7 worlds house seen with the Kepler telescope's eyes
On Feb. 22 NASA announced that seven Earth-size rocky planets, orbiting TRAPPIST-1 red dwarf star were discovered by combination of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and ground telescopes. Another TRAPPIST-1 observations, obtained from NASA's Kepler space telescope were published on March, 11.
Kepler searches exoplanets with transit method. When the planet passes between its star and Earth, the star's brightness slightly decreases. Analyzing these changes, astronomers can calculate exoplanet's orbiting period, its mass/diameter, and even in some cases estimate its atmosphere composition. Animation, published by NASA shows TRAPPIST-1 planet system, as Kepler sees it.
Image: NASA
The animation shows one hour of observations, made on Feb. 22 2017. On that day NASA held press-conference about TRAPPIST-1 four new planets. At all, there are 7 rocky planets, and orbits of 3 of them lie in habitable zone, allowing liquid water on the surface.
Image: NASA
The animation is composed from 60 images, taken with 1 minute intervals. Image area covers 44 square seconds of arc what equivalent a grain of sand at arm's length. The transits are invisible by the eyes. Astronomers use complex algorythms to locate and calculate changes in brightness
This post has been ranked within the top 80 most undervalued posts in the first half of Mar 15. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $0.93 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Mar 15 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
It is amazing what we can do with a few pixels.... :D
This, for example
Where is the planet in there? :D
Super Mario - it's not a planet, it's whole universe!