Renegade Planets: Weird Alien Worlds Challenge Theories

Over the past 200 years, a standard model has emerged to explain how solar systems form. Using our own solar system as a guide, the model explains the existence of a central star (our Sun), an inner system of rocky, "terrestrial" planets, and an outer system of "gas giant" planets, all orbiting in nearly the same plane of rotation as the central star.

Recent discoveries of planetary systems around other stars have challenged this model. These exoplanet discoveries have included gas giant planets in close orbit around their stars, some of which are in radically different planes of rotation from their primary stars.

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Cosmological anomaly confounds astronomers

An international team of researchers has uncovered a cosmological anomaly and are now trying to determine if it is an uncanny coincidence or a vital clue to understanding the origins of our Universe.

The irregularity, described in a paper accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters, has left the team, including researchers from Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology, scratching their heads.

According to Swinburne co-author Dr Michael Murphy, the paper reveals a strange coincidence - or at least what appears to be a strange coincidence - occurring in distant galaxies.

"We were studying the abundance of molecules containing deuterium-deuterated molecular hydrogen (HD) in two different galaxies in the distant Universe.

"What we inadvertently discovered was that in these two galaxies the fraction of molecules which were HD was the same as the fraction of atoms which were deuterium (D), hydrogen's doubly-heavy cousin. We then looked at the only other two existing measurements of HD in distant galaxies and found almost exactly the same thing."


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http://www.swinburne.edu.au/chancellery/mediacentre/research/news/2010/07/cosmological-anomaly-confounds-astronomers

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Berger to Speak on Occultations at Skyscrapers Annual Meeting

I’m going to be the featured speaker at the Annual Cookout meeting of the Amateur Astronomical Society of Rhode Island (known as the Skyscrapers) on July 10th at 4:00pm. The title of my talk, “Fame, Fortune and Discoveries in the Occult” is a play on the ‘other’ meaning of occult, but since I’m an astronomer I think we can all agree that I’m not going to be casting any spells that day.

Here’s the blip on the talk from the Skyscrapers website.

“Many opportunities exist for amateur astronomers to make contributions to scientific research. My interest is in helping to classify asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects for the scientists at MIT and Williams College, and also to report my observations through a worldwide network called the International Occultation Timing Association. One of the better ways to gather data on these distant objects is by recording the light curves of certain stars as the asteroids eclipse or occult them. It only takes simple, inexpensive equipment to get started, and from there you can take it across the world, as I’ve been able to do.”

“Bruce Berger has lectured on amateur astronomy, occultations and telescope making across the US, South America and Asia. His passion for astronomy and astronomy gadgets fuels his desire to learn more and to share his experiences with others through his Scopemaker.com website. As a long-time member and past president of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston, Bruce has promoted professional-amateur collaboration projects with scientists at the MIT-Williams College Occultation Consortium and the San Pedro Martir National Observatory of Mexico. Along with John Briggs and several others, Bruce is a co-author of a just published (6/17/10) article in Nature titled

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Light memories recall quantum information

BOSTON: Using laser beams and a super cold crystal, Australian researchers stored and retrieved a quantum state of light with 69% efficiency – much higher than that of atomic vapours, used in most quantum computing research.

These findings take researchers one step closer to secure communications: in theory, a quantum computer could send a message that can only be read by one other computer, making it far more secure than today's methods.

It's the unique setup of lasers and crystals that makes the retrieval possible, the researchers said.

One-second memory

"In principle, we could store a whole image - even a holographic image. You could take photo with the lasers, and store it using this crystal," said Matt Sellars of the Australian National University in Canberra.


http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/3520/light-memories-recall-quantum-information

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Article on KBO TX300 Published in Nature

The paper on 2002 TX300 or KBO 55636 was (finally) published in Nature magazine.  It’s exciting for me, because even though I was one of many researchers involved in the project, it was a first in science and a first for me, though I hope it won’t be the last. Jim Elliot and his team were able to deploy 21 observing stations across the globe in an unprecedented attempt to measure the size, and perhaps more, of an object that’s about 4 billion miles from the sun. To put this into a scale that we can understand, it’s somewhat like taking a photograph of a silver dollar from 800 miles away.

I’ve written about my personal KBO55636 adventure before – capturing the object eclipsing a star using the 1.5 meter telescope belonging to the Observatorio Astronomica Nacional’s San Pedro Mountain Observatory in North Baja California state n Mexico. Although I did not observe the actual occultation, it was observed from 2 points in the state of Hawaii, and my observation of a non-event was important because it helped define the size of the object.

Another important discovery is the apparent brightness, or albedo, of 55636. Scientists would expect that the object, though composed mainly of ice, would have scooped up so much space dust in the billion years since it’s creation that it would be kind of dull. But the paper presents data that the object is one of the brightest in the solar system Noted occultation specialist Bruno Sicardi speculates that if the object is as reflective as reported then scientists may need to redefine their theories on the evolution of KBOs.

For those interested in the technical details, here’s a link to the full text article. For those that may prefer a more simplified explanation of the significance of this important discovery, here are some external links from around the world.

SKY & TELESCOPE – Kelly BeattyBBCPHYSORG.COMMIT PRESS RELEASEGOOGLE NEWSABC SCIENCE (AUSTRALIA)SBS (AUSTRALIA)MSNBCGERMANYGERMANYRUSSIANETHERLANDS Filed under: Astronomy, Occultations Comment (1) Article tags: 55636, MIT, occultation, Raul Michel, San Pedro Martir, UNAM One Response to “”

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First Team To Study A Kuiper Belt Object During A Stellar Occultation

Until now, astronomers have used telescopes to find Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs), moon-sized bodies, and obtain their spectra to determine what types of ices are on their surface. They have also used thermal-imaging techniques to get a rough idea of the size of KBOs, but other details have been difficult to glean.

While astronomers think there are about 70,000 KBOs that are larger than 100 kilometers in diameter, the objects' relatively small size and location make it hard to study them in detail.

One method that has been has been proposed for studying KBOs is to observe one as it passes briefly in front of a bright star; such events, known as stellar occultations, have yielded useful information about other planets in the solar system.

Read the entire article:
http://www.spacedaily.com/...

Read more...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10333601.stm

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Hundreds of Possible Alien Planets Discovered By NASA Spacecraft

NASA's Kepler spacecraft hunting for Earth-like planets around other stars has found 706 candidates for potential alien worlds while gazing at more than 156,000 stars packed into a single patch of the sky.

If all 706 of these objects pass the stringent follow-up tests to determine if they are actually planets, and not false alarms, they could nearly triple the current number of known extrasolar planets. They were announced as part of a huge release of data from the mission's first 43 days by NASA's Kepler science team this week.

The Kepler space observatory monitors stars for subtle changes in their brightness, which could indicate the presence of alien planets passing in front of them as seen from Earth. Astronomers will use the newly-released data from Kepler to determine if orbiting planets are responsible for the variation in brightness of several hundred stars.

Read the entire article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/hundredsofpossiblealienplanetsdiscoveredbynasaspacecraft

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