Earth size Kepler 186f . ... Explanation: Planet Kepler-186f is the first known Earth- size planet to lie within the habitable zone of a star beyond the Sun. Discovered using data from the prolific planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft , the distant world orbits its parent star, a cool, dim, M dwarf star about half the size and mass of the Sun, some 500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. ... NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers . NASA Official: Jay Norris. ...

... June 11, 1999 . AB Aurigae: How To Make Planets . ... NASA . Explanation: This enhanced Hubble Space Telescope image shows in remarkable detail the inner portion of the disk of dust and gas surrounding the star AB Aurigae. Knots of material, visible here for the first time, may well represent an early stage of a process which could result in the formation of planets over the next few million years. AB Aurigae is a young star (2-4 million years old), about 469 light-years distant. ...

... Exoplanets . ... Artists impression of the blue exoplanet. ... This exoplanet is located in the constellation of Vulpecula, the fox, a faint pattern inside the Summer Triangle.ТљТљ This planet is a not too distant 63 light years away so has been studied by space-based telescopes.Тљ Data collected from Hubbleт??s Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) when this planet moved behind its star showed that in the shadow of the star the light reflected from HD 189733b reduced into the blue part of the spectrum. ...

... How to Spot a Pale Blue Dot in the Night Sky - Signatures of Life on Extrasolar Planets . ... Frame 2: Steamy atmosphere, an ocean is covering the entire planet, no oxygen is present, timeline about four billion years ago. ... Using such telescopes as Kepler, James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Darwin and Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), and masking the star light, the light from small Earth-like planets can be collected and analyzed. ... Copyright (c) Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston, Inc. ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... The Nine Planets . ... It isn't the first extrasolar planetary system to be discovered; the first planet outside our own solar system orbiting a normal Sunlike star was discovered in 1995. ... Still, this is the first solar system ever found besides our own to definitely have more than one planet. This is an important discovery: most people all along have been assuming that multiple planet systems exist, but we had never actually seen one. ...

NATIONAL ASTRONOMY AND IONOSPHERE CENTER . ... Astronomy . ... Visitor Center . ... Kick-Off Ceremony of the Arecibo Observatory 50th Anniversary . ... Astronomers using the worldБЂ™s largest radio telescope, at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, have discovered flaring radio emission from an ultra-cool star, not much warmer than the planet Jupiter, shattering the previous record for the lowest stellar temperature at which radio waves were detected. ...

... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . Asteroid 2010 SO16 and the Earth follow similar orbits around . the Sun. ... out a horseshoe shape in space, taking 175 years to go from . ... Asteroid 2010 SO16 takes 175 years to make the trip from one end of the horseshoe to the other. ... Currently, three other horseshoe companions of the Earth are known to exist but, unlike 2010 SO16, these linger for a few thousand years at most before moving on to different orbits. ...

... As the list of extra-solar planets orbiting sun-like stars ( exoplanets.org/planet_table.shtml ) continues to grow, more and more members of multiple-planet systems ( exoplanets.org/mult.shtml ) are being discovered. ... A planet doesn't actually orbit a star; rather both orbit a point between the two objects. ... Figure 3-Two planets in orbit around 47-Ursa Majoris produce more complex variations in the Doppler-shift data. ... Could these be examples of "The Music of the NEW Spheres"? ...

... Central to this vision has been the idea that the way to discover new worlds around distant stars is by someday traveling there in person. ... I am a graduate student in astrophysics at UC Berkeley, home of one of the most successful planet searches presently underway. ... We can see the planets in our own solar system by reflected sunlight, but only at night when the sun?s glare does not obscure them. ... Planets are thought to form from a disk of gas and dust swirling around an infant star. ...

... Bringing news from across the Universe to children all around the world . ... Thanks to one of their telescopes, we?re finally able to study a planet beyond our Solar System using normal starlight reflected off its surface for the very first time! ... 51 Peg b isn?t a very exciting name, but it?s the name of an exciting planet. ... main-sequence ?) star, like our Sun. ... The ability to collect light from distant worlds is very exciting; it will allow us to work out all sorts of new facts about them...

Johann Kepler - a Legislator of the Sky. The laws of the planets movements put by Johann Kepler destroyed the thousand year old dogmas about the circles and spheres and opened the way to scientific understanding of celestial occurrences. ... The best object for observation was Mars - its orbit unlike the Earth's one has a noticeable eccentricity, the rotation period in comparison with Jupiter and Saturn is not too long and observation conditions are better than for Mercury and Venus. ...

... Pluto's orbit is also highly inclined -- tilted 17 degrees to the orbital plane of the other planets. ... Ground-based observations indicate that Pluto's surface is covered with methane ice and that there is a thin atmosphere that might freeze and fall to the surface as the planet moves away from the Sun. ... This is the first image-based surface map of the solar system's most remote planet, Pluto. ... This is the first surface map of Charon, the moon of the solar system's most remote planet, Pluto....

... Pluto's orbit is also highly inclined -- tilted 17 degrees to the orbital plane of the other planets. ... Ground-based observations indicate that Pluto's surface is covered with methane ice and that there is a thin atmosphere that might freeze and fall to the surface as the planet moves away from the Sun. ... This is the first image-based surface map of the solar system's most remote planet, Pluto. ... This is the first surface map of Charon, the moon of the solar system's most remote planet, Pluto....

... SUN MOON MERCURY VENUS MARS, JUPITER SATURN . ... Mars . ... An artificial comet holds secrets to Earths life . ... Comet to make close flyby of Red Planet in October 2014 . ... COMETS | ... Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) will make a close approach to Mars in October 2014. ... During the close Mars approach, the comet likely will achieve a total visual magnitude of 0 or brighter, as seen from Mars-based assets. ... Only registered members of Astronomy.com are allowed to comment on this article. ...

... The apparent path of the Sun across the sky. ... Like the planets, the Sun, too, moves around the zodiac, making one complete circuit each year. ... In one year, as the Earth completes a full circuit around the Sun (drawing above), the Earth-Sun line and its continuation past Earth sweep the entire plane. ... Since the Sun and Earth are in the plane of the ecliptic, the line is automatically in that plane too; if the moon is also on the same line, it must be in the plane of the ecliptic as well. ...

. Go Here for Hubble Ultra Deep Field . ___________________________________________________________________ The Electronic Universe Project e-mail: nuts@moo.uoregon.edu

... GALAXY: A galaxy is made up of billions or trillions of stars bound together by their own gravity. ... HELIUM (He): The second element in the periodic table, has 2 protons, 2 neutrons, and is a noble gas. ... Helium melts at -272.2 degrees Celsius, and boils at -268.934 degrees Celsius. ... HYDROGEN (H): The first element on the periodic table, is a gas, and has an atomic mass of 1.00794 amu. ... Hydrogen melts at -259.34 degrees Celsius, and freezes at -252.87 degrees Celsius. ...

... Search . ... Astrophysics Group . Research . ... Research and Instrumentation . ... While this seems an extraordinary endeavour, in light of what we have learnt about Solar System planets, only a handful of key ingredients are required to start characterising an exoplanet. ... The NGTS project is a partnership between the University of Cambridge, Queen?s University Belfast, University of Warwick, University of Leicester, Observatoire de Geneve, DLR (Berlin) and Universidad Catolica de Chile. ...

... Assignments 4, 5 and 6 all involve the imaginary world of Ziggy. ... Each week, you should write a short executive briefing to Captain Howard, explaining to her what you have learned from that week's data. ... A 500 word limit applies to each briefing you submit. You will submit three briefing papers (due dates below): one for each data release. ... First briefing due (Assignment 4). 2nd data set released. ... Second briefing due (Assignment 5). 3rd and final data set released. ...

Lunar Libration . Articles | ... Actually, a slight rocking motion, called libration,* makes about 59% of the Moon's surface visible from our planet Earth -- though only 50% at any one time. ... Add to that, the approximate 1.5 degree tilt of the Moon's equator to the ecliptic, and you have the inclination of the Moon's equator to the plane of its orbit around Earth at some 6.5 degrees (5 + 1.5 = 6.5). ... Re-published on Astronomy Net with permission of the author. ... www.astronomy.net . ...