Current News in the exiting field of Astronomy and Cosmology

[X-matter]

I thought that it would be great if someone would be able to post latest news concerning the field of Astronomy and Cosmology. Personally I am a novice in the field (some would describe me as a baby) however I would like to contribute to the community.

 

The latest news in the field that I was able to identify is the said news about Stephan Hawkins who is being sick and kept in London’s Hospital undergoing tests to determine his health status and reasons for his latest hospital addmision.

 

As well as the discovery of a planet that resembles the mass of the Earth by 1.9 times. Here is the link to the article:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/science/22planet.html

 

To summaries, a planet has been identified which is 1.9 the size of Earth. The planet is unlikely to sustain life because it is too close to the star. The planet was found in the Gliese System and given a name of 581e.

[The Bear's Key]

As well as the discovery of a planet that resembles the mass of the Earth by 1.9 times. Here is the link to the article:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/science/22planet.html

 

To summaries, a planet has been identified which is 1.9 the size of Earth. The planet is unlikely to sustain life because it is too close to the star. The planet was found in the Gliese System and given a name of 581e.

But its sister (or cousin?), Gliese 581 d, is just the right distance for liquid water.

 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_sc/eu_britain_new_planet

 

Scientists also discovered that the orbit of planet Gliese 581 d, which was found in 2007, was located within the "habitable zone" — a region around a sun-like star that would allow water to be liquid on the planet's surface, Mayor said.

 

He spoke at a news conference Tuesday at the University of Hertfordshire during the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science.

 

Gliese 581 d is probably too large to be made only of rocky material, fellow astronomer and team member Stephane Udry said, adding it was possible the planet had a "large and deep" ocean.

 

"It is the first serious 'water-world' candidate," Udry said.

[CaptainPanic]

Seems like an interesting system.

 

We should prepare the galactic battleships and invade!

 

[brainstorm]Does anyone know if efforts are made to zoom in on a single planet or star system by SETI to carefully check it for weak signals (like the ones we make here: local radio, telephone etc)?

SETI is now just listening to the entire universe, and it seems to be hoping for some lifeform that has decided to blast some data into the universe. If we know some likely place for life to develop, then we can zoom in, and maybe pick up more faint signals too?[/brainstorm]

[The Bear's Key]

The Hubble's new powers seem a bit extraordinary. It'll be awesome to see the resulting images.

 

 

Hubble telescope poised for grand cosmic finale

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30580829

The astronaut crew that will give Hubble its tune-up will launch aboard the space shuttle Atlantis on May 11 for an 11-day mission. The excitement over the mission and Hubble's capabilities afterward is palpable among NASA scientists.

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"We have reformulated so many different areas of astronomy," Leckrone said. "There is no area of modern astronomical research that hasn't been profoundly affected and changed by Hubble."

 

With its new components, Hubble will continue to do science in these many of these areas, with the hopes of shedding even more light on the dark spots of space.

 

Hubble will further investigate the architecture of the universe, as well as the structure of individual galaxies.

 

"Hubble will look all the way from the nursery to the old age of galaxies," Leckrone said.

 

 

Hubble's new superpowers

 

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/05/08/1926148.aspx

The new instruments....should open the way for new wonders and speed up the pace of discovery during Hubble's final five years.

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WFC3 takes full advantage of manufacturing standards that just weren't available for earlier instruments - such as the camera it's replacing....During image processing, engineers usually have to work around the small blemishes caused by imperfections in the camera detectors, but with WFC3, "we can remove almost all of those to very high precision," Sembach said.

 

Once the camera gets to work, you can expect bunches of eye-popping, color-enhanced images that combine ultraviolet, visible-light and infrared data. "One of the real drivers behind this camera, scientifically, was really wanting to understand what's going on in star-forming regions," Sembach explained.

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The new camera could help Hubble double or triple the rate of discovery for extremely distant supernovae.

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And when it comes to dimmer objects, COS can do more in two weeks than STIS could do in a year. That opens up whole new vistas in astronomy. Job No. 1 is to chart the ethereal cosmic web that apparently provided the framework for galaxy clusters soon after the universe was born - hence the reference to "Cosmic Origins" in the contraption's name. Learning more about the cosmic web may also tell astronomers more about the mysterious unseen stuff known as dark matter.

 

"That cosmic webbing can't currently be imaged with Hubble or any other observatory up there," Sembach said.

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But wait ... there's more: COS should be able to track the flow stellar winds and even sample the starlight shining through the atmospheres of alien planets. "For example, you might be able to see whether a planet's atmosphere has hydrogen or carbon or oxygen in it," Sembach said.

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When it comes to taking pictures of the dusty protoplanetary disks around stars, or even directly imaging planets around other stars, ACS will be the instrument of choice because it has a coronagraph that can block out a star's glare.