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NASA Gets a Rare Look at a Rocky Exoplanet's Surface [LHS 3844b]
Jet Propulsion Laboratory Spitzer Telescope site ^ | August 19, 2019 | Calla Cofield

Posted on 10/14/2019 8:02:31 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

A new study using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope provides a rare glimpse of conditions on the surface of a rocky planet orbiting a star beyond the Sun... the planet's surface may resemble those of Earth's Moon or Mercury: The planet likely has little to no atmosphere and could be covered in the same cooled volcanic material found in the dark areas of the Moon's surface, called mare.

Discovered in 2018 by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Satellite Survey (TESS) mission, planet LHS 3844b is located 48.6 light-years from Earth and has a radius 1.3 times that of Earth. It orbits a small, cool type of star called an M dwarf - especially noteworthy because, as the most common and long-lived type of star in the Milky Way galaxy, M dwarfs may host a high percentage of the total number of planets in the galaxy.

...during follow-up observations, Spitzer was able to detect light from the surface of LHS 3844b. The planet makes one full revolution around its parent star in just 11 hours. With such a tight orbit, LHS 3844b is most likely "tidally locked," which is when one side of a planet permanently faces the star. The star-facing side, or dayside, is about 1,410 degrees Fahrenheit (770 degrees Celsius). Being extremely hot, the planet radiates a lot of infrared light, and Spitzer is an infrared telescope. The planet's parent star is relatively cool (though still much hotter than the planet), making direct observation of LHS 3844b's dayside possible.

(Excerpt) Read more at spitzer.caltech.edu ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: astronomy; exoplanets; lhs3844b; nasa; science; space; tess; xplanets
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artist's conception of LHS 3844b

artist's conception of LHS 3844b

1 posted on 10/14/2019 8:02:31 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: KevinDavis; annie laurie; Knitting A Conundrum; Viking2002; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Mmogamer; ...
 
X-Planets
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Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar ·

2 posted on 10/14/2019 8:03:20 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv
"M dwarfs may host a high percentage of the total number of planets in the galaxy."

Red dwarfs also tend to flare up a lot, periodically cooking any planets in their habitable zones.
3 posted on 10/14/2019 8:22:03 PM PDT by Telepathic Intruder
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To: All

That looks eerily close to what Planet X looks like. IF they want to “borrow’ Godzilla and Rodan to fight Monster Zero, don’t do it! it’s a trap.


4 posted on 10/14/2019 8:31:30 PM PDT by BipolarBob (Bipolars have more fun. No we don't.)
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To: Telepathic Intruder
I'm having a C.S. Lewis flashback.

5 posted on 10/14/2019 8:38:31 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Too hot to sustain life.

No one has managed to refute the anthropic principle yet.

We’re still scouring thaf heavens for a habitable exoplanet.


6 posted on 10/14/2019 8:42:44 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: SunkenCiv
It's important to follow context in this case.


7 posted on 10/14/2019 8:43:14 PM PDT by Telepathic Intruder
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To: Telepathic Intruder
[singing] hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to the burlesque show....

8 posted on 10/14/2019 8:51:15 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Total nose picking pulling out boogers. Calling this science is total fiction. Don’t you love the exact figures they toss around without — 1410° Fahrenheit (770°C) without bothering to mention the extremely sketchy degree of certainty they’d have to have trying to measure an itty-bitty rock only about 10,400 miles in diameter at the end of an arc of observation 40plus light years long (it ain’t even a pixel pimple on that scale!) while it’s rushing around it’s star in just eleven hours? “If it is this, it may be that” and ‘it could be, but might be this”. . . but these nose pickers can say with authority that it may have a surface like that of our moon or Mercury, when WE couldn’t predict the surfaces of any of our local neighbors accurately INCLUDING Mercury or the back side of our own Moon until we actually went and looked! Don’t get me started on what they thought was under the clouds of Venus just a few short decades ago! Not to mention these guys don’t have a firm grasp on what forces have caused the various features we DO see on the variety of surfaces in our local neighborhood (ask them to explain the numerous hexagonal sided craters we see on the moon, Mars, and even on asteroids), yet they think they can make a prediction about the surface of this supposed “rocky” planet some 48 light years away which they can’t even really see? Talk about irrereproduceable claims and pseudo science! This takes the cake.


9 posted on 10/14/2019 8:54:01 PM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplaphobe bigot!)
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To: Telepathic Intruder

Which is one of the 100+ reasons that finding life forms on any other planet is highly unlikely.


10 posted on 10/14/2019 8:57:23 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (Everyone who favors socialism plans on the government taking other people's money, not theirs.)
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To: Swordmaker
Oh, well, I stopped taking the article seriously right at the 1st sentence:

A new study using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope provides a rare glimpse of conditions on the surface of a rocky planet orbiting a star beyond the Sun

The last time I looked, ALL stars, except Sol, are light years "beyond the Sun". And, it'd better stay that way. Who wrote this, a 3nd grader? For 2nd graders?

Anyway, you are right - even in our own Solar System, actual findings have been a surprise at almost every turn, with a GREAT deal still unknown or hotly debated...

11 posted on 10/15/2019 2:59:11 AM PDT by Paul R. (The Lib / Socialist goal: Total control of nothing left worth controlling.)
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To: Swordmaker

(ask them to explain the numerous hexagonal sided craters we see on the moon, Mars, and even on asteroids)...

Those are from rifled meteors.

:)


12 posted on 10/15/2019 3:08:18 AM PDT by Does so ("Fake impeachments" should be revealed to everyone...)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

We are alone...


13 posted on 10/15/2019 3:09:27 AM PDT by Does so ("Fake impeachments" should be revealed to everyone...)
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To: Does so
Those are from rifled meteors.

At least you’ve proposed a hypothesis. . .

14 posted on 10/15/2019 3:10:14 AM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplaphobe bigot!)
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To: Swordmaker; SunkenCiv

Thanks SC for the posting. I was coming to similar conclusions but not quite as extreme Swordmaker offers when one considers the astronomic devices, methods and distances used to offer what may be occurring from this objects observation.


15 posted on 10/15/2019 5:26:18 AM PDT by mosesdapoet (mosesdapoet aka L,J,Keslin posting fobills are nr the record hoping some might read and pass around)
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To: Swordmaker
NASA was founded by Nazi scientists that were given "safe haven" in the US after WW2. Read the Bible verse that is engraved on Werner Von Braun's headstone as a clue that NASA's depiction of the universe is a total fraud. BTW, they also steal $50 million A DAY from US taxpayers! 😡
16 posted on 10/15/2019 6:06:35 AM PDT by ResisTyr (Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God " ~Thomas Jefferson)
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To: Paul R.
The last time I looked, ALL stars, except Sol, are light years "beyond the Sun". And, it'd better stay that way. Who wrote this, a 3nd grader? For 2nd graders?

“Beyond the sun. . . “ You spotted that howler, too, eh? I was almost ROTFLMAO! over that one. Do they seriously mean this particular star is just over-that-away, looking beyond the sun, or is it out that-away, in some other direction??? Can we all spell “Hyperbole”, boys and girls? Paul R. and I, can.

17 posted on 10/15/2019 6:40:25 AM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplaphobe bigot!)
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To: ResisTyr
Read the Bible verse that is engraved on Werner Von Braun's headstone as a clue that NASA's depiction of the universe is a total fraud.

Psalms 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”

18 posted on 10/15/2019 6:49:23 AM PDT by Swordmaker (My pistol self-identifies as an iPad, so you must accept it in gun-free zones, you hoplaphobe bigot!)
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To: Swordmaker
I just wish you wouldn't hold back so much. ;^)
Exoplanet scientists were Nobel prize winners this year, I just haven't posted it. It isn't these guys of course.

19 posted on 10/15/2019 11:23:47 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: goldstategop

There’s no need to refute it, it is a philosophical question, a.k.a., a blind belief.

> The anthropic principle usually divides into two types, weak and strong. The weak anthropic principle simply states that the current Universe is of the form that allows intelligent observers. In other words, there is the right amount of complexity and time for intelligence to evolve. This is obviously true and few people disagree with this formulation of the anthropic principle.

> The strong anthropic principle says the Universe has these conditions because it *must* have them in order to have intelligence life (us). Our existence is then end goal of a plan. The strong form of the anthropic principle goes against the Copernican principle by insisting the we are special, an intellectual center of the Universe (all intelligent species would be at their “center”), because we exist and think.

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/cosmo/lectures/lec24.html


20 posted on 10/15/2019 11:26:41 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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