the 3 exoplanets around Gliese 876

In this post I am going to talk about a Gliese 876, which is host to 3 extrasolar planets. Gliese 876 is red dwarf star, which means that its fairly cool for a star burning at about 3500 kelvin, and it is estimated to have only 32% of the mass our sun has. Since it is so small Gliese 876 cannot be seen with the naked eye you would need a telescope to see it, lying in the constellation of Aquarius, Gliese 876 is about 15 light years away from us. We would’ve never expected such a small star to have habitable exo-planets about ten years ago.

In 1998 two exo-planet teams, one which was led by Geoffrey Marcy, had discovered a extrasolar-planet orbiting around Gliese 876. The planet was named Gliese 876b, and it was discovered by measuring the radial velocity of the star, as the planets gravity would tug on it. Gliese 876 is estimated to have twice the mass of Jupiter and orbits closer to its parent star then Mercury to our Sun, taking only 61 days to complete a full orbit.

The next extrasolar planet to be discovered orbiting around Gliese 876 was discovered in 2001, Gliese 876C was discovered orbiting even closer then Gliese 876B, taking it about 30 days to complete a full orbit around its parent star. This must cause a huge gravitational battle when the planets align up to each other. Gliese 876C has a little over half the mass of Jupiter.
In 2005 a third extrasolar planet was detected orbiting the red dwarf Gliese, named Gliese 876 d. Gliese 876 d is just barely inside of the habitable zone we believe, and it has about 6-7 times the mass of Earth, we think this might be a terrestrial planet. It takes Gliese 876 d about two days to orbit its parent star.
So the two gas giants orbit the red dwarf in the so called habitable zone, because these are gas giants its almost impossible for them to harbor life. But What about the large moons of Gliese B and C..(if there are any) ? There could be a moon orbiting Gliese b that could be remotely close to the mass of Earth. All the conditions could be right. Life very well possibly could be there and many more Extrasolar planets could be orbiting around the red dwarf Gliese. Time and technology will only tell if there is a extrasolar planet harboring life in the Gliese 876 solar system.

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The Kepler Mission

The Kepler Mission is space observatory that is being ran by NASA. The main objective of the Kepler Mission will be to find Earth like extrasolar planets. It will observe and record planet transits on about 100,000 stars for a period of 4 years. Some of the things the Kepler Mission will help us determine will be, how many terrestrial or earth like exoplanets and large exoplanets there are in a stars habitable zone, the orbital paths and sizes of the exoplanets, guesstimate how many exoplanets there are in multi-star systems or binary star systems, the properties of the stars that harbor exoplanets and finding more exoplanets by the larger planets that have all ready been discovered.

The estimated launch date for the Space Observatory Kepler is February 16th, 2009. Though it probably wont be launched on this date since this mission has been delayed back a couple times do to NASA funding.

The spacecraft Kepler wont be orbiting Earth but it will be trailing behind Earth in the suns orbit taking it about 372 days to orbit the sun. This is so the Earth wont interfere with the spacecraft continuously focusing in on the 100,000 stars. The spacecrafts photometer will be aimed at the Cygnus constellation. The lens will be 1.4 meters, and the Kepler shoots with 27 micrometre pixels. The Kepler Mission will cost about 450 million dollars.

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The Giant Magellan Telescope

Whats in store for the near future for discovering earth like extrasolar planets is The Giant Magellan Telescope or (GMT). The Giant Magellan Telescope is collaboration project between multiple universities and research labs to construct a giant telescope of the future. The Giant Magellan Telescope is going to take a giant leap in telescope technology and open the stars up for discovering and viewing extrasolar planets like we have never been able to do before. Other things the telescope could open up are the research of dark matter and dark energy properties, the formation of stars and black holes, the collapse of stars and black holes, better mapping of our milky way galaxy, supernovas, undiscovered galaxies, and maybe even see light beyond the edge of our universe !

At the Stewart Observatory Mirror Lab at the University of Arizona, right under the football field bleachers, the Giant Telescope project is all ready underway with the construction of the seven giant 8.4 meter telescope mirrors. One of these giant mirrors are already successfully completed. The telescope is scheduled to be completed in the Year 2017 or late 2016 pending on proper funding. The Giant Magellan Telescope will be able to make images about 10 times more sharper then the famous Hubble Telescope. The telescope will be able to do this due to the size of its 7 mirrors that are 8.4 meters each. The telescope will have a center mirror and then 6 other mirrors that are off axis surrounding the center telescope mirror in a hexagon. The first mirror was completed November 3rd, 2005, but still there is much polishing and adjusting to do on this Giant Telescope.

When the telescope is completed it will be placed inside a cylinder shaped domed to protect it from weather and undesired light. The dome the telescope will be placed in will be 64 meters high and 51 meters wide. And of course will have adjustable vents for proper airflow and all of that.

The Giant Magellan Telescope has all ready been confirmed of wheres its location is going to be, the Las Campanas Observatory, located in northern Chile, which is also the location of the two Magellan Telescopes, Baade and Clay....This site was chosen because it is one of the best sites on Earth for telescopes to view the stars and more, there is very little to none light pollution and the weather is pretty clear all year round making this a great place for telescopes. Once the Giant Magellan Telescope is complete we will be able to directly view extrasolar planets and maybe even smaller Earth like planets with this telescopes power. When the Giant Magellan Telescope is completed it will surely open our eyes on how we view exoplanets in our milky way galaxy, and also, so much more.


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earthlike exoplanets part 2

Are there extrasolar planets beyond our solar system ? This was once a question that had seemed very far fetched to most scientists that there would be planets out of our solar system and even if there were extrasolar planets out there how the hell would we be able to find them seeing that they barely emit ant light at all ?
Approximately 50 lights years away from Earth in the constellation Pegasus is a gas giant exoplanet. Just about the same size as Jupiter and it orbits its parent star about once every four days. This planet is known as a hot Jupiter and the exoplanets name 51 Pegasi B, the first extrasolar planet to be detected orbiting a star out of our solar system. This discovery was a break though but really jsut a stepping stone to finding a exoplanet similar to our very own Earth. Even by chance if there is just 1% of the stars out there have a earthlike planet in there solar system that still leaves the number of earthlike exoplanets over a billion. So if we can find just one earthlike world then we will definitly know that they are very common. And if earthlike planets are common then guess what else is? Life and that is our ultimate goal. We are getting closer to finding earthlike planets like Gliese 436B. Which was found to have a density of 2.2 grams per cubic centimeter. Which means that this planet is mostly made of rock and water. But unlike earth this planet is completely covered with water but it is very different from our Earths water, the water is basically solid from so much pressure just like ice except it is not cold. So still not very earthlike but this is one of the smaller extrasolar planets we have discovered yet.
A good place to start looking for earthlike planets would be around smaller stars or dwarf stars, like Gliese 876, which we have found three exoplanets orbiting around it two are like jupiter and the other one Gliese 876D has a mass of just about 5 times that of Earth. All three of these planets are thought to be orbiting in a "habitable" zone and the smaller extrasolar planet may even have liquid water on it. The Gas Giants inside the stars habitable zone surely wont be a good place for water and life but it is almost certain that these gas giants have many many moons which may be full of life. Just 15 light years away will we be able to ever get a good look at these exoplanets ? Yes. AS soon as the Giant Magellan Super Telescope is complete we will be able to view Extrasolar Planets.

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