Tuesday 24 January 2012

There's a New Planet in Sight

There's a New Planet in Sight
by Catherine Clarke Fox
  Astronomers recently discovered a new planet, larger that Jupiter that orbits  a star 500 light years from Earth. It's so obvious that astronomers don't even need a super telescope and even beginners can see it with a normal telescope. The planet it's called TrES-2 because according to the article, " it is the second such planet found by scientists working on the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES)". The transiting planet is easy to observe and answer question about them but only if you know math and relationships to its star!? This planet is made up by gas and it is so hot that there is no possibility for life because there is 1,500 Celsius. Scientist may send an instrument on a mission to space and the new found planet will help them to see if their instruments work because they already know so much about the planet.
      I chose this article because in science we are at the astronomy unit so I found it interesting because it is not usual to discover new planets. The thing that grabbed my attention is that it is really, really hot there and they are truly no possibilities for life there! I learned that there was another planet that was found before some years and that transiting planets are easy to observe. The site that has this article is really reliable and I know it is true. It was really interesting reading this article and learning so many things about this planet. This is affecting scientific knowledge because there might be life there and it will be really awesome if there is actually. 



Fox, Catherine Clarke. "There's a New Planet in Sight ." Kids National Geographic. N.p., n.d. Web. 
24 Jan. 2012. <http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/spacescience/newplanet/>. 

3 comments:

  1. Good post, it's really interesting. 500 lightyears away? That means that we are seeing the planet 500 years in the past. Now that's something to think about.

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  2. Wow! A new planet? I would love to see a clear picture of it. It is surprisingly hot.I wonder where it came from? Good job.

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  3. I wonder where it came from too. Also, what it looks like. Jupiter is our largest planet! Imagine how large this one is! Great post Despina.

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