What's Up? The Space Place

Hey Space Placers! Watch this short video to see 4,003 exoplanets in about a minute . It was made in July and is already out of date as more are being found almost every single night! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Read the latest on exoplanets from NASA's TESS mission. Compare and contrast worlds in the TOI 270 system with these illustrations of each planet. Temperatures given for TOI 270 planets are equilibrium temperatures, calculated without taking into account the warming effects of any possible atmospheres. Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center This infographic illustrates key features of the TOI 270 system, located about 73 light-years away in the southern constellation Pictor. The three known planets were discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite through periodic dips in starlight caused by each orbiting world. Insets show information about the planets, including their relative sizes, and how they compare to Earth. Temperatures given for TOI 270’s planets are equilibrium temperatures, calculated without the warming effects of any possible atmospheres. Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger Pla...

Hey Space Placers! Happy Mother's Day to all Earth bound mothers - human and other species. Stars give birth also - to planets - and here is a great collection of newborns in their respective stellar wombs. ALMA’s high-resolution images of nearby protoplanetary disks, which are results of the Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP).  Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), S. Andrews et al.; N. Lira Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Dust is EVERYWHERE! You may have thought it was only something you have to contend with in your home, car, everywhere. But dust abounds in the Universe. Read this exciting story about dust rings that surround Earth, Venus and now Mercury. Astronomers think there may even be undiscovered asteroids responsible for these dust rings - WOW! Image credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith The prevailing theory as to how planets form involves dust and far larger solid fragments that form rings around new born stars. These rings are thought to eventually coalesce into protoplanets and finally planets over time. A new discovery of just that happening was announced with an accompanying photograph. From EarthSky.org ALMA image of the dusty disk around the young star DM Tau. You can see 2 concentric rings, where planets may be forming. Image via  ALMA . With over 4000 planets beyond our solar system having been discovered to date, th...

Hey Space Placers! Here is humanity's first confirmed image of a planet in the making - it is the bright spot to the right: SPHERE, a planet-hunting instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, has captured the first confirmed image of a planet caught in the act of forming in the dusty disc surrounding a young star. The young planet is carving a path through the primordial disc of gas and dust around the very young star PDS 70. The data suggest that the planet’s atmosphere is cloudy. Think of it......this is a new world formed out of the same material that created its star. It is currently a cloudy world. Planets are natural and plentiful byproducts of star formation. There are probably trillions upon trillions of planets in our galaxy alone. We know of almost 4,000 confirmed planets beyond our own Sun with 3,000+ more awaiting conformation and new candidates being spotted all the time. What a Universe..... Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Take a look at this amazing image that shows what is in all probability 3 new planets : The gaps between the rings are likely due to a depletion of dust and in the middle and outer gaps astronomers also found a lower level of gas. The depletion of both dust and gas suggests the presence of newly formed planets, each around the mass of Saturn, carving out these gaps on their brand new orbits. Credit: ESO, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); A. Isella; B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF). Discovered using the  Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) these are considered to be the first three planets discovered by ALMA - that's how strong the evidence is that there are new exoplanets in this  system. The parent star  HD 163296 is only 4 million years old so once again we are seeing how planets are a natural byproduct of stellar birth. Our solar  system at 4.6 billion years old is ancient compared to this one. Sky Guy in VA ...

Hey Space Placers! Looking for an exotic get away this weekend? NASA has just the place - another world beyond our solar system ! The imagined surface of exoplanet Kepler-186f, on NASA's interactive Exoplanet Exploration website. Kepler-186f is an Earth-size planet orbiting a small red star, which may or may not have an atmosphere. No real photos of Kepler-186f exist. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech It is an amazing time for exoplanet discoveries - worlds that exist beyond our solar system. We currently have confirmed almost 4,000 exoplanets with 3,000 more awaiting confirmation! NASA's new Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was launched earlier this month and made its first test image - WOW. This test image from one of the four cameras aboard the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) captures a swath of the southern sky along the plane of our galaxy. TESS is expected to cover more than 400 times the amount of sky shown in this image when using all...

Hey Space Placers! Mount Wilson 's 100" telescope saw First Light - the moment the mirror and telescope receive light from the Universe - 100 years ago today.   What a great read! Mount Wilson Observatory was the place of MANY discoveries in astronomy due to the 100" telescope and its esteemed staff. Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Check out this uber cool graphic of the size of exoplanet candidates (planets to be confirmed beyond our solar system) from NASA's Kepler mission We live in a time when we know of thousands of planets beyond our solar system that are orbiting other stars - think about that..... It is quite clear that planets are a natural byproduct of stellar formation and our Milky Way probably contains BILLIONS if not TRILLIONS of planets. Oh, and each of the 200 billion plus galaxies we can see should also have planets as well. What a Universe! Sky Guy in VA

Hey Space Placers! Some pretty incredible news coming out of NASA states that Jupiter-size planets exist in such numbers in our Milky Way Galaxy that they may outnumber stars 2-to-1. Also stunning, to me at least, is that these exoplanets are "free floaters", which means they are not associated with a star - they are alone in space. They may have been ejected from their star-planetary system after being formed. It is also possible that there are Earth-size "free floater" planets as well. A joint Japan-New Zealand survey  "scanned the center of the Milky Way galaxy during 2006 and 2007, revealing evidence for up to 10 free-floating planets roughly the mass of Jupiter. The isolated orbs, also known as orphan planets, are difficult to spot, and had gone undetected until now. The planets are located at an average approximate distance of 10,000 to 20,000 light years from Earth." Read More About It: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/...