Travelers in the Night Eps. 339E & 340E: Ice World & Nearby Planets

Dr. Al Grauer hosts. Dr. Albert D. Grauer ( @Nmcanopus ) is an
observational asteroid hunting astronomer. Dr. Grauer retired
from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2006.
travelersinthenight.org


Today's 2 topics:


- Recently Dr. Yossi Shvartzvald led a team which published their
discovery of an Earth sized planet using microlensing in the
Astrophysical Journal Letters. The newly discovered planet
OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb orbits a small dim object about 13,000 light
years from us. With only 7.8% of the Sun's mass the new planet's
star may be a brown dwarf and not a star at all. At about the
same distance from its star as we are from the Sun this new
planet is likely to be an ice ball world colder than Pluto.


- In 2018 the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
nicknamed TESS will be launched and begin a two to three year
mission to discover small Earth sized planets orbiting bright
stars in the solar neighborhood.


 


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