Image via Grant Schwartzkopff.
Photographer Grant Schwartzkopff wrote:
Sunset over the rock when the full moon came up right along side the rock. Absolutely brilliant.
Thank you, Grant!
Image via Grant Schwartzkopff.
Photographer Grant Schwartzkopff wrote:
Sunset over the rock when the full moon came up right along side the rock. Absolutely brilliant.
Thank you, Grant!
Rebecca wrote:
What is star hopping? What does that mean?
Amateur astronomers use star hopping to go from stars and constellations they know … to ones they don’t know yet. First, look for noticeable patterns on the sky’s dome. One very easy pattern to find at this time of year is the constellation Orion the Hunter. You’ll find it descending in the west after sunset. Orion is easy to find because it contains a very noticeable pattern of three medium-bright stars in a short straight row. These stars represent Orion’s Belt.
If you can find Orion, you can use it to star hop to Sirius, the sky’s brightest star, in the constellation Canis Major. Orion and Sirius are dropping into the sun’s glare at this time of year, so be sure to look for them soon after the sun goes down.
And that’s how you come to know the constellations. You use what you’ve already learned to build outward to find new patterns.
View larger. | Another example of star hopping. The two outer stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper always point to Polaris, the North Star. Photo by EarthSky Facebook friend Abhijit Juvekar. Thank you, Abhijit!
Bottom line: Find new stars and constellations by star hopping from ones you already know.
EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order today from the EarthSky store
Donate: Your support means the world to us
Rebecca wrote:
What is star hopping? What does that mean?
Amateur astronomers use star hopping to go from stars and constellations they know … to ones they don’t know yet. First, look for noticeable patterns on the sky’s dome. One very easy pattern to find at this time of year is the constellation Orion the Hunter. You’ll find it descending in the west after sunset. Orion is easy to find because it contains a very noticeable pattern of three medium-bright stars in a short straight row. These stars represent Orion’s Belt.
If you can find Orion, you can use it to star hop to Sirius, the sky’s brightest star, in the constellation Canis Major. Orion and Sirius are dropping into the sun’s glare at this time of year, so be sure to look for them soon after the sun goes down.
And that’s how you come to know the constellations. You use what you’ve already learned to build outward to find new patterns.
View larger. | Another example of star hopping. The two outer stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper always point to Polaris, the North Star. Photo by EarthSky Facebook friend Abhijit Juvekar. Thank you, Abhijit!
Bottom line: Find new stars and constellations by star hopping from ones you already know.
EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order today from the EarthSky store
Donate: Your support means the world to us
1 in 6 people dying of lung cancer in the UK are non-smokers, according to new research from the Royal Society of Medicine. The Guardian covered the new figures, which found that around 6,000 non-smokers in the UK die of lung cancer each year. Experts have suggested that the stigma of smoking has stalled investment in lung cancer research and said it’s time to give lung cancer “the recognition it deserves.” We blogged before about why never-smokers get lung cancer.
When a patient’s cancer stops responding to available treatments, clinical trials could provide new options. But only if there’s one available. Our scientists in Manchester are testing if reading a tumour’s DNA could help match patients to early stage clinical trials of targeted medicines. 100 patients have had their cancer DNA read so far, with 11 enrolled onto a clinical trial. It’s still early days, but scientists hope the study could help develop a new approach to treating patients with advanced cancers. The Times (£) and our press release have more.
CAR T cell therapy is one of the most talked-about immunotherapies of the last few years. But while the treatment has shown promise in certain types of blood cancers and is now available on the NHS for a small number of patients, the side effects can be severe. But early research could hint at ways to change that. Scientists have tinkered with the treatment to look for changes that reduced side effects without losing the benefits, as STAT News explains.
Scientists have found a new way that cells surrounding pancreatic cancers can help the tumours grow in mice. While the research is still at an early stage, scientists believe the discovery could open the door to studies into potential new treatments, as our news report explains.
Scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research have called for improved access to treatments in the UK, reports The Times (£). They’ve released a ’10-point plan’ to help improve patient’s ability to access new cancer drugs, including testing drugs in smaller, smarter clinical trials and being more flexible on age limits to allow children with cancer onto more clinical trials. In a survey of over 1,000 cancer patients, half of patients who want to enrol on clinical trials said they were unable to do so. Experts also called for more flexible drug pricing, which we’ve blogged about before.
The NHS in England carried out a record 2.2 million cancer checks in 2018, up from 1.9 million the previous year. The Mail Online covered the new NHS England figures, which some experts have linked to a greater awareness of symptoms.
Government proposals to impose a £30,000 salary threshold on workers moving to the UK have been described as the “most destructive policy proposal for NHS recruitment”. In leaked minutes from a meeting between NHS and Whitehall officials, senior health leaders claimed the policy could force hospitals to close “25% of services”, according to the Telegraph.
Dr Ranjana Srivastava, a cancer specialist in Australia, has shared her opinion on the “staggering inequalities” in cancer care in her regular column in The Guardian. The thought-provoking piece calls for funding to give every patient access to a cancer nurse.
Scientists in London and Edinburgh are on the hunt for new ways to target a rare form of leukaemia. They’ve pulled out a potential new target in lab studies of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), which was found at high levels in cancer cells but not in other blood cells. The target, known by the catchy name YTHDF2, was needed to promote and maintain cancer development. It’s an interesting prospect, but the Evening Standard’s talk of it being AML’s ‘Achilles heel’, which came from the press release, is perhaps premature.
Katie
1 in 6 people dying of lung cancer in the UK are non-smokers, according to new research from the Royal Society of Medicine. The Guardian covered the new figures, which found that around 6,000 non-smokers in the UK die of lung cancer each year. Experts have suggested that the stigma of smoking has stalled investment in lung cancer research and said it’s time to give lung cancer “the recognition it deserves.” We blogged before about why never-smokers get lung cancer.
When a patient’s cancer stops responding to available treatments, clinical trials could provide new options. But only if there’s one available. Our scientists in Manchester are testing if reading a tumour’s DNA could help match patients to early stage clinical trials of targeted medicines. 100 patients have had their cancer DNA read so far, with 11 enrolled onto a clinical trial. It’s still early days, but scientists hope the study could help develop a new approach to treating patients with advanced cancers. The Times (£) and our press release have more.
CAR T cell therapy is one of the most talked-about immunotherapies of the last few years. But while the treatment has shown promise in certain types of blood cancers and is now available on the NHS for a small number of patients, the side effects can be severe. But early research could hint at ways to change that. Scientists have tinkered with the treatment to look for changes that reduced side effects without losing the benefits, as STAT News explains.
Scientists have found a new way that cells surrounding pancreatic cancers can help the tumours grow in mice. While the research is still at an early stage, scientists believe the discovery could open the door to studies into potential new treatments, as our news report explains.
Scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research have called for improved access to treatments in the UK, reports The Times (£). They’ve released a ’10-point plan’ to help improve patient’s ability to access new cancer drugs, including testing drugs in smaller, smarter clinical trials and being more flexible on age limits to allow children with cancer onto more clinical trials. In a survey of over 1,000 cancer patients, half of patients who want to enrol on clinical trials said they were unable to do so. Experts also called for more flexible drug pricing, which we’ve blogged about before.
The NHS in England carried out a record 2.2 million cancer checks in 2018, up from 1.9 million the previous year. The Mail Online covered the new NHS England figures, which some experts have linked to a greater awareness of symptoms.
Government proposals to impose a £30,000 salary threshold on workers moving to the UK have been described as the “most destructive policy proposal for NHS recruitment”. In leaked minutes from a meeting between NHS and Whitehall officials, senior health leaders claimed the policy could force hospitals to close “25% of services”, according to the Telegraph.
Dr Ranjana Srivastava, a cancer specialist in Australia, has shared her opinion on the “staggering inequalities” in cancer care in her regular column in The Guardian. The thought-provoking piece calls for funding to give every patient access to a cancer nurse.
Scientists in London and Edinburgh are on the hunt for new ways to target a rare form of leukaemia. They’ve pulled out a potential new target in lab studies of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), which was found at high levels in cancer cells but not in other blood cells. The target, known by the catchy name YTHDF2, was needed to promote and maintain cancer development. It’s an interesting prospect, but the Evening Standard’s talk of it being AML’s ‘Achilles heel’, which came from the press release, is perhaps premature.
Katie
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. This post has separate sections for: Climate Change, Climate Change Impacts, Climate Change Mitigation, and Other Papers.
Temperature, precipitation, wind
Recent global warming as confirmed by AIRS (open access)
A Global Analysis of Land Surface Temperature Diurnal Cycle Using MODIS Observations
Multidecadal wind variability drives temperature shifts on the Agulhas Bank
Metrics for understanding large-scale controls of multivariate temperature and precipitation variability (open access)
Return period of extreme rainfall substantially decreases under 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C warming: a case study for Uttarakhand, India (open access)
Zoning and weighting in urban heat island vulnerability and risk mapping in Helsinki, Finland (open access)
GSDR: A global sub-daily rainfall dataset
Impact of daytime precipitation duration on urban heat island intensity over Beijing city
Seasonal variability of the global spectral wind‐wave climate
Extreme events
High‐resolution projections of extreme heat in New York City
The unprecedented coupled ocean-atmosphere summer heatwave in the New Zealand region 2017/18: drivers, mechanisms and impacts (open access)
Drought variability at various timescales over Yunnan Province, China: 1961–2015
District flood vulnerability index: urban decision-making tool (open access)
Tropical cyclone rainfall in the Mekong River Basin for 1983–2016
Forcings and feedbacks
BVOC–aerosol–climate feedbacks investigated using NorESM (open access)
Classification of Arctic multilayer clouds using radiosonde and radar data in Svalbard (open access)
Annual variability of ice-nucleating particle concentrations at different Arctic locations (open access)
Constraining the aerosol influence on cloud liquid water path (open access)
Significant Climate Impact of Highly Hygroscopic Atmospheric Aerosols in Delhi, India
On the Role of the Atmospheric Energy-Transport in 2xCO2-induced Polar Amplification in CESM1
Cryosphere
Avalanches and micrometeorology driving mass and energy balance of the lowest perennial ice field of the Alps: a case study (open access)
New evidence of glacier darkening in the Ortles-Cevedale group from Landsat observations
Arctic sea ice volume variability over 1901–2010: A model-based reconstruction
A key factor initiating surface ablation of Arctic sea ice: earlier and increasing liquid precipitation (open access)
Formation of snow cover anomalies over the Tibetan Plateau in cold seasons
Submarine Permafrost Map in the Arctic Modelled Using 1D Transient Heat Flux (SuPerMAP)
Hydrosphere
Multiple‐wavelet coherence of world's large rivers with meteorological factors and ocean signals
Interannual Hydroclimatic Variability in Coastal Tanzania
Atmospheric and oceanic circulation
How will a warming climate affect the Benguela coastal low‐level wind jet?
Seasonality of Intraseasonal Variability in Global Climate Models
Atlantic Zonal Mode: An emerging source of Indian summer monsoon variability in a warming world
Carbon and nitrogen cycles
Estimation of emissions from biomass burning in China (2003–2017) based on MODIS fire radiative energy data (open access)
Seasonality of dissolved organic carbon in the upper Northeast Pacific Ocean
A Numerical Model Analysis of the Mean and Seasonal Nitrogen Budget on the Northeast U.S. Shelf
Evidence for edge enhancements of soil respiration in temperate forests
Mankind
Anthropogenic climate change and heat effects on health
Extreme weather, chemical facilities, and vulnerable communities in the U.S. Gulf Coast: a disastrous combination (open access)
Quantifying urban water supply security under global change
Perceived temperature modulates peripersonal and interpersonal spaces differently in men and women
Divers risk accelerated fatigue and core temperature rise during fully-immersed exercise in warmer water temperature extremes (open access)
Changes in the spatial pattern of rice exposure to heat stress in China over recent decades
Embracing uncertainty: A discursive approach to understanding pathways for climate adaptation in Senegal (open access)
Biosphere
Phenological mismatch between season advancement and migration timing alters Arctic plant traits
Satellite-based vegetation optical depth as an indicator of drought-driven tree mortality
Testing early warning metrics for drought‐induced tree physiological stress and mortality
Fish facing global change: are early stages the lifeline?
Physiological acclimation and persistence of ectothermic species under extreme heat events
A consistent species richness–climate relationship for oaks across the Northern Hemisphere (open access)
Advancing the use of scenarios to understand society’s capacity to achieve the 1.5 degree target
Securing the climate benefits of stable forests (open access)
Climate change communication
Knowing how and knowing when: unpacking public understanding of atmospheric CO2 accumulation (open access)
Climate Policy
Recognition and analysis of potential risks in China’s carbon emission trading markets (open access)
How to operationalize accounting under Article 6 market mechanisms of the Paris Agreement
Carbon emissions and the trilemma of trade policy, migration policy and health care in the US
Energy production
Inter-annual variability of wind and solar electricity generation and capacity values in Texas (open access)
Does “100% renewable” trump concern for spatial impacts?
Emission savings
How does financial development affect energy consumption? Evidence from 21 transitional countries
Impact of low emissions vehicles on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Japan
Responses of soil carbon sequestration to climate smart agriculture practices: A meta‐analysis
China's urban methane emissions from municipal wastewater treatment plant (open access)
Estimating the soil N2O emission intensity of croplands in northwest Europe (open access)
China's black carbon emission from fossil fuel consumption in 2015, 2020, and 2030
Geoengineering
The response of permafrost and high latitude ecosystems under large scale stratospheric aerosol injection and its termination (open access)
General climate science
A new method to study inhomogeneities in climate records: Brownian Motion or Random Deviations?
Climate process chains: examples from Southern Africa
A Description and Evaluation of U.S. Climate Reference Network Standardized Soil Moisture Dataset
Palaeoclimatology
East Asian Monsoon Variability since the 16th Century
Attribution of the Last Glacial Maximum climate formation (open access)
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below. This post has separate sections for: Climate Change, Climate Change Impacts, Climate Change Mitigation, and Other Papers.
Temperature, precipitation, wind
Recent global warming as confirmed by AIRS (open access)
A Global Analysis of Land Surface Temperature Diurnal Cycle Using MODIS Observations
Multidecadal wind variability drives temperature shifts on the Agulhas Bank
Metrics for understanding large-scale controls of multivariate temperature and precipitation variability (open access)
Return period of extreme rainfall substantially decreases under 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C warming: a case study for Uttarakhand, India (open access)
Zoning and weighting in urban heat island vulnerability and risk mapping in Helsinki, Finland (open access)
GSDR: A global sub-daily rainfall dataset
Impact of daytime precipitation duration on urban heat island intensity over Beijing city
Seasonal variability of the global spectral wind‐wave climate
Extreme events
High‐resolution projections of extreme heat in New York City
The unprecedented coupled ocean-atmosphere summer heatwave in the New Zealand region 2017/18: drivers, mechanisms and impacts (open access)
Drought variability at various timescales over Yunnan Province, China: 1961–2015
District flood vulnerability index: urban decision-making tool (open access)
Tropical cyclone rainfall in the Mekong River Basin for 1983–2016
Forcings and feedbacks
BVOC–aerosol–climate feedbacks investigated using NorESM (open access)
Classification of Arctic multilayer clouds using radiosonde and radar data in Svalbard (open access)
Annual variability of ice-nucleating particle concentrations at different Arctic locations (open access)
Constraining the aerosol influence on cloud liquid water path (open access)
Significant Climate Impact of Highly Hygroscopic Atmospheric Aerosols in Delhi, India
On the Role of the Atmospheric Energy-Transport in 2xCO2-induced Polar Amplification in CESM1
Cryosphere
Avalanches and micrometeorology driving mass and energy balance of the lowest perennial ice field of the Alps: a case study (open access)
New evidence of glacier darkening in the Ortles-Cevedale group from Landsat observations
Arctic sea ice volume variability over 1901–2010: A model-based reconstruction
A key factor initiating surface ablation of Arctic sea ice: earlier and increasing liquid precipitation (open access)
Formation of snow cover anomalies over the Tibetan Plateau in cold seasons
Submarine Permafrost Map in the Arctic Modelled Using 1D Transient Heat Flux (SuPerMAP)
Hydrosphere
Multiple‐wavelet coherence of world's large rivers with meteorological factors and ocean signals
Interannual Hydroclimatic Variability in Coastal Tanzania
Atmospheric and oceanic circulation
How will a warming climate affect the Benguela coastal low‐level wind jet?
Seasonality of Intraseasonal Variability in Global Climate Models
Atlantic Zonal Mode: An emerging source of Indian summer monsoon variability in a warming world
Carbon and nitrogen cycles
Estimation of emissions from biomass burning in China (2003–2017) based on MODIS fire radiative energy data (open access)
Seasonality of dissolved organic carbon in the upper Northeast Pacific Ocean
A Numerical Model Analysis of the Mean and Seasonal Nitrogen Budget on the Northeast U.S. Shelf
Evidence for edge enhancements of soil respiration in temperate forests
Mankind
Anthropogenic climate change and heat effects on health
Extreme weather, chemical facilities, and vulnerable communities in the U.S. Gulf Coast: a disastrous combination (open access)
Quantifying urban water supply security under global change
Perceived temperature modulates peripersonal and interpersonal spaces differently in men and women
Divers risk accelerated fatigue and core temperature rise during fully-immersed exercise in warmer water temperature extremes (open access)
Changes in the spatial pattern of rice exposure to heat stress in China over recent decades
Embracing uncertainty: A discursive approach to understanding pathways for climate adaptation in Senegal (open access)
Biosphere
Phenological mismatch between season advancement and migration timing alters Arctic plant traits
Satellite-based vegetation optical depth as an indicator of drought-driven tree mortality
Testing early warning metrics for drought‐induced tree physiological stress and mortality
Fish facing global change: are early stages the lifeline?
Physiological acclimation and persistence of ectothermic species under extreme heat events
A consistent species richness–climate relationship for oaks across the Northern Hemisphere (open access)
Advancing the use of scenarios to understand society’s capacity to achieve the 1.5 degree target
Securing the climate benefits of stable forests (open access)
Climate change communication
Knowing how and knowing when: unpacking public understanding of atmospheric CO2 accumulation (open access)
Climate Policy
Recognition and analysis of potential risks in China’s carbon emission trading markets (open access)
How to operationalize accounting under Article 6 market mechanisms of the Paris Agreement
Carbon emissions and the trilemma of trade policy, migration policy and health care in the US
Energy production
Inter-annual variability of wind and solar electricity generation and capacity values in Texas (open access)
Does “100% renewable” trump concern for spatial impacts?
Emission savings
How does financial development affect energy consumption? Evidence from 21 transitional countries
Impact of low emissions vehicles on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Japan
Responses of soil carbon sequestration to climate smart agriculture practices: A meta‐analysis
China's urban methane emissions from municipal wastewater treatment plant (open access)
Estimating the soil N2O emission intensity of croplands in northwest Europe (open access)
China's black carbon emission from fossil fuel consumption in 2015, 2020, and 2030
Geoengineering
The response of permafrost and high latitude ecosystems under large scale stratospheric aerosol injection and its termination (open access)
General climate science
A new method to study inhomogeneities in climate records: Brownian Motion or Random Deviations?
Climate process chains: examples from Southern Africa
A Description and Evaluation of U.S. Climate Reference Network Standardized Soil Moisture Dataset
Palaeoclimatology
East Asian Monsoon Variability since the 16th Century
Attribution of the Last Glacial Maximum climate formation (open access)
Tonight, try locating one of the coolest constellations up there. The constellation Hercules the Kneeling Giant can be seen ascending in the east-northeast on these Northern Hemisphere spring evenings. You can find Hercules between two brilliant stars: Arcturus and Vega. The chart at the top of this post shows the sky for around 8 to 9 p.m. local time (9 to 10 p.m. daylight saving time), when the constellation Hercules, and the two stars so essential for finding it, are well up in the northeastern to eastern sky.
Arcturus is in the constellation Boötes, and Vega is in the constellation Lyra. At nightfall, Vega may still be below in your horizon. If so, wait awhile … it’ll rise soon.
A line between Arcturus and Vega passes through what is known as the Keystone – an asterism, or noticeable pattern – in Hercules. The Keystone is a squarish figure in the center of Hercules. See it on the charts above and below?
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The constellation Hercules, with its prominent Keystone asterism marked. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
The Keystone is a helpful pattern for more reasons than one. First, it’s noticeable on the sky’s dome, so it can lead your eye to Hercules.
Also, the Keystone in Hercules can help you find the most fascinating telescopic object within the boundaries of this constellation. This object is a globular star cluster known to stargazers as M13 or the Great Cluster in Hercules. M13 is barely visible to the eye alone in the darkest of skies, but binoculars show it as a nebulous starlike patch of light. And telescopes show stars both on the periphery of the cluster and toward its center.
The chart shows M13 (the great Hercules cluster) in the Keystone. This chart of the constellation Hercules is via the IAU.
This beautiful object is one of the galaxy’s oldest inhabitants. It’s a tightly packed spherical collection of about one million stars.
Read more: M13 or the Great Cluster in Hercules
EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order today from the EarthSky store
M13, aka the Great Cluster in Hercules. This object is a globular star cluster, one of our galaxy’s oldest inhabitants. Photo via ESA/Hubble/NASA.
Bottom line: Use the brilliant stars Arcturus and Vega to find the constellation Hercules tonight!
Donate: Your support means the world to us
Tonight, try locating one of the coolest constellations up there. The constellation Hercules the Kneeling Giant can be seen ascending in the east-northeast on these Northern Hemisphere spring evenings. You can find Hercules between two brilliant stars: Arcturus and Vega. The chart at the top of this post shows the sky for around 8 to 9 p.m. local time (9 to 10 p.m. daylight saving time), when the constellation Hercules, and the two stars so essential for finding it, are well up in the northeastern to eastern sky.
Arcturus is in the constellation Boötes, and Vega is in the constellation Lyra. At nightfall, Vega may still be below in your horizon. If so, wait awhile … it’ll rise soon.
A line between Arcturus and Vega passes through what is known as the Keystone – an asterism, or noticeable pattern – in Hercules. The Keystone is a squarish figure in the center of Hercules. See it on the charts above and below?
Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!
The constellation Hercules, with its prominent Keystone asterism marked. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
The Keystone is a helpful pattern for more reasons than one. First, it’s noticeable on the sky’s dome, so it can lead your eye to Hercules.
Also, the Keystone in Hercules can help you find the most fascinating telescopic object within the boundaries of this constellation. This object is a globular star cluster known to stargazers as M13 or the Great Cluster in Hercules. M13 is barely visible to the eye alone in the darkest of skies, but binoculars show it as a nebulous starlike patch of light. And telescopes show stars both on the periphery of the cluster and toward its center.
The chart shows M13 (the great Hercules cluster) in the Keystone. This chart of the constellation Hercules is via the IAU.
This beautiful object is one of the galaxy’s oldest inhabitants. It’s a tightly packed spherical collection of about one million stars.
Read more: M13 or the Great Cluster in Hercules
EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order today from the EarthSky store
M13, aka the Great Cluster in Hercules. This object is a globular star cluster, one of our galaxy’s oldest inhabitants. Photo via ESA/Hubble/NASA.
Bottom line: Use the brilliant stars Arcturus and Vega to find the constellation Hercules tonight!
Donate: Your support means the world to us
Artist’s concept of HD 21749c, the first Earth-sized exoplanet discovered by TESS. Image via Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science.
NASA’s newest exoplanet-hunting telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), has now found its first Earth-sized world. It’s the smallest planet TESS has found yet in its still-young mission. Astronomers say it’s another exciting step towards finding worlds beyond our solar system that might be capable of supporting life.
The new peer-reviewed finding was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters on April 16, 2019, by astronomers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Carnegie Institution for Science.
The planet – labeled HD 21749c – orbits the star HD 21749, about 52 light-years from Earth. That is quite close, and it’s the kind of planet TESS was designed to help find. NASA’s last exoplanet-hunter – Kepler Space Telescope, which finished its mission last year – also found many smaller rocky planets of the type that most likely could be habitable. But, in contrast to TESS, Kepler focused on a small patch of the sky with relatively distant stars. The beauty of TESS is that it focuses on a large patch of sky and at closer stars. This new discovery by TESS demonstrates its ability to find small nearby planets and shows that the telescope is working as expected. As Diana Dragomir, lead author and TESS team member, explained:
For stars that are very close by and very bright, we expected to find up to a couple dozen Earth-sized planets. And here we are – this would be our first one, and it’s a milestone for TESS. It sets the path for finding smaller planets around even smaller stars, and those planets may potentially be habitable.
As Johanna Teske, an astronomer at Carnegie Institution for Science and second author on the new paper also said:
It’s so exciting that TESS, which launched just about a year ago, is already a game-changer in the planet-hunting business. The spacecraft surveys the sky and we collaborate with the TESS follow-up community to flag potentially interesting targets for additional observations using ground-based telescopes and instruments.
This particular planet, however, is probably not too friendly for life. It orbits very close to its star, completing an orbit in only 7.8 days. Its estimated surface temperature is 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius). Astronomers want to find more planets that orbit their stars in the habitable zone, where temperatures could allow liquid water on their surfaces. A growing number have already been discovered, but, astronomers say, it’s still difficult to determine actual conditions on these worlds due to their great distances.
HD 21749c was found using the transit method, as the planet briefly blocked some of the light coming from the star when it passed in front of it. Eleven such transits were seen, and from that astronomers determined that the planet was about the same size as Earth and orbited its star every 7.8 days. Dragomir used a software code to look for this kind of transit, and found the periodic signals of both the Earth-sized planet and another planet reported earlier this year, known as HD 21749b.
Artist’s concept of HD 21749b – a sister world to HD 21749c, in the same solar system – discovered earlier this year by TESS. The sister world is larger, a warm “sub-Neptune” with a longer 36-day orbit, and is 23 times Earth’s mass with a radius 2.7 times that of Earth. Image via NASA.
The Planet Finder Spectrograph (PFS) on the Magellan II telescope at Carnegie’s Las Campanas Observatory in Chile was also used to help confirm the planetary nature of the TESS signal and to measure the mass of the newly discovered sub-Neptune. As Teske noted:
The Planet Finder Spectrograph is one of the only instruments in the Southern Hemisphere that can do these types of measurements. So, it will be a very important part of further characterizing the planets found by the TESS mission.
Astronomers hope that TESS will find at least 50 smaller planets – approximately the size of HD 21749b or smaller – during its mission. So far, it has discovered 10 planets smaller than Neptune, including pi Men b, twice the size of Earth with a six-day orbit; LHS 3844b, a hot, rocky world slightly larger than Earth that orbits its star in only 11 hours; and TOI 125b and c, two “sub-Neptunes” that orbit the same star, both within about a week. It is expected that TESS will discover many more similar worlds over the next months and years.
Planetary systems with one known smaller planet usually have more, astronomers have found, just like in our own solar system. Dragomir noted this also, saying:
We know these planets often come in families. So we searched all the data again, and this small signal came up.
TESS is already finding its share of new exoplanets orbiting nearby stars, continuing on from the Kepler mission, which ended last year. Image via Goddard Space Flight Center (edited by MIT News).
One big advantage that TESS has compared to Kepler is that because the planets it finds orbit closer stars, those planets will be easier targets for follow-up observations from other telescopes. These other telescopes could examine the atmospheres of the newly-discovered worlds. This is, of course, of particular significance for rocky planets similar to Earth, some of which could be habitable. According to Dragomir:
Because TESS monitors stars that are much closer and brighter, we can measure the mass of this planet in the very near future, whereas for Kepler’s Earth-sized planets, that was out of the question. So this new TESS discovery could lead to the first mass measurement of an Earth-sized planet. And we’re excited about what that mass could be. Will it be Earth’s mass? Or heavier? We don’t really know.
According to astronomer Sharon Wang at Carnegie Institution for Science:
Measuring the exact mass and composition of such a small planet will be challenging, but important for comparing HD 21749c to Earth. Carnegie’s PFS team is continuing to collect data on this object with this goal in mind.
This first Earth-sized world that TESS has found may not be the most ideal in terms of the possibility of life, but it shows that the mission is proceeding as hoped, and that, as expected, planets are abundant around stars closer to the sun as well as those farther away. Based on previous data from Kepler, it is now thought that almost every star in our galaxy has at least one planet, and many with multiple planets, just like our solar system – in other words, there are billions of planets in our galaxy alone. TESS will now be able to study some of those worlds that are closer to home, bringing us even closer to finding the holy grail of exoplanetary research – another living world.
Bottom line: The discovery of HD 21749c – an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a nearby star – is exciting, and should be just the first of many more to come from the TESS mission.
Source: TESS delivers its first Earth-sized planet and a warm sub-Neptune
Via MIT News and Carnegie Science
Artist’s concept of HD 21749c, the first Earth-sized exoplanet discovered by TESS. Image via Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science.
NASA’s newest exoplanet-hunting telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), has now found its first Earth-sized world. It’s the smallest planet TESS has found yet in its still-young mission. Astronomers say it’s another exciting step towards finding worlds beyond our solar system that might be capable of supporting life.
The new peer-reviewed finding was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters on April 16, 2019, by astronomers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Carnegie Institution for Science.
The planet – labeled HD 21749c – orbits the star HD 21749, about 52 light-years from Earth. That is quite close, and it’s the kind of planet TESS was designed to help find. NASA’s last exoplanet-hunter – Kepler Space Telescope, which finished its mission last year – also found many smaller rocky planets of the type that most likely could be habitable. But, in contrast to TESS, Kepler focused on a small patch of the sky with relatively distant stars. The beauty of TESS is that it focuses on a large patch of sky and at closer stars. This new discovery by TESS demonstrates its ability to find small nearby planets and shows that the telescope is working as expected. As Diana Dragomir, lead author and TESS team member, explained:
For stars that are very close by and very bright, we expected to find up to a couple dozen Earth-sized planets. And here we are – this would be our first one, and it’s a milestone for TESS. It sets the path for finding smaller planets around even smaller stars, and those planets may potentially be habitable.
As Johanna Teske, an astronomer at Carnegie Institution for Science and second author on the new paper also said:
It’s so exciting that TESS, which launched just about a year ago, is already a game-changer in the planet-hunting business. The spacecraft surveys the sky and we collaborate with the TESS follow-up community to flag potentially interesting targets for additional observations using ground-based telescopes and instruments.
This particular planet, however, is probably not too friendly for life. It orbits very close to its star, completing an orbit in only 7.8 days. Its estimated surface temperature is 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius). Astronomers want to find more planets that orbit their stars in the habitable zone, where temperatures could allow liquid water on their surfaces. A growing number have already been discovered, but, astronomers say, it’s still difficult to determine actual conditions on these worlds due to their great distances.
HD 21749c was found using the transit method, as the planet briefly blocked some of the light coming from the star when it passed in front of it. Eleven such transits were seen, and from that astronomers determined that the planet was about the same size as Earth and orbited its star every 7.8 days. Dragomir used a software code to look for this kind of transit, and found the periodic signals of both the Earth-sized planet and another planet reported earlier this year, known as HD 21749b.
Artist’s concept of HD 21749b – a sister world to HD 21749c, in the same solar system – discovered earlier this year by TESS. The sister world is larger, a warm “sub-Neptune” with a longer 36-day orbit, and is 23 times Earth’s mass with a radius 2.7 times that of Earth. Image via NASA.
The Planet Finder Spectrograph (PFS) on the Magellan II telescope at Carnegie’s Las Campanas Observatory in Chile was also used to help confirm the planetary nature of the TESS signal and to measure the mass of the newly discovered sub-Neptune. As Teske noted:
The Planet Finder Spectrograph is one of the only instruments in the Southern Hemisphere that can do these types of measurements. So, it will be a very important part of further characterizing the planets found by the TESS mission.
Astronomers hope that TESS will find at least 50 smaller planets – approximately the size of HD 21749b or smaller – during its mission. So far, it has discovered 10 planets smaller than Neptune, including pi Men b, twice the size of Earth with a six-day orbit; LHS 3844b, a hot, rocky world slightly larger than Earth that orbits its star in only 11 hours; and TOI 125b and c, two “sub-Neptunes” that orbit the same star, both within about a week. It is expected that TESS will discover many more similar worlds over the next months and years.
Planetary systems with one known smaller planet usually have more, astronomers have found, just like in our own solar system. Dragomir noted this also, saying:
We know these planets often come in families. So we searched all the data again, and this small signal came up.
TESS is already finding its share of new exoplanets orbiting nearby stars, continuing on from the Kepler mission, which ended last year. Image via Goddard Space Flight Center (edited by MIT News).
One big advantage that TESS has compared to Kepler is that because the planets it finds orbit closer stars, those planets will be easier targets for follow-up observations from other telescopes. These other telescopes could examine the atmospheres of the newly-discovered worlds. This is, of course, of particular significance for rocky planets similar to Earth, some of which could be habitable. According to Dragomir:
Because TESS monitors stars that are much closer and brighter, we can measure the mass of this planet in the very near future, whereas for Kepler’s Earth-sized planets, that was out of the question. So this new TESS discovery could lead to the first mass measurement of an Earth-sized planet. And we’re excited about what that mass could be. Will it be Earth’s mass? Or heavier? We don’t really know.
According to astronomer Sharon Wang at Carnegie Institution for Science:
Measuring the exact mass and composition of such a small planet will be challenging, but important for comparing HD 21749c to Earth. Carnegie’s PFS team is continuing to collect data on this object with this goal in mind.
This first Earth-sized world that TESS has found may not be the most ideal in terms of the possibility of life, but it shows that the mission is proceeding as hoped, and that, as expected, planets are abundant around stars closer to the sun as well as those farther away. Based on previous data from Kepler, it is now thought that almost every star in our galaxy has at least one planet, and many with multiple planets, just like our solar system – in other words, there are billions of planets in our galaxy alone. TESS will now be able to study some of those worlds that are closer to home, bringing us even closer to finding the holy grail of exoplanetary research – another living world.
Bottom line: The discovery of HD 21749c – an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a nearby star – is exciting, and should be just the first of many more to come from the TESS mission.
Source: TESS delivers its first Earth-sized planet and a warm sub-Neptune
Via MIT News and Carnegie Science
Artist’s concept. At the lower right, you see a predatory gorgonopsid, a mammal-like reptile, like a cross between a sabre-toothed tiger and a Komodo dragon, common prior to the Great Dying. It stands in a driving rain, surveying a volcanic eruption that spells its doom. Illustration via Margaret Weiner/University of Cincinnati.
During the geologic period known as the Permian – beginning about 300 million years ago – Earth teemed with life. As the website ScienceNewsforStudents.org explained:
… nearly all of Earth’s landmasses had clumped into one mega-continent. Its name: Pangaea … On land, insects buzzed and crawled, including primitive dragonflies and cockroaches. Big, plant-eating reptiles and amphibians grazed its forests. The oceans were ruled by fish. Coral reefs thrived. Trilobites scuttled along the seafloor.
Then 252 million years ago, something happened to cause the greatest mass extinction in Earth’s history. Over a few hundreds of thousands of years, the catastrophe killed off more than 95 percent of life on Earth. Scientists call it the Great Dying. It cleared the way for the rise of the age of dinosaurs. Scientists have debated the Great Dying’s cause, although, in recent years, many have begun to settle on the idea that volcanic eruptions were the primary cause. And now a new study – based on the discovery of mercury buried in ancient rocks – provides the strongest evidence yet that volcanoes did cause the Great Dying. Paleontologists with the University of Cincinnati and the China University of Geosciences said they found a spike in mercury in the geologic record at nearly a dozen sites around the world, providing what they called “persuasive evidence” that volcanic eruptions were to blame for this global cataclysm.
The idea is that volcanic eruptions ignited vast deposits of coal, releasing mercury vapor high into the atmosphere. Eventually, these scientists say, the mercury rained down into the marine sediments, and it’s the analysis of those ancient sediments today, now trapped in rock, that provides the basis for this new study. The scientists said the mercury created:
… an elemental signature of a catastrophe.
The study was published April 5, 2019 in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications. Lead author Jun Shen at the China University of Geosciences explained:
Volcanic activities, including emissions of volcanic gases and combustion of organic matter, released abundant mercury to the surface of the Earth.
Thomas Algeo of University of Cincinnati added:
Mercury is a relatively new indicator for researchers. It has become a hot topic for investigating volcanic influences on major events in Earth’s history.
The volcanic eruptions happened in a specific place on Earth, in a volcanic system called the Siberian Traps, in what’s now central Russia. A statement from these scientists said:
Many of the eruptions occured not in cone-shaped volcanoes but through gaping fissures in the ground. The eruptions were frequent and long-lasting and their fury spanned a period of hundreds of thousands of years.
A reconstruction of an ancient marine creature called a conodont, plus 2 conodant teeth. The researchers used the fossilized teeth of >conodonts to date the rock in which the mercury was deposited. Like most other creatures on the planet, they said, conodonts were decimated during the Great Dying. Image via Wikipedia.
How did volcanoes in a specific place on Earth cause 95 percent of Earth’s creatures to disappear? These scientists explained that the volcanoes lifted as much as 3 million cubic kilometers (720,000 cubic miles) of ash high into the air over this extended period. They said:
To put that in perspective, the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington sent just 1 cubic kilometer [.24 cubic mi] of ash into the atmosphere, even though ash fell on car windshields as far away as Oklahoma.
It’s thought that the Siberian Traps eruptions spewed so much material in the air, particularly greenhouse gases, that it warmed the planet by an average of about 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit). The scientists explained:
The warming climate likely would have been one of the biggest culprits in the mass extinction … But acid rain would have spoiled many bodies of water and raised the acidity of the global oceans. And the warmer water would have had more dead zones from a lack of dissolved oxygen …
Stretching over an extended period, eruption after eruption prevented the Earth’s food chain from recovering.
Read more about this research from University of Cincinnati
Bottom line: The discovery of mercury in ancient rock at locations around the world supports the idea that volcanic eruptions caused the Great Dying, a mass extinction 252 million years ago that killed 95 percent of life on Earth.
Artist’s concept. At the lower right, you see a predatory gorgonopsid, a mammal-like reptile, like a cross between a sabre-toothed tiger and a Komodo dragon, common prior to the Great Dying. It stands in a driving rain, surveying a volcanic eruption that spells its doom. Illustration via Margaret Weiner/University of Cincinnati.
During the geologic period known as the Permian – beginning about 300 million years ago – Earth teemed with life. As the website ScienceNewsforStudents.org explained:
… nearly all of Earth’s landmasses had clumped into one mega-continent. Its name: Pangaea … On land, insects buzzed and crawled, including primitive dragonflies and cockroaches. Big, plant-eating reptiles and amphibians grazed its forests. The oceans were ruled by fish. Coral reefs thrived. Trilobites scuttled along the seafloor.
Then 252 million years ago, something happened to cause the greatest mass extinction in Earth’s history. Over a few hundreds of thousands of years, the catastrophe killed off more than 95 percent of life on Earth. Scientists call it the Great Dying. It cleared the way for the rise of the age of dinosaurs. Scientists have debated the Great Dying’s cause, although, in recent years, many have begun to settle on the idea that volcanic eruptions were the primary cause. And now a new study – based on the discovery of mercury buried in ancient rocks – provides the strongest evidence yet that volcanoes did cause the Great Dying. Paleontologists with the University of Cincinnati and the China University of Geosciences said they found a spike in mercury in the geologic record at nearly a dozen sites around the world, providing what they called “persuasive evidence” that volcanic eruptions were to blame for this global cataclysm.
The idea is that volcanic eruptions ignited vast deposits of coal, releasing mercury vapor high into the atmosphere. Eventually, these scientists say, the mercury rained down into the marine sediments, and it’s the analysis of those ancient sediments today, now trapped in rock, that provides the basis for this new study. The scientists said the mercury created:
… an elemental signature of a catastrophe.
The study was published April 5, 2019 in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications. Lead author Jun Shen at the China University of Geosciences explained:
Volcanic activities, including emissions of volcanic gases and combustion of organic matter, released abundant mercury to the surface of the Earth.
Thomas Algeo of University of Cincinnati added:
Mercury is a relatively new indicator for researchers. It has become a hot topic for investigating volcanic influences on major events in Earth’s history.
The volcanic eruptions happened in a specific place on Earth, in a volcanic system called the Siberian Traps, in what’s now central Russia. A statement from these scientists said:
Many of the eruptions occured not in cone-shaped volcanoes but through gaping fissures in the ground. The eruptions were frequent and long-lasting and their fury spanned a period of hundreds of thousands of years.
A reconstruction of an ancient marine creature called a conodont, plus 2 conodant teeth. The researchers used the fossilized teeth of >conodonts to date the rock in which the mercury was deposited. Like most other creatures on the planet, they said, conodonts were decimated during the Great Dying. Image via Wikipedia.
How did volcanoes in a specific place on Earth cause 95 percent of Earth’s creatures to disappear? These scientists explained that the volcanoes lifted as much as 3 million cubic kilometers (720,000 cubic miles) of ash high into the air over this extended period. They said:
To put that in perspective, the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington sent just 1 cubic kilometer [.24 cubic mi] of ash into the atmosphere, even though ash fell on car windshields as far away as Oklahoma.
It’s thought that the Siberian Traps eruptions spewed so much material in the air, particularly greenhouse gases, that it warmed the planet by an average of about 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit). The scientists explained:
The warming climate likely would have been one of the biggest culprits in the mass extinction … But acid rain would have spoiled many bodies of water and raised the acidity of the global oceans. And the warmer water would have had more dead zones from a lack of dissolved oxygen …
Stretching over an extended period, eruption after eruption prevented the Earth’s food chain from recovering.
Read more about this research from University of Cincinnati
Bottom line: The discovery of mercury in ancient rock at locations around the world supports the idea that volcanic eruptions caused the Great Dying, a mass extinction 252 million years ago that killed 95 percent of life on Earth.
