Subscribe
Last year, astronomers were excited to discover that the number of exoplanets increases toward smaller sizes, suggesting that there are many Earth-size planets in the galaxy. A new analysis of three years of Kepler data shows that this increase plateaus around twice Earth size. Nevertheless, Earth-like planets occur around at least 17 percent of sun-like stars.
Tag: astronomy
Hubble images help pin down identity of August supernova’s companion star
December 15, 2011:
Thanks to images obtained over the past nine years by the Hubble Space Telescope, UC Berkeley astronomers were able to narrow down the identity of the companion star to a supernova first observed in August. It was not a bright red giant or helium star, but probably a more modest star like the sun, a subgiant or even a white dwarf.
Disaster looms for gas cloud falling into Milky Way’s central black hole
December 14, 2011:
Astronomers led by UC Berkeley’s Reinhard Genzel, also of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, have observed a cloud of gas several times the mass of Earth approaching the 4.3 million solar-mass black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Theorist Eliot Quataert calculates that the cloud will not survive the encounter, but will be heated and shredded in 2013.
Perlmutter, Filippenko in NOVA special
November 2, 2011:
Newly minted Nobel Laureate Saul Perlmutter is among the physicists and astronomers interviewed in the premier episode of a four-part NOVA series, “The Fabric of the Cosmos,” which airs tonight on PBS stations around the country. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the one-hour episode can be viewed on KQED-TV at 9 p.m.
Survey gives clues to origin of Type Ia supernovae
October 4, 2011:
One white dwarf or two? That’s what astronomers have been asking about Type Ia supernovae, the key to measuring cosmic distance. Is the explosion from one white dwarf grown fat from feeding off another star, or are two white dwarfs merging? A new study suggests the latter.
‘Supernova of a generation’ discovered by Berkeley scientists
August 23, 2011:
Skywatchers should get their binoculars and telescopes ready. Scientists at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab caught a supernova soon after its explosion. The supernova, located in the Big Dipper constellation, is appearing brighter than any other supernova of its type in the last 30 years. Earthlings might even be able to see it with good binoculars in 10 days’ time.
Twin ARTEMIS probes to study moon in 3-D
July 13, 2011:
Some two years ago, two of five THEMIS satellites were boosted from their orbits around Earth toward permanent lunar orbits. The second of two is destined to arrive at the moon on Sunday, July 17. The probes, renamed the ARTEMIS mission, will acquire 3-D data on the moon’s magnetic fields.
Black hole eats star, producing bright gamma-ray flash
June 16, 2011:
A bright gamma-ray flare observed in March 2011 by the Swift satellite was not your typical gamma-ray burst, according to UC Berkeley astronomers and their colleagues. Its long duration and location at the center of a distant galaxy suggests that the flare was emitted as a star was ripped apart by a massive black hole.
Gruber Cosmology Prize honors ‘dark matter’ astronomers
June 1, 2011:
UC Berkeley astronomer Marc Davis will share with three other astronomers the 2011 Cosmology Prize of The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, the foundation announced Wednesday.
Burst at edge of universe may be most distant object
May 25, 2011:
A gamma-ray burst observed in 2009 happened 13.14 billion years ago, only 520 million years after the universe was born. If confirmed, this flash of light from the early universe could be the most distant object discovered to date, says UC Berkeley post-doc Antonino Cucchiara.
UC Berkeley SETI survey focuses on Kepler’s top Earth-like planets
May 13, 2011:
UC Berkeley is searching for evidence of intelligent life on planets identified by the Kepler space telescope team as having Earth-like environments. This search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) uses the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and targets 86 stars with possible planetary systems.
Astronomer Martin White named 2011 Guggenheim Fellow
April 8, 2011:
Martin White, a professor of physics and astronomy, has been awarded a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship to investigate dark energy using data from the BOSS experiment.
Reading the life history of a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite
March 3, 2011:
A new, high-resolution analysis of a dust grain from the Allende meteorite documents the widely varying environments the grain wandered through in its 4.5 billion-year travels around the solar system.
Berkeley Lab’s Saul Perlmutter wins Einstein Medal
February 23, 2011:
Saul Perlmutter, a professor of physics at UC Berkeley and part of the Physics Division at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, has been awarded this year’s Einstein Medal, presented by the Albert Einstein Society. The medal was awarded for “discovering the acceleration of the universe” through the observation of very distant supernovae.
How Kleopatra got its moons
February 22, 2011:
The asteroid Kleopatra was first seen as a bright dot in the asteroid belt in 1880, but only in 2000 was it found to have a highly elongated, dogbone shape. UC Berkeley and French astronomers have now found two moons orbiting the asteroid, newly named Alexhelios and Cleoselene after the twins of Queen Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony.
Kepler telescope discovers six planets around distant star
February 2, 2011:
UC Berkeley astronomer Geoffrey Marcy is among Kepler team members who have announced hundreds of new planet candidates discovered by the space telescope. Among the confirmed planets are six orbiting a star dubbed Kepler-11. This is the largest number of planets around any star besides the Sun.
New evidence that asteroid, not comet, struck Jupiter in 2009
January 26, 2011:
Infrared images of the aftermath of an impact on Jupiter in 2009 have been combined with other observations to conclude that an asteroid, not a comet, slammed into the planet.
Forget Planet X! New technique could pinpoint Galaxy X
January 13, 2011:
Post-doctoral fellow Sukanya Chakrabarti and astronomy professor Leo Blitz have developed a method to search for satellite galaxies that are too “dark” to see, and have predicted that the Milky Way has a companion dwarf galaxy not yet discovered.
Possible missing link discovered between young and old galaxies
January 10, 2011:
UC Berkeley astronomers Leo Blitz and Katherine Alatalo may have found the missing link between young, gas-filled, star-forming galaxies and older, gas-depleted galaxies typically characterized as “red and dead.” The scientists report that a long-known “early-type” galaxy, NGC 1266, may help explain how gas-filled galaxies rid themselves of their molecular gas.
First rocky planet found around another star
January 10, 2011:
NASA’s Kepler mission was launched in 2009 to find exoplanets, and ideally, lots of rocky, Earth-like planets around other stars. Kepler team members, including Berkeley’s Geoff Marcy and San Jose State’s Natalie Batalha, Class of ’89, announced today the discovery of the first such rocky planet, dubbed Kepler-10b.
Jupiter gets its stripe back
November 24, 2010:
Astronomers using three telescopes atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii have recorded the return of a unique belt on Jupiter that periodically fades from dark brown to white. Its most recent fade-out started earlier this year, but November observations with the Keck, Gemini and Infrared Telescope Facility show the brown returning. It appears that reflected sunlight off high elevation clouds of ammonia ice have been blocking our view of the darker clouds below.
Neutron stars may be too weak to power some gamma-ray bursts
November 4, 2010:
Long-duration gamma-ray bursts flash across the universe to signal the collapse of a massive star, but this collapsar model predicts either a neutron star or a black hole is left behind. New calculations of the energy released by gamma-ray bursts find it too large to be powered by a neutron star, even highly magnetized, spinning magnetars. Thus, UC Berkeley astronomers conclude, the likely power source is a black hole.
Study says solar systems like ours may be common
October 28, 2010:
A survey of 166 nearby stars like our sun reveals increasing numbers of smaller planets down to the smallest detectable planets – about three times more massive than the earth. If this trend continues, UC Berkeley astronomers estimate, one of every four sun-like stars may have an earth-like planet.
Out of THEMIS, ARTEMIS: Earth’s loss is moon’s gain
October 27, 2010:
Two of the five probes in the THEMIS mission have been redirected toward new orbits around the moon, extending UC Berkeley’s study of the earth and moon’s interaction with the solar wind. The new mission, dubbed ARTEMIS, began science operations Oct. 21 when the second of the two probes entered a parking orbit on the Earth-facing side of the moon.
NASA mission asks why Mars has no atmosphere
October 7, 2010:
NASA has approved a mission to Mars called MAVEN that will collect data to understand why and how Mars lost its atmosphere. Half the instruments will be built at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory under the direction of physicist Robert Lin.
Amateur astronomers track asteroids as they impact Jupiter
September 10, 2010:
In 1994, amateur astronomers discovered the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that made a dramatic impact on the planet Jupiter. Amateur astronomers have found three small asteroid impacts on the planet since then – the most recent in August – providing helpful information for astronomers trying to assess the danger from near-Earth asteroids.
World-renowned astronomer Donald C. Backer dies at age 66
July 29, 2010:
Don Backer, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Department of Astronomy, and a world leader in the field of radio astronomy, died on Sunday, July 25. He was 66.
STEREO, SOHO spacecraft catch comet diving into sun
May 24, 2010:
Four UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellows have tracked a comet deeper into the sun’s atmosphere than ever before, just short of its evaporation in the photosphere.
Possible new class of supernovae puts calcium in your bones
May 19, 2010:
UC Berkeley astronomers have discovered several examples of an unusual type of exploding star that may be a new class of supernovae spewing calcium into the galaxy, which eventually ends up in all of us.
Helium rain on Jupiter explains lack of neon in atmosphere
March 22, 2010:
When the Galileo probe descended through Jupiter’s atmosphere in 1995, it found neon to be one-tenth as abundant as predicted. This unexpected finding has led two UC Berkeley researchers to propose that this is due to a rain of helium that depletes Jupiter’s layers of neon as well as helium.
New Hubble treasury project to survey first third of cosmic time, study dark energy
March 15, 2010:
The Hubble Space Telescope has allotted an unprecedented 902 orbits of observing time to a project that will seek out distant supernovae and galaxies to study dark energy and galaxy evolution.
