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Telescopes for Astronomy
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Kepler Mission discovers distant planetary system
28th August 2010
NASA’s space observatory has discovered two planets orbiting the same star, 2,000 light years away in the Lyra constellation. The star which has now been named Kepler-9 is believed to be much like our own sun.
Details of the discoveries were announced after a seven month detailed study of more than 156,000 stars. The planets named Kepler-9b and 9c were detected using Kepler’s ultra precise camera, measuring tiny decreases in the star’s brightness when a planet moves across them.
It is believed both planets have masses similar to but less than the mass of Saturn. Kepler-9b is closest to the star, making a complete orbit every 19 days, while Kepler-9c has an orbit of around 38 days.
Kepler scientists believe there is third planet in the system which has a radius 50% larger than the Earth. If this planet existed it would be baking hot, making a an orbit of its star in only 1.6 days.
Kepler Mission scientist Matthew Holman said, "This discovery is the first clear detection of significant changes in the intervals from one planetary transit to the next, what we call transit timing variations."
NASA’s Kepler Mission which began in March, 2009, was designed to discover Earth like planets orbiting distant stars using an observatory in solar orbit. So far the mission has discovered seven exoplanets all of which orbit extremely close to their stars. The mission is expected to continue until at least September 2012.
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Five new Exoplanets found in distant solar system
25th August 2010
A planetary system containing a minimum of five planets has been discovered around the star HD 10180. The distant star which is much like our own sun is 127 light years from Earth in the constellation of Hydrus
The new planets were discovered by the European Southern Observatory using a the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher spectrograph or HARPs for short. HARPs is extremely precise and responsible for the discovery of more exoplanets than any other instrument.
Astronomers at the ESO studied the star HD 10180 over a period of six years detecting the strongest wobbles from five planets. The mass of these planets roughly correspond to the mass of Neptune.
Most exciting of all though is that astronomers believe there are two more planets present in the system one of which is only 1.4 times the mass of Earth, which would make it the smallest exoplanet ever discovered. The planet is far too close to the star to harbour any life taking only one day to make a complete orbit.
Dr Joe Liske from the ESO said, “There is no doubt that this remarkable discovery highlights the fact that we are now entering a new era in exoplanet science”.
The ESO has three observing sites in the Atacama region of Chile boasting the most advanced optical telescope in the world. Exoplanets are planets which exist outside of our solar system, the first was detected in 1992 and so far almost 500 have been found.