Darkest exoplanet spotted by astronomers 12 August 2011Last updated at 11:09 By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News TrES-2b is literally darker, on average, than coal A dark alien world, blacker than coal, has been spotted by astronomers. The Jupiter-sized planet is orbiting its star at a distance of just five million km, and is likely to be at a temperature of some 1200C. The planet may be too hot to support reflective clouds like those we see in our own Solar System, but even that would not explain why it is so dark. The research will be published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The planet, called TrES-2b, is so named because it was first spotted by the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey in 2006. It also lies in the field of view of the Kepler space telescope, whose primary mission is to spot exoplanets using extremely sensitive brightness measurements as far-flung worlds pass in front of their host stars. 'Exotic chemistry' Continue reading the main story
Stephen Hawking: "Why Isn't the Milky Way Crawling With Mechanical or Biological Life?" (A New Year's Weekend Classic) Why hasn't the Earth been visited, and even colonized? Hawking asks. "I discount suggestions that UFO's contain beings from outer space. I think any visits by aliens, would be much more obvious, and probably also, much more unpleasant." Hawking continues: "What is the explanation of why we have not been visited? One possibility is that the argument, about the appearance of life on Earth, is wrong. We are used to thinking of intelligent life, as an inevitable consequence of evolution, Hawking emphasized, but it is more likely that evolution is a random process, with intelligence as only one of a large number of possible outcomes. Intelligence, Hawking believes contrary to our human-centric existece, may not have any long-term survival value. Another possibility is that there is a reasonable probability for life to form, and to evolve to intelligent beings, but at some point in their technological development "the system becomes unstable, and the intelligent life destroys itself.
99 of the best Windows freeware programs you may not know of Due to the popularity of my previous article on Help Desk Geek entitled 99 ways to make your computer blazingly fast, I’ve decided to write another list post with 99 items, but this time on Windows freeware programs that you may have not heard of. If you search for “best freeware programs” or “top freeware apps”, you’ll get lots of lists, but mostly with programs everyone has already heard of: AVG anti-virus, 7-zip, Firefox, OpenOffice, etc., etc. That’s all nice and fine, but what about all those little gems programs that work great, but don’t get all the headlines? In this article, I will try my best to mention as many small name freeware programs as I can that can help make you more productive! It’s a long list, so feel free to bookmark it and refer to it later on. These are written in no particular order! Additionally, some of the programs I mention have free versions that have a few restrictions or are limited in some way. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.
Supermassive Black Hole Sagittarius A* Supermassive Black Hole Sagittarius A* This image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the center of our Galaxy, with a supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A* for short) in the center. Using intermittent observations over several years, Chandra has detected X-ray flares about once a day from Sgr A*. The flares have also been seen in infrared data from ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile. A new study provides a possible explanation for the mysterious flares. An asteroid that undergoes a close encounter with another object, such as a star or planet, can be thrown into an orbit headed towards Sgr A*, as seen in a series of artist's illustrations beginning with the top-right panel. These fragments would then be vaporized by friction as they pass through the hot, thin gas flowing onto Sgr A*, similar to a meteor heating up and glowing as it falls through Earth's atmosphere. Another solar system analogy for this type of event has recently been reported.
Quark Star (update) Some of the strange stuff that is coming out about quark stars: 1) that quark stars may be connected to dark matter (or even dark energy?) Some dark matter might just be “strangelets” roaming the cosmos, blasted free from quark stars: or 2) That some smaller sized black holes may actually be quark stars: “Some black holes may actually be ‘quark stars’:” or 3) The light given off by a quark star is called bremsstrahlung emissions. “quark star: gives off dim light (called bremsstrahlung emission), emitted by a thin layer of electrons on its surface:” or 4) It takes about 1.6 minutes to from a quark star from a neutron star. Like this: Like Loading...
Minecraft Wiki Absolute Zero | A Sense of Scale By Glenn Elert Posted 01.08.08 NOVA At roughly minus 460°F, absolute zero is abysmally cold, yet at least we can imagine it. Being only a few hundred degrees below zero, it's in the realm of something we can put our minds around. Launch Interactive Travel from absolute zero to what may be the highest temperature of all. This feature originally appeared on the site for the NOVA program Absolute Zero. Glenn Elert is Research Coordinator and Webmaster for the Physical Science Department of Midwood High School at Brooklyn College. Images (graphics) © WGBH Educational Foundation
Sally Ride, la primera estadounidense en el espacio No había entonces techo más alto que el de las estrellas, y Sally Ride ayudó a romperlo, como la primera mujer norteamericana en viajar al espacio, a bordo del transbordador espacial Challenger, en 1983, cuando contaba sólo con 32 años. Fue, además, la astronauta más joven en órbita, en una época dorada de la aviación espacial. Falleció el lunes, en su hogar de San Diego, a los 61 años, después de una larga lucha contra un cáncer de páncreas, según anunció la fundación Sally Ride Science. Nacida en Los Ángeles en 1951, Ride se doctoró en física y fue aceptada en la NASA en 1978 de una forma que ahora resulta poco común: respondió a un anuncio de periódico en el que se pedían astronautas. La primera mujer en órbita había sido Valentina Tereshkova, enviada a bordo de la misión soviética Vostok 6 en 1963. Feministas de todo occidente la saludaron entonces como a toda una pionera. Ride se consideraba una feminista. El oprobio era, en cierto modo, inevitable.
Scientists Now Know: We're From Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy! Scientists Now Know: We're Not From Here! Summary & comments by Dan Eden for Viewzone "This first full-sky map of Sagittarius shows its extensive interaction with the Milky Way," Majewski said. The study's map of M giants depicts 2 billion years of Sagittarius stripping by the Milky Way, and suggests that Sagittarius has reached a critical phase in what had been a slow dance of death. "After slow, continuous gnawing by the Milky Way, Sagittarius has been whittled down to the point that it cannot hold itself together much longer," said 2MASS Science Team member and study co-author Martin Weinberg of the University of Massachusetts. Does this mean we are at a unique moment in the life of our galaxy? "Whenever possible, astronomers appeal to the principle that we are not at a special time or place in the universe," Majewski said. On the other hand, Majewski and his colleagues have been surprised by the Earth's proximity to a portion of the Sagittarius debris. Implications in Global Warming?