Strange Planets !

Strange Planets !

Other Earth like planets in the neighboring solar systems ,
which are supposed to have life,

Among the more than 400 planets found beyond our solar system, there are volcanic Super Earths, gas giants that dwarf Jupiter, and worlds with multiple sunsets.
Here are 20 of the most incredible, starting with the very first alien world - 51 Pegasi b was the first planet
discovered in orbit around a normal star other than our Sun. It was found in 1995.

The largest exoplanet ever discovered is also one of the strangest and theoretically should not even exist, scientists say. Dubbed TrES-4, the planet is
about 1.7 times the size of Jupiter and belongs to a small subclass of so-called puffy planets that have extremely low densities. The planet is located
about 1,400 light years away from Earth and zips around its parent star in only three and a half days.

Epsilon Eridani b orbits an orange Sun-like star only 10.5 light years away from Earth. It is so close to us telescopes might soon be able to photograph it.
It orbits too far away from its star to support liquid water or life as we know it, but scientists predict there are other stars in the system that might be good candidates for alien life.

This planet, CoRoT-7b, was the first confirmed rocky world outside our solar system, but it doesn't look like a particularly pleasant place to live. It is tidally
locked to its parent star, and sees hellish 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,200 degrees Celsius). It may also rain rocks and be the core of a vaporized gas giant. 

Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine in Star Wars had two suns, but that's paltry compared to a Jupiter-like planet 149 light-years from Earth.
This planet has three suns, with the main star similar in mass to our own sun. The triple-star system is known as HD 188753.
Like Tatooine, the planet there is likely pretty hot. It orbits very close to the main star, completing one orbit every 3.5 days.

The youngest exoplanet yet discovered is less than 1 million years old and orbits Coku Tau 4, a star 420 light-years away. Astronomers inferred
the planet's presence from an enormous hole in the dusty disk that girdles the star. The hole is 10 times the size of Earth's orbit around the
Sun and probably caused by the planet clearing a space in the dust as it orbits the star.

The oldest known planet is a primeval world 12.7 billion years old that formed more than 8 billion years before Earth and only 2 billion years after the Big Bang.
The discovery suggested planets are very common in the universe and raised the prospect that life began far sooner than most scientists ever imagined

Astronomers are finding many worlds now in a category of worlds called Super-Earths, which are between 2 and 10 times the mass of our own Earth.
A world called HD156668b is the second smallest after Gliese 581 e. Some scientists think such worlds could be more susceptible to forming the
conditions for life because their cores are hot and are conducive to volcanism and plate tectonics.

A planet called WASP-12b is the hottest planet ever discovered (about 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit,
or 2,200 degrees Celsius), and orbits its star closer than any other known world. It orbits its star once every
Earth day at a distance of about 2 million miles (3.4 million km). WASP-12b is a gaseous planet, about 1.5 times the mass of Jupiter,
and almost twice the size. It is 870 light-years from Earth.

 

With a surface temperature of -364 degrees Fahrenheit (-220 degrees Celsius), the extrasolar planet known as OGLE-2005-BLG-390L b is likely
the coldest alien world. It is about 5.5 times as massive as Earth and thought to be rocky.
It orbits a red dwarf star about 28,000 light-years away, making it the most distant exoplanet currently known.

When astronomers observed WASP-18b, they may have seen it in the cosmic moment before its death.
This planet whips around its star in less than one Earth day. Scientists think that this speed coupled with the planet's heft yields strong
gravitational tugs that can alter the planets orbit. If the planet orbits faster than its star spins, it should gradually be moving inward towards its sun, and its doom. Credit: C. CARREAU/ESA/Nature

Astronomers have been able to detect the atmospheres around several exoplanets, including HD 189733b, one of the first alien words to have
its atmosphere sniffed to determine its composition. Glowing methane, which can be produced naturally or possibly signal a biological byproduct,
has been detected on the planet. Credit: ESA, NASA and G. Tinetti

 

The extrasolar planet GJ 1214b is a rocky planet rich in water that sits about 40 light-years away. It orbits a red dwarf star.
It is the only known Super-Earth exoplanet — worlds that have masses between Earth and Neptune — with a confirmed atmosphere. The planet is about
three times the size of Earth and about 6.5 times as massive. Researchers think it is likely a water world with a solid center. Credit: David A. Aguilar, CfA 

SWEEPS-10 orbits its parent star from a distance of only 740,000 miles, so close that one year on the planet happens every 10 hours.
The exoplanet belongs to a new class of zippy exoplanets called ultra-short period planets, which have orbits of less than a day.

 

Most planets orbit in a plane that corresponds to their parent star's equator. But XO-3b orbits with a crazy tilt of 37 degrees from its star's equator.
The only other known example of such an oddly angled orbit was Pluto, until its demotion to dwarf planet status. There is, however, a planet known to
orbit backwards around its parent star. Credit: NASA. ESA, amd G. Bacon (STScI)

While Neptune has a diameter 3.8 times that of Earth and a mass 17 times Earth's, this Super-Neptune world (named HAT-P-11b) is
4.7 times the size of Earth and has 25 Earth masses. The newfound world orbits very close to its star, revolving once every 4.88 days. As a result,
it is baked to a temperature of around 1100 degrees F. The star itself is about three-fourths the size of our Sun and somewhat cooler.

A planet lighter than a ball of cork is one of the puffiest alien planets known to date. Called HAT-P-1, the planet is about half as
massive as Jupiter but about 1.76 times wider-or 24 percent larger than predicted by theory. It could float in water, if there was a tub large enough to hold it. 

 

One of the several planets within the Gliese 581 star system, called Gliese 581 d, may be one of the most habitable alien worlds known.
Its orbit is at just the right distance for water to potentially exist on the surface. Water is a key ingredient for life as we know it. Gliese 581 is a red dwarf star
20.5 light-years from Earth. It is about 8 times the mass of Earth, and located in an orbit just right for liquid water

One of the densest exoplanets to date is a world known as COROT-exo-3b. It is about the size of Jupiter, but 20 times that planet's mass, making it about
twice as dense as lead. Scientists have not ruled out that the COROT-exo-3b may be a brown dwarf, or failed star.

Blue moon eclipse on new year's eve

Blue moon eclipse on new year's eve

  



Blue moon eclipse on new year's eve

In 1982, a second full Moon of the month was visible. Known as a ‘‘Blue Moon,’’ the name does not refer to the Moon’s color but reflects the rarity of the event and gives rise to the expression, ‘‘once in a blue moon.’’ The Blue Moon of 1982 was even more special because a total lunar eclipse also occurred (for the United States) then. The image you see below has a strange significance as well. Not only is it the absolute finest photo of the full Moon I have ever seen, but it was recorded at a year's end, too… on December 22, 1999 by incomparable astrophotographer Rob Gendler. That particular December's Moon was special for another reason, as the full phase occurred on the day of the winter solstice, within hours of lunar perigee and just one month away from a lunar eclipse.



Although there were 41 Blue Moons in the twentieth century, there was one of only four during an eclipse, and the only total eclipse of a Blue Moon in the twentieth century. A Blue Moon happens every 2.7 years because of a disparity between our calendar and the lunar cycle. The lunar cycle is the time it takes for the Moon to revolve around Earth: 29 days, 12 hours, and 44 minutes.
  




So stay tuned. . . It’s about to happen again.

December’s Full Moon is traditionally known as the Old Moon, or the Moon after Yule. And on New Year's Even we’re going to call it Blue. No matter what it is referred to, it is still a lovely sight to watch it rise in its grey-scale glory and glide across the luminous night sky. But for some lucky viewers in much of Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia the Old Blue Moon after Yule will also partially eclipse!

Only a very small portion of the Moon's southern limb will be in the Earth's umbral shadow, but there will be a noticeable darkening visible over the Moon's face at the point of greatest eclipse. Need more? Then know this eclipse is the one of four lunar eclipses in a short-lived series. The lunar year series repeats after 12 lunations or 354 days. Afterwards it will begin shifting back about 10 days in sequential years. Because of the date change, the Earth's shadow will be about 11 degrees west in sequential events.



  



For the eclipse, the duration of the partial phase will last within two seconds of a hour long, while the penumbral duration from beginning to end will run about four hours and eleven minutes. Penumbral contact will begin at 17:17:08 UT and umbral contact at 18:52:43 UT. The moment of greatest depth of shadow will occur at 19:22:39 UT, 31 December 2009. It will be visible from all of Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia

THE SEARCH FOR PLANET X

We know today that beyond the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn lie more major planets, Uranus and Neptune, and a small planet, Pluto. But such knowledge is quiet recent. Uranus was discovered, through the use of improved telescopes, in 1781. Neptune was pinpointed by astronomers (guided by mathematical calculations) in 1846. It became evident that Neptune was being subjected to unknown gravitational pull, and in 1930 Pluto (was located).

In 1841, John Couch Adams began investigating the by then quite large residuals in the motion of Uranus. In 1845, Urbain Le Verrier started to investigate them, too. Adams presented two different solutions to the problem, assuming that the deviations were caused by the gravitation from an unknown planet.

* Sept 30, 1846 --- one week after the discovery of Neptune, Le Verrier declared that there may be still another unknown planet out there. On October 10, Neptune's large moon Triton was discovered, which yielded an easy way to accurately determine the mass of Neptune, which turned out to be 2% larger than expected from the perturbations upon Uranus.

* Another attempt to find a trans-Neptunian planet was done in 1877 by David Todd. He used a "graphical method", and despite the inconclusivenesses of the residuals of Uranus, he derived elements for a trans-Neptunian planet: mean distance 52 a.u., period 375 years, magnitude fainter than 13.

* In 1879, Camille Flammarion added another hint as to the existence of a planet beyond Neptune: the aphelia of periodic comets tend to cluster around the orbits of major planets. Jupiter has the greatest share of such comets, and Saturn, Uranus and Neptune also have a few each.

* Percival Lowell, most well known as a proponent for canals on Mars, built a private observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Lowell called his hypothetical planet Planet X, and performed several searches for it, without success. Lowell's first search for Planet X came to an end in 1909, but in 1913 he started a second search, with a new prediction of Planet X: epoch 1850-01-01, mean long 11.67 deg, perih. long 186, eccentricity 0.228, mean dist 47.5 a.u. long arc node 110.99 deg, inclination 7.30 deg, mass 1/21000 solar masses. Lowell and others searched in vain for this Planet X in 1913-1915. In 1915, Lowell published his theoretical results of Planet X. It is ironical that this very same year, 1915, two faint images of Pluto was recorded at Lowell observatory, although they were never recognized as such until after the discovery of Pluto (1930).

Recent calculations by the United States Naval Observatory have confirmed the orbital perturbation exhibited by Uranus and Neptune, which Dr. Thomas C Van Flandern, an astronomer at the observatory, says could be explained by "a single undiscovered planet". He and a colleague, Dr. Richard Harrington, calculate that the 10th planet should be two to five times more massive than Earth and have a highly elliptical orbit that takes it some 5 billion miles beyond that of Pluto

New York Times
June 19, 1982

Something out there beyond the farthest reaches of the known solar system seems to be tugging at Uranus and Neptune. Some gravitational force keeps perturbing the two giant planets, causing irregularities in their orbits. The force suggests a presence far away and unseen, a large object that may be the long- sought Planet X. The last time a serious search of the skies was made it led to the discovery in 1930 of Pluto, the ninth planet. But the story begins more than a century before that, after the discovery of Uranus in 1781 by the English astronomer and musician William Herschel. Until then, the planetary system seemed to end with Saturn.Today, scientists accept theories concerning plate tectonics. There are articles and studies showing that, at one time, all of Earth continents were on one side of the planet. What the stories don't explore is the question, if all the continents were on one side, what was on the other? The other side has been described as a tremendous gap, matching the Sumerian story of how the Earth came about. The Sumerians said Earth was really half a planet called Tiamat, which broke up in a collision with Nibiru, [or Planet X].

The discovery of new planets has, in the last two hundred years, owed more to the science of mathematics than it has to the design of bigger and better telescopes. The unaccounted-for mathematical irregularities in the orbits of the outer planets have prompted astronomers to speculate upon the existence of a further, undiscovered planet. Astronomers are so certain of this planet's existence that they have already named it 'Planet X' - the Tenth Planet.

In 1982, NASA themselves officially recognized the possibility of Planet X, with an announcement that 'some kind of mystery object is really there - far beyond the outermost planets'. One year later, the newly launched IRAS (Infrared Astronomical Satellite) spotted a large mysterious object in the depths of space. The Washington Post summarized an interview with the chief IRAS scientist from JPL, California, as follows:

"A heavenly body possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this solar system has been found in the direction of the constellation Orion by an orbiting telescope... 'All I can tell you is that we don't know what it is', said Gerry Neugebauer, chief IRAS scientist.

The 6,000 year old Sumerian descriptions of our solar system include one more planet they called "Nibiru", which means "Planet of the crossing".The descriptions of this planet by the Sumerians match precisely the specifications of "Planet X" (the Tenth Planet), which is currently being sought by astronomers in the depths of our own Solar System. Why has Planet X not been seen in recent times? Views from modern and ancient astronomy, which both suggest a highly elliptical, comet-like orbit, takes Planet X into the depths of space, well beyond the orbit of Pluto. We discovered Pluto with our telescopes just recently in 1930. Is it not possible that there are other forces at work on our solar system besides the nine planets we know of? YES!!!! The Sumerian descriptions of Our Solar System are being confirmed with modern advances in science. This article will show actual diagrams from the Sumerian times and how the accuracy for describing the planets is overwhelming!