The final frontier . . .
Jan. 26th, 2006 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lumineauxWhen I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronomer or an astronaut, at least until a crappy middle-school science teacher extinguished my love of science. Well, that and my relative feebleness at higher math. Nevertheless, I still get a certain thrill when I read news like this in today's NY Times:
January 26, 2006
Search Finds Far-Off Planet Akin to Earth
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Now you see it, now you don't.
Astronomers say that by virtue of the ceaseless shifting of the billions of stars in the Milky Way and a trick of Einsteinian physics, they have briefly glimpsed the most Earth-like planet yet to be discovered outside the solar system. It is a ball of rock and ice only about 5.5 times as massive as Earth, smaller than any of the 160 previously discovered exoplanets, and is orbiting a dim reddish star 21,000 light-years from here.
The discovery, the researchers say, suggests that rock-ice planets like our own are predominant in the cosmos. That bodes well for future planet-hunting missions from space like the Terrestrial Planet Finders at NASA.
For the rest of the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/26/science/26planet.html
January 26, 2006
Search Finds Far-Off Planet Akin to Earth
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Now you see it, now you don't.
Astronomers say that by virtue of the ceaseless shifting of the billions of stars in the Milky Way and a trick of Einsteinian physics, they have briefly glimpsed the most Earth-like planet yet to be discovered outside the solar system. It is a ball of rock and ice only about 5.5 times as massive as Earth, smaller than any of the 160 previously discovered exoplanets, and is orbiting a dim reddish star 21,000 light-years from here.
The discovery, the researchers say, suggests that rock-ice planets like our own are predominant in the cosmos. That bodes well for future planet-hunting missions from space like the Terrestrial Planet Finders at NASA.
For the rest of the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/26/science/26planet.html
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:34 pm (UTC)When I was in high school I wanted to be a doctor (or an artist) and was on the college track to do so, until I met face to face with the Physics teacher from hell and the Geometry teacher from hell who extinquished any desire for me to stay in those type of classes for college. Tis a shame.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 11:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-28 04:00 am (UTC)