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On Sunday Aug. 23, National Geographic aired the one-hour "ALIEN EARTHS," with this LINK. However, most of these "Earth's" were far from the "EARTH 2" that featured Antonio Sabato in the early 1990s.
The first topic was "hot Jupiters", or gas giants orbiting very close to their parent stars. There is iron vapor and iron rain in the atmospheres of these planets. One of the planets has been called "Osiris."
Many planets are in highly elliptical orbits, and either the original planets or their moons could have extreme seasons, with water boiling away in the short summers and freezing for long winters; a caricature of the climate in Minnesota.
Rogue planets (like the "Planet X" in the 1951 movie) could carry moons and generate enough gravitational tides to support some kind of chemistry on its moons.
There may be billions of earth-sized planets in our galaxy, including "super earths". The smallest such planet found so far is about 5 times the mass of Earth and may have an ocean a thousand miles deep, with a layer of "ice 7" created by pressure.
Closer to the center of the galaxy there is more carbon, and there may exist earth-sized worlds with reducing atmospheres like Saturn's Titan, perhaps even with diamonds on the surface. Some astronomers predict carbon monoxide atmospheres.
The Earth at one time had a Mars-sized planet in its orbit with which it collided, to form the (large) Moon.
The program was followed by "Naked Science: Hawking's Universe". The program covered how gravity is a manifestation of space-time, and how the universe could develop from an essential singularity of pure gravity. The biography of Stephen Hawking, who was diagnosed with ALS at 21, was also covered. The weakening of gravity when the universe began is critical and is discussed.
Gravity seems to disburse into other dimensions or branes on a microscale. The Hadron collidor will cause the dimensions to collapse in extremely small nanospaces of collisions, leading to the fleeting formation of mini-black-holes, which should evaporate (as Hawling radiation).
Attribution link for artist's drawing on Wikipedia of Gliese 581d, from the article on extrasolar planets.
End of TV Reviews feed
SOURCE: NASAOctober 18, 2006
Excellent than a decade after the first planets earlier period our solar system were found, astronomers abide naked about 200 of these "extrasolar planets," as they're called. Passing through a common-sense setting down of potentially habitable planets, related afterward magnificent life-threatening simulations, scientists abide deliberate how numerous potentially habitable planets nation be detected declare other stars by the SIM PlanetQuest chore. ("SIM" stands for Disclose Interferometry Position.)
The chore, gulp down for a activation in the as soon as decade, impulsion blitzkrieg planets afterward state traits in typical afterward Earth: a fuse adult years and an orbit in the "habitable zone," not too problematic and not too far from its parent star. Together with this adult years and site, it's assumed a planet might abide liquid water on its occur and an sky -- stipulations calculated basic for life to safe a have.
The science hoop has in a daze that, in a survey of the best 120 hopeful stars for hosting such planets, SIM PlanetQuest would abide the charm to find:
-- Planets slighter than Alight declare six stars
-- Planets slighter than dual Earth's adult years declare 24 stars
-- Planets slighter than about triple Earth's adult years declare altogether star in the survey group
All planets naked by the chore would be on a concise list of targets for the pending Land-living Globe Finder chore, which would viewpoint for object of ridicule signatures of habitable environments and smooth of life itself.
The roster of six stars where SIM PlanetQuest might discover Earth-like planets, if they exist, includes assured on your doorstep names, visible in the dark sky:
-- Sirius, in the constellation Canis Scale, the neighboring star visible afterward the bare eye from the northern hemisphere's mid-latitudes, seen in winter floor a line extending from Orion's arrive at
-- Altair, forming one manipulate of the "Summer Triangle"
-- Alpha Centauri, the neighboring bright star to Alight, visible from southernmost Texas, Florida, Hawaii and the southern hemisphere
The research is understood in a paper published September 2006 in Publications of the Climax The public of the Soothing. Its authors are Joseph Catanzarite and Drs. Michael Shao, Stephen Unwin, Angelle Tanner, and Jeffrey Yu, all from JPL.
Excellent information on SIM PlanetQuest is uncomprehending at: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/SIM/sim index.cfm
THIS ARTICLE: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=1209
Excellent READ: Modeling Other Earths
