Astronomers find planet made of diamond in our galaxy

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Diamond planet, Discoveries, exoplanet, Milky Way

It wasn’t too long ago that astronomers said they found the darkest planet known to man. Now, they say they’ve found a planet that could cause quite the light show.

Astronomers announced late this week that they’ve found a planet made of diamond. That’s right, diamond. I know, it seems incredible and a bit unbelievable. But here’s what we know.

According to Sky and Telescope:

… Astronomers infer that the object has a whopping density of roughly 23 grams per cubic centimeter. Carbon compressed to this high density should literally be squeezed into its crystalline form — diamond.

Also,
– The object  is believed to have once been a star.
– It is in our Milky Way, about 4,000 light years away.
– It is located in the constellation Serpens.
– A person would weigh 17 times more on this planet than on Earth.
– It is half the size of Jupiter.

For more detailed information about the discovery, check out this article in Astronomy magazine.

What planet are you? Take the quiz

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quizzes

What Planet are You: Personality Quizzes: Science Channel.

How happy was I to find that my personality matches that of Jupiter, my favorite planet in our solar system.

By Jove, Jupiter is big! It’s the largest planet in the solar system, clocking in at an impressive 11 times larger than Earth. But size isn’t the only thing Jupiter has to offer; the planet also has a magnetic “personality.” Jupiter’s magnetic field is the strongest in the solar system, if you’re not counting the fields associated with sunspots. Also on the list of Jupiter’s superlatives — rotational speed. Jupiter rotates on its axis faster than other planet. A day on Jupiter is only about 10 hours long. Jupiter spins around so quickly that it has a bulge around the middle.

What planet are you? Share your results.

Colliding galaxies – a look into our future?

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andromeda, colliding galaxies, galaxy, Milky Way

Did you know there are over 125 billion galaxies in the universe? That number will most certainly increase as our universe continues to be explored.

Galaxies are made up of gases, stars, planets, asteroids and dark matter (more on that in a later post). It’s no surprise that with the hundreds of millions of objects floating in space at various rates, collisions will happen.

But even more interesting is the fact that entire galaxies can collide, too.

X-ray NASA/CXC/IfA/D. Sanders et al; Optical NASA/STScI/NRAO/A.Evans et al

Above is an X-ray image of two galaxies that are in the beginning stages of collision.

According to NASA,

The edge-on galaxy near the top of the image is VV 340 North and the face-on galaxy at the bottom of the image is VV 340 South. Millions of years later these two spirals will merge.

Our solar system is located in the Milky Way galaxy, which is said to contain more than 200 billion stars. Nearby galaxy Andromeda is moving closer and closer to our Milky Way and eventually, the two will collide.

But don’t worry, we have about 3 billion years until that happens.

Across the universe ~ Contact style

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Contact, intro to Contact, movie, universe from Earth

Perhaps one of my favorite space scenes can be found in the opening of Contact, a 1997 movie based on Carl Sagan’s novel about contact with intelligent, extraterrestrial beings.

While the scene is computer generated, it shows just how small we all are. Enjoy!

(The music has been changed from the original movie)

Just as the sun’s solar activity increases, NASA discovers way to predict solar storms

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CME, coronal mass ejection, NASA, Solar activity, solar flare, sun, sun storm

It’s coming.

In 2013, the sun’s solar activity will reach a peak and it could lead to some disruptions here on Earth. Those disturbances range from auroras, to radiation storms and, in extreme cases, massive blackouts.

But now scientists feel they’ll be a bit more prepared. Yesterday, NASA announced that it can predict how and when solar activity will effect Earth.

Why is this important? Well, here’s some background.

The sun has a fairly regular cycle. About every 11 years, the sun goes through a cycle of low and high activity. During a low phase, or solar minimum, there aren’t that many sun spots visible on the sun’s surface. During a high phase, or solar maximum, there can be hundreds of visible sun spots.  Take a look at the graph below. It shows an 11-year cycle beginning in 1996. You can see how how the activity on the sun’s surface intensifies around 2001.

Courtesy of NASA

During times of high activity, the sun suddenly – and quite violently – releases gas and magnetic fields called CMEs, or coronal mass ejections.

According to a release on NASA’s Web site,

CMEs are large clouds of charged particles that are ejected from the sun over the course of several hours and can carry up to ten billion tons of plasma. They expand away from the sun at speeds as high as a million miles an hour. A CME can make the 93-million-mile journey to Earth in just two to four days.

A large CME could power the United States for a million years, according to NASA. While that sounds pretty cool, we can’t really harness that power. Well, not yet. A large CME could disrupt power grids, pipelines, and satellites. With the ability to predict solar weather, we on Earth can be a bit more prepared if a large CME were heading our way.

Want more information about solar flares and CME’s? Check out this video:

Dark planet found outside of our solar system

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Center for Astrophysics, coal planet, dark planet, Kepler, TrES-2b

The Jupiter-sized exploplanet TrES-2b, shown here in an artist’s conception courtesy of David A. Aguilar of the Center for Astrophysics, is darker than the blackest coal.

It’s the size of Jupiter, darker than coal, and the 17th planet outside of our solar system that has been confirmed by NASA’s Kepler.

Late last week, it was confirmed that a gas giant known as TrES-2b was indeed a planet, according to a release from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

Here’s what astronomers know about TrES-2b:
– It’s 1,800° Fahrenheit
– It’s more than 4,500 trillion miles away (What?!?!)
– It’s tidally locked like our moon, so one side of the planet always faces its star.
– It’s darker than any planet or moon in our solar system

It’s not clear what is responsible for making this planet so extraordinarily dark,” stated David Spiegel, co-author on the paper reporting the research. “However, it’s not completely pitch black. It’s so hot that it emits a faint red glow, much like a burning ember or the coils on an electric stove.

Astronomers Spiegel of Princeton University and David Kipping of the CfA  made the discovery partly due to data provided by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft.

Do you know about Kepler? Its mission is to find Earth-like planets outside of our solar system. Since it’s launch into space in 2009, Kepler has found thousands – 1,235 to be exact – of planatery candidates, many the size of Jupiter.

Kepler is one of our favorite missions here at Space Oddities. You can keep up with Kepler’s discoveries by looking at the left-hand side of this page and clicking below “All eyes on Kepler.” You’ll be directed to NASA’s Kepler page, which contains tons of information about each confirmed exoplanet, the number of planetary candidates, and lots more.

Of course, we’ll keep you updated here, too.