A teenage school blog
Posts tagged Water
Ten Science Stories That Changed Our Decade
Dec 20th
There is no doubt that science has become more like science fiction in the past decade, with amazing innovations and discoveries that increased our understanding of the universe. We list ten of the biggest science stories from the past decade.
This was the decade of the first face transplant, the first extinct species brought back from the dead, and printable human tissue; a decade that brought us closer to synthetic life forms and the invisibility cloak. But we’ve whittled it down to ten of the decade’s biggest science stories, with discoveries, advances, and topics that are sure to change our lives in the next ten years.
It’s Full of Planets: This was a big decade for planets, and not just because Pluto got a downgrade. In 2005, astronomers discovered Eris, a dwarf planet larger Pluto (as well as smaller dwarf planets Haumea and Makemake). Eris’ discovery prompted the International Astronomical Union to actually define the term planet, leading to Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet. But the discovery of Eris after all this time suggests there is still a lot to learn about our solar system.
Water Found In Another Planet!
Dec 17th
This is how I imagine GJ1214b, a super-Earth discovered only forty light-years away from us, orbiting a red dwarf star in the constellation of Ophiuchus. The good news: It’s three parts water. The bad news: The beaches are too hot.
400 degrees Fahrenheit, that’s how hot. But still, there are signs which indicate the planet has a gaseous atmosphere. GJ1214b itself is composed mostly of water and other ices, with one fourth of it being rock. As Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’ graduate Zachory Berta puts it: “Despite its hot temperature, this appears to be a waterworld. It is much smaller, cooler, and more Earthlike than any other known exoplanet.”
The other good news is that it was discovered by an array of eight 16-inch optical telescopes using Apogee U42 CCDs, a kind of sensor which is used by amateur astronomers all over the world. The array is part of the MEarth Project, which monitors 2,000 red dwarves for signs of planetary activity.
The next step would be to direct Hubble to the planet—which orbits the star in only 38 hours—and analyze its atmosphere. After that, we will send Kevin Costner in a one-way spacecraft.
