New Planet in Neighborhood, Astronomically Speaking

Abigail Roesser

Ms. Davies

C -Block

New Planet in Neighborhood, Astronomically Speaking

Overbye, Dennis. "New Planet in Neighborhood, Astronomically Speaking." The New York Times. The New York Times, 17 Oct. 2012. Web. 30 Mar. 2013.

            Scientists are constantly searching for a planet similar to the one we call home everyday. Its no secret that the planet we are on now, Earth, will not last forever. In October 2012 a European graduate student named Xavier Dumusque announced that he had found one with the same mass as Earth in Alpha Centauri. It is the lightest planet ever found. Alpha Centauri is a “triple star system that is the Sun’s closest neighbor, only 4.4 light-years away.” It is believed that in Alpha Centauri there are many other rocky. In Alpha Centauri there is Alpha Centauri A and B. In Alpha Centauri A the star is a little bit brighter than our Sun and it is larger. These two star systems pass closest to each other every 900 million years. The article discusses that there is an area in Alpha Centauri B where the temperature is “moderate” enough for water as well as humans and people like us. The planet was found through a method known as the “wobble method”. Xavier Dumusque and his colleagues built spectrographs known as HARPS on a telescope. The diameter of the telescope was 140 inches. The discovery of this planet similar to ours has led to space exploration in Alpha Centauri. There have been many different reactions to the discovery of this planet. Some people were happy because this is a very close planet that “you could almost spit there” but others believed that they should just send a probe there to explore this. According to Dr. Geoffrey Marcy this kind of discovery created a new interest in experiments and programs including the Terrestrial Planet Finder. Dr. Marcy said, “What a great scientific educational mission to have a probe out there, making its way decade after decade.”

            This article is very important to the study of earth science because understanding other planets similar to Earth can helps us become prepared for the future. As of now scientists everyday are looking for a place for humans to live, because Earth will not last forever. Understanding the planets around us could be the key to our future. I chose this article because I thought that it was interesting how there can be a place capable of sustaining human life.

            I thought that this article was very well written. I think that if you are interested in other planets I would urge you to read this article. The author got quotes from a few different scientists, which was good evidence for what they were saying. However, I noticed that sometimes the article seemed confusing and in many cases lacked some information. Overall, I thought that the article was very interesting.

Krissy Marrinan

Earth Science C Even

March 18^th 2013

Ms. Davies

Chang , Kenneth. "On the Watch for a Solar Storm - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. N.p., 18 Mar. 2013. Web. 18 Mar. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/science/space/on-the-watch-for-a-solar-storm.html?pagewanted=all>.

Sun Storm Forecast: Tiny Chance of Havoc

            

            A solar flare occurred in the 1800s wiping out many power lines and disrupting the electricity on whole continents. The event occurred in 1859, and is recorded to be the largest geomagnetic storm ever. In this article, the author states that the eruption caused aurous in many different colours such as red, green and purple. An expert commented on the event and if it happened today, during this modern age. The expert didn’t believe that a solar flare would damage the world as much as might be expected, but that the power would be on within a week of the flare. Though this expert seems confident that the flare would not cause much damage, but scientists say that is impossible to predict when the next flare could occur, meaning that the range of destruction could be more sever. Solar flares originate near sunspots, areas of stormy magnetic fields; they have cycles where their solar flares could be less forceful and others where they are very powerful. Events that have affected the earths power girds all are related to Solar flares or other incidents dealing with the sun. These occurrences have happened all over the world including Canada. Some scientist have discovered that when the sun’s sunspots generate enough energy to produce a solar flare, the effect of the flare could reach earth in 8.5 minutes, but the likeliness of that actually happening is rare.

             Solar flares are powerful and potentially very destructive to earth. If one was to directly affect earth today, many people could e out of power for weeks, or even months, whole continents of people would be affected. As recorded in the 1859 solar flare, many telegram and other electronics at that time were destroyed and caught on fire because of the blast. Today, if this occurred, fires would affect almost every home, based on the fact that the blast would cause explosions of fuse boxes and transformers. The article explains what happened in older solar flares and possibly what to expect of an upcoming one. Explaining previous flares could allow for us to prepare for another, but scientists have not found a way to know if a solar flare is coming or not.

Furthermore, I think that the article was very interesting and explained the danger of solar flares. Though at some points I found it very repetitive, and also more of historical article rather than a scientific, but there were some facts that I found interesting. I didn’t know that it only took 8.5 minutes for a solar flare to reach the earth, but it’s also very scary.  

Alien Life Orbiting a Dying Star

Brendan Carty 3/7/13

Core Earth Science/ Ms. Davies

Doyle, Amanda. “Alien Life Could be Detectable on Planets Around Dying Stars” Astrobiology Magazine Online. 4 March 2013. 

Are we alone?  This is the biggest question astronomer’s want answered.  No one is going to tell us the answer either.  The only way we will ever know if life exists on another planet is if we discover it.  That’s just the kind of approach scientists behind the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are taking.   My article entitled, “Alien Life Could be Detectable on Planets Around Dying Stars” talks about how scientists are using a new method in trying to detect an earth-like planet beyond our own solar system.  The key to this new method is detecting exoplanets orbiting around a white dwarf star. An exoplanet is simply a planet that is located outside our solar system.  A white dwarf, is a weak and dying star that is at its last leg of its life before it dies out.  Scientists use a technique called transmission spectroscopy to discover if a planet has potential for life.  How it works is that the scientists wait for the planet under observation to come in between the Earth and its sun.  When this happens, elements in the planet’s atmosphere will be absorbed and a spectrum of the planet will be projected.  However, until now this process was incredibly difficult because the large suns that exist beyond our solar system would create so much glare that it would be tough for scientists to determine the sequence of colors that is being emitted from the exoplanet.  Scientists behind the JWST have figured out a simple solution to this problem.  They will use transmission spectroscopy on white dwarf suns that have shrunk and are not nearly as bright as they once were. When an exoplanet crosses in between the Earth and its white dwarf its element spectrum will be clear and easy to see.  This is important because scientists will be looking for certain elements in an exoplanet’s atmosphere that would suggest that there is perhaps life on it.  Some of these element biomarkers include oxygen and methane, elements that would quickly run out if there were not something replenishing it.  Oxygen for example must be produced in large quantities to replace the large amount that reacts with other compounds.  Scientists will also look for planets that emit a color that would suggest there are large bodies of water located on the surface.  This would highly suggest that some sort of life or another is currently living on a specific exoplanet.  Currently we are aware of no such planet that is orbiting a white dwarf because it is so hard to see such faint stars.  So scientists are hoping the JWST will be able to capture the dull light produced by these old stars.  A survey will be taken to find the closest white dwarfs around Earth.  From there, these suns will be monitored until a planet can be detected orbiting around these suns.  There are high hopes for this project. "We expect to find maybe one or two Earth-like planets that transit white dwarfs, and are observable with JWST, *if* such planets at all exist around white dwarfs," said Dr.Maoz.

     

This article if followed through would be very important to everyone but especially people in the Earth Science or astronomy community.  Discovering Earth-like planets that could potentially contain life would be an amazing find.  From that comes the next step, actually discovering life on another planet.  If this were to happen, it would be the only thing anybody ever talked about for a long, long time.  That day would be treated and turned into an international holiday.  The discovery of life on another planet would be the defining moment of a generation.  It would perhaps even unite our planet, if even for a moment.  The next step after that would be collecting and studying this life.  This step would take much time, however.  But before any of that can be done, we must first try to determine where life in the universes around us might exist.  Using the JWST, scientists will be able to do just that.  Personally, I think finding life on another planet would be the most amazing thing ever.  This article talks about a very new and exciting way about going about discovering extraterrestrial life. 

The article is very interesting and I urge any future astronomers or Earth scientists to read it.  The article was good in describing how the process would work and how these scientists behind the JWST would go about looking for potential life supporting exoplanets.  However, the article does not get into great detail about the actual telescope itself and why this particular model is special.  I would like to know how this telescope is different and essential to looking at white dwarfs.  I am only left guessing.  Perhaps because these white dwarfs are so dull, the JWST is so strong and magnified that it is easy to detect these dying stars and its orbiting exoplanets.  Another critique of this article is that very disappointingly it does not list specific examples of a white dwarf or maybe even an orbiting planet that is similar to our Earth in structure.  It would be nice to know if they had a planet in mind they would like to look at before they launched the JWST.  Despite all my critiques, the article is very well written and very informing.  I had no idea what transmission spectroscopy was or what its function was.  I for one am truly excited about the future of space exploration and have my fingers crossed that this JWST discovers a planet that could support life.