Category Archives: Astronomy

Five planets visible

If you’re more interested in viewing the planets in our solar system we already know are there (as opposed to a potential “new” ninth one), take a look at the sky in the next weeks.

Earthsky: See all five bright planets simultaneously! “All five bright planets will appear together in the morning sky from about January 20 to February 20, 2016. That hasn’t happened since 2005.”

NPR: For The Next Month, 5 Planets Will Align In Early Morning Sky. “As of today, you can see all five planets that are possible to see in the sky with the naked eye early in the morning. NPR’s Robert Siegel talks with astronomer Jackie Faherty about why this is happening.” (NPR media player and transcript)

Nine planets after all?

NPR: Scientists Find Hints Of A Giant, Hidden Planet In Our Solar System.

[Michael E. Brown, t]he astronomer whose work helped kick Pluto out of the pantheon of planets says he has good reason to believe there’s an undiscovered planet bigger than Earth lurking in the distant reaches of our solar system.”

The Washington Post: New evidence suggests a ninth planet lurking at the edge of the solar system.

“[T]he authors, astronomers Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin, have not observed the planet directly.

Instead, they have inferred its existence from the motion of recently discovered dwarf planets and other small objects in the outer solar system. Those smaller bodies have orbits that appear to be influenced by the gravity of a hidden planet”.

See the original paper here:

The Astronomical Journal: Evidence for a Distnad Giant Planet in the Solar Symste. By Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Brown.

Abstract: “Recent analyses have shown that distant orbits within the scattered disk population of the Kuiper Belt exhibit an unexpected clustering in their respective arguments of perihelion. While several hypotheses have been put forward to explain this alignment, to date, a theoretical model that can successfully account for the observations remains elusive. In this work we show that the orbits of distant Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) cluster not only in argument of perihelion, but also in physical space. We demonstrate that the perihelion positions and orbital planes of the objects are tightly confined and that such a clustering has only a probability of 0.007% to be due to chance, thus requiring a dynamical origin. We find that the observed orbital alignment can be maintained by a distant eccentric planet with mass [around ten times the mass of Earth …].”

Space.com: The Man Who Killed Pluto: Q & A with Astronomer Mike Brown.

Some links via MetaFilter: Many Very Educated Men Just Screwed Up Nature. Possibly?.

Fly me to the moon

Apollo 17 – The Last Mission to the Moon
“A real-time journey through the Apollo 17 mission” – over 300 hours of audio, 22 hours of video, and 4,200 photos. You can start at one minute to launch or follow in real-time 43 years later to the second.

Apollo 17 was the final mission of NASA’s Apollo program, launching on December 7th, 1972 and landing on Earth on December 19, 1972.

Link via MetaFilter.

The Pale Blue Dot & Beyond

Gestern habe ich eine Folge von Mensch Otto Bayern 3 gehört, in der Thorsten Otto die Astrophysikerin Lisa Kaltenegger interviewt:

Mensch Otto, Sendung vom 05.11.2015 mit Lisa Kaltenegger (MP3).

“Ihre Spezialität sind Exoplaneten, Exomonde und Supererden. Was dem einen völlig Spanisch vorkommt, ist für die österreichische Forscherin die große Leidenschaft. Für sie ist das Weltall ein einziges Geheimnis, das es zu entschlüsseln gilt. Und eine der spannendsten Fragen ist für sie, ob wir Menschen allein im Universum sind. „Jetzt, in diesen Jahren, ist die Technologie so weit, dass wir nach Planeten wie unserer Erde im All Ausschau halten können und Signale dieser Welten auffangen“, sagt Kaltenegger. Schon mit 27 Jahren forschte und unterrichtete die an der Harvard University, inzwischen arbeitet sie unter anderem für die NASA.”

Eingeladen wurde sie u. a. deshalb, weil wenige Tage zuvor ihr populärwissenschaftliches Buch Sind wir allein im Universum?: Meine Spurensuche im All erschienen ist.

Lisa Kaltenegger is Associate Professor of Astronomy, Director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University. The Carl Sagan Institute, aka Institute for Pale Blue Dots, …

“… was founded in 2015 at Cornell University to explore other worlds – how they form, evolve and if they could harbor life both inside and outside of our own Solar System. Directed by astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger, the Institute has built an entirely new research group, spanning 6 departments and including more than 20 faculty who focus on the search for life in the universe.”

Videos of the inauguration speeches by Lisa Kaltenegger, Ann Druyan, and others can be found here: (un)Discovered Worlds: Inauguration of the Carl Sagan Institute.

Kalteneggers talk A Thousand New Worlds is available on YouTube:

“Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute and associate professor of astronomy at Cornell, has been examining alien worlds for biosignatures–the pre-conditions and indications of life. Here she shares her research on potentially habitable planets beyond our solar system. Recorded July 8, 2015 as part of the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions summer lecture series.”