Tuesday, June 4, 2013

ScienceDaily: Stars News

ScienceDaily: Stars News


Rare stellar alignment offers opportunity to hunt for planets

Posted: 03 Jun 2013 03:32 PM PDT

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope will have two opportunities in the next few years to hunt for Earth-sized planets around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri. The opportunities will occur in October 2014 and February 2016 when Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our sun, passes in front of two other stars.

Lightest exoplanet to be directly observed so far? Faint object moves near bright star

Posted: 03 Jun 2013 06:17 AM PDT

A team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope has imaged a faint object moving near a bright star. With an estimated mass of four to five times that of Jupiter, it would be the least massive planet to be directly observed outside the Solar System. The discovery is an important contribution to our understanding of the formation and evolution of planetary systems.

No comments:

Post a Comment