Herschel Scope producing stunning images

The Herschel telescope has unveiled this dark cloud 1000 light-years away in constellation Aquila. Herschel's unparalleled vision deep in the infrared has shown an estimated 100 "proto-stars" just about to light up with fusion, and a further 600 that, in time, will join them in this stellar nursery.

What a great start to 2010 :-)

Astronomers discover coolest exoplanet yet

Astronomers have published an image of the coolest planet outside our solar system that has been pictured directly.

The new find is more similar to our own Solar System than prior pictured exoplanets, in terms of the parent star's type and the planet's size.

However, the surface temperature is a scorching 280-370C, and could still prove to be a brown dwarf star.

The planet, called GJ758B, may well have a sister, GJ758C

The results, published in Astrophysical Journal, were obtained by a new camera on the Subaru telescope in Hawaii.

Among more than 400 known exoplanets, only 10 have been imaged directly, rather than detecting them via measurements of their parent stars' light or movement.
The task is notoriously difficult, akin to discerning a match next to a floodlight at a distance of kilometres.

The new HiCIAO camera makes it possible to spot exoplanets next to their parent stars through a process called angular differential imaging.
In this approach, successive pictures are taken when a target star is directly overhead in the sky and possible exoplanets appear to rotate around it; any specks of light due to the measurement stay put and can be subtracted.

In two observations in May and August, an international team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy focused the telescope on GJ758, a star about 50 light-years away.

They found a so-called gas giant planet of a mass somewhere between 10 and 40 times that of Jupiter, in an oval-shaped orbit around the star.

Exoplanets are tough to picture directly, but methods are being refined
It is presently at a distance about the same as between our Sun and Neptune. Because of the elliptical orbit, its average distance from its host star is about one-and-a-half times that between our Sun and Pluto.

Because it remains so hot despite the considerable distance from its star, the researchers believe it is still in the process of contracting.
As is the case with many potential exoplanets of that estimated mass, GJ758B may be a brown dwarf star.

"We can see how warm this thing is but we don't know for how long it has cooled, because we don't know the age of the system - that's the tricky part," said Markus Janson, one of the authors on the paper now at the University of Toronto.
Knowing the age as well as the temperature of GJ758B will help determine exactly how massive it is, and thereby if it is in fact a planet or a brown dwarf.
"One thing we want to do is to examine the star, because determining the properties of the star is the easiest way to determine the age of the star," he told BBC News.
However, the August observation turned up another interesting possibility.
"We also want to follow up on another candidate in the system that can be seen in the images, but we have to see if it's actually bound to the star, or whether it's something that's just there by chance."

The team will continue its measurements on the parent star and investigate the second candidate - GJ758C - in the spring of 2010.

Explorers of the Universe

Max Alexander has composed an audio/photographic homage to astronomers everywhere and can be viewed here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8319044.stm

The work was supported by the STFC and RAS

Astronaut Becomes Father in Space

A US astronaut on board the space shuttle Atlantis is literally walking on air, with the news of the birth of a daughter back on Earth.

Randolph Bresnik, who is on his first space flight, became a father for a second time when baby Abigail was born back home in Houston, Texas. The event makes Bresnik the second astronaut to become a father in space - the first was Mike Fincke in 2004.

Mr Bresnik is due to return to Earth on Friday after an 11-day mission.

The 42-year-old Marine and his crewmates were awoken on Sunday by the song Butterfly Kisses, especially chosen by his wife, Rebecca.

Among the lyrics are the lines: "There's two things I know for sure, she was sent here from heaven and she's daddy's little girl."

The couple have a three-year-old son, who they adopted from Ukraine.

24 Hours gone!

Well...its been an exciting 24 hours.

The south coast has been battered by severe weather, wind gusts hitting 100mph in certain areas, which meant cause for concern for our recently built run off roof observatory but despite our concerns the 100mph winds and the week previous tornado strike could not budge our sturdy observatory, scope and home are doing well :-)

Imagine our surprise then when after all this bad weather we looked out and were greeted with clear skies....observing started straight away.

Members tonight have completed a series of observations of variable stars including assisting on projects as requested to do so by the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) monitoring some important changes that have been noted in recent days. Variable star observation count has nearly hit the 500 mark already!!

M76, M100, NGC7226 & M45 were also observed and recorded with members sketching their observations, these notes will be on their way to both the British Astronomical Association and Society for Popular Astronomy as soon as possible

Thanks to all members who attended the observing session tonight....a great time was had by all inlcuding the groups two youngest members Sharon (8 years) and Martin (10 years)

Rosetta Probe makes last fly by

Europe's Rosetta probe is making its third and final flyby of Earth as it seeks to position itself to chase down a comet in 2014.

The spacecraft's whip around the planet will give it the extra speed it needs to take it out to the rendezvous location near Jupiter.
Launched in 2004, Rosetta has already flown by Earth twice and Mars once.

The journey out to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko will also take the probe past an asteroid in 2010.

Rosetta is expected to be moving at some 13.3km/s as it sweeps over the Indian Ocean, just south of the Indonesian island of Java.

At closest approach, timed currently to be 0745GMT, it should be at an altitude of just 2,481km, well inside the orbits of geostationary telecoms satellites.

Rosetta needs the gravity assist of passing close to Earth
Engineers say the gravity-assist will increase Rosetta's speed by 3.6km/s with respect to the Sun. Scientists will use the flyby to test the health of some of Rosetta's instruments by making observations of the Earth and the Moon.

Osiris, the main scientific camera system, will be taking pictures.

Rosetta will be extremely difficult to see from the ground, and amateur astronomers have been told that large telescopes will be required to pick up the faint, fast-moving object.
Engineers will assess the probe's trajectory after the Earth-Moon flyby sequence has been completed, to see if any course corrections are required. Any changes will be easier and lighter on fuel if they are made as early as possible.
The mission is expected to make a flyby of Asteroid Lutetia in July 2010, but apart from that one event the long journey into the outer Solar System should be a quiet one.

Indeed, for much of the time, the spacecraft will be put in a hibernation mode.
Rosetta's meeting with Churyumov-Gerasimenko is set for the May of 2014.
The probe will go into orbit around the 4km-wide ball of ice and dust and place a small lander called Philae on its surface.

As the comet moves into the inner Solar System, radiation from the Sun will cause the comet's ices to sublime - they will turn straight from a solid to a gas. Material will be ejected at supersonic speeds.

Gas and dust will be thrown out around the comet to form a coma, and away from the comet to form tails.

The Rosetta orbiter and lander will watch and record these events as the comet hurtles along at speeds up to 135,000km/h.

Scientists are keen to study comets close up because they are thought to contain materials that have remained largely unchanged since the formation of the Solar System 4.6bn years ago.

Rosetta milestones:
• Launch: 2 March 2004
• First Earth swingby: 4 March 2005
• Mars swingby: 25 February 2007
• Second Earth swingby: 13 November 2007
• Steins flyby: 5 September 2008
• Third Earth swingby: 13 November 2009
• Lutetia flyby: 10 July 2010
• Comet rendezvous manoeuvres: 22 May 2014
• Lander delivery: 10 November 2014
• Escorting the comet around the Sun: November 2014 - December 2015
• End of mission: December 2015

Lithium clues for planet hunters

Astronomers may have found a way to identify those Sun-like stars most likely to harbour orbiting planets.

A survey of stars known to possess planets shows the vast majority to be severely depleted in lithium.

To date, scientists have detected just over 420 worlds circling other stars using a range of techniques.

Garik Israelian and colleagues tell the journal Nature that future planet hunts could be narrowed by going after stars with particular compositions.
Scientists think events early in the star's formation may be responsible for producing the lithium phenomenon.

Theory holds that planets grow from a disc of dusty material that develops around infant stars.
The researchers propose that this disc and its contents alter the young star's spin, mixing its upper layers more effectively into the interior where its contents can be "burnt" in the fusion processes that power it.
"When discs form around stars there is interaction of angular momentum between disc, planets and parent star; and this interaction affects the rotation of the parent star and that will affect the lithium abundance," said Garik Israelian from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain.

The relative low abundance of lithium in our Sun's upper layers has long been a fascination for scientists.

Researchers who have studied meteorites with compositions unchanged since the beginning of the Solar System say the element's presence in our star ought to be 140 times greater than is observed.

Physicists know the Sun's upper layers as viewed today do not convect deeply enough to take any lithium to a location that is sufficiently hot to burn the element. This suggests mixing conditions must have been different in the past.

The outcome of the research is a tool astronomers can now use to help pinpoint the right type of stars where they are likely to detect planets.
"Suppose you had 50 or 100 candidates for parent-bearing stars," explained Dr Israelian.
"Those which have a very low abundance of lithium will be the best candidates around which you might find planets," he told BBC News.
Astronomers detect exoplanets, as they are called, using a number of methods.
One technique looks for the gravitational "wobble" a massive planet will induce in its parent star.
Another approach is to monitor a star for extended periods in the hope a planet will pass across its face. This transit reveals the planet's presence by making the star's light dim ever so slightly.

(This news from www.bbc.co.uk)