Planet 9

Posted on November 15, 2008 by Arthur

US astronomers have made the first photo of an exoplanet that makes it rounds around the star Formalhaut. It took a couple of years (and a lot of patience) to actually confirm the planet though. Additionally, another team of astronomers made a picture of 2 planets orbiting a star called HR8799 (Washington Post report). Generally, it seems. it was a good week for astronomy.

New Scientist had an article about a theory that the Earth might be in the center of a void: at the heart of the discussion is the 1998 discovery that some galaxies seem to have been racing away from us instead of slowing down. This discovery is currently explained by introducing ‘dark energy’, the energy that tends to accelerate the rate of expansion of the universe. The new theory proposes that our universe (the Milky Way) is surrounded by a ‘bubble’ that causes photons to lose energy but gaining energy while leaving this bubble.

I also read that India has succesfully landed a probe on the moon. For the next couple of weeks, the probe (‘Chandrayaan 1’), will measure the composition of the moon’s thin atmosphere.

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10 Responses to Planet 9

  1. Marian says:
    November 15, 2008 at 11:34 am AST

    I’m supposed to tell you that I nominated you in the best science and tech category at the Canadian Blog Awards. I hope I haven’t missed the deadline. It isn’t posted anywhere.

  2. Arthur says:
    November 15, 2008 at 4:18 pm AST

    I’m supposed to tell you that I nominated

    I nominated The Internationalist a couple of days ago but couldn’t find the deadline either…

    [SPOILER ALERT]

    I just took a peek in the year of 2011 (Thank god my old-fashioned Fluxcapacitators still work) and this year’s tech winner is going to be ‘AmberMac’.

  3. Marian says:
    November 15, 2008 at 4:45 pm AST

    Hehehe. What category did you nominate me for? Does this mean I have to post?

  4. Arthur says:
    November 15, 2008 at 5:11 pm AST

    Hehehe. What category did you nominate me for? Does this mean I have to post

    ‘Best Blog’: there’s heavy competition in there.

  5. Marian says:
    November 15, 2008 at 5:25 pm AST

    Ah well, I’ll come in first for sure then.

  6. Marian says:
    November 15, 2008 at 5:30 pm AST

    Uh, could you nominate me again? The link doesn’t work. It gives you a 404 error. (I think that disqualifies me).

  7. Arthur says:
    November 15, 2008 at 5:37 pm AST

    Yeah, I saw that, just fixed it and then again. I must have had a busy week. I could have used my flux capacitator.

    On the other hand, if I was a judge/moderator…, the point would have come across…

  8. Marian says:
    November 15, 2008 at 5:56 pm AST

    Now they think my blog name is ‘dammit.’ It says ‘dammit’ and then a link to my blog.

  9. Arthur says:
    November 15, 2008 at 6:18 pm AST

    I sent a friendly note to the administrators about my erroneous hyperlinking habit

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