20.06.10: The Low Down on WASP-12b.

 
   A bizarre exo-world just got stranger in the past month, but not in the way many news outlets would have you believe. WASP-12b is destined for a short life, one that we many have been fortunate enough to catch it in the middle of. The story starts in 2008, with the transiting exoplanet’s discovery by [...]

12.05.10- White Dwarf Lite?

 
 
   The Kepler space telescope may have bagged an unexpected prize during its hunt for exo-planets. Along with five published exoplanets illustrated above, Kepler snared two potentially bizarre objects. Dubbed KOI (Kepler Objects of Interest) -81 and 74, these companions actually appear dimmer passing behind the parent star rather than in front of it. This suggests a [...]

26.10.09:Seeing Starspots.

We know more about our Sun than any other star because it gives us the opportunity to study solar activity up close. But just how normal is it? Recently, astronomers have been able to spy activity on other suns, teasing the data out of exoplanet transits. These are planets that happen to cross the tiny [...]

19.10.09: 32 New Exoplanets Revealed!

Anybody notice the exoplanet tally on our front page hop up to 402 this morning? That’s because the European Southern Observatory (ESO) revealed a stunning 32 (count em!) new exoplanets identified this morning at their conference at Porto, Portugal. The discoveries were thanks to HARPS, the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, a sensitive spectrograph [...]

The Moon joins a Planetary Three-Way.

Three planets and one Moon. (Credit: Stellarium).
Early risers this week will awaken to a fine sight; a three way dance between Mercury, Saturn, and Venus, joined by the waning crescent Moon on the 16th. Look towards the east, about a half hour before local sunrise. Mercury has just passed greatest elongation on the 6th [...]

02.10.09: A Small Observatory Helps with a Big Discovery.

When it comes to cutting edge astronomy, many think of lofty mountaintop behemoths, such as Keck, or the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. But how many of us think of… Gainesville, Florida? This article caught my eye this morning because its literally right in our backyard here at Astroguyz HQ in Hudson, Florida. As any would-be [...]

Next Page »