What Planet Was First to be Viewed With a Telescope

 

You know by now that my humor tends to be a bit off color:

Case in point is from Elite Facts.  They report that the very first planet to be viewed with a telescope was Uranus, 

Think about it for a bit......

The rest of this list can be had on YouTuve HERE

Possible New Ninth Planet

Well outside the orbit of Pluto lies the possibly of a new new ninth planet several times the
size of Earth.

Eccentricities in the orbits of several far flung ice planets indicated something very large well outside Pluto's orbit.

According to a recent National Geographic, the 

gravitational signature of a large planet is written into the peculiar orbits of the ice worlds called extreme Kuiper Belt Objects.  these worlds are tracing odd orbits around the sun that have puzzled scientists for years.

This evidence points towards seems to point to a planet even though one has yet to be seen.

Greg Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz, If there is another world in the Solar
System, than this one is it.

For more information click on the national geographic link.

ALMA Takes First "Baby" Pictures

The ALMA array in Chile has accomplished what will prove to be one of many firsts.  ALMA is the first telescope to take pictures of a proto-planet system that is actively in the process of making planets. 






Here is the complete PopularMechanic article

Astronomers Discover Ultra-compact Solar System

Two different teams of astronomers have confirmed the existence of an ultra compact planetary system designated KIC 11442793 with the discovery of a seventh planet using data from the Kepler scope using the "transitional" method of planet discovery.  

The incredible fact about this system is that all seven planets are in a tight orbit that is closer than the Earth's distance to our Sun.

From the IO9 article:

• The newly discovered planet, which is 2.8 times the size of Earth, is the fifth out with an orbit of 125 days. 

Check out the Cornell University article here

Read the IO9 article HERE

Rogue Planets!!

From The Daily Galaxy

In a huge cloud of gas and dust 4600 light years from Earth in the the Rosette Nebula exists tiny, round, dark clouds. Dubbed "globulettes" these strange formations have the right characteristics to form free-floating planets with no parent star.

• 
  
• The Rosette Nebula is home to more than a hundred of these tiny clouds. This observation from 
• Gösta Gahm, astronomer at Stockholm University. These structures are very small, each with diameter less than 50 times the distance between the Sun and Neptune with an estimate that most of them are of planetary mass, less than 13 times Jupiter’s mass. 

From the Article:

• Previous research has shown that there may be as many as 200 billion free-floating planets in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Until now scientists have believed that such “rogue planets”, which don’t orbit around a star, must have been ejected from existing planetary systems. New observations of tiny dark clouds in space point out another possibility: that some free-floating planets formed on their own.

Read complete article

50% of Sol Class Stars May Contain Earth Class Planets

Data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope has been used to compile a new estimates of Earth type planets.

The present data suggests that as many as 50% of Sol class stars contain earth sized planets which inhabit the favorable "Goldilocks" orbit where liquid water is still liquid.   

As good as this sounds though, researches say that planets 2 or 3 times the mass of earth, roughly the size of  Neptune or Uranus  would be equally as common as Earth sized planets and with the size and atmosphere, not very likely to produce life as we know it.   

Also a large portion of Earth sized worlds are likely to be well outside of the life zone.  ether   to close in to their primary or much to far outside the habitable zone. 

Still, the chances are good for Sol type stars having Earth class planets

Read complete wired article  here  Wired Science 

Alien Life an Almost Certainty?

Astronomers are now estimating that there is a minimum of 100 Billion planets in our galaxy alone and a majority of these are earth sized.  Match that with a conservative 500 billion other galaxies in the Universe

Stephen Kane—at NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at CalTech in Pasadena wrote in a recent study:

• not only are planets common in the galaxy, but there are more small planets than large ones.

This means that even if an amazingly small percentage of these small planets could harbor life, by just the sheer amount of these planets means that life is all but a certainty.  

It almost comes down now to life vs intelligent life.  

Check out the great Gizmodo article here