Artist’s rendering. Accuracy not guaranteed.
Scientists using the HARPS instrument at the European Southern Observatory’s location in Chile have detected the lightest and the closest exoplanet yet while studying the closest star system to our sun, Alpha Centauri. The exoplanet, Alpha Centauri Bb, orbits one of the three stars in the system. The planet has a mass only 1.13 times that of Earth, and it completes an orbit around Alpha Centauri B every 3.2 days. Located only 3.6 million miles from its star (compared to Earth’s distance of 93 million miles away from the sun) the exoplanet is likely a ball of lava with surface temps exceeding 2,200 °F.
The team found the planet by monitoring small wobbles in Alpha Centauri B’s motion caused the gravitational pull of a planet. In this case, ESO was able to detect variations of only 51 centimeters per second (1.8 km/hour), which they say is the speed of a baby crawling. Since they’re scientists, we assume they arrived at that speed analogy after many trial runs of baby races.
This is the smallest variation in star movement we’ve yet been able to measure. In addition, this is the first exoplanet with a mass similar to Earth’s that we’ve discovered orbiting a Sun-like star. Also, holy crap, this is only 4.3 light-years away.
This is Alpha Centauri! Famed and fabled in a thousand science fiction stories. It’s where the Robinson family was supposed to go in “Lost in Space”. It’s where Zefram Cochrane lived in “Star Trek”. It’s where the Fithp came from in Footfall. Because the system is bright and close, and the stars so close to being like our own Sun, they’re an obvious place to put aliens. Plus, you get the exotic locale of a binary star plus the red dwarf thrown in on top. It’s perfect! So I, and a lot of people like me, grew up hoping against hope we’d find a planet around one of these stars someday. And here we are. [Bad Astronomy]
Even though Alpha Centauri Bb is uninhabitable, small planets like this tend to form in groups, meaning we may find more planets orbiting this star. Dibs. We just called dibs.
We shouldn’t start packing our bags just yet. It will take our Voyager 1 probe another 70,000 years to reach the exoplanet. Even with our best current technologies, Greg Laughlin of UC Santa Cruz estimates it would take us 40,000 years to reach it. But look on the bright side; we’re getting our broadcasts of Breaking Bad 4.3 years sooner than they are.
[Sources: ESO, Bad Astronomy, Ars Technica, IEEE, Blastr]
![[avatar]](http://p.uproxxcdn.com/photo/72/thumb)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/it-looks-like-nasas-kepler-telescope-has-come-to-the-end-of-the-road-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/04/kepler-62-system-exoplanets-yo-mamma-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/04/grumpy-cat-no-gif-150x146.gif)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/03/Screenshot-from-2013-03-29-100429-150x150.png)
It’s a little early to rule out lava monsters, don’t you think?
Contrary to what science still believes, at the time of the Big Bang there were no atoms but only waves carrying energy through the infinite Void.
If we could view the Universe from outside, It would look like an egg-shaped cloud with winds running in perpetual motion inside of It.
The energy is like those winds running at maximum speed and pushing out the borders of the Universe.
The Universe continues to expand as the waves that travel at the border of the Universe have never encountered, nor will ever encounter, any interference from the Void. These waves will forever expand the Space of the Universe they create and leave behind.
Wave-behavior relates to the medium in which the waves travel.
Thus, wave-behavior at the border of the Universe is different than wave-behavior within the Universe.
Inside the Universe, waves change their frequencies by colliding with other energy during their travel. These waves, because of the encountered interference, continue to transform part of their original energy in other forms (Wavevolution). Waves travel gradually releasing heat, or amounts of energy, and their original short wavelengths, in time become longer and longer as they carry less and less energy than they did when they first started to travel. These waves lose energy releasing it in form of other waves with wavelengths longer than their own.
For example, the gamma rays, over time, diminish their energy level (and their frequency) to become X rays, from X rays they will become ultraviolet and so on. The original quantum is not lost but distributed into other forms of energy through “spontaneous symmetry breaking”.
Once reached an almost flat longitude (and lower critical energy level) these waves solidify into hydrogen atoms breaking up their energy in opposite elements, like the split ends of a broken hair.
When the hydrogen atoms are reached by the heat of other incoming waves they fuse together to create more complex forms of energy.
[www.wikinfo.org]
God I’ve missed Lobster Dog. He doesn’t get nearly as much play around here as he used to.
I agree whole-heartedly: MORE LOBSTER DOG!