Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Faraway planet could support life

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20101013/Note1.asp
By Stephen Ornes
Date written:  October 13 , 2010
Now for a very long time people has been searching for other planets with life on then Earth. Did we finally find one? The scientists say so. The planet is the sixth found orbiting a star called Giles 581. This star with its other stars could be called a mini version of our solar system. The planet is 20 light years away from Earth. One light-year is the distance light can travel in one year roughly 6 trillion miles. You’d have to go around the Earth 240 million times to travel a light year or go the Moon and back about 12.5 million times. The scientists expect the planet to have water because where ever water is the living things are! The scientists also know that the humans will not be visiting the planet so soon. It would take a bit more then 200 years for a human spaceship to travel there! The scientists are still studding the planet with the help of the new telescopes that are made to look for planets which is just what they need! I think that we humans will think of a way to get there we just need some time to develop out technology. Also with the new telescopes we have we can learn more about the planet and give it a better name!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Astronomy

http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/a/astronomy.htm

Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences. Astronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects (such as stars, planets, comets, and galaxies) and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere (such as the cosmic background radiation). Astronomers from early life have been performing an observation of the night sky and astronomical artifacts have been found from much earlier periods. However, the invention of the telescope was required before astronomy was able to develop into a modern science. Since the 20th century astronomy has been split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on analyzing and collecting data and using basic principles of physics. Theoretical astronomy is oriented towards the developing of computers or models that would help describe the astronomical objects and phenomena. Amateur astronomers have contributed too many important astronomical discoveries, and astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can still play an active role, especially in the discovery and observation of transient phenomena. The most frequently studied star is the Sun, a typical main-sequence dwarf star of stellar class G2 V, and about 4.6 Gyr in age. A sun is not considered a star but it certainly undergoes periodic changes in activity known as the sunspot cycle. The study of stars and stellar evolution is fundamental to our understanding of the universe.