Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts

Friday, April 25, 2014

Kepler-186f: Facts, Speculation, and the Lemming


(From NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech, used w/o permission.)

"NASA's Kepler Discovers First Earth-Size Planet In The 'Habitable Zone' of Another Star "
NASA Press Release (April 17, 2014)

"Using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the "habitable zone" -- the range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. The discovery of Kepler-186f confirms that planets the size of Earth exist in the habitable zone of stars other than our sun.

"While planets have previously been found in the habitable zone, they are all at least 40 percent larger in size than Earth and understanding their makeup is challenging. Kepler-186f is more reminiscent of Earth.

" 'The discovery of Kepler-186f is a significant step toward finding worlds like our planet Earth,' said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics Division director at the agency's headquarters in Washington. 'Future NASA missions, like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the James Webb Space Telescope, will discover the nearest rocky exoplanets and determine their composition and atmospheric conditions, continuing humankind's quest to find truly Earth-like worlds.'

"Although the size of Kepler-186f is known, its mass and composition are not. Previous research, however, suggests that a planet the size of Kepler-186f is likely to be rocky...."

That artists' concept is optimistic, assuming that Kepler-186f has an atmosphere like Earth's, and enough water for a substantial sea, at least. Whether or not the planet looks like that depends partly on what it's made of.

Scientists have worked out plausible scenarios where an Earth-size planet could be almost entirely water: which wouldn't be particularly good for fish, since life as we know it needs a broad variety of materials and water.

The odds are, in the Lemming's opinion, that Kepler-186f is a ball of rock and metal, like Earth. If it's Earth-like that way, it could have an atmosphere as spectacularly toxic as the one humans found around Venus: or no atmosphere at all.

Or astronomers may find a damp atmosphere of nitrogen and oxygen: and be puzzled by the planet's emission spectra, until someone realizes that they're looking at neon, helium, carbon dioxide, and mercury plasma from a continent-spanning analog of the Fremont Street Experience.

Kepler-186f: Cool, Literally


(From NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech, used w/o permission.)

If Kepler-186f has something pretty close to Earth's chemical mix, including atmosphere, it'll probably be a tad cooler than the planet humans call home. Sunlight there at high noon is about as strong as Earth's an hour or so before sunset.

Kepler-186f is closer to its star than Earth: but its star is a whole lot dimmer than Sol.

What's the Big Deal?


(From NASA, used w/o permission.)

Until last week, scientists knew that planets orbit other stars, and that roughly 1/6 of the stars in this galaxy have planets roughly the same size as Earth. That works out to about 17,000,000,000 planets, give or take a few million, by the way. But they didn't know that any of these Earth-size planets orbited their stars far enough out for water to be a liquid.

Earth could have been a statistical fluke: a one-of-a-kind freak in an otherwise-lifeless universe.

Now scientists know of a planet that's only 10% wider than Earth, in an orbit that keeps it only slightly cooler than Earth. And they found it only 20 years after spotting the first planet circling another star.

Humans: They're not doing badly, at all.

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Friday, January 10, 2014

Voyager 1: Outward Bound


(From NASA/JPL-Caltech, used w/o permission.)
"This artist's concept shows NASA's Voyager spacecraft against a field of stars in the darkness of space. The two Voyager spacecraft are traveling farther and farther away from Earth, on a journey to interstellar space...."

Voyager 1 is outside the heliopause, outward bound. The robot spacecraft is still about one seventh as far from Earth's star as Sedna will be about 11,400 years from now. That'll be the year 13476, give or take: by which time humanity may have long since caught up with the Voyager probes, and that's almost another topic.

About 40,000 years from now, Voyager 1 will be 1.6 light years from AC +79 3888, and a tad farther from Sol, Earth's star. Gliese 445 is a shorter name for AC +79 3888, and whatever name you prefer: it'll be about 3.45 light-years from Sol when Voyager 1 goes past. You'll still need a telescope to see it, if you're on Earth at the time: which is unlikely, come to think of it.

The Lemming didn't find any planets listed for Gliese 445, but scientists are still sorting through data: and nowhere near finished with collecting more about Earth's neighbors. They'll probably be adding new planets to their catalogs for years. Decades. Centuries. Millennia. Longer.

Anyway, right now here are some pretty good places to check out if you're looking for nearby planets:
"Nearby" on a cosmic scale, of course.

Here's what Gliese 445 looks like, as seen through a telescope on Earth. That colored ring isn't part of the star: someone drew it on the photo so you'd know which dot is yet another name for AC +79 3888. Actually, it's an abbreviation of Gliese, and the Lemming's mind is wandering.


(From Caltech/Palomar Observatory, via NASA, used w/o permission.)
"At the center of this image is the star AC +79 3888, also known as Gliese 445, located 17.6 light-years from Earth. NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, which is on a trajectory out of our solar system, is headed toward an encounter with AC +79 3888. In about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will be closer to this star than our own sun.

"The image was taken by the Oschin Schmidt Telescope near San Diego, Calif., on April 22, 1998. This telescope is operated by the California Institute of Technology and Palomar Observatory."

It occurs to the Lemming that Voyager 1 may not make it to its flyby of Gliese 445. 40,000 years is a long time, humans are already working on a prototype warp drive, and that robot spaceship would make a dandy exhibit for some museum.

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Friday, December 6, 2013

Starlit Clouds of Rho Ophiuchi, Puritan Privateers, and a Rambling Lemming

"The Colorful Clouds of Rho Ophiuchi"
Image © Rafael Defavari, via apod.NASA, used w/o permission.
(Image © Rafael Defavari, via NASA, used w/o permission.)
"The many spectacular colors of the Rho Ophiuchi (oh'-fee-yu-kee) clouds highlight the many processes that occur there...."

There's more, including a link to a "Free APOD 2014 Calendar in PDF format" that didn't work when the Lemming tried it. Maybe you'll have a less anticlimactic experience. Or maybe not.

Apparently Robert Nemiroff (MTU) and Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) wrote the description of Rafael Defavari's photo; and the Lemming found all of the above on APOD, which has very little to do with Apple's portable media players, oranges, or William III of England, who probably didn't inspire the phrase "to give the willies."

Naturally, that reminded the Lemming of Nassau, Bahamas, that's on New Providence. Old Providence is in the Caribbean, too: but instead of transplanted American loyalists, Old providence got Henry Morgan and Puritan privateers. The Lemming is not making this up. Really.

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Friday, November 22, 2013

Hot News from IceCube - or - A Neutrino Named Ernie


(From IceCube Collaboration, via Space.com, used w/o permission.)
"This image shows the highest energy neutrino ever observed (1.14 petaelectronvolts), which scientists named 'Ernie,' as seen by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole on Jan. 3, 2012. Image released Nov. 21, 2013."

"Neutrino Detector Finds Elusive Extraterrestrial Particles in 'Major Breakthrough'
Tanya Lewis, Space.com (November 21, 2013)

"For decades, scientists have been searching for ghostly neutrino particles from outer space, and now they have finally found them.

"Using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica, researchers found the first evidence of neutrinos from outside the solar system since 1987. The findings open the door for a new era of astronomy that could reveal secrets of the strangest phenomena in the universe, scientists say.

" 'It is a major breakthrough,' said Uli Katz, a particle physicist at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, in Germany, who was not involved with the research. 'I think it is one of the absolute major discoveries in astro-particle physics,' Katz told SPACE.com...."

First, what this doesn't mean. Ernie the Neutrino isn't going to blow up the sun, find Elvis, or help anyone win the lottery.

Ernie is one of two recent neutrino events. The other one's Bert: and yes, they had Sesame Street in mind. Scientists aren't nearly as heavily-starched about names as they were a century back, about which the Lemming is pleased. Not that the Lemming's preferences are of great import: except to the Lemming, and this is getting off-topic.

Where was the Lemming? Neutrinos. Bert and Ernie. Really cool science. Downright cold, actually, since IceCube is in Antarctica, and that's yet another topic.

The big deal about Ernie and Bert is that they've got more than one petaelectronvolt. A petaelectronvolt is 1,000,000,000,000,000 electronvolts. That number is pronounced "one quadrillion," or "wow, that's a lot of zeroes."

Maybe these overachieving neutrinos are from someone's ham sandwich, but it's much more likely that they're from deep space: the dark abyss between stars.

It's the first time that scientists are pretty sure that they've detected an extrasolar neutrino, and they're excited about it. So is the Lemming.

One of the next steps will be to find out what flavor the neutrinos are. The Lemming likes pistachio and Butter Brickle ice cream, which may or may not be a registered trademark: and has just about nothing to do with neutrinos. The Lemming is still catching up on sleep.

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Friday, October 18, 2013

Holiday-Themed Nebulae: Caldwell 92 and IC 2118


(From NASA/STScI Digitized Sky Survey/Noel Carboni, used w/o permission.)

"Witch Head Nebula

"As the name implies, this reflection nebula associated with the star Rigel looks suspiciously like a fairytale crone. Formally known as IC 2118 in the constellation Orion, the Witch Head Nebula glows primarily by light reflected from the star. The color of this very blue nebula is caused not only by blue color of its star, but also because the dust grains reflect blue light more efficiently than red. A similar physical process causes Earth's daytime sky to appear blue."

The Witch Head Nebula is either left over from a supernova, or not. Either way, from Earth's angle it looks like the ethically-challenged stepmother in Snow White or Hansel and Gretel, sort of. Some of those tales are downright Grimm.

The way light gets scattered by tiny particles is why Earth's sky and the Witch Head Nebula look blue. It's called Rayleigh scattering, not to be confused with the Raleigh Bicycle Company, Sir Walter Raleigh, or Sir Walter Scott.

Sorry about that. The Lemming's catching up on sleep, or fighting a cold, or in a puckish mood. Oddly, "pawkish" isn't in dictionaries, although the Lemming's seen and heard it used. Definitions aboud for gawkish, hawkish, mawkish, peckish, perkish, rakish, and the aforementioned puckish: but nary a peep about "pawkish."

Somewhere in Earth's sky there must be a nebula that looks like Little Bo Peep or her sheep, and that's another topic.


(From Hubble Space Telescope, NASA, used w/o permission.)

"Hubble Celebrates Its Seventeenth Birthday with the Birth of a Star

"...one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's cameras. It is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth - and death - is taking place....

"...The immense nebula contains at least a dozen brilliant stars that are roughly estimated to be at least 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun. The most unique and opulent inhabitant is the star Eta Carinae, at far left. Eta Carinae is in the final stages of its brief and eruptive lifespan, as evidenced by two billowing lobes of gas and dust that presage its upcoming explosion as a titanic supernova.

"The fireworks in the Carina region started three million years ago when the nebula's first generation of newborn stars condensed and ignited in the middle of a huge cloud of cold molecular hydrogen. Radiation from these stars carved out an expanding bubble of hot gas. The island-like clumps of dark clouds scattered across the nebula are nodules of dust and gas that are resisting being eaten away by photoionization...."
NASA (March 24, 2007)

Like most other things in the sky, the Carina Nebula has quite a few names and catalog numbers. Depending on who's writing, it's Caldwell 92; or the Eta Carinae Nebula, Grand Nebula, Great Nebula in Carina; or NGC 3372.

A nebula by any other name wouldn't smell as sweet, and the Lemming is not going to go into a Shakespearean frenzy.

Points of interest in the Carina Nebula include the Homunculus Nebula. There we go with a Halloween theme again. Sort of.

The word homunculus first showed up in 16th century alchemical records. These drastically undersized human-like critters are sort of related to the mandrake plant, except they don't really exist. That's the Lemming's story, and he's sticking to it.

Mystic Mountain is another scenic spot in the Carina Nebula, and not to be confused with an amusement park in Jamaica, or a ski resort in Pennsylvania. The latter are both on Earth, which may be obvious. Then again, maybe not.

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Friday, August 23, 2013

Vistas in Orion

"PIA04215: Horsehead Nebula"
Photojournal, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (1999)



"Rising from a sea of dust and gas like a giant seahorse, the Horsehead nebula is one of the most photographed objects in the sky. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took a close-up look at this heavenly icon, revealing the cloud's intricate structure...."

Like the fellow said, "Hier ist wahrhaftig ein Loch im Himmel." If Sir William Herschel had been using English at the time, he'd have said "here is truly a hole in the sky." The Lemming found that comment on BBC's website. And no: Sir William Herschel's comment was not made in a blog. The Internet wasn't around in the 18th century, and that's another topic.

The same BBC page says that some folks call the Horsehead Nebula Barnard 33, and that someone took a photo of it at an observatory in Cambridge. Not the one in England: the one in Massachusetts.

Edward Pickering got credit for IC 434, the bright nebula 'around' Barnard 33, AKA the Horsehead Nebula, in 1889. The BBC pointed out that Pickering's assistant, some dude named Flemming, spotted IC 434 and the Horsehead Nebula in 1888.

One more thing: Pickering's a Harvard man, but Harvard College Observatory records, again quoted by the BBC, lists the dark nebula as "discovered by WP Fleming." (Volume 60, dated 1908, on page 149 entry 62)

If the Lemming wore a hat, it'd be tipped to Harvard for giving credit where credit is due.

Hot Winds in Orion

"PIA04227: Orion Nebula and Bow Shock"
Photojournal, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (1995)



"Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a bow shock around a very young star in the nearby Orion nebula, an intense star-forming region of gas and dust.

"Named for the crescent-shaped wave a ship makes as it moves through water, a bow shock can form in space when two gas streams collide. In this case, the young star, LL Ori, emits a vigorous wind, a stream of charged particles moving rapidly outward from the star. Our own Sun has a less energetic version of this wind that is responsible for auroral displays on the Earth.

"The material spewed from LL Ori collides with slow-moving gas evaporating away from the center of the Orion nebula, located to the lower right of the image. The surface where the two winds collide is seen as the crescent-shaped bow shock...."

If it seems that a lot of photos taken through telescopes show stuff in the Orion Nebula, you're quite correct. That's because Earth's star is so close to this complex mess of hot and cold running gasses, stars in various stages of formation, and spectacular light shows.

'Close' is a relative term, of course. Light captured in those photos started its journey to Earth more than a dozen centuries back. Most humans probably think of that as a large distance.

By the way, if you're interested in watching the Orion Nebula: don't dawdle. Its supply of gas and dust will run out in about 100,000 years. Oh, wait. That's probably a long time in your frame of reference.

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Friday, July 12, 2013

Blue Planet, Glass Rain


(NASA, ESA, M. Kornmesser, via Space.com, used w/o permission.)
"This illustration shows HD 189733b, a huge gas giant that orbits very close to its host star HD 189733. The planet's atmosphere is scorching with a temperature of over 1000 degrees Celsius, and it rains glass, sideways, in howling 7000 kilometer-per-hour winds. Image released July 11, 2013...."

"Strange Blue World: Alien Planet's True Color Revealed, a First"
Miriam Kramer, Space.com (July 11, 2013)

" Call it the deep blue dot. For the first time, scientists have seen the visible color of a distant alien world. The exoplanet - called HD 189733b - is 63 light-years from Earth and a 'deep cobalt blue,' with raging storms of glass rain and super-fast winds, scientists say.

"The alien planet's blue color was pinned down using observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. Although the planet might be the same color as Earth from space, scientists think that HD 189733b is a 'hot Jupiter' - a gas giant planet that orbits very close to its star. It takes 2.2 Earth days for the planet to travel fully around its sun...."

The scientists found HD 189733b's color by tracking colors of the planet and its star. When the hot Jupiter went behind its star, light from the system dropped in the blue end of the spectrum.

Hubble observing leader Frédéric Pont says measuring this exoplanet's color is a "real first."

Blue, Yes: Cool, Yes and No

"...The exoplanet's weather is less than ideal. Its atmosphere is more than 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) and the planet rains glass sideways in 4,350 mile per hour (7,000 km/h) winds, according to Hubble officials...."
(Miriam Kramer, Space.com)

A world where it's hot enough to melt brass is definitely "less than ideal" for critters like humans. Life on Earth is built of nucleic acids and proteins dissolved in water. That may be the only possible chemical brew for life: or not. (March 15, 2013)

Either way, HD 189733b is a satisfactorily odd planet, from the Lemming's point of view: so it's cool, sort of.

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Friday, June 28, 2013

Gliese 677C, Revisted: Three Super-Earths in the Habitable Zone


(ESO/M. Kornmesser, via BBC News, used w/o permission)
"An impression of what the sky might look like from the exoplanet Gliese 667Cd, looking towards the parent star and featuring, at top, the other super-Earths in the habitable zone"

"Star is crowded by super-Earths"
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (June 25, 2013)

"Scientists have identified three new planets around a star they already suspected of hosting a trio of worlds.

"It means this relatively nearby star, Gliese 667C, now has three so-called super-Earths orbiting in its 'habitable zone'.

"This is the region where temperatures ought to allow for the possibility of liquid water, although no-one can say for sure what conditions are really like on these planets...."

These planets are more massive than Earth, which might make them better prospects for life than Earth. It looks like plate tectonics, the way Earth's surface keeps getting churned up, or rather down, is really important for making a planet habitable. (December 5, 2009)

Not that astronomers know if there's an atmosphere, let alone water, on any of the three super-Earths circling Gliese 677C. But if there is: there could be life there. Then again, maybe not.

It's the Lemming's considered opinion that humans don't know, yet.

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Friday, March 8, 2013

The Lemming Takes a Vacation

Editor's Note:

It has come to our attention that Lemming has taken an unexpected, and unannounced, vacation. We apologize for the absence of a post last week, and regret any inconvenience which this may have caused.

In lieu of the regularly scheduled post, we present an infographic which the Lemming left on his desktop, together with a somewhat enigmatic note which read, "having a great time, wish you were here."

Now, without further ado, the previously mentioned infographic:

"Alpha Centauri Stars & Planet Explained: Our Nearest Neighbors (Infographic)"
Karl Tate, Space.com (October 16, 2012)
(Size reduced to fit this blog's format)



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Friday, February 8, 2013

Betelgeuse, Stellar Wind, and Exploding Eggs

"Supergiant Star Betelgeuse to Crash Into Cosmic 'Wall' "
Miriam Kramer, Space.com (January 25, 2013)


(From ESA / Herschel / PACS / L. Decin et al, via space.com, used w/o permission.)
"In about 5,000 years, Betelgeuse is going to run straight into a line of dust (left)...."

"The red supergiant star Betelgeuse in the famed constellation Orion is on a collision course with a strange wall of interstellar dust, with the clock ticking down to a cataclysmic cosmic smashup in 5,000 years, scientists say.

"A new image of Betelgeuse by the European Space Agency's infrared Herschel space observatory, shows that the star will crash headlong into a trail of space dust while speeding through its part of the cosmos at a blistering 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) per second. That's about 66,960 mph (107,761 kph).

"Betelgeuse is a giant star that makes up the left shoulder of the Orion constellation and can easily be seen from Earth with the unaided eye by observers in the Northern Hemisphere. The star appears as a reddish-orange light above and to the left of Orion's belt...."

Betelgeuse is roughly 640 light years away: fairly close on a cosmic scale, but sufficiently distant from Earth to make the coming collision a matter for curiosity, not concern.

Astronomers have been learning quite a bit about the universe, particularly in the last century or so. That's bothered some rather tightly-wound folks, but the Lemming doesn't mind knowing that there's a whole lot of time and space. And that's another topic.

What's That?

"... The new Herschel observatory image shows Betelgeuse as a bright disk surrounded by a shield-like arc of gas as it approaches an odd bar-like wall of dust.

"The curved 'shield' formations to the left of the star are actually structures shaped by Betelgeuse's solar wind - the charged particles each star emits and blows out into the galaxy, ESA officials said. But the wall of dust the star will crash into may be anything, from a filament linked to the galaxy's magnetic field to a stellar cloud. Scientists do not think the dust wall is part of the Betelgeuse star structure.

"After the first bow of solar wind hits the line of dust in 5,000 years, Betelgeuse itself should run into the bar 12,500 years after that...."

Scientists have quite a bit of time to study that whatever-it-is before the solar (stellar?) wind from Betelgeuse starts stirring it up. Based on previous experience, the Lemming suspects that folks will be surprised by what happens. Which is just as well, since if we knew everything humanity wouldn't have much use for curiosity. More topics.

Back to Betelgeuse: the star is really big, and has been running through its hydrogen at a phenomenal rate. Soon, it'll run out. Without hydrogen to keep its fusion 'fire' going, the core of Betelgeuse will start cooling down: and, more to the point, stop providing the pressure that keeps Betelgeuse from collapsing.

That's when things get interesting. As all that tonnage of star-stuff falls inward, the star's core heats up: a lot. The physics is a trifle complicated, but basically the collapsing star works like a whacking great diesel engine: fusing lighter elements into heavier elements and releasing a phenomenal amount of energy in the process. Not that diesel engines fuse nuclei together, the reactions in that case are chemical. And that's, you guessed it, another topic.

The Lemming was making a point. What was it? Diesel engines. Stellar physics. Energy. Right.

All that energy released by fusing elements together heats up the collapsing star's core. The effect is sort of like what happens when you microwave an egg: which the Lemming does not recommend. Except that instead of spattering hot egg, most of the star gets spattered into space. It's a spectacle best viewed from a safe distance: a couple dozen light years should be enough.

Unless scientists are wrong about most of stellar physics, which doesn't seem likely, Betelgeuse will explode 'soon.' That Space.com article says in about 1,000,000 years: which is 'soon,' compared to how long this universe has been around. On the other hand, Betelgeuse was shrinking faster than expected a few years ago. (June 10, 2009) Folks on Earth could be have a grandstand seat for the show 'sooner.' Again, by cosmic standards.

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Friday, January 4, 2013

WR 104: Gamma Ray Bursts and a Musing Lemming

"WR 104 Won't Kill Us After All"
Ian O'Neill, Universe Today (January 7, 2009)

"Early last year, concern was growing for a Wolf-Rayet star named WR 104 that appeared to be aiming right at Earth (see Looking Down the Barrel of A Gamma Ray Burst). A Wolf-Rayet star is a highly unstable star coming to the end of its life, possibly culminating in a powerful, planet-killing gamma-ray burst (GRB). GRBs are collimated beams of high energy gamma-rays, projected from the poles of a collapsing Wolf-Rayet star. It was little wonder that we were concerned when a dying Wolf-Rayet star was found to be pointing right at us! Today, at the AAS in Long Beach, one scientist working at the Keck Telescope has taken a keen interest in WR 104 and shared new findings that show our Solar System may not be bathed in deadly gamma-rays after all...."

As Marvin the Martian said, "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"

Or, in this case, sizzle.

Technical Questions, Technical Answers, and the Lemming

"WR 104: Technical Questions"
Peter Tuthill, School of Physics, Sydney University, NSW 2006, Australia

" This page is for a more in-depth technical discussion of the risk posed by WR 104. There is jargon and techincal [!] stuff ahead, and I won't try to explain all the terms. Ask your local friendly Astronomer if in doubt.

"This discussion focusses [!] on the risk to earth from a potential future gamma ray burst (GRB) in WR 104. Note that this was not a big part of my scientific article published in Astrophysical Journal. The article only had a paragraph or two about this scenario. But for understandable reasons, the press and public have picked up on this aspect of the work. It is maybe a little more widely relevant than, say, 'radiative braking in colliding-wind systems' (which is discussed at length in the paper)...."


In another blog, the Lemming put information about WR 104 into a (fairly) short list:
  • WR 104 is
    • About 8,000 light years away
      • 'Close' on a cosmic scale
    • A double star
    • 'Pointed' in our direction
      • Maybe
      • Or maybe not
  • The stars will explode
    • Probably
    • Within the next 100,000 years
      • Or so
    • Twice
      • It's a double star
  • The explosions will produce either
    • Two gamma ray bursts
    • One gamma ray burst
    • No gamma ray bursts
  • The gamma ray burst(s), if any, will
    • Get deflected by magnetic fields
    • Be diffused by interstellar gas
    • Cause mass extinctions
      • Like the Ordovician mass extinction
      • Or not
Bottom line: in a hundred thousand years or so, one or both of the stars that humanity calls WR 104 will explode, probably.

One or both may or may not shoot a really intense clump of gamma rays in the general direction of Earth.

These gamma rays may get deflected by the Milky Way galaxy's magnetic fields; or they may get mushed up by the stuff between stars; or they may cause something like the Ordovician extinction event.

That Ordovician thing happened 440,000,000 or so years ago: 'Scientist Declares Doom' headlines notwithstanding, global disasters aren't all that common.

One Thing at a Time

The Lemming is, as this blog's name suggests, "apathetic." Maybe humanity will, a few hundred thousand years from now, face a cataclysmic catastrophe of cosmic scope. Then again, maybe not.

Come to think of it, by then humanity may have spread out a bit by then: which would raise the odds of at least one planetary system that's called "home" being in trouble.

The Lemming is content to let generations yet unborn decide whether to set up shielding, evacuate a few planetary systems, or maybe turn WR 104 so in shoots in another direction.

That last option might have unintended consequences. Someone else might be peeved, if humanity pointed WR 104 toward their home just before it exploded.

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Friday, October 19, 2012

Alpha Centauri B: New Planet

"Earth-Size Planet Closest to Our Solar System: By The Numbers"
Tariq Malik, SPACE.com (October 17, 2012)

"An alien planet discovered around a star in the Alpha Centauri system, the nearest to our own sun, has astronomers buzzing, and not just because it's the closest exoplanet to Earth ever seen.

"The newfound extrasolar planet Alpha Centauri Bb, it turns out, is not only the nearest alien world to Earth, it's also extremely Earthlike in size and mass. The planet is much too hot and too close to its parent star to support life, but its existence suggests the tantalizing possibility that there may be more planets waiting to be found in our neighboring star system.

"Here's a look at the numbers behind the newfound alien planet Alpha Centauri Bb:...

"3.6 million: The distance, in miles, at which the planet orbits its parent star Alpha Centauri B. This is much closer to the star than Mercury is to our sun. Earth is 93 million miles (150 million km) from the sun...."

Astronomers have found hundreds of exoplanets: planets orbiting other stars. What makes Alpha Centauri Bb stand out is it's mass, very nearly the same as Earth; and that it's very close.

"Close," that is, compared to most stars. Alpha Centauri A, B, and C are the nearest (known) stars: only four and a quarter light years away.

That's almost in Earth's back yard, compared to the size of our galaxy. Even Gliese 581, 20 light years away, is a close neighbor on a galactic scale.


(from Department of Physics, University of Oregon, used w/o permission)

On this scale, each pixel is well over 100 light years across. Sun and Gliese 581 are in the same pixel.

Too Hot for Life?

Alpha Centuari Bb "is much too hot and too close to its parent star to support life" is accurate, as far as it goes. The statement assumes that "life" is limited to "life as we know it," the sort of nucleic acid/protein (O) in water variety here on Earth. Maybe that's the only kind anywhere.

Then again, maybe "life" doesn't need to be the nucleic acid/protein in water mix that's comfortable on Earth. Life using fluorosilicone in fluorosilicone instead of our organic mix might be right at home on a nearly red-hot world.

Or maybe critters made of lipid in hydrogen live in the borderlands of our own planetary system. (Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (April 12, 2010)

Alpha Centauri Bb: Really?

Some announcements of exoplanets are disputed, and occasionally turn out to be a misinterpretation of noise in the data. This time, it looks like Alpha Centauri Bb is very real: but time will tell.
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Monday, May 7, 2012

Yes, the Moon Did Look Really Big

"Spectacular 'Supermoon' Wows Skywatchers Around the World"
Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor, SPACE.com (May 6, 2012)

"The biggest full moon of the year, a so-called "supermoon," rose into the night sky Saturday to the delight of skywatchers around the world, who captured the lunar sight in dazzling amateur astronomy photos.

"Because of a fluke of orbital timing, the full moon of May peaked late Saturday just as the moon was passing its perigee, the closest point to Earth of its orbit. The result was the biggest full moon of the year, which NASA and other scientists nicknamed the supermoon of 2012.

"In Amman, Jordan, the bright moon amazed skywatcher Carra Almond of Canton, N.C., who is currently living in Jordan with her husband. Almond said the moon was a captivating sight from her apartment balcony. Her photo shows a crystal clear moon shining bright against a black night sky. [Supermoon 2012 Photos from Around the World]..."


(Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre, via SPACE.com, used w/o permission)
"Veteran astrophotographers Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre captured this view of the supermoon of 2012, the full moon of May, on May 5, 2012, from Woburn, Mass."

The Lemming missed the 'supermoon.' Here in central Minnesota, the sky was overcast yesterday. Occasionally the clouds wrung themselves out, and there's a rumor that blue sky was visible around mid-afternoon. Which would have been a really bad time for trying to see that whacking great moon.

Not that the moon really was bigger: Like the SPACE.com article said, it looked bigger because the moon was at its closest approach to Earth in its orbit, right about when it was full.

One of the "Supermoon 2012 Photos from Around the World" caught the Lemming's eye:

"Supermoon 2012 in Manchester, Wash.: Tonya Traylor"

(Tonya Traylor, via SPACE.com, used w/o permission)
"The supermoon of 2012 shines bright in a cloud-spattered sky in this view from skywatcher Tonya Traylor from Manchester, Wash., on May 5, 2012. "

That was a happy coincidence of moon, cloud, camera: and someone ready to capture an image.

One more thing: the "around the world" pictures include an infographic that shows just how much bigger than normal the moon looked. Or would have looked, if the Lemming's home hadn't been under a soggy blanket. Oh, well: at least the tornado missed us. And that's another topic.

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Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Lemming Tracks: Designing Better Street Lighting

"Overexposed"
Charles Linn, FAIA, Architect Magazine (March 1, 2012)
"A newfound appreciation for dark skies, a model lighting ordinance, and LEDs may help maintain night vision by reducing outdoor illumination levels.
Lemming Tracks: Designing Better Street Lighting
"In cities around the world, telling a child, 'I used to see stars from my backyard,' may soon sound as credible as, 'I used to walk 10 miles to school in 6-foot-high snowdrifts uphill in both directions.' Sky glow, light pollution, and light trespass are the consequences of development and outgrowth in urban and rural landscapes. The damage isn't merely aesthetic. Research suggests that excess night light can harm nearly everything living under the sun. The offender may be as simple as stadium lights fatally mistaken by fledgling birds for the moon, or the neighbor's porch light that beams into your bedroom, resulting in fatigue and diminished productivity...."

What the Lemming noticed second about this article was the long paragraphs. If this wasn't written for and published in an ink-and-paper magazine, and then posted: It's the Lemming's guess that it was written by someone who learned the craft before the Information Age started.

So did the Lemming: and that's another topic.

The first thing the Lemming noticed was that this is another 'light pollution' article. These have been popping up at intervals for years. Some make sense, some tell more about the author than the subject, a few make good points.

This one, in the Lemming's opinion, makes sense. And makes good points.

Another trio of massive paragraphs, then the Lemming will opine.

Gigawatt-Hours, IDA, and Tradeoffs

"...The amount of energy and money expended to illuminate what is essentially water vapor and floating particulates in our atmosphere is not trivial. According a 2009 document published by the nonprofit International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), the U.S. expends 22,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity—the equivalent of 3.6 million tons of coal—each year in light pollution. At the rate of 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, this energy translates to $2.2 billion annually....

"...In the past half-century, the light source of choice for streets and parking lots was high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps, which included mercury vapor and low-pressure sodium lamps, but mostly the ubiquitous yellow-orange high-pressure sodium (HPS)....

"...It is difficult to design optics that can control stray uplight and glare without significant tradeoffs in luminaire efficiency. Despite their notoriously poor color rendering, HPS lamps are inexpensive, can last up to 24,000 hours, and output a lot of light initially; the output declines as they age. In the last 30 years, the use of metal halide, an HID source that produces whiter light than HPS, has increased, but HPS still dominates...."

This article gets points for discussing the technologies involved in outdoor lighting, the legal and regulatory situations: and, particularly, the awkward economic decisions folks need to make.

Is sky glow a real problem? Even though the Lemming's read some angst-filled articles about frightfully vital wildlife, and slightly-restrained rants by amateur astronomers who can't see through the haze overhead: yes, the Lemming thinks there's a real problem here.

Maybe not on the 'and we're all gonna die' level: but it does look like human beings are designed with 24-hour lighting cycle in mind: one where the lights are out for several hours each night. Humans are adaptable critters, and can survive bright light 24-7: but they do seem to thrive better with regular darkness.

Amateur Astronomers and the Asteroid Patrol

At the risk of being overly dramatic, the Lemming thinks it's prudent to recall that the bit of debris that upset the dinosaur's world wasn't alone.

Amateur astronomers often are the first to notice some new bit of cosmic stuff swinging by Earth's neighborhood. Most new asteroids and comets don't come particularly close to this planet. A few do.

And, every once in a while, one of their orbits gets them up close and personal with Earth. When that happens, something like the Tunguska event happens.

So far, humans have been lucky. The explosions haven't happened near cities. Of course, there are a few ancient civilizations that simply stopped being there: and that's probably another topic.

Right now, there's a chance that an amateur astronomer would notice something big enough to make an inconvenient gap in, say the eastern seaboard. Before it got so close that everybody could see it. For a few seconds, anyway.

Here is where 'light pollution,' sky glow, whatever comes in. All amateur astronomers that the Lemming knows about are on Earth. If the sky gets so bright at night that they can't 'see out:' well, we could lose more than some really good science.

Enough said.

On the 'up' side, quite a few folks have been working at finding practical solutions to bright city skies.

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Monday, February 6, 2012

GJ 667Cc: Heavier than Earth, Maybe About as Warm

"Newfound Alien Planet is Best Candidate Yet to Support Life, Scientists Say"
Denise Chow, Space.com (February 2, 2012)

"A potentially habitable alien planet - one that scientists say is the best candidate yet to harbor water, and possibly even life, on its surface - has been found around a nearby star.

"The planet is located in the habitable zone of its host star, which is a narrow circumstellar region where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on the planet's surface.

" 'It's the Holy Grail of exoplanet research to find a planet around a star orbiting at the right distance so it's not too close where it would lose all its water and boil away, and not too far where it would all freeze,' Steven Vogt, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told SPACE.com. 'It's right smack in the habitable zone - there's no question or discussion about it. It's not on the edge, it's right in there.'..."


(Carnegie Institution for Science, via Space.com, used w/o permission)

The planet's sun, GJ 667C, is so close that light only takes 22 years to make the trip to Earth's neighborhood. By galactic standards, GJ 667C is about as close as it gets. By comparison, the closest star, Proxima Centauri, is a little over four years away as the light beam travels.

Using technology we've got, or are developing, we could send a probe to GJ 667C that wouldn't take more than several centuries to get there. Getting funding for that sort of a project is another matter. Humanity doesn't often make plans that span centuries, and that's another topic.

Vogt? the Name Sounds Familiar

"...Vogt is one of the authors of the new study, which was led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution for Science, a private, nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C...."

Steven Vogt's been in the news before, and the Lemming will get back to that.

Warm Enough, But - - -

"...'This planet is the new best candidate to support liquid water and, perhaps, life as we know it,' Anglada-Escudé said in a statement.
An alien super-Earth

"The researchers estimate that the planet, called GJ 667Cc, is at least 4.5 times as massive as Earth, which makes it a so-called super-Earth. It takes roughly 28 days to make one orbital lap around its parent star, which is located a mere 22 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Scorpius (the Scorpion).

" 'This is basically our next-door neighbor,' Vogt said. 'It's very nearby. There are only about 100 stars closer to us than this one.'

"Interestingly enough, the host star, GJ 667C, is a member of a triple-star system. GJ 667C is an M-class dwarf star that is about a third of the mass of the sun, and while it is faint, it can be seen by ground-based telescopes, Vogt said. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]...

"...The discovery of a planet around GJ 667C came as a surprise to the astronomers, because the entire star system has a different chemical makeup than our sun. The system has much lower abundances of heavy elements (elements heavier than hydrogen and helium), such as iron, carbon and silicon.

" 'It's pretty deficient in metals,' Vogt said. 'These are the materials out of which planets form - the grains of stuff that coalesce to eventually make up planets - so we shouldn't have really expected this star to be a likely case for harboring planets.'

"The fortuitous discovery could mean that potentially habitable alien worlds could exist in a greater variety of environments than was previously thought possible, the researchers said...."

The GJ 667 star system being metal-deficient probably means that planets around GJ 667C will be, too: assuming that current ideas about how planets form are anywhere near accurate. What Vogt said about planets is a bit intriguing, because Jupiter is mostly hydrogen: gaseous, liquid, and metallic. There's helium, too, and almost certainly a rocky core. ("The Outer Planets: What Are They, and Where Are They?," Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado)

If GJ 677Cc is mostly hydrogen and helium, it could be a very interesting place. But as a place to live? Maybe not so much. Life, the sort we know about, needs hydrogen. But it also needs lots of other elements, too: and in fairly high concentrations. Which is why we're not looking for life on, or in, Jupiter. ("The Habitability of Jupiter," NASA Astrobiology Institute)

If GJ 677Cc has liquid water in large amounts, one of the big questions will be "how?" There's hydrogen in water, of which the GJ 677 system has copious supplies. Water also contains oxygen, an element that's a "metal" in this context: heavier than hydrogen or helium.

Still: an Earth-size (almost) planet; nearby (sort of); at just the right distance from its star? That's big news.

Steven Vogt: Planet Hunter

If the name Steve Vogt sounds familiar, you may have been following astronomy news. His name came up in 2010:That time, the subject was planets circling Gliese 581. Steve Vogt was excited about the data he'd collected. He'd also been, quite sensibly, sharing what he'd found with other scientists.

Then there was the fellow who said that he'd intercepted a signal from near Gliese 581: and that's another topic.
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Monday, January 23, 2012

Planets: Rocky, Smaller than Earth, Three of Them

"Smallest Alien Planets, Real-Life 'Tatooines' Highlight Huge Week of Exoplanet Finds"
Denise Chow, Space.com (January 12, 2012)

"The ongoing hunt for planets beyond our solar system turned up some big results this week.

"One team of researchers found the three smallest alien planets yet detected, and another group announced two new worlds orbiting double-star systems — the real-life incarnations of the fictional planet Tatooine from 'Star Wars.' Further, yet another study determined that our Milky Way galaxy likely harbors at least 160 billion exoplanets.

"The smallest known exoplanets orbit a single star, called KOI-961, which is located about 120 light-years away. The smallest world in the three-planet system is roughly the size of Mars, researchers said...."

First off, about that "Tatoonine" thing. Kepler-35 b and Kepler-34 b each orbit double stars: sort of like Luke Skywalker's home in "Star Wars," except Kepler 35 b is the size of Saturn, and neither are particularly hospitable for life-as-we-know-it. Which the "Star Wars" Tatooine was, by comparison.

That said, this month's news about exoplanets - planets that orbit another star - makes it more likely that there's life elsewhere in the universe. Or less unlikely, anyway.

That's because the three new worlds mentioned are - probably - small and rocky. Like Earth. It's starting to look like planets more-or-less like Earth may be fairly common. Or not all that uncommon, anyway.

The three featured planets orbit KOI-961. For now, they're called KOI-961.01, KOI-961.02, and KOI-961.03. They're between the size of Mars and Earth, almost certainly rocky worlds, and orbit a star that's only about 70% wider than Jupiter.

"...'It's actually more similar to Jupiter and its moons in scale than any other planetary system,' [California Institute of Technology's John] Johnson said in a statement. 'The discovery is further proof of the diversity of planetary systems in our galaxy.'..."
(Space.com)

Exciting times.

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Monday, January 2, 2012

Planet X, NASA, and the Lizard People From Outer Space

"Apocalypse Not Now: 2012 Doomsday Predictions Debunked by NASA"
Charles Q. Choi, Space.com (December 30, 2011)

"On Dec. 21, 2012, many doomsday believers fear the apocalypse — anything from a rogue planet smashing into us to our world spinning end over end. However, the world should expect nothing more next year than the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, NASA says.

"Many people point to the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar on Dec. 21, 2012 as evidence of the coming apocalypse, but astronomers have been quick to stress that there is nothing to be concerned about.

"According to the ancient Mayan calendar, next year's winter solstice marks the end of a 144,000-day cycle. This cycle, which begins at the mythical Maya creation date, has already been repeated 12 times. The 13th will end in 2012, capping a full 5,200-year Mayan cycle of creation...."

Mayan calendar makers notwithstanding, the Lemming isn't concerned about December 21, 2012. Using the same logic, the world has already ended twice: December of 999, and again in 1999, using our Gregorian calendar.

Using the Mayan calendar has the advantage of being relatively unfamiliar, so let's go with that. The world has, or will, end:
  • August 11, 3114 BC
    • When the Mayan 'long count' last started
    • More or less
  • December 23, 2012
  • Spring, 7138
  • Summer, 12263
  • Autumn 17388
  • And so on
The Mayan long count may have started on August 13, and the Lemming went over that in another blog:

Nibiru, NASA, and the Lizard People

The rest of the Space.com article covers what NASA has to say about some of the elaborations on '2012 doomsday' that folks have come up with:
  • Planet X
  • Cosmic alignments
    • But no mystic crystal revelations, apparently
  • Solar storms
    • Hollywood's done this already
  • Flip-flop Earth
    • A little truth to this one
      • Very little
  • Cosmic impacts
    • Comets
    • Asteroids
    • And all that
    • Again, a little truth to this one
Saying that 2012 won't be much more than the year that keeps 2011 from bumping into 2013 is rather dull, though, so the Lemming suggests something spicier. Not more sensible, or accurate: but arguably more exciting.

That Space.com article is part of a vast conspiracy, involving NASA, punk rock, and shape-shifting, space-alien lizard men.



It's 'obvious:' shape-shifting lizard men from outer space have taken over key parts of Earth's governments and cultural institutions!

That's why we got punk rock, the Beatles, and Willie Nelson!!

Look at British royalty and VIPs: does anyone really believe those are humans??!!!

How could Earth's humans possibly have missed the growing lizard man menace?!!!!

They have been twisting human minds for years: with pop music; weird fashions; hair spray; and infomercials!!!!!

Only a few perceptive, courageous, voices cried out: alerting the populace to this scaly menace from the stars!!!!!!

And, one by one, THESE VOICES HAVE BEEN SILENCED!!!!!!!

It's been mere weeks since new Oddly Enough blog posts mysteriously ceased!!!!!!!!

The Oddly Enough blog actually isn't being updated any more: but that's hardly 'mysterious.' Reuters decided they'd had enough of Mr. Basler's posts: or is Reuters part of the conspiracy, too?

Seriously?

'Nibiru, NASA, and the Lizard People' is humor.

Of the tongue-in-cheek sort.

That's what the Lemming intended, at least. Your experience may vary.

Conspriacy Theories: Okay for Stories

Conspiracy theories can make for good stories, some of which the Lemming has enjoyed. When someone starts believing that 'they' are plotting against 'us,' that's when it's not quite so entertaining.

The lizard men isn't something the Lemming made up, by the way. No, they're not real: but the 'lizard man conspiracy' was alive and well a few years ago. The Lemming used it as an example of silliness in another blog, and was so fond of the shape-shifting space-alien menace, that it's popped up fairly often since:As for all those exclamation marks, and other formatting oddities? Thaat was supposed to be part of the humor. The Lemming's posted about sounding crazy before.

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Monday, December 12, 2011

The 'Christmas Planet:' Kepler-22b

"Potentially Earth-Like Planet Has Right Temperature for Life"
ScienceNow, Wired Science (December 5, 2011)

"For the first time, astronomers have found a planet smack in the middle of the habitable zone of its sunlike star, where temperatures are good for life. 'If this planet has a surface, it would have a very nice temperature of some 70° Fahrenheit [21°C],' says William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center here, who is the principal investigator of NASA's Kepler space telescope. '[It's] another milestone on the journey of discovering Earth's twin,' adds Ames director Simon 'Pete' Worden.

"Unfortunately, the true nature of the planet, named Kepler-22b, remains unknown. It is 2.4 times the size of Earth, but its mass, and hence its composition, has not yet been determined. 'There's a good chance it could be rocky,' Borucki says, although he adds that the planet would probably contain huge amounts of compressed ice, too. It might even have a global ocean. 'We have no planets like this in our own solar system.'

"Kepler-22b is 600 light-years away. Every 290 days, it orbits a star that is just a bit smaller and cooler than our own sun. The Kepler telescope, launched in 2009 to scan the skies for Earth-like worlds, found the planet because it sees the orbit edge on. That means that every 290 days, the world transits the surface of the star, blocking out a minute fraction of its light.

"Borucki likes to call the new discovery the Christmas planet. 'It's a great gift,' he said...."

This is exciting news for the Lemming. Astronomers have spotted planets that are close to the right distance from their star before; and have spotted planets that are only a few times as massive as Earth. Kepler-22b is roughly the same size as Earth, and at roughly the 'right' distance from its parent star: so it's possible that there is life there.

Or, not. We don't know what Kepler-22b's mass is, which will tell researchers how dense it is. And we don't know what sort of light gets bounced off Kepler-22b. If the expolanet's density is in the neighborhood of 5.5 grams per cubic centimeter, like Earth, and reflects a lot of bluish-white light, like Earth: it's still not a 'twin' of Earth. But it would be awfully close.

By the way, that 5.5 grams/cubic centimeter means that Earth is 5.5 times as dense as water. About. Water's density is 1 gram per cubic centimeter at 39.2°F. Boiling water (at sea level) is 0.95865 gram per cubic centimeter, and that's another topic. (USGS)

Only 600 Light Years: That's Close

Depending on what you're looking at, 600 light years is a huge distance, or practically next door. It's the distance light travels in 600 years: so the light that the Kepler observatory picked up started out around the time when the first golf balls were made. That's about 3,527,175,200,000,000 miles. Give or take a few hundred million.

Compared to the distance the Lemming travels, going to the nearest grocery, that's a long way away.

Backing off a little, and looking back at Earth's neighborhood, Kepler 22-b is practically next door. On the scale of this picture, the "S" in "Sun" is well over 1,200 light years across: twice the distance to Kepler-22b.


(from Department of Physics, University of Oregon, used w/o permission)

Life, the Universe, and All That

That Wired Science article doesn't have the sort of entertainment value that "Star Wars" or "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn" offer. For something in a 'science news' online publication, that's not the point.

What fascinates the Lemming about Kepler 22-b, and the rapidly growing list of known exoplanets, is the knowledge that the collection of planets, moons, and assorted debris, circling our star isn't quite unique.

We still don't know whether there are many - or any - other orderly systems like ours, with planets circling in neatly nested circles. And we're probably a long way from knowing whether there's life somewhere other than on Earth.

As for traveling to planets circling other stars: That's another topic.

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'Star Trek,' no; easy, no; possible, yes:
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Monday, December 5, 2011

Exoplanets: Over 700 Found to Date; Latest Batch of 18 are Jupiter-Size

"New Batch of Giant Alien Worlds Found"
Discovery News (December 3, 2011)

"A new haul of 18 Jupiter-sized gas giant planets have been detected orbiting stars bigger than our sun, according to a release by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

"The find boosts the number of known planets circling huge stars by 50 percent. Studying the newly found planets could also help astronomers better understand how planets -- including ones in our own solar system -- form and grow.

"The new batch of alien worlds was announced on the heels of another recent discovery of 50 newly found planets from another team of astronomer, bringing the list of identified alien planets well past 700...."

That's a lot of planets. A whole lot more than the eight, or nine, or ten, in the Solar system. There's been debate over just what a "planet" is; and it looks like there may be undiscovered planets, or dwarf planets, or whatever the things wind up being called, in the outer Solar system. (January 5, 2010)

Exoplanet Count Tops 700? You Ain't Seen Nuthin' Yet!

"...The Kepler space telescope has so far identified more than 1,200 possible planets, though most of those have not yet been confirmed...."
(Discovery News)

There's no way for the Lemming to know what fraction of those 1,200 Kepler 'possibles' will turn out to be exoplanets. It's a big number of 'maybes,' and like Discovery News said: that's the count "so far." Exciting times.

At least, that's how the Lemming sees it. Your experience may vary.

Meanwhile, Back on Earth - - -

This latest batch of 18 planets orbiting other stars didn't get discovered by the Kepler orbital observatory. Astronomers working down on Earth found them. The article said that the initial observations were at Keck Observatory in Hawaii, with follow-up work done at McDonald and Faiborn Observatories in Texas and Arizona.

The astronomers were looking at about 300 stars. Back to the article, again:

"...They zeroed-in on stars that are more than one and a half times more massive than the sun....

"...the team found 18 planets with masses similar to Jupiter's.

"The researchers say that the findings lend further support to the theory that planets grow from seed particles that accumulate gas and dust in a disk surrounding a newborn star...."
(Discovery News)

That's not going to help anybody buy a winning lottery ticket, or help some team win the next Super Bowl. It won't even help the Lemming finish a report that has nothing to do with this blog. And the Lemming is wandering off-topic.

For folks who like to know how the universe works, data that supports "...the theory that planets grow from seed particles..." is important. Data that doesn't support that theory is important. And data that flatly won't fit in the theory would be really exciting: because then, we'd know that there's a whole new set of things to learn about.

As for practical applications: It's the Lemming's opinion that it will be some time before humanity starts building planetary systems from scratch. And that's another topic.

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