The Search for Alien Life Beyond Our Solar System Space Just Got Easier
The William Herschel Telescope,a 4.2m refelctor at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma.
Astronomers using the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma have confirmed an effective way to search the atmospheres of planets for signs of life, vastly improving our chances of finding alien life outside our solar system.
The team from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) used the WHT and the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) to gather information about the chemical composition of the Earth’s atmosphere from sunlight that has passed through it. The research is published today (11th June) in Nature.
When a planet passes in front of its parent star, part of the starlight passes through the planet’s atmosphere and contains information about the constituents of the atmosphere, providing vital information about the planet itself. This is called a transmission spectrum and even though astronomers can’t use exactly the same method to look at the Earth’s atmosphere, they were able to gain a spectrum of our planet by observing light reflected from the Moon towards the Earth during a lunar eclipse. This is the first time the transmission spectrum of the Earth has been measured. (more…)
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Dying Star May Shed Light on Earth’s Weather
From an international command center at Mt. Cuba Observatory in Wilmington, Del., University of Delaware astronomer Judi Provencal is coordinating the Whole Earth Telescope's latest observing run, which focuses on a dying star in the constellation Ophiuchus. (Photo by Kevin Quinlan/University of Delaware)
The Whole Earth Telescope (WET), a worldwide network of observatories coordinated by the University of Delaware, is synchronizing its lenses to provide round-the-clock coverage of a cooling star. As the star dims in the twilight of its life, scientists hope it will shed light on the workings of our own planet and other mysteries of the galaxy.
The dying star, a white dwarf identified as WDJ1524-0030, located in the constellation Ophiuchus in the southern sky, is losing its brightness as it cools, its nuclear fuel spent. It will be monitored continuously from May 15 to June 11 by WET, a global partnership of telescopes which was formed in 1986. (more…)
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