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----------------- - 1833 - Exoplanets are starting to reveal their secrets
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- Most of us have heard that astronomers have discovered over 2,000 exoplanets orbiting other stars. There are not many reports that follow up on what astronomers have found since.
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- One is a planet 4 times more massive than Jupiter. It is orbiting a Brown Dwarf star 5 billion miles away. In contrast our Jupiter is 10 times closer to our Sun in a 500 million mile orbit. You would think this planet would be ice cold being so far away from a cool star.
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- Not the case, this planet is bright in the infrared because it is hot and only 10 million years old. In contrast our Jupiter has had 4,500 million years to form and cool off.
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- With Infrared Telescopes Hubble can study the varied atmosphere of these exoplanets. Because the atmosphere is varied it can measure the rotation by the brightness variations. One rotation in every 10 hours about the same as Jupiter’s, which is 9.8 hours
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- The planet is called 2M1207b and is 170 lightyears away. Discovered in 2006. The patchy complex cloud patterns have the strangest atmosphere. The temperatures are from 2,200 to 2,600 F. The atmosphere rains silicates and vaporized rock floats in the atmosphere like cigarette smoke.
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- Deeper into the atmosphere iron droplets are forming and falling like rain eventually evaporating again as they get lower in the atmosphere.
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- The planet will cool over billions of years and the iron and silicate clouds will descent lower and lower in the atmosphere.
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- The planet is only seven times less massive then the Brown Dwarf that is its sun. By comparison our Jupiter is 100 times less massive than our Sun. This is a strong indication how different this solar system is than our Solar System. Our Sun formed inside a circumstellar disk through accretion. This exoplanet and Brown Dwarf star formed through the gravitational collapse of a pair of rotating disks.
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- In 2018 the Webb Space Telescope will be able to derive more details about these cloud maps. The atmosphere composition we are finding so far are beyond our imagination.
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- Another exoplanet discovered in 2004 is 40 lightyears away. This planet is called “ 55 Cancri e” It is 2 times the diameter of Earth and 8 times more massive. The planet orbits very close to its star and directly in front of it from our vantage point. Its atmosphere is hydrogen, carbon, and helium. Its atmosphere is 1,000F. Its orbit completes every 18 hours.
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- The core of the planet is believed to be pure carbon, better known as “ diamond” due to the extreme pressure. The temperature and pressure at the surface would melt the rocks and create thick layers of steam. The atmosphere has large amounts of hydrogen and helium. It also contains carbon monoxide ( CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), and acetylene (C2H2)
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- These are two of the 2,000 plus exoplanets being investigated by astronomers. We hope to soon discover a smaller planet that is more Earthlike. Aliens living on the super planets could have no resemblance to what we are used to.
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- How many terrestrial planets do astronomers believe are out there?
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- Would you believe 700 million trillion
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--------------------- 7 *10^17
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- Could Earth be one of a kind of this many rolling dice?
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- The galaxies have had 13.8 billion years to produce these planets. The Earth is a relatively young age among those in the Milky Way Galaxy at only 4.5 billion years.
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- Everything we know so far comes form a very small patch of sky. The data on exoplanets is heavily weighted on gaseous giants, or super-Jupiter’s, because they are easier to find that the smaller terrestrial planets. So the computer models that came up with this number have a high degree of uncertainty.
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- Of course ,even having a terrestrial planet is a far cry from having intelligent life. The most incomprehensible fact is that I am here writing this down and you are there comprehending it. Either we are the result of a very improbable lottery draw, or, we do not understand how the lottery works. God only knows.
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- Stay tuned, an announcement will be made shortly.
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- Request these Reviews to learn more:
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- #1669 - As of November, 2013 there were 3,538 planet candidates being observed.
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- #1592 - The first exoplanet was discovered in 1995. So far 4 of the stars have a system of at least 6 planets.
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- #1274 - The Kepler Space Telescope is continuously monitoring 156,000 stars in search of planets in a single patch of sky.
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----- 707-536-3272 ---------------------- Wednesday, March 2, 2016 -----
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