbouring star, Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star 4.25 light years (1.3 parsec) from the Sun. The new-found world, designated Proxima b, is a little more massive than the Earth, implying that it Read more…
The May 2016 Night Sky
It’s the middle of May! Let’s go out tonight and look at the stars! At this time of year in the UK and Ireland, our nights are getting later and shorter, partly due to our planet’s axial tilt and partly due to daylight savings time, with the Sun setting soon Read more…
The January 2016 Night Sky
Happy New Year! Welcome to January 2016, and if you haven’t made a New Year’s resolution yet (or you have made one but want to sneakily change it,) why not challenge yourself to star gaze this year. Star gazing is a brilliant past time and is a wonderful activity that Read more…
The Grand Tack
It is widely accepted that our Solar System was created about 4.6 billion years ago based on dating of meteorites. Scientists believe the Solar System formed when a cloud of dust was disrupted by the shockwave from the explosive death of a nearby star initiating its collapse into a stellar Read more…
Top 20 Awesome Facts About Space
As the festive period is here once again, a lot of social gatherings and family time are part of the itinerary for most. So this year instead of telling the regular old Christmas cracker jokes why not entertain your friends and family with these pretty amazing space facts instead? There Read more…
Kepler-10c: the First Mega-Earth
Once we believed we lived in an absolutely typical planetary system. Around the Sun, small rocky planets huddle close in taking months or years to complete an orbit while huge and chilly gas giants slowly circle further out orbiting the Sun in decades or centuries. We expected that nature would Read more…
Exoplanets Glossary
The discovery of new planets beyond our Solar System has further expanded on what we thought we knew about what is out there. These distant extrasolar planets or exoplanets have only been confirmed to be in existence within the last twenty years and lots of new discoveries are still being Read more…
The Blue Planet
“Mars is red, Earth is Blue, We’ve discovered lots of new worlds, And one of them is blue too!” So I’m not a poet and I definitely know it! Nevertheless, last month thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers were able to determine the colour of one the exoplanets closest Read more…
The Truth About Zeta Reticuli
Zeta Reticuli, a dim binary system of Sun-like stars only 39.5 light years away in the little constellation of Reticulum is strangely well-known. Why is it so famous? This system was once identified as the home of the little grey-faced and black-eyed humanoids who allegedly abducted Barney and Betty Hill Read more…
May 2013 Night Sky Wonders
If you find yourself in the great outdoors any evening during May and it’s a cloudless night, turning your eyes towards the heavens could be an unusually interesting way for you to spend a few minutes. We’ll start by looking southwards. So once again look about 90 degrees to the Read more…
8 Phantom Moons and Planets
From early civilizations until today man has sought to explore and discover what is beyond our world. From the ancient discovery of the wandering stars to the thousands of potential new planets found this decade, mankind has sought to make many astronomical advances. However some of these ‘breakthroughs’ that occurred Read more…
Alpha Centauri Bb: the Planet Next Door
Audiences flocked to see James Cameron’s epic movie Avatar, the story of a disabled human who gets a chance to live a new life as a 3m tall blue-skinned humanoid alien from a world called Pandora. In the movie Pandora is a lush jungle-covered moon of a gas giant planet Read more…
Too Close for Comfort
The hunt for planets located outside of our own Solar System is not a new concept.Since 1995 scientists and astronomers have been aware of these distant worlds orbiting their host stars.The first exoplanet discovered was 51 Pegasi located in the constellation of Pegasus.To date over 3000 potential exoplanets have been Read more…
Getting back up to speed
Perhaps you haven’t noticed but new Astronotes posts have been a little short on the ground of late.I’d love to be able to say that this was because I was offworld on the International Space Station, but sadly the real reason was I’ve been ill (indeed I did spend some Read more…
Wonders of the April Night Sky
The month of April is fantastic month for stargazing and for astronomy in general with numerous dates to mark in your calendar. From Earth Day celebrated on 22 April, in aid of creating awareness of Earth’s environment and encourage conservation efforts, to International Astronomy Day on 28 April which is Read more…
2012’s Space Odysseys
What exciting space events has 2012 in store for us? What important space anniversaries are coming up this year? Welcome to our annual guide to what the Universe has waiting ahead! This year marks twenty years since the first extra-solar planets were discovered when a pair of planets were Read more…
Have we found an alien Earth?
A team of astronomers based at the European Southern Observatory have announced the discovery of more than 50 new exoplanets orbiting nearby stars. This is the largest number of such new worlds ever announced at one time. One of these planets may enjoy conditions favorable for life on its surface. Read more…
New Planets in the August Sky
Planets orbiting other stars are now known to be common. Few can be seen with even the largest telescopes but on a summer night you can at least easily look towards some of the planets discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission. “About 2300 light years away in the direction of Lyra Read more…
Barnard’s Star and its Phantom Planets
Once planets orbiting other stars were unknown as they could not be directly observed. Several decades ago one astronomer was certain he had found the planets of a nearby star and his work seemed so painstaking that the astronomical community accepted their existence. Today they are forgotten. Whatever happened to Read more…
Eight Record-breaking Exoplanets
Once exoplanets, worlds orbiting other stars, were the stuff of science fiction but now we know of literally hundreds of real alien planets circling other stars. Astronomers can infer and sometimes measure the statistics and properties of exoplanets and some are extreme! Here are some record-breaking alien worlds. The Read more…
What if we picked up a signal from outer space?
“The Day the Earth Stood Still”, “Contact”, “2001: A Space Odyssey” and many other movies have depicted the first contact between humans and aliens. Do scientists really listen for messages from extraterrestrials? Are they prepared if they ever do pick up anything? Martina Redpath investigates. We all at some point Read more…
Kepler-11: a strange and crowded planetary system
Kepler-11 is an amazing, newly-discovered system of exoplanets. About 2000 light years from Earth, six planets orbit a star like our Sun. Each planet is bigger and more massive than the Earth. This whole planetary system is squeezed into a region slightly larger than Mercury’s orbit. This bizarrely shrunken Read more…
“An unnatural interest in astronomy”
Don Pollacco, a research astronomer at Queens University Belfast, came to Armagh Planetarium to give a fascinating talk on exoplanets in January 2011. Afterwards Dr Pollaco kindly chatted to me about his experiences. CJ: Thanks for a really interesting talk. So why did you get into astronomy? DP: I was Read more…
Exoplanet HAT-P-1b: weird, warm and fuzzy
The extra-solar planet HAT-P-1b has baffled astronomers since it was discovered in 2006. The planet is puffed up much larger than theory predicts. HAT-P-1 has a volume nearly twice than of Jupiter’s yet it contains only half Jupiter’s mass. Most exoplanets so far discovered fall into the category of Read more…
ESO finds weird doomed planet from another galaxy
Could HIP 13044 b be the strangest exoplanet yet found? We are getting used to the discoveries of bizarre exoplanets but newly-discovered world HIP 13044 b not only survived the cataclysm of its star swelling into a red giant, but it also originally came from another galaxy! If you Read more…
COROT-7b: Exoplanet with a sky made of stone
About 490 light years from our planet in the constellation of Monoceros lies a G type star designated COROT-7. A little smaller and dimmer than our Sun, this star is circled by at least two planets, one of which, COROT-7b, is the most similar exoplanet to Earth yet discovered. Read more…
Exoplanet HD 209458b: A planet that thinks it’s a comet
Some 150 light years from Earth in the constellation of Pegasus lies the star HD 209458 and its planetary system. The star is almost a clone of our own Sun, but one its planets is completely unlike anything in our Solar System. The exoplanet HD 209458b has a mass more Read more…