I've always been a fan of ways that the general public (you and me) can help make discoveries and advance the state of science and technology. In the past, I've given updates on the PlanetQuest project, which seeks to give the general public the tools to help find extrasolar planets. That project is still in the works, but now the fine folks at Zooniverse (creators of the GalaxyZoo project, among others) have beaten them to the punch.
Zooniverse's latest citizen-science project is Planet Hunters, which displays the light-curve of a star on the screen and allows you to use one of the great strengths of the human brain&emdash;pattern recognition&emdash;to determine whether there are gaps or transit events in the light curve.
The site is pretty cool, but it has some problems... the biggest of which is no support for Internet Explorer. Your feelings on the various web browsers aside, a citizen science project should support the browsers most commonly used by the citizenry. Also, after you classify a star, it offers you the opportunity to discuss the star. But after you answer that question, the site has a tendency to hang. I spent some time classifying stars, and suffered a number of hangs.
Still, it is an interesting way to spend a little bit of time, and could result in discoveries of planets in the Kepler data.
Showing posts with label extrasolar planets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label extrasolar planets. Show all posts
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Prospects of a Habitable Planet Around Proxima Centauri
Hot on the heels of his earlier post about discouraging prospects for habitable planets around α Centauri, Paul Gilster of Centauri Dreams has (as promised) posted a follow-up about the prospects of finding habitable planets around Proxima Centauri. Proxima, it seems, has no chance of planets larger than 2-3 Earth masses in circular orbits out to about 1 AU (which is way farther out than the habitable region around such a wimpy little star as Proxima Centauri), but could have Earth mass or smaller planets in close.
The habitable zone around Proxima is so tight that any planets in it would orbit the star in as little as 3.6 days or as much as 13.8 days. That's a pretty short year. But planets with low-enough mass to be habitable are really, really hard for us to detect, especially if they're in multiple-planet systems. We need more precise results in order to study the radial velocity of stars with sufficient precision to find small planets.
That's where new probes like Kepler (due to launch early next year) come in. And also where software like that being developed for the PlanetQuest not-for-profit group, which is making software to combine the results of multiple observations, come in. So over the next several years our ability to identify smaller and smaller planets will improve dramatically.
And who knows? We may then discover that Proxima Centauri, the closest star to us, has a planet friendly to life.
The habitable zone around Proxima is so tight that any planets in it would orbit the star in as little as 3.6 days or as much as 13.8 days. That's a pretty short year. But planets with low-enough mass to be habitable are really, really hard for us to detect, especially if they're in multiple-planet systems. We need more precise results in order to study the radial velocity of stars with sufficient precision to find small planets.
That's where new probes like Kepler (due to launch early next year) come in. And also where software like that being developed for the PlanetQuest not-for-profit group, which is making software to combine the results of multiple observations, come in. So over the next several years our ability to identify smaller and smaller planets will improve dramatically.
And who knows? We may then discover that Proxima Centauri, the closest star to us, has a planet friendly to life.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Bad News for Those Looking for Planets at Alpha Centauri
Paul Gilster of Centauri Dreams reports on new scientific findings that suggest that planets would have a very difficult time forming more than about half an AU out from α Centauri A.
The problem is that the interaction of the relatively-close stars in the α Centauri system would have caused planetessimals (the large rocks that combine to form planets) to accelerate to speeds that would have precluded combining upon impact. Paul has the technical details, if you're in to that sort of thing.
So bad news if (like Paul) you were hoping for habitable, friendly planets in α Centauri... this research makes it less likely that they'll be found there.
The problem is that the interaction of the relatively-close stars in the α Centauri system would have caused planetessimals (the large rocks that combine to form planets) to accelerate to speeds that would have precluded combining upon impact. Paul has the technical details, if you're in to that sort of thing.
So bad news if (like Paul) you were hoping for habitable, friendly planets in α Centauri... this research makes it less likely that they'll be found there.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
PlanetQuest Update
I received an e-mail today from Dr. Laurence Doyle of PlanetQuest, the BOINC-based search for extra-solar planets. I had e-mailed Dr. Doyle asking for a status update, and this is what he replied:
It sounds like PlanetQuest is going to have a lot of data for us to crunch in the search for extra-solar planets once they get some funding. So if any of you have any pull with anyone who can help fund, or if you want to put forth some money yourself—as I have done—they are a qualified 501(c)(3) non-profit and they accept donations.
We have been stalled with fund raising -- but I have written a business plan and that is being circulated through possible donors. As far as the (more predictable) science is concerned, we have half of the detection algorithms running on BOINC and we have a star catalogue of about 2 million observations reduced to light curves. We are also including some re-processed HST images (7-day search for extrasolar planets) and some other public domain data to include -- i.e., to be searched for eclipsing binary planets. Finally, I have been added (via a successful proposal) to the NASA Kepler mission and hope to share some of that data with PlanetQuesters, so that we can all participate in this mission to detect the first "Earths."
It sounds like PlanetQuest is going to have a lot of data for us to crunch in the search for extra-solar planets once they get some funding. So if any of you have any pull with anyone who can help fund, or if you want to put forth some money yourself—as I have done—they are a qualified 501(c)(3) non-profit and they accept donations.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Small, Rocky Worlds
Paul Gilster over at Centauri Dreams has written a post about the prevalance of small, rocky worlds in our galaxy. He reports on 45 new planet reports revealed at the International Astronomical Union's meeting in Boston which have yet to be confirmed, one of which includes a planet projected to have roughly four times the mass of Earth. If confirmed, that would be the smallest exo-planet found yet.
Even if not confirmed with exactly those specifications, these findings provide more information about the universe around us. The planets were found using the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla 3.6m telescope.
And if you read the post at Paul's site, you should also pay attention to the comments. Several of them are highly insightful.
Even if not confirmed with exactly those specifications, these findings provide more information about the universe around us. The planets were found using the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla 3.6m telescope.
And if you read the post at Paul's site, you should also pay attention to the comments. Several of them are highly insightful.
Friday, January 25, 2008
PlanetQuest Update
Laurence Doyle posted a new update early this morning on PlanetQuest, saying:
So this seems like good news for both Dr. Doyle's PlanetQuest efforts and the Kepler Mission, both of which are projects that I've been interested in for a very long time.
Now, if PlanetQuest can just get their software out the door and into my grubby little hands....
I applied for the NASA Kepler Science Team and included PlanetQuest as the educational component of the proposal. I proposed to find planets in the multiple star systems that Kepler observes and won the proposal.
So, there will be NASA Kepler spacecraft data in the PlanetQuest Collaboratory (we'll divvy it up evenly) to look for planets in. What is amazing about these data is that the precision will be 100 times anything achieved on Earth -- that is, the detection of Earth-sized planets around Sunlike stars will be possible.
So this seems like good news for both Dr. Doyle's PlanetQuest efforts and the Kepler Mission, both of which are projects that I've been interested in for a very long time.
Now, if PlanetQuest can just get their software out the door and into my grubby little hands....
Thursday, August 9, 2007
PlanetQuest Update
Another update from Dr. Laurance Doyle on the status of the PlanetQuest group:
PlanetQuest is a worthy project to allow desktop users (like me and you) to contribute to the search for extra-solar planets that may harbor life. But in order to get the software working and continue their science, they need money. I gave them some a while back, but they obviously still need more.
...Our lack of progress at the moment is a funding issue which we feel could be solved if we can get initial funding to a point where we can finish the alpha test version of the software and thereafter sign folks up to be supporting-founding members of PlanetQuest.
We do have sufficient astronomical data (stellar light curves) at present for a thorough test of the system and could accommodate perhaps up to 100,000 users for a year. This was previously my main concern. We have also carried the problem through from data acquisition to light curve model fitting (the transit detection algorithm) and therefore see no technical issues in the way of proceeding.
Most of our personnel, however, are also extremely busy people working in other businesses and on other projects, and so PlanetQuest has not received the attention lately that it needs to move forward as quickly as it could, because it is largely (although not entirely) a volunteer project at this point.
I would like to see it take off this year-that is, that we are able to release an alpha version of the Collaboratory and start to post key parts of our educational web site on a daily basis. I am involved in fund raising for PlanetQuest at present, and also writing a comprehensive business plan.
The overall project in execution is quite complex, but the basic overview ideas are readily understandable. After about seven years now since the initial idea, we are still unique in offering a project like PlanetQuest (which surprises me a little). Computational speed (i.e., Moore's Law) has gone up over a factor of 25 in that time, so we have had to collect a lot more stellar data. Our team is ready to proceed, then, as soon as we can get support for the final phase of the programming...
PlanetQuest is a worthy project to allow desktop users (like me and you) to contribute to the search for extra-solar planets that may harbor life. But in order to get the software working and continue their science, they need money. I gave them some a while back, but they obviously still need more.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Potentially Habitable Planet Found Around Another Star
You've probably heard by now, but scientists at the European Southern Observatory have announced that they have found the smallest planet yet around another star (other than around pulsars, which would be completely inhospitable to life). It's still bigger than Earth, about five times our mass, which means it would have a surface gravity about 1.6 times ours.
Most exciting, though, is that this planet is relatively temperate. It orbits a weak, red dwarf star (Gliese 581), that doesn't give off much heat. But it orbits close enough--about 6.7 million miles--to its parent star that its surface temperature is estimated to be between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius (32 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit).
It's too early to tell if the planet would be hospitable to life or--and how exciting is this?--if it already has life on it. All scientists know for sure is the planet's mass and distance from its parent star... the planet could be icy, with a much larger diameter and lower temperature. Or it could be shrouded in a very dense atmosphere, like Venus, in which case it would be extremely hot. But so far indications are good for the planet to be capable of sustaining liquid water, and thus capable of supporting life.
Gliese 581 is one of the one hundred closest stars to Earth, at only about 20.5 light years distant, in the constellation Libra. More resources should be put into probing stars in our stellar neighborhood, as it is quite possible that there are many, many more Earth-like planets to be found.
Over the next several years, several space-based missions will join the terrestrial telescopes that are already searching. Earlier this year, the ESA's COROT went into service studying the accoustical waves that ripple across the surface of stars as a result of planets orbiting around them, similar to tidal effects in our oceans here on Earth due to the orbit of the moon. Astronomers expect to find between 10-40 rocky worlds, together with tens of new gas giants, in each star field that COROT will observe. Every 150 days COROT will move to a new field and begin observing again.
Next to launch will be NASA's Kepler mission, currently scheduled for launch in October 2008. Kepler will essentially be a super-powerful photometer that measures the brightness of stars. When a planet passes between Kepler and its parent star, it will block a portion of the star's light, and Kepler will register this difference. It will do this for 100,000 stars over the course of its 4-6 year mission.
No sooner than 2015 or 2016, NASA will launch SIM Planetquest (formerly known as the Space Interferometry Mission), which will use interferometry to amplify the light of any planets and negate out the glare of the parent star to look for planets. The launch date for this mission has already been pushed back five times, and with NASA's science budget continuing to be squeezed, it's likely that it will be pushed back farther, or even cancelled.
NASA is also planning a pair of missions, called the Terrestrial Planet Finder missions. The first of these, the Visible Light Coronagraph (TPF-C), will collect starlight and the very dim reflected light from the planets. The telescope would have special optics to reduce the starlight by a factor of one billion, thus enabling astronomers to detect the faint planets. TPF-C could conceivably launch as early as 2014, but I wouldn't count on it.
The second TPF mission, the Infrared Optical Interferometer (TPF-I), will small telescopes on a fixed structure or on separated spacecraft floating in precision formation would simulate a much larger, very powerful telescope. The interferometer would utilize a technique called nulling to reduce the starlight by a factor of one million, thus enabling the detection of the very dim infrared emission from the planets. TPF-I could conceivably launch by 2020, but I doubt NASA will let it get that far.
Also on the far horizon is the ESA's Darwin mission, which would use three space telescopes flying in formation as an interferometer, similar to TPF-I. In addition to detecting Earth-sized planets, Darwin would be capable of determining their atmospheric content. Darwin is currently slated for a launch no sooner than 2020.
Some of these missions will never be launched for political or economic reasons, but the ones that do manage to make it to launch will bring potentially hundreds or thousands of discoveries of worlds outside our solar system, many of which may be capable of supporting human life.
Then we'll just need to find a way to get there.
Most exciting, though, is that this planet is relatively temperate. It orbits a weak, red dwarf star (Gliese 581), that doesn't give off much heat. But it orbits close enough--about 6.7 million miles--to its parent star that its surface temperature is estimated to be between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius (32 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit).
It's too early to tell if the planet would be hospitable to life or--and how exciting is this?--if it already has life on it. All scientists know for sure is the planet's mass and distance from its parent star... the planet could be icy, with a much larger diameter and lower temperature. Or it could be shrouded in a very dense atmosphere, like Venus, in which case it would be extremely hot. But so far indications are good for the planet to be capable of sustaining liquid water, and thus capable of supporting life.
Gliese 581 is one of the one hundred closest stars to Earth, at only about 20.5 light years distant, in the constellation Libra. More resources should be put into probing stars in our stellar neighborhood, as it is quite possible that there are many, many more Earth-like planets to be found.
Over the next several years, several space-based missions will join the terrestrial telescopes that are already searching. Earlier this year, the ESA's COROT went into service studying the accoustical waves that ripple across the surface of stars as a result of planets orbiting around them, similar to tidal effects in our oceans here on Earth due to the orbit of the moon. Astronomers expect to find between 10-40 rocky worlds, together with tens of new gas giants, in each star field that COROT will observe. Every 150 days COROT will move to a new field and begin observing again.
Next to launch will be NASA's Kepler mission, currently scheduled for launch in October 2008. Kepler will essentially be a super-powerful photometer that measures the brightness of stars. When a planet passes between Kepler and its parent star, it will block a portion of the star's light, and Kepler will register this difference. It will do this for 100,000 stars over the course of its 4-6 year mission.
No sooner than 2015 or 2016, NASA will launch SIM Planetquest (formerly known as the Space Interferometry Mission), which will use interferometry to amplify the light of any planets and negate out the glare of the parent star to look for planets. The launch date for this mission has already been pushed back five times, and with NASA's science budget continuing to be squeezed, it's likely that it will be pushed back farther, or even cancelled.
NASA is also planning a pair of missions, called the Terrestrial Planet Finder missions. The first of these, the Visible Light Coronagraph (TPF-C), will collect starlight and the very dim reflected light from the planets. The telescope would have special optics to reduce the starlight by a factor of one billion, thus enabling astronomers to detect the faint planets. TPF-C could conceivably launch as early as 2014, but I wouldn't count on it.
The second TPF mission, the Infrared Optical Interferometer (TPF-I), will small telescopes on a fixed structure or on separated spacecraft floating in precision formation would simulate a much larger, very powerful telescope. The interferometer would utilize a technique called nulling to reduce the starlight by a factor of one million, thus enabling the detection of the very dim infrared emission from the planets. TPF-I could conceivably launch by 2020, but I doubt NASA will let it get that far.
Also on the far horizon is the ESA's Darwin mission, which would use three space telescopes flying in formation as an interferometer, similar to TPF-I. In addition to detecting Earth-sized planets, Darwin would be capable of determining their atmospheric content. Darwin is currently slated for a launch no sooner than 2020.
Some of these missions will never be launched for political or economic reasons, but the ones that do manage to make it to launch will bring potentially hundreds or thousands of discoveries of worlds outside our solar system, many of which may be capable of supporting human life.
Then we'll just need to find a way to get there.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
PlanetQuest Update
I received an email today from Dr. Laurance Doyle, who (among other things) serves as the President of PlanetQuest. PlanetQuest is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to inspire global participation in the discovery of planets.
Their goal is to launch a distributed computing project using the BOINC platform that I've blogged about here before. Their software--dubbed Collaboratory--will analyze data from telescopes focused on extremely dense star regions, such as the center of the galaxy in Sagittarius in the hopes of finding planets around other stars.
From their website:
Dr. Doyle's email (which came in response to my donating money toward their work on the software) contained some information on the status of their work on the software. The information was long overdue, as they haven't done a very good job of keeping the public up-to-date on their progress (although they have responded to email requests for information). Dr. Doyle writes:
Their goal is to launch a distributed computing project using the BOINC platform that I've blogged about here before. Their software--dubbed Collaboratory--will analyze data from telescopes focused on extremely dense star regions, such as the center of the galaxy in Sagittarius in the hopes of finding planets around other stars.
From their website:
Discovering a new delta Scuti star, for example, will help astronomers better understand the stability of stars; a new Cepheid variable star would help astronomers determine how far away stars are. Most exciting of all, you could discover a new planet—a never-before-seen world beyond our solar system! You will be credited for your discovery, and your find will be entered into the PlanetQuest catalog.
Dr. Doyle's email (which came in response to my donating money toward their work on the software) contained some information on the status of their work on the software. The information was long overdue, as they haven't done a very good job of keeping the public up-to-date on their progress (although they have responded to email requests for information). Dr. Doyle writes:
We have the eclipsing binary system classifier running very well, and are now interfacing the circum-binary planet discriminator with the the binary classifier. We'll soon be going straight onto the BOINC platform with this and at that time can release an alpha version of the Collaboratory. The beta should not be far behind with a ready number of testers interested in helping us, and we are shooting for this summer to release the beta test.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Hey Buddy, Wanna Be an Astronomy Researcher?
I recently discovered a website that will allow any astronomy enthusiast, even amateurs such as myself, to participate in astronomy research. The website is called systemic, and is focused on helping amateurs sift through astronomical observations to try to identify star systems with extrasolar planets.
Basically, the software allows users to simulate planetary systems and determine how well the simulated systems fit observational data. Systems that match the observations closely are then uploaded back into the database as potential matches.
As part of testing the system, the systemic team has also added the radial velocity observations for all known extrasolar planetary systems into their database to determine whether users' simulations match scientifically-accepted facts.
If you'd like to help out with some astronomy research, you can download the software here. I certainly plan to do so.
Basically, the software allows users to simulate planetary systems and determine how well the simulated systems fit observational data. Systems that match the observations closely are then uploaded back into the database as potential matches.
As part of testing the system, the systemic team has also added the radial velocity observations for all known extrasolar planetary systems into their database to determine whether users' simulations match scientifically-accepted facts.
If you'd like to help out with some astronomy research, you can download the software here. I certainly plan to do so.
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