Posts in the Astronomy / Astrophysics Category at NetMassimo Blog, Page 48

Artistic concept of the giant planet that got lost (Image courtesy of Southwest Research Institute)

Maybe there was an extra giant planet in the solar system

Massimo Luciani November 14, 2011 0

Dr. David Nesvorny has published the result of 6,000 simulations that suggest that there was a fifth giant planet with a mass similar to that of Uranus and Neptune which at a certain point got lost in interstellar space.

Artist's concept of the dwarf planet Eris (Image ESO/L. Calçada)

Dwarf planet Eris is almost Pluto’s twin

Massimo Luciani October 27, 2011 1

Eris is a dwarf planet whose discovery led to the creation of the new category of dwarf planets with the “demotion” of Pluto. New observation allowed astronomers to establish that Eris and Pluto have almost the same exact size.

Artist's conception showing a comet rain in the Eta Corvi star system (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Comet rain discovered in the Eta Corvi star system by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope

Massimo Luciani October 20, 2011 0

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope allowed scientists to study the Eta Corvi star system finding signs of a comet rain that hit a rocky planet.

MACS J1206.2-0847 galaxy cluster (photo NASA, ESA, M. Postman (STScI), and the CLASH Team)

A new dark matter survey using the Hubble space telescope

Massimo Luciani October 14, 2011 0

The Hubble Space Telescope is used in a project called Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) in a survey about dark matter studying twenty-five galaxy clusters.

Artistic concept of the Kepler16 binary system (image NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)

Planet orbiting two stars discovered

Massimo Luciani September 16, 2011 2

Kepler-16b, this is the name of this planet distant about two hundred light years from Earth and discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, is cold and at least partially gaseous, more or less the size of Saturn. What it has in common with Tatooine is the fact that it orbits two stars so there are astronomers who began to call it informally with that name.