Some new stars in the neighborhood. (Astronomy).Surveying the distant universe is a daunting daunt tr.v. daunt·ed, daunt·ing, daunts To abate the courage of; discourage. See Synonyms at dismay. [Middle English daunten, from Old French danter, from Latin task, but spotting stars even a few tens of light-years from our solar system solar system, the sun and the surrounding planets, natural satellites, dwarf planets, asteroids, meteoroids, and comets that are bound by its gravity. The sun is by far the most massive part of the solar system, containing almost 99.9% of the system's total mass. isn't easy either. Most are much less massive than the sun, and many emit less than 1 percent as much light. Faint, nearby stars in the southern sky represent an unexplored trove because most surveys have been conducted in the north, notes Todd J. Henry of Georgia State University History Georgia State University was founded in 1913 as the Georgia School of Technology's "School of Commerce." The school focused on what was called "the new science of business. in Atlanta. At a meeting of the American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes pronounced "double-A-S") is a US society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. in Washington, D.C., last month, Henry's team unveiled 12 previously unknown stars in the southern sky that lie within 33 light-years of Earth. Eleven of these are extremely low-mass stars called red dwarfs. One is a star just 18 light-years away, making it the 55th closest star to the sun. Three others are locked in a gravitational grav·i·ta·tion n. 1. Physics a. The natural phenomenon of attraction between physical objects with mass or energy. b. The act or process of moving under the influence of this attraction. 2. embrace 24.6 light-years from Earth. The team's ongoing survey focuses on faint stars that drift across the sky. The relatively rapid motion indicates the stars are close by. To measure the distances to these neighbors, the researchers rely on parallax parallax (pâr`əlăks), any alteration in the relative apparent positions of objects produced by a shift in the position of the observer. In astronomy the term is used for several techniques for determining distance. , the apparent shift in position of nearby stars as Earth moves around the sun. Finding more of the sun's neighbors not only provides a more accurate map of nearby space but reveals "fresh targets where we can look for planets and, ultimately, for life on those planets," Henry says. Astronomers used to believe that planets orbiting dwarf stars, such as those in Henry's survey, would be poor candidates for harboring life. A dwarf star emits so little heat and light that any planet with a temperature high enough for water to remain liquid--a requirement for life as we know it--would have to orbit the star extremely closely. A closely orbiting planet would always have the same side pointing toward its parent star. The uneven heating that would result from such an orientation could doom life. However, if such a planet had a thick, heat-absorbing atmosphere, it could redistribute the star's heat, notes Jonathan I. Lunine of the University of Arizona (body, education) University of Arizona - The University was founded in 1885 as a Land Grant institution with a three-fold mission of teaching, research and public service. in Tucson. |
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