Tag: planets

Caltech Astronomers Say a Ninth Planet Lurks Beyond Pluto

sciencehabit writes: The solar system may have a new ninth planet. Today, two scientists announced evidence that a body nearly the size of Neptune — but as yet unseen — orbits the sun every 15, 000 years. During the solar system’s infancy 4.5 billion years ago, they say, the giant planet was knocked out of the planet-forming region near the sun. Slowed down by gas, the planet settled into a distant elliptical orbit, where it still lurks today. Here’s a link to the full academic paper published in The Astronomical Journal. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Caltech Astronomers Say a Ninth Planet Lurks Beyond Pluto

Resistance to ‘Last Resort’ Antibiotic Discovered in Denmark

Last month, researchers at South China Agricultural University in Guangzhouin made an alarming discovery : a gene that causes bacteria to become resistant to colistin, a so-called “last resort” antibiotic. Now, New Scientist reports that the resistance gene MCR-1 has been found half a world away in Denmark—and a global hunt for more cases is on. Read more…

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Resistance to ‘Last Resort’ Antibiotic Discovered in Denmark

Watch all the exoplanets orbit their stars simultaneously

The Kepler telescope has found 685 systems with 1705 exoplanets, and you can watch them whirr around together in this mesmerizing animation by astrocubs . The data is from the NASA Exoplanet Archive . I made the visualization in Python: source code available here . The fact that the worlds and systems we’ve observed are so different from our own is a limitation of our observations, not of the universe. The orbits are shown to scale, but the planets are much larger than the orbits would suggest. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to see them. The planets are not to scale with one another, either. Also, the orbits wouldn’t be perfectly circular, though I guess the animator might have made the simulation adhere to the laws of planetary motion an all the observed worlds have roughly-circular orbits. Of course the solar systems aren’t this close tog—look, sshhhh, just watch it, it’s pretty.

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Watch all the exoplanets orbit their stars simultaneously

A Century-Old Device May Be the Future of Electronics

There’s a new device in the works over at DARPA, the agency known for pushing the technological envelope with mind-controlled prosthetics and drone-launching submarines . This latest innovation? The vacuum tube. You might remember it from the first time humans invented it, way back in 1904. Read more…

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A Century-Old Device May Be the Future of Electronics

Updated Kepler Catalog Includes 521 New Possible Exoplanets

Earlier today, during the announcement of the most Earth-like planet ever discovered , researchers working on the Kepler mission released an updated catalog—which now includes 521 new candidate planets. Add that to the 4, 175 already discovered by the space-based telescope. Read more…

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Updated Kepler Catalog Includes 521 New Possible Exoplanets

NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovered 1,000 Planets In Its Quest to Find Life

It was six years ago this month that NASA shot the Kepler telescope to the heavens on a galactic, planet-finding mission. Today, the space agency released this graphic that could also be Kepler’s mic-dropping resume. Read more…

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NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovered 1,000 Planets In Its Quest to Find Life

Astronomers Find What May Be the Closest Exoplanet So Far

The Bad Astronomer writes: Astronomers have found a 5.4 Earth-mass planet orbiting the star Gliese 15A, a red dwarf in a binary system just 11.7 light years away (PDF). Other exoplanets candidates have been found that are closer, but they are as yet unconfirmed. This is more evidence that alien planets are common in the galaxy. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Astronomers Find What May Be the Closest Exoplanet So Far