Archief - NASA ontdekt 16 nieuwe kandidaat planeten

Bron: [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100401730.html]Washington Post[/url]

NASA scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered what they believe are 16 new planets deep in the Milky Way, leading them to conclude there are probably billions of planets spread throughout the galaxy.

Over the past 15 years, astronomers have identified more than 200 planets outside our solar system, but the new ones identified by the Hubble are at least 10 times as far from Earth.

That planets can be found at the center of the galaxy, as well as near our solar system, has given NASA researchers confidence that they are likely to be everywhere. If that is the case, then the likelihood of other Earth-like planets becomes greater.

"We all are dreamers, and part of that dream is to find life somewhere," said Mario Livio, head of the science program at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which oversees Hubble operations. "We're finding that the galaxy is full of planets, and the chances are, somewhere out there, we will find one with the conditions necessary to be habitable."

The new planets were introduced yesterday as mostly "candidates," since only two could be definitively described as planets. But Livio and team leader Kailash Sahu said the chances are good that some, or even all, of the 16 will ultimately meet all the criteria to be called planets.

Based on the number of planets identified and the number of stars in the Milky Way, the scientists estimated that as many as 6 billion Jupiter-size planets exist in the galaxy.

"Our discovery . . . gives very strong evidence that planets are as abundant in other parts of the galaxy as they are in our solar neighborhood," Sahu said.

One of the biggest surprises of their work, Sahu said, was that five of the likely planets orbit so close to their suns that they make it around in less than one Earth day. These close-in, Jupiter-size planets are not necessarily the most prevalent, he said, but rather are the ones most easily identified using the techniques available for peering deep into the galaxy. The planet closest to its star has an inhospitable estimated surface temperature of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The search for what are called "extrasolar" planets is done through indirection, since they cannot be seen by even the strongest telescopes. Instead, astronomers identify them by the way they briefly block some of the light from distant stars, an event called a "transit." The planet would have to be about the size of Jupiter to block enough starlight to be detected by Hubble.

The Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search (SWEEPS) used the Hubble's deep-field telescope for seven days in early 2004. The telescope monitored 180,000 stars in the crowded central bulge of the Milky Way for the periodic dimming caused by planet transits. The area examined by the orbiting telescope is about 26,000 light-years away.

Although astronomers detect faraway planets by finding solar transits, they measure and confirm a planet's status by analyzing the slight wobble in a star's motion that occurs when the planet orbits. The 16 planet "candidates" introduced yesterday are generally too far away and too faint for solar wobble to be detected, which is why they remain planetary candidates rather than confirmed planets.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled to be launched into orbit in 2013, is expected to have the power to make the confirmations.

The SWEEPS results are being published in today's issue of the journal Nature.

The Hubble telescope, a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency, has revolutionized astronomy but is in dire need of a servicing mission to install two new instruments, as well as fresh batteries and gyroscopes.

NASA initially proposed a robotic repair, but the National Academy of Sciences recommended in 2004 that a manned shuttle mission do the work. NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin has said that he will formally review the options this month, and that he hopes to make a decision soon.

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LONDON (Reuters) - Beaming people in Star Trek fashion is still in the realms of science fiction but physicists in Denmark have teleported information from light to matter bringing quantum communication and computing closer to reality.


Until now scientists have teleported similar objects such as light or single atoms over short distances from one spot to another in a split second.

But Professor Eugene Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University in Denmark have made a breakthrough by using both light and matter.

"It is one step further because for the first time it involves teleportation between light and matter, two different objects. One is the carrier of information and the other one is the storage medium," Polzik explained in an interview on Wednesday.

The experiment involved for the first time a macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms. They also teleported the information a distance of half a meter but believe it can be extended further.

"Teleportation between two single atoms had been done two years ago by two teams but this was done at a distance of a fraction of a millimeter," Polzik, of the Danish National Research Foundation Center for Quantum Optics, explained.

"Our method allows teleportation to be taken over longer distances because it involves light as the carrier of entanglement," he added.

Quantum entanglement involves entwining two or more particles without physical contact.

Although teleportation is associated with the science-fiction series Star Trek, no one is likely to be beamed anywhere soon.

But the achievement of Polzik's team, in collaboration with the theorist Ignacio Cirac of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, marks an advancement in the field of quantum information and computers, which could transmit and process information in a way that was impossible before.

"It is really about teleporting information from one site to another site. Quantum information is different from classical information in the sense that it cannot be measured. It has much higher information capacity and it cannot be eavesdropped on. The transmission of quantum information can be made unconditionally secure," said Polzik whose research is reported in the journal Nature.

Quantum computing requires manipulation of information contained in the quantum states, which include physical properties such as energy, motion and magnetic field, of the atoms.

"Creating entanglement is a very important step but there are two more steps at least to perform teleportation. We have succeeded in making all three steps -- that is entanglement, quantum measurement and quantum feedback," he added.

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Jinjitsu zei:

Wie heeft er nog lichtsnelheid nodig?

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D@SîR0 zei:

Dan lijkt het mij veel waarschijnlijker dat men zich focust op onze maan en naaste buren om aan terraformatie te doen, moest het op onze aardkloot serieus fout lopen. Een ruimtereis van enkele tientallen jaren is immers een pak haalbaarder, dan te fantaseren over zusterplaneten.

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Yo-Han zei:

Al kweek je een zuurtsof atmosfeer op Mars(de 'aliens' atmosphere processor schiet me te binnen..building better worlds with weyland yutani ,ok sci fi )....MAAR ,Mars heeft geen magnetisch veld...of bijna geen meer....sta je bloot aan zonnewinden...(dodelijke gamma straling) Een reusachtig magnetisch veld creeren rondom een immense planeet is niet iets haalbaar denk ik..eerder plaatselijke shelter

een planeet moet niet alleen bepaalde temps hebben voor soortgelijk aards leven en bepaalde atmosferische eigenschappen,maar ook een magnetsich veld dat dodelijke gamma stralingen afkaatst ..tenzij er leven immuun is aan gamma straling (nasty straling hoor)

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Thales zei:

overlaatst stond er in de metro nog iest over da mars gezicht.
nasa zegt wel dat het een optisch effect is maar anderen zeggen dan weer een vroegere beschaving. In het ebgin '70 was dat gezicht wel heel duidelijk zichtbaar. zo van "wow like wtf "

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Thales zei:

is die omfg en die shit nu echt wel nodig?
man man man
ik zei gewoon wat er in de metro stond ( en metro nuff siad... tis ook maar een gazet met nieuws)
.. iedereen die die foto gezien heeft zal ook wel eens gezegd hebben van damm wow

manman ...( !!!!! )

dank u hollow om normaal te antwoorden

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