Undiscovered Worlds Educator's Guide
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Where Are the Distant Worlds? Star Maps
W here Are the Distant Worlds? Star Maps Abo ut the Activity Whe re are the distant worlds in the night sky? Use a star map to find constellations and to identify stars with extrasolar planets. (Northern Hemisphere only, naked eye) Topics Covered • How to find Constellations • Where we have found planets around other stars Participants Adults, teens, families with children 8 years and up If a school/youth group, 10 years and older 1 to 4 participants per map Materials Needed Location and Timing • Current month's Star Map for the Use this activity at a star party on a public (included) dark, clear night. Timing depends only • At least one set Planetary on how long you want to observe. Postcards with Key (included) • A small (red) flashlight • (Optional) Print list of Visible Stars with Planets (included) Included in This Packet Page Detailed Activity Description 2 Helpful Hints 4 Background Information 5 Planetary Postcards 7 Key Planetary Postcards 9 Star Maps 20 Visible Stars With Planets 33 © 2008 Astronomical Society of the Pacific www.astrosociety.org Copies for educational purposes are permitted. Additional astronomy activities can be found here: http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov Detailed Activity Description Leader’s Role Participants’ Roles (Anticipated) Introduction: To Ask: Who has heard that scientists have found planets around stars other than our own Sun? How many of these stars might you think have been found? Anyone ever see a star that has planets around it? (our own Sun, some may know of other stars) We can’t see the planets around other stars, but we can see the star. -
Arxiv:2010.00015V3 [Hep-Ph] 26 Apr 2021 Galactic Halo Can Scatter with Exoplanets, Lose Energy, and Gles Are the Same Set of Planets, Without DM Heating
MIT-CTP/5230 SLAC-PUB-17556 Exoplanets as Sub-GeV Dark Matter Detectors Rebecca K. Leane1, 2, ∗ and Juri Smirnov3, 4, y 1Center for Theoretical Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA 2SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94039, USA 3Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP), The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA 4Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA (Dated: April 27, 2021) We present exoplanets as new targets to discover Dark Matter (DM). Throughout the Milky Way, DM can scatter, become captured, deposit annihilation energy, and increase the heat flow within exoplanets. We estimate upcoming infrared telescope sensitivity to this scenario, finding actionable discovery or exclusion searches. We find that DM with masses above about an MeV can be probed with exoplanets, with DM-proton and DM-electron scattering cross sections down to about 10−37cm2, stronger than existing limits by up to six orders of magnitude. Supporting evidence of a DM origin can be identified through DM-induced exoplanet heating correlated with Galactic position, and hence DM density. This provides new motivation to measure the temperature of the billions of brown dwarfs, rogue planets, and gas giants peppered throughout our Galaxy. Introduction{Are we alone in the Universe? This ques- Exoplanet Temperatures tion has driven wide-reaching interest in discovering a 104 planet like our own. Regardless of whether or not we ever find alien life, the scientific advances from finding DM Heating and understanding other planets will be enormous. From a particle physics perspective, new celestial bodies pro- vide a vast playground to discover new physics. -
The Impact of Stellar Magnetic Activity on the Radial Velocity Search of Exoplanets
The impact of stellar magnetic activity on the radial velocity search of exoplanets Ansgar Wehrhahn supervised by: Nikolai Piskunov Oleg Khochukhov ver. 1.0 July 7, 2017 ABSTRACT Radial velocity measurements are critical in finding and confirming exoplanets. To confine the parameters of the planet we naturally want to minimise the errors on the measurement. However the observed measurement error is now on the same order as the precision of the instrument. This so called jitter is related to the stellar activity (Wright 2005), i.e. the magnetic field of the star. In this paper we investigate if we can discover any correlation between the radial velocity variation and the magnetic activity of the star using HARPSpol spectra for the two stars Epsilon Eridani and GJ674. Populärvetenskaplig sammanfattning Radialhastighetsmätningar är ett viktigt verktyg för att hitta och bekräfta exoplaneter. Osäkerheten från mätinstrumenten är dock fortfarande av samma storlek som influenser av olika stjärnatmosfäriska processer. Här undersökar vi konkret hur stjärnans magnetfält påverkar radialhastighetsmätningar. I denna studier använder vi oss av data från det noggranna instrumentet HARPS för att undersöka två stjärnor, Epsilon Eridani och GJ674. Med den föreliggande spek- troskopsika materialet kan vi inte hitta ett samband mellan magnetfältstyrkan och radialhastigheten. 1 The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever. – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Contents 1. Introduction4 2. Theory 5 2.1. Radial Velocity Search For Exoplanets......................5 2.2. Intrinsic Stellar Noise...............................6 2.3. Zeeman Effect....................................7 2.4. Stokes Parameters.................................8 3. The Instrument9 3.1. HARPS.......................................9 3.2. HARPSpol..................................... 12 4. -
THE SEARCH for EXOMOON RADIO EMISSIONS by JOAQUIN P. NOYOLA Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University Of
THE SEARCH FOR EXOMOON RADIO EMISSIONS by JOAQUIN P. NOYOLA Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON December 2015 Copyright © by Joaquin P. Noyola 2015 All Rights Reserved ii Dedicated to my wife Thao Noyola, my son Layton, my daughter Allison, and our future little ones. iii Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the people who have helped throughout my career at UTA, including my advising professors Dr. Zdzislaw Musielak (Ph.D.), and Dr. Qiming Zhang (M.Sc.) for their advice and guidance. Many thanks to my committee members Dr. Andrew Brandt, Dr. Manfred Cuntz, and Dr. Alex Weiss for your interest and for your time. Also many thanks to Dr. Suman Satyal, my collaborator and friend, for all the fruitful discussions we have had throughout the years. I would like to thank my wife, Thao Noyola, for her love, her help, and her understanding through these six years of marriage and graduate school. October 19, 2015 iv Abstract THE SEARCH FOR EXOMOON RADIO EMISSIONS Joaquin P. Noyola, PhD The University of Texas at Arlington, 2015 Supervising Professor: Zdzislaw Musielak The field of exoplanet detection has seen many new developments since the discovery of the first exoplanet. Observational surveys by the NASA Kepler Mission and several other instrument have led to the confirmation of over 1900 exoplanets, and several thousands of exoplanet potential candidates. All this progress, however, has yet to provide the first confirmed exomoon. -
Planetquest Outreach Toolkit Manual and Resources Cd
Outreach ToolKit Manual DISTRIBUTED FOR MEMBERS OF THE NASA NIGHT SKY NETWORK THE NIGHT SKY NETWORK IS SPONSORED AND SUPPORTED BY JPL'S PLANETQUEST PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM. PLANETQUEST IS A PART OF JPL’S NAVIGATOR PROGRAM, WHICH ENCOMPASSES SEVERAL OF NASA'S EXTRA-SOLAR PLANET- FINDING MISSIONS, INCLUDING THE KECK INTERFEROMETER, THE SPACE INTERFEROMETRY MISSION (SIM), THE TERRESTRIAL PLANET FINDER (TPF), THE LARGE BINOCULAR TELESCOPE INTERFEROMETER (LBTI), AND THE MICHELSON SCIENCE CENTER. NASA NIGHT SKY NETWORK: http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/ PLANETQUEST: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/ Contacts The non-profit Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP), one of the nation’s leading organizations devoted to astronomy and space science education, is managing the Night Sky Network in cooperation with JPL. Learn more about the ASP at http://www.astrosociety.org. For support contact: Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) 390 Ashton Avenue San Francisco, CA 94112 415-337-1100 ext. 116 [email protected] Copyright © 2004 NASA/JPL and Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Copies of this manual and documents may be made for educational and public outreach purposes only and are to be supplied at no charge to participants. Any other use is not permitted. CREDITS: All photos and images in the ToolKit Manual unless otherwise noted are provided courtesy of Marni Berendsen and Rich Berendsen. Your Club’s Membership in the NASA Night Sky Network Welcome to the NASA Night Sky Network! Your membership in the Night Sky Network will provide many opportunities for your club to expand its public education and outreach. Your club has at least two members who are the Night Sky Network Club Coordinators. -
Ricky Leon Murphy Project
Ricky Leon Murphy The Appendices: Project – HET606 Appendix 1 – Known Exoplanets Semester 2 – 2004 Appendix 2 – Location of Tau Bootis Appendix 3 – Location of HD 209458 Appendix 4 – Image Reduction Search for Other Worlds Introduction As of September 2004, there are 136 known planets outside our solar system (http://exoplanets.org). These extra-solar planets, or exoplanets, are one of the most current and highly studied subjects in Astronomy today and it is one of the very few subjects that involve both amateur and professional astronomers. The huge telescopes perched atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii are pointed at these objects, as are 8” telescopes purchased from the local shopping mall – and many others around the world. Why are we finding these planets now if only 8” telescopes can detect them? Simple; we know what we are looking for and we have better tools to get the job done. While telescope size does not seem to matter with the search and study of exoplanets, it’s what you do not hear about that really matters: improved sensitivity in CCD cameras, improved resolution in spectroscopy, and fast computers to perform the mathematics. The goal of gathering repeatable data is very important when studying exoplanets. The rewards of such study carry implications across the board in Astronomy: we can learn about our own solar system and test the theories of solar system formation and evolution, improve the sensitivity to detect small Earth-like planets, and possibly provide targets for the spaced based telescopes and SETI projects; however, the most important implication is that perhaps for the first time in history, amateurs and professionals from around the world are engaged in this subject and working together to share the data. -
The Universe Contents 3 HD 149026 B
History . 64 Antarctica . 136 Utopia Planitia . 209 Umbriel . 286 Comets . 338 In Popular Culture . 66 Great Barrier Reef . 138 Vastitas Borealis . 210 Oberon . 287 Borrelly . 340 The Amazon Rainforest . 140 Titania . 288 C/1861 G1 Thatcher . 341 Universe Mercury . 68 Ngorongoro Conservation Jupiter . 212 Shepherd Moons . 289 Churyamov- Orientation . 72 Area . 142 Orientation . 216 Gerasimenko . 342 Contents Magnetosphere . 73 Great Wall of China . 144 Atmosphere . .217 Neptune . 290 Hale-Bopp . 343 History . 74 History . 218 Orientation . 294 y Halle . 344 BepiColombo Mission . 76 The Moon . 146 Great Red Spot . 222 Magnetosphere . 295 Hartley 2 . 345 In Popular Culture . 77 Orientation . 150 Ring System . 224 History . 296 ONIS . 346 Caloris Planitia . 79 History . 152 Surface . 225 In Popular Culture . 299 ’Oumuamua . 347 In Popular Culture . 156 Shoemaker-Levy 9 . 348 Foreword . 6 Pantheon Fossae . 80 Clouds . 226 Surface/Atmosphere 301 Raditladi Basin . 81 Apollo 11 . 158 Oceans . 227 s Ring . 302 Swift-Tuttle . 349 Orbital Gateway . 160 Tempel 1 . 350 Introduction to the Rachmaninoff Crater . 82 Magnetosphere . 228 Proteus . 303 Universe . 8 Caloris Montes . 83 Lunar Eclipses . .161 Juno Mission . 230 Triton . 304 Tempel-Tuttle . 351 Scale of the Universe . 10 Sea of Tranquility . 163 Io . 232 Nereid . 306 Wild 2 . 352 Modern Observing Venus . 84 South Pole-Aitken Europa . 234 Other Moons . 308 Crater . 164 Methods . .12 Orientation . 88 Ganymede . 236 Oort Cloud . 353 Copernicus Crater . 165 Today’s Telescopes . 14. Atmosphere . 90 Callisto . 238 Non-Planetary Solar System Montes Apenninus . 166 How to Use This Book 16 History . 91 Objects . 310 Exoplanets . 354 Oceanus Procellarum .167 Naming Conventions . 18 In Popular Culture . -
Scientific and Societal Benefits of Interstellar Exploration
See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275652484 Scientific and Societal Benefits of Interstellar Exploration Chapter · September 2014 CITATION READS 1 29 1 author: Ian A Crawford Birkbeck, University of Lon… 328 PUBLICATIONS 2,410 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Available from: Ian A Crawford Retrieved on: 03 June 2016 Beyond the Boundary Chapter1 Scientific and Societal Benefits of Interstellar Exploration Ian A Crawford he growing realisation that planets are common companions of stars [1–2] has reinvigorated astronautical studies of how they might be explored using Tinterstellar space probes (for reviews see references [3-7], and also other chap- ters in this book). The history of Solar System exploration to-date shows us that spacecraft are required for the detailed study of planets, and it seems clear that we will eventually require spacecraft to make in situ studies of other planetary systems as well. The desirability of such direct investigation will become even more apparent if future astronomical observations should reveal spectral evidence for life on an apparently Earth-like planet orbiting a nearby star. Definitive proof of the existence of such life, and studies of its underlying biochemistry, cellular structure, ecological diversity and evolutionary history will require in situ inves- tigations to be made [8]. This will require the transportation of sophisticated scientific instruments across interstellar space. Moreover, in addition to the scientific reasons for engaging in a programme of interstellar exploration, there also exist powerful societal and cultural motivations. Most important will be the stimulus to art, literature and philosophy, and the general enrichment of our world view, which inevitably results from expanding the horizons of human experience [9,10]. -
Formation, Structure and Habitability of Super-Earth and Sub-Neptune
Formation, Structure and Habitability of Super-Earth and Sub-Neptune Exoplanets by Leslie Anne Rogers B.Sc., Honours Physics-Mathematics, University of Ottawa (2006) Submitted to the Department of Physics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY June 2012 c Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2012. All rights reserved. Author.............................................................. Department of Physics May 22, 2012 Certified by. Sara Seager Professor of Planetary Science Professor of Physics Class of 1941 Professor Thesis Supervisor Accepted by . Krishna Rajagopal Professor of Physics Associate Department Head for Education 2 Formation, Structure and Habitability of Super-Earth and Sub-Neptune Exoplanets by Leslie Anne Rogers Submitted to the Department of Physics on May 22, 2012, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Abstract Insights into a distant exoplanet's interior are possible given a synergy between models and observations. Spectral observations of a star's radial velocity wobble induced by an orbiting planet's gravitational pull measure the planet mass. Photometric transit observations of a planet crossing the disk of its star measure the planet radius. This thesis interprets the measured masses and radii of super-Earth and sub-Neptune exoplanets, employing models to constrain the planets' bulk compositions, formation histories, and habitability. We develop a model for the internal structure of low-mass exoplanets consisting of up to four layers: an iron core, silicate mantle, ice layer, and gas layer. We quantify the span of plausible bulk compositions for low-mass transiting planets CoRoT-7b, GJ 436b, and HAT-P-11b, and describe how Bayesian analysis can be applied to rigorously account for observational, model, and inherent uncertainties. -
Andrea Gróf Zsuzsa Horváth Exercises in Astronomy and Space
Andrea Gróf Zsuzsa Horváth Exercises in astronomy and space exploration for high school students ELTE DOCTORAL SCHOOL OF PHYSICS ANDREA GRÓF, ZSUZSA HORVÁTH EXOPLANETS AND SPACECRAFT Exercises in astronomy and space exploration for high school students ELTE DOCTORAL SCHOOL OF PHYSICS BUDAPEST 2021 The publication was supported by the Subject Pedagogical Research Programme of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Reviewers: József Kovács (astronomy), Ákos Szeidemann (didactics) Translation from Hungarian: Attila Salamon © Andrea Gróf, Zsuzsa Horváth ELTE Doctoral School of Physics Responsibe publisher: Dr. Jenő Gubicza Budapest 2021 2 Second, revised edition Compiled by: Andrea Gróf, Zsuzsa Horváth Professional proof-reader: Dr. József Kovács, ELTE Gothard Astrophysical Observatory The creation of the exercise book was supported by the Subject Pedagogical Research Program of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Table of contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 4 1. Introduction of exoplanets .......................................................................................... 5 DIMENSIONS AND DISTANCES ..................................................................................................... 5 THE HABITABLE ZONE OF EXOPLANETS, ................................................................................ -
A Data Viewer for R
Paul Murrell A Data Viewer for R A Data Viewer for R Paul Murrell The University of Auckland July 30 2009 Paul Murrell A Data Viewer for R Overview Motivation: STATS 220 Problem statement: Students do not understand what they cannot see. What doesn’t work: View() A solution: The rdataviewer package and the tcltkViewer() function. What else?: Novel navigation interface, zooming, extensible for other data sources. Paul Murrell A Data Viewer for R STATS 220 Data Technologies HTML (and CSS), XML (and DTDs), SQL (and databases), and R (and regular expressions) Online text book that nobody reads Computer lab each week (worth 0.5%) + three Assignments 5 labs + one assignment on R Emphasis on creating and modifying data structures Attempt to use real data Paul Murrell A Data Viewer for R Example Lab Question Read the file lab10.txt into R as a character vector. You should end up with a symbol habitats that prints like this (this shows just the first 10 values; there are 192 values in total): > head(habitats, 10) [1] "upwd1201" "upwd0502" "upwd0702" [4] "upwd1002" "upwd1102" "upwd0203" [7] "upwd0503" "upwd0803" "upwd0104" [10] "upwd0704" Paul Murrell A Data Viewer for R The file lab10.txt upwd1201 upwd0502 upwd0702 upwd1002 upwd1102 upwd0203 upwd0503 upwd0803 upwd0104 upwd0704 upwd0804 upwd1204 upwd0805 upwd1005 upwd0106 dnwd1201 dnwd0502 dnwd0702 dnwd1002 dnwd1102 dnwd1202 dnwd0103 dnwd0203 dnwd0303 dnwd0403 dnwd0503 dnwd0803 dnwd0104 dnwd0704 dnwd0804 dnwd1204 dnwd0805 dnwd1005 dnwd0106 uppl0502 uppl0702 uppl1002 uppl1102 uppl0203 uppl0503 -
HEIC0613: EMBARGOED UNTIL: 18:00 (CEST)/12:00 NOON EDT 9 October, 2006
HEIC0613: EMBARGOED UNTIL: 18:00 (CEST)/12:00 NOON EDT 9 October, 2006 http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0613.html News release: Hubble observations confirm that planets form from disks around stars 9-October-2006 The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with ground-based observatories, has at last confirmed what philosopher Emmanuel Kant and scientists have long predicted: that planets form from debris disks around stars. More than 200 years ago, the philosopher Emmanuel Kant first proposed that planets are born from disks of dust and gas that swirl around their home stars. Though astronomers have detected more than 200 extrasolar planets and have seen many debris disks around young stars, they have yet to observe a planet and a debris disk aligned in the same plane around a star. Now, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with ground-based observatories, has at last confirmed what Kant and scientists have long predicted: that planets form from debris disks around stars. The Hubble observations by an international team of astronomers led by G. Fritz Benedict and Barbara E. McArthur of the University of Texas, Austin, USA, show for the first time that a planet is aligned with its star’s circumstellar disk of dust and gas. The planet, detected in year 2000, orbits the nearby Sun-like star Epsilon Eridani, located 10.5 light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. The planet’s orbit is inclined 30 degrees to Earth, the same angle at which the star’s disk is tilted. The results will appear in the November issue of the Astronomical Journal.