GU Psc b: Another Exoplanet Discovered Through Direct Imaging

Space scientists have discovered a new planet by collective observations from the Gemini Observatories, the Observatoire Mont-Mégantic (OMM), the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) and the W.M. Keck Observatory. The gas giant is situated around GU Psc, in the constellation Pisces and is believed to be 3 times less massive than the Sun. The distance between the planet GU Psc b and its star GU Psc is approximately 2,000 times Earth-Sun distance. With this distance, it would take the planet nearly 80,000 Earth years to complete just one orbit around its star.…

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Illustris is New Time Machine: Simulation of the Realistic Virtual Universe

We know how our universe look today and we have pretty good idea as to how it looked before the things started taking shape somewhere around the Big Bang.  But we have no idea how the galaxies evolve and what was before the Big Bang. In order to study this, researchers at the MIT have built a computer simulation, they have named it the Illustris. This simulation is so complex that calculating on single desktop might take 2k years alone and its volume comprises around 215m light years. Although there…

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Newly Discovered Neighbor of the Sun: Chilly as the Earth’s North Pole

Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at Penn State University has discovered a star, “brown dwarf” that is around 7.2 light-years away. Currently it appears to be as cold as Earth’s North Pole and positioned at fourth rank with respect to the Sun. The space scientist claims that insights from the new system might helpful in knowing the atmospheres associated with cold temperatures on similar other systems. Like stars, the brown dwarfs initiate the same life cycle but during the collapse, they lack the mass that is required to burn the nuclear…

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10 Unbelievably Startling Facts About Our Universe

From its acceleration to expansion to dark matter and energy, the Universe continues to consistently amaze and perplex our scientists & astronomers alike. From unimaginably gigantic to incredibly minute stuff, there’s an awful lot going around in this field we refer to as ‘existence’. The recent discovery made by the scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider, a place near Geneva, revealed a startling new fact about elusive Higgs boson particle. A lot of buzz surrounded the information revealed by this discovery regarding the constitution of the fabric of the…

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Planet X and Nemesis Myth Debunked: WISE Survey

In an attempt to find the reasons, which led to the wobbly effect of Uranus’s orbit, researchers discovered other planets like Neptune and Pluto but there was no Planet X anywhere. Similarly, the hunt for Sun like star, Nemesis, which they claim might have wiped out the age of dinosaurs completely, is still a far-fetched dream. It’s been an effort of more than two centuries and now the researchers want to draw line to reach a conclusion.  Kevin Luhman an astronomer at the University of Pennsylvania asserted that there are no such…

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Gravitational Torques of Milky Way and Andromeda Responsible for Spatial Configuration

Space scientists have been working long to discover other universes. Many researchers and studies have been conducted so far and are still going on to understand the reasons, which led to the formation of Milky Way and nearby constellation. Till date it has been accepted that Milky Way and its orbiting companion Andromeda are the leading components in a flock of galaxies known as the Local Group, which is nearly 3 million light years away. Lately, a research has open up new avenues with respect to new galaxies within 35-million…

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Flowing Water on Mars: Still Hard to Prove

Presence of water on Mars has been always a topic of discussion for the researchers. Even though it is still not confirmed, whether the Red planet ever possessed water. Since 2011, peculiar strips (possibly water) have been noticed to appear and then disappear from the planet’s surface. Lujendra Ojha, the then scholar at the University of Arizona, first discovered these mysterious strips. 

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Researchers Map Out Ganymede’s Grooved Terrain: Jupiter’s Largest Moon

After several years of consistent hard work, researchers from Brown University were able to complete the first global gelological map of Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, which is also largest in the solar system. Geologists envision that the map might assist in future exploration since they expects habitable environment upon Ganymede. The moon’s terrain and the possibility of underground waters have made it a subject of curiosity and investigation by the researchers. Voyager and Galileo spacecraft were used to take images for constructing the map. In 1979, Voyager made its first…

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Mars One Aims To Develop Human Habitat On The Red Planet

Humans are always curious about universe, whether there is life like us on any other planet or whether can we thrive on any other planets, both interests us equally. Till now visit to outer space for few months has been achieved, but nobody so far has thought of living on one such planet permanently. In one such mission, Mars One is planning to send selected individuals by 2023 on the red planet Mars (with no return voyage) to become the first ever persons to settle down permanently. 

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Sun Does Not Influence The Climate Change

Sun is an enormous source of energy and was considered the prime factor impacting the temperature of our planet Earth. Conventionally, cold and warm climate were considered to be the direct outcome of changes in the solar activity. However, researchers have denied this theory rather claim that the fluctuation in heat from sun does not drastically influence the climate of earth. 

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Mars Acting Like An Enormous Gas Pump

Recent research claims that planet Mars might act as an enormous gas pump with its low atmospheric pressure and porous soil making the assertion strong enough to prove the hypothesis. Space scientists have already advocated the constant activity that is going on the surface like dust storms and drifting dunes. And now, the new study holds the certainty of having a similar kind of motion underneath the surface as well. With this assertion, the planet becomes the solar system’s first such body in which continuous pumping on a massive scale…

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Europa, Jupiter’s Moon Is Spewing Off Water Vapour

Latest finding put forth by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed that Europa, Jupiter’s moon, is ejecting water vapour. Its surface consists of water ice and has one of the finest gradients in the Solar System. This has led to a conceivable notion that there might exist water ocean underneath. As per the space scientists, this sign might give rise to a possibility of habitability. The discovery that water vapour is ejected near the south pole strengthens Europa’s position as the top candidate for potential habitability. However, we do not…

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Giant Convection Cells Observed Within Sun

We have known that convection currents are a part of the water cycle on earth. A conventional cell – density differences that results from rising and/or falling of currents – is the spark that ignites the formation of clouds with its release and transportation of energy. As air transcends along the surface of the earth, it carries heat, hence loses density (because of fluid dynamics) and moves higher into the atmosphere. Upon reaching there, it experiences low pressure due to which fluid retention becomes difficult and so it releases its…

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HD106906 System Explodes The Basic Concepts Of Planet Formation

Recent discovery of planet HD 106906 b has exploded the underlying hypotheses of planet formation so far. A team of space scientists led by a University of Arizona graduate student has pioneered the discovery. The exoplanet weighs around 20.9x 1027 kg, which is eleven times more than that of Jupiter. It’s also found revolving around its star at 650 times the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. As per one theory of planet formation, planets that are in proximity with their stars band together with the help of…

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Traces Of Water Discovered Across Exoplanet Atmospheres

Two teams of space scientists have discovered the presence of atmospheric water across the five distant planets. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope was the tool employed by the teams for the exploration mission. WASP-17b, HD209458b, WASP-12b, WASP-19b and XO-1b were the planets that were under observation. WASP-17b and HD209458b gave the strongest signal of water content present in their atmosphere while the others showed consistency.

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