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Friday, August 31, 2012

The telescopes of the world is ready for a giant asteroid


Has a diameter of more than four football fields or, as defined by NASA, is as big an aircraft carrier. This is a big one, in terms of space; pass close to Earth. YU55, as the space rock is called circular, not dangerous in any way, there is no risk of collision with the Earth as it is in the closest point (about 324,600 kilometers), its gravitational effect on the Earth will be so minuscule that can hardly be measured. But his interest in another aspect: its rarity.

NASA astronomers discovered the smallest planet


Astronomers discovered the smallest planet outside our solar system. This is the first that is certainly rocky like Earth. Measurements of extraordinary precision-called Kepler showed that 10b is 1.4 times the diameter of Earth and a mass 4.6 times greater than he. However, because it orbits very close to its star, the exoplanet could not support life. The discovery has been hailed as "one of the deepest in the history of mankind."

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Why some planets orbit backwards?


Experts from Northwestern University in Illinois, USA, conduct a study that was published in the scientific journal Nature, and which required to find the reasons for this phenomenon that breaks with the standard theory of planet configuration. According to this theory, a planet must rotate in the same direction as their star, just like in our solar system. "It's very strange, and it is even rarer because the planet is very close to the star," said Frederic Rasio, an astrophysicist at Northwestern University.