Thursday, April 17, 2014

Observatories find first possibly habitable planet outside solar system

http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/observatories-find-first-possibly-habitable-planet-outside-solar-system

April 17, 2014 - West Hawaii Today
wo Mauna Kea observatories confirmed this week the discovery of the first potentially habitable Earth-sized planet found outside our own solar system.
“What makes this finding particularly compelling is that this Earth-sized planet, one of five orbiting this star, which is cooler than the sun, resides in a temperate region where water could exist in liquid form,” said Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center, who led a paper on the discovery published in the current issue of the journal Science.
The Hawaii Island-based W.M. Keck and Gemini observatories participated in collecting and analyzing data to confirm the initial discovery, made using the Kepler Space Telescope, according to Keck’s communications officer, Steve Jefferson.
- See more at: http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/observatories-find-first-possibly-habitable-planet-outside-solar-system#sthash.JuoMaleC.dpuf


Two Mauna Kea observatories confirmed this week the discovery of the first potentially habitable Earth-sized planet found outside our own solar system.
“What makes this finding particularly compelling is that this Earth-sized planet, one of five orbiting this star, which is cooler than the sun, resides in a temperate region where water could exist in liquid form,” said Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center, who led a paper on the discovery published in the current issue of the journal Science.
The Hawaii Island-based W.M. Keck and Gemini observatories participated in collecting and analyzing data to confirm the initial discovery, made using the Kepler Space Telescope, according to Keck’s communications officer, Steve Jefferson.
...

Two Mauna Kea observatories confirmed this week the discovery of the first potentially habitable Earth-sized planet found outside our own solar system.
“What makes this finding particularly compelling is that this Earth-sized planet, one of five orbiting this star, which is cooler than the sun, resides in a temperate region where water could exist in liquid form,” said Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center, who led a paper on the discovery published in the current issue of the journal Science.
The Hawaii Island-based W.M. Keck and Gemini observatories participated in collecting and analyzing data to confirm the initial discovery, made using the Kepler Space Telescope, according to Keck’s communications officer, Steve Jefferson.
- See more at: http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/observatories-find-first-possibly-habitable-planet-outside-solar-system#sthash.JuoMaleC.dpuf
Two Mauna Kea observatories confirmed this week the discovery of the first potentially habitable Earth-sized planet found outside our own solar system.
“What makes this finding particularly compelling is that this Earth-sized planet, one of five orbiting this star, which is cooler than the sun, resides in a temperate region where water could exist in liquid form,” said Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center, who led a paper on the discovery published in the current issue of the journal Science.
The Hawaii Island-based W.M. Keck and Gemini observatories participated in collecting and analyzing data to confirm the initial discovery, made using the Kepler Space Telescope, according to Keck’s communications officer, Steve Jefferson.
- See more at: http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/observatories-find-first-possibly-habitable-planet-outside-solar-system#sthash.JuoMaleC.dpuf
wo Mauna Kea observatories confirmed this week the discovery of the first potentially habitable Earth-sized planet found outside our own solar system.
“What makes this finding particularly compelling is that this Earth-sized planet, one of five orbiting this star, which is cooler than the sun, resides in a temperate region where water could exist in liquid form,” said Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center, who led a paper on the discovery published in the current issue of the journal Science.
The Hawaii Island-based W.M. Keck and Gemini observatories participated in collecting and analyzing data to confirm the initial discovery, made using the Kepler Space Telescope, according to Keck’s communications officer, Steve Jefferson.
- See more at: http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/observatories-find-first-possibly-habitable-planet-outside-solar-system#sthash.JuoMaleC.dpuf

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Far Out! Icy World Widens Our Solar System's Frontier

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/far-out-icy-world-widens-our-solar-systems-frontier-n62286

March 26, 2014 - NBC News
More than a decade after an oddball world named Sedna was discovered on the solar system's far frontier, a fresh discovery reveals that it's not so odd after all. Sedna and the newly found object, called 2012 VP113, may well be the first of a huge new class of celestial bodies.
...
Sheppard and Chad Trujillo, an astronomer at the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, describe their find in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. The discovery is based on a year's worth of observations from telescopes in Chile.
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Discovery of new dwarf planet hints at other objects in solar system

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-oort-cloud-planet-20140327,0,11548.story

March 26, 2014 - LA Times
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The new dwarf planet, dubbed 2012 VP113 and described in a study published in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature, helps confirm the existence of an "inner Oort cloud" in an interplanetary no man's land that was once thought to be barren but could be teeming with rocky objects.

"We had high hopes, and our hopes were confirmed," said Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, who co-wrote the paper with Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii.
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Dwarf planet discovered at solar system's edge

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/26/tech/innovation/dwarf-planet-solar-system/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

March 27, 2014 - CNN
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The dwarf planet's current name is 2012 VP113, and it is located in a "wasteland or badland of the solar system," said astronomer Chad Trujillo, head of adaptive optics at Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and co-discoverer of this object. His study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
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Monday, February 3, 2014

Kiriosity: Gemini Planet Imager (Youtube video)

http://youtu.be/pgU14UQ-Pj0

January 29, 2014 - Kiriosity
On January 7th, 2014, the Gemini Observatory released information regarding its first findings with the Gemini Planet Imager.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Gemini South spectra on the cover of the Journal of Physical Chemistry October 2013 issue


http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/covers/jpcafh/jpcafh_v117i039.jpg?0.3584313017781824

January 17, 2014 - Journal of Physical Chemistry
 

On the cover of the edition are the seminal spectra of H3+ toward a star in the Galactic center, obtained with Phoenix on Gemini South in 2003 and published in ApJ in 2005.