We always hear that people are sorted into types and groups automatically at a gathering or any similar activity. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) found a direct proof of this behavior having by globular cluster. Heavier stars are sinking into the cluster’s core and the ligher stars accelerate to the boundary of the cluster.
Quick facts: A typical globular cluster contains several hundred thousand stars. Although the density of stars is very small in the outskirts of such stellar systems, the stellar density near the center can be more than 10,000 times higher than in the local vicinity of our Sun. If we lived in such a region of space, the night sky would be ablaze with 10,000 stars that would be closer to us than the nearest star to the Sun, Alpha Centauri, which is 4.3 light-years away (or approximately 272,000 times the distance between Earth and the Sun).
This newly found most earthlike planet has the key ingredient of life, the liquid water. This exoplanet (extrasolar planet) is located at the “Goldilocks” position (not too far and not too close to its star) that the water on this planet can be in the form of liquid state. This exoplanet is named Gliese 581 C after its star, Gliese 581.
Gliese 581 C is either a rocky planet or a oceans dominated world. Its mass is 5.1x that of Earth and its radius is 50% greater than of Earth, results in 3.4x of Earth’s volume. It has a gravity of 2.2x that of Earth. The temperature of the planet is estimated between 0ºC to 40ºC. It won’t be our new home in 50 to 100 years time as the distance between Gliese 581 C and Earth is 20.5ly (120 trillion km).
How’s this earthlike planet discovered?
The scientists discovered the new world using the HARP instrument on the European Southern Observatory 3.6 meter telescope in La Sille, Chile. They employed the so-called radial velocity, or “wobble,†technique, in which the size and mass of a planet are determined based on small perturbations it induces in its parent star’s orbit via gravity.
Almost everyone of us will ask is there any life on this planet? The extraterrestial life is unconfirmed yet but we’ll know after some days. When the new Allen Telescope Array begins to operate, Gliese 581 C might be looked again.
More information on Gliese 581 C can be located at Wikipedia.
Look at the mysterious antique above. It’s the orrery made by ancient Greek. This device is made of bronze and encased in wood. It was found by divers off the Mediterranean island Antikythera in 1900. Thus, it is also called Antikythera Mechanism.
It enabled astronomers in the second century BC to predict the movements of the Moon and Sun, along with lunar and solar eclipses. It could recreate irregularities in the Moon’s motion due to its elliptical orbit. It also helped Greek astronomers to predict the location of the known planet. I guess this was the tool that made ancient Greek astronomers GODlike.
The Jupiter Red Spot Junior is officially named Oval BA (Bad Astronomy?). It is getting reddish as its elder brother, the Great Red Spot. The wind is currently boasting at 640km/h. It just takes 1.5625 seconds to travel from the southest of Malaysia (Johor Bahru) to the northest (Perlis), roughly 1000km, imagine!
Left: The spot in the middle is the Oval BA
As suggested, as the storm has grown stronger it probably picked up red material from lower in the Jupiter atmosphere, most likely some form of sulfur which turns red as part of a chemical reaction.
Earthlike planets covered with deep oceans that could harbor life may be found in as many as a third of solar systems discovered outside of our own. These solar systems feature gas giants known as “Hot Jupiters,” which orbit extremely close to their parent stars which is even closer than Mercury to our sun.
The close-orbiting gassy planets may help encourage the formations of smaller, rocky Earthlike planets. They also help rocky planets form close to the suns and may help pull in icy bodies that deliver water to the young planets.
There may be a new class of ocean-covered, and possibly habitable, planets in solar systems unlike our own. However, lives on this planet are most likely different from ours.
