NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope Discovers Record Setting Planets in Habitable Zone

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered a planetary system known to contain seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water. The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star. All of these seven planets could have liquid water, under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.

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Universe's 1st Objects

Long time fan Courtney sends in this article from Yahoo News, concerning what may be the very first objects created after the big bang.

NASA's Spitzer space telescope, seen in the infrared, might be hugely massive stars or black holes, but are too distant to see individually. These object are estimated to have taken shape about 500 million years after the big bang. At this time, the first stars, galaxies and black holes began to take shape.

Though they can't be confirmed for sure, the objects seem to date from the early universe.

One thing that is also worthy of a thought is how tremendously bright these objects are to be seen at such vast distances. Alexander "Sasha" Kashlinsky of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a statement "We can't yet directly rule out mysterious sources for this light that could be coming from our nearby universe, but it is now becoming increasingly likely that we are catching a glimpse of an ancient epoch."

to read more click here for the complete Yahoo news item.

Light from Extra-Solar Planet - Seen for 1st Time

Whoooooooooo Hooooooooo blog fan Courtney sends in this article that left me tingling! Light from a planet circling a distant star was for the first time viewed by space telescopes in orbit around Earth! That my friends is what I call a historic achievement!

The scope doing NASA's heavy lifting for this discovery was the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope. The telescope spotted light coming from the alien planet with the rather innocuous moniker of 55 Cancri e. This Super Earth (so designated because its' size is roughly twice that of Earth and a mass density of about 18 times that of Earth) orbits a star 41 light-years from Earth.

Of course this is not the first time that Spitzer has pulled off this hat trick. In 2005 it also gathered IR light coming from an extra-solar planed, however this was "hot Jupiter," an ultra hot gas giant far larger than 55 Cancri e that orbited extremely close to its parent star.

The more 55 Cancri e is studied, the stranger it becomes. Not only is it ultra dense, it orbits 26 times closer than the distance between Mercury and our own sun!

Oh and it gets weirder! Here is the link to the article. Read just how nightmarish 55 Cancri e could really be!

Graphic is a plot of data from NASA's Spitzer …