Queen's Team Size up Mysterious Planet - UTV Live News 30/10/2013 18:37

Queen's team size up mysterious planet - UTV Live News 30/10/2013 18:37

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Home News Science LondonFacebook Twitter 13°CGoogle Queen's team size up mysterious planet Newry 8°C JUST PUBLISHEDAntrim IN NEWS 7°C Published Wednesday, 30 October 2013 ShareShare Tweet More 0 » Queen approvesArmagh press Royal Charter 7°C » Queen's team size up mysterious planet Astronomers at Queen's University Belfast have, for the first time, weighed and Ballymena 6°C » 'No place' for sectarian football chants measured an Earth-sized planet outside our own solar system which they say Belfast 8°C "shouldn't exist". » Shankill victims in Greysteel tribute » 60 feral catsColeraine to be moved from seafront7°C

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1. Remembering the Greysteel gun victims

2. Gang beat man outside Belfast bar 3. Diamond Centre goes into receivership 4. 'Batteries sparked security alert' 5. Letter bomb to Villiers in Stormont alert 6. Robinson speaks about time in jail 7. Homes evacuated amid south Belfast alert 8. 'Hoax package' sent to SF councillor 9. Woman 'badly shaken' after armed An illustration of the 'earth-like' Keplar 78b planet. (© TNG) robbery 10. Corrie's Todd 'wreaks havoc' The planet, known as Kepler-78b, is the smallest exoplanet, planet outside our solar system, for which an accurate radius and mass is known and its existence has baffled scientists.

It is just 20% bigger than earth and, like Earth, has an iron core and a rocky interior. But that's MOST POPULAR GALLERIES where the similarities with our planet end. Fire in Belfast city Kepler-78b is just one million miles from its Sun-like star (Kepler 78) - which is extremely close in centre astronomy terms. This means it endures intense heat, its rocks are molten lava, and it takes just Fri 18 October 2013 eight and a half hours to orbit its star, compared to Earth's 365-day orbit. Shankill bomber plaque Dr Chris Watson from Queen's Astrophysics Research Centre says its existence and extremely tight unveiling orbit has baffled astronomers. Mon 21 October 2013

"Kepler-78b is a scorching lava world that, put simply, shouldn't exist. Its close proximity to its star, Two shootings in 24 and how it got there, is still a mystery," he said. hours Thu 10 October 2013 "What we do know is that it won't exist forever. Gravitational tides will slowly disrupt Kepler-78b, drawing it closer to its star and eventually ripping it apart." Galleries Index »

http://www.u.tv/News/Queens-team-size-up-mysterious-planet/38689246-67f9-4df3-93c5-1c4632b10bbf Page 1 of 4 Queen's team size up mysterious planet - UTV Live News 30/10/2013 18:37

The planet was first identified by NASA's Kepler space mission, which has monitored 150,000 stars Recent Activity for brightness variations caused by planets crossing the face of their parent star. Sign Up Create an account or Log In to see what It is this variation in brightness that allowed astronomers to calculate the radius of Kepler-78b, your friends are doing.

determining its mass and composition was much more difficult - a process in which Queen's Dr Remembering the Greysteel gun victims Watson played a key role. 891 people recommend this.

Security alert at Stormont 12 people recommend this. As we probe deeper and deeper we are finding that science fact in stranger than science fiction - Kepler-78b certainly fits that bill. 'Official IRA' in blackmail attempt 7 people recommend this. Dr Chris Watson, Queen's University Belfast courts evacuated amid alert 51 people recommend this. Dr Watson explained the process: "If an alien civilisation were looking at our solar-system and were to catch Jupiter transiting our Sun they would see a one per cent dip in light. When the Kepler spacecraft looked at the Kepler-78 star, it saw something much smaller - a tiny 0.02 per cent dip in Facebook social plugin starlight caused by a planet just 20 per cent bigger than our Earth.

"The problem is, transits only give the radius of a planet, but in order to confirm what it is made of, we need to weigh it - a much more complex task.

"In order to do this, a team of astronomers from the UK, Europe and the USA measured the 'wobble' of the star as it is forced to orbit its common centre of gravity with the planet."

"Using the HARPS-N (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher for the Northern hemisphere) instrument, based on the huge Telescopio Nazionale Galileo telescope on La Palma in the Canary Islands, we found that the orbiting Kepler-78b caused its parent star to move at a speed comparable to walking pace," he continued.

"From this we calculated the planet's mass. This, coupled with its radius, allowed us to determine that Kepler-78b is composed of rock and iron - much like our Earth. But unlike Earth, the planet is much too hot to support life."

Dr Watson said the discovery is an example of the progress in astronomy technology and techniques.

"Nature seems to like conjuring up planets in the least expected places. Just five years ago this work would have been impossible," he commented.

Dr Watson was one of three UK astronomers who worked on the project along with scientists from the University of Geneva, St Andrew's University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Queen's work on the project was funded by a science exploitation grant from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

Details of their discovery have been published in Nature, a global science journal, alongside research from a separate group USA-based scientists, which confirms the findings of Dr Watson's team.