New Sunspot theory

The sun is entering into the peak of the 11 year cycle and the concepts of sunflares and sunspots have become the burning topic even among the illeterate people. The present theories are based on the principle that the sunspots are the result of heat flowing into the spot where magnetic fields are formed due to lower temperatures existing which are the result of reduction in pressure due to hydrogen atoms present at that spot. But the new theory put up by the researchers at Hawai explains this in a different way. They, Instead of looking at the hydrogen atoms in the sun, started looking up at the hydroxyl atoms which break up into hydrogen and oxygen at even lower temperatures than that of the hydrogen atoms. Thus they declared that those are hydroxyl atoms leading to the sunspots.

You know when it is a strange topic, that too related to astronomy, people drive themselves crazy with n number of theories. So only thing we as observers need to do is consider the principles and concept of every theory in order to build up a perfect theory. Anyways stay glued for more updates regarding the upcoming theories about the sunspots because you know this is the sunspot-season ;-)
Signing off for today yours  Pranu :-)

Ref: Accuweather
Date: 02-02-2012

Number of habitable planets changes to 4

Here comes one more planet into the category of potentially habitable planets. This is the reult of work done by the European Southern Observatory which they named as GJ667C. The observations say it should be at a distance of 22 light years. Let me remind you the first three on the occasion of the discovery of this planet. 1st one found is Gliese 581d, the 2nd one is HD85512b by Swiss astronomers and the 3rd is Kepler 22b by NASA.

Well these are the conclusions that could be drawn basing upon the observations made on that planet. 

1.             coming to our present GJ 667C planet, it is observed to be revolving around its starevery 28.15 days which indicates the shorter size of the star when compared to the Sun.
2. It is estimated to be about 22 light years away from the earth which is not so much when compared to the distances of the previously discovered 3 planets.
3. It has a mass of 4.5 times that of the earth.
4. Observations doubt it as a 3-star system in which the other 2 planets orbiting our star of concern might be a super earth and a gas giant.
5. The percentage of heavier elements is very low when compared to those of the earth's. but astronomers back up this under the shadow of "metal-poor" example types of stars. Lets see if this is the correct reason underlying or just a back up.

With these conclusions, the research will be continued in the coming days going to the deeper depths of each and every observation. Stay glued to get more updates on this 4th discovered habitable planet. who knows if this planet may become our future accommodating planet. Signing off for today yours Pranu :)


Ref: Economic times, Astronomy now
Date: 02-02-2012

Russia's search for Exoplanets

The search for exo planets has now become the interesting field in Astronomy. Believe in the presence of alien life or not, astronomers always love to search for these exo-planets. More than 250 have been detected so far using the U.S and Japan's space telescopes. Now Russia announces that its going to start the exo-planet search like the U.S & Japan, but with a different methodology. Head of the Institute for Space Research Lev Zelyony said on Wednesday that their scientists are planning to conduct this search using ground-based instruments unlike the space ones used in other countries. They also explained the principle this way: the searchwould be based on a simple logic that the star's brightness will drop to a lower value when the planet passes by it and this drop will be measured by the ground instruments that would be built. Zelyony also added that already the Hungarian Automated Telescope Network (HATNet) proved it to be useful.

Stay glued for more news regarding this ground instrument based exo-planet search. Will keep updating the blog with more interesting things. Signing off for today yours Pranu :)

Ref: ria.ru
Date: 01-02-2012