Tag Archives: gas giants
Astronomers find colossal ring system putting Saturn’s to shame
An astronomy professor at the University of Leiden, Ignas Snellen,called brown dwarfs ‘failed stars‘ because they were too heavy to be typical planets (13-75 times as heavy as Jupiter) and too light to sustain the fusion of hydrogen into helium. … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged brown dwarfs, Doppler spectroscopy, gas giants, J1407, J1407b, main sequence stars, planet formation, SuperWASP
Comments Off on Astronomers find colossal ring system putting Saturn’s to shame
Kepler data reveals a frost giant
I’ve been most fascinated lately by studies of planet formation. Every small detail is like that one letter in the crossword you need to fill all the other boxes in, every discovery a cornerstone that holds together a unique piece of the universe. For example, using just the find that the exoplanet Beta Pictoris b has a very short day of eight hours, astronomers could speculate on how it was formed, what its density could be, and how heavy it could get over time. And it isn’t surprising if a similar tale awaits telling by Kepler 421b. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged astrometry, astrophysics, exoplanets, frost line, gas giants, Kepler 421b, NASA Kepler mission, planetary transit, Uranus
Comments Off on Kepler data reveals a frost giant