Satellite News

Artist illustration of an extrasolar planet. Image credit: NASA/JPLClick to enlarge
Nearly all of the extrasolar planets discovered so far have been huge, Jupiter-sized and above. The question is: could smaller, Earth-sized planets last in the same star systems? Researchers created a simulation where tiny planets were put into the same system as larger planets to see if they could gather enough material to become as large as the Earth. They found that one nearby system – 55 Cancri – could have formed terrestrial planets, with substantial water in the habitable zone.

Jupiter with its two massive storms. Image credit: GeminiClick to enlarge
Astronomers have been predicting the meetup for months; Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and its newly formed “Red Spot Jr.” were bound to have a close encounter. This high-resolution photo from the Gemini Observatory shows how they looked July 13, 2006. Although both are red in visible light, they look white because the image was captured in the near-infrared wavelength, which can reveal more details. Astronomers don’t think anything dramatic is going to happen as the storms slip past each other this time around.

Artist illustration of a planetary disk. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SpitzerClick to enlarge
New data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope are giving astronomers a sense of how protoplanetary disks might act as a brake to slow stellar rotation. Young stars spin very quickly, often completing a rotation in less than a day. They could spin even faster, but something is slowing them down. Spitzer gathered data on 500 young stars in the Orion Nebula. The fastest spinning stars don’t have planetary disks around then. It might be that the magnetic field of the star interacts with the planetary disk, slowing the star down.