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An artist s illustration of TOI-561 (WM Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko)
One of the oldest stars in the Milky Way galaxy hosts an unusually hot and rocky “Super-Earth” planet. Known as TOI-561b, the planet orbits the star TESS Object of Interest (TOI) 561, named for the ongoing NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS planet-hunting mission.
The planet is unlike any other Super-Earth found to date, according to scientists. It is about 50% larger than Earth but requires less than half a day to orbit its star. According to experts, for every day on Earth, this planet orbits its star twice.
The centers of galaxies with actively feeding supermassive black holes are already astounding environments. Now, a team of researchers led by a graduate student from the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) has found an even more interesting oddball. Feeding black holes typically increase and decrease in brightness similar to the Kilauea volcano, becoming more or less active over time in unpredictable ways. However, the newly discovered black hole is more like Old Faithful geyser at Yellowstone National Park, erupting repeatedly at predictable times.
Astronomers classify galaxies with unusually bright and variable centers as active galaxies. The active centers can produce much more energy than the combined contribution of all the stars in the host galaxy. The excess energy can be seen at visible, ultraviolet, and X-ray wavelengths. Astrophysicists think the extra emission comes from near the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole, where a swirling disk of g
(Photo credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/W. Stenzel/D. Rutter)From centuries of studying the planets within our solar system, astronomers have wondered.
Posted: Jan 11, 2021
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University of Hawaiʻi Astronomers Using W. M. Keck Observatory Discover Ancient Magma World Orbiting a Chemically Unusual Star
Maunakea, Hawaii - “They should have sent a poet,” says Ellie Arroway in the film Contact as, suspended in outer space, she gazes upon a spiral galaxy. Almost all of the planets discovered to date (including the solar system planets) are confined to the plane of the Milky Way, unable to glimpse such a sweeping vista of our galaxy. However, astronomers at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) using the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea have discovered a rocky planet with a different kind of view.