Search for Another Earth

 

NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered more than 1,000 planets and some are quite Earth-like.

  • A group of astronomers of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have found eight new planets orbiting their stars at distances compatible with liquid water.  The total number of potentially habitable “Goldilocks planets” are dozen now.

  • The most terrestrial of the new worlds announced are a pair known as Kepler 438b and Kepler 442b, both orbiting stars slightly smaller, cooler and redder than our sun. 

  • Kepler 438b is only 12 per cent larger than Earth in diameter and has a 35-day year; Kepler 442 is a third larger than Earth and has 112-day year.

Goldilocks zone: It is the habitable zone around a star where it's not too hot and not too cold for liquid water to exist on the surface of orbiting planets


Kepler mission: In 2009, NASA launched a spacecraft called Kepler to look for exoplanets. Kepler looked for planets in a wide range of sizes and orbits. And these planets orbited around stars that varied in size and temperature.



Exoplanets: All of the planets in our solar system orbit around the Sun. Planets that orbit around other stars are called exoplanets. Exoplanets are very hard to see directly with telescopes. They are hidden by the bright glare of the stars they orbit.


Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS): TESS is designed to discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest dwarf stars in the sky. In its prime mission, a two-year survey of the solar neighborhood, TESS monitored the brightness of stars for periodic drops caused by planet transits. The prime mission ended on July 4, 2020 and TESS is now in an extended mission.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vaccine Nationalism

Image
What is vaccine nationalism? When a country manages to secure doses of vaccines for its own citizens or residents and prioritises its own domestic markets before they are made available in other countries it is known as ‘vaccine nationalism’ .  This is done through pre-purchase agreements between a government and a vaccine manufacturer. For example , the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the European Union have spent tens of billions of dollars on deals with vaccine front runners such as Pfizer Inc, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca Plc even before their effectiveness is proven. Pre-purchase agreements: It is an agreement where, even before the end of final stage human trials or regulatory approval, several wealthier countries enter into pre-purchase agreements with vaccine manufacturers. History of Vaccine Nationalism The process of hoarding vaccines can be traced back to a similar situation that happened in 2009 during the H1N1 flu pandemic. Australia, the first ...
Read more

Mystery Disease in Andhra Pradesh

Image
A ‘mystery disease’ has emerged in Eluru, Andhra Pradesh. It has caused illness to almost 450 people and few deaths also. It is believed that organochlorines are responsible for this mysterious disease. The symptoms like seizures, nausea, dizziness and headaches are seen among patients. Heavy metals like Lead and nickel content in drinking water and milk was primarily established as the root cause of the disease. It is found in the blood sample of patients. What are Organochlorines? Organochlorines (OC) are a group of chlorinated compounds that belong to the class of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) with high persistence in the environment. They are widely used as pesticides. Applications : OC insecticides were earlier used to control malaria and typhus; they were later banned in most countries.  They are relatively cheaper; as a result Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH), aldrin and dieldrin are among the most widely used pesticides...
Read more

What is Contour Bunding?

Image
Contour Bunding involves the placement of lines of stones along the natural rises of a landscape, and Contour farming. These techniques help to capture and hold rainfall before it can become runoff. They also inhibit wind erosion by keeping the soil. Contour bunds is a traditional low-cost method of soil conservation suitable for sloping land; it promotes water retention and helps prevent erosion. Contour bunding is a proven sustainable land management practice for marginal, sloping, and hilly land where the soil productivity is very low. Contour farming is used on sloping land where crops are grown. Contour farming is most effective on slopes between 2 and 10 percent.
Read more