Sentences with word «sunlike»

Drake multiplied the number of sunlike stars in our galaxy that form each year by a handful of variables: the fraction of those stars that have planets; the number of planets per planetary system where life could exist; the fraction of habitable planets where life actually arises; the fraction of those where intelligence emerges; the fraction of intelligent species that develop interstellar communication; and finally, the average length of time that those communicating civilizations survive.

White dwarfs are the slowly cooling cores of sunlike stars in which nuclear fusion has stopped.

When Kepler launched into orbit in 2009 to survey a patch of sky containing some 150,000 stars, one of its primary goals was to find mirror Earths, worlds about the same size as our own in approximately 365 - day orbits around sunlike stars.

Kepler launched in March to seek out worlds like our own — terrestrial planets orbiting sunlike stars at a temperate distance where liquid water could persist.

First, most of the planets around other sunlike stars have no single orbital range — that is, some orbit extremely close to their host stars while others follow exceptionally distant orbits.

And on Monday a pair of studies set to be published in the Astrophysical Journal were unveiled, each claiming the discovery of a different super-Earth orbiting nearby sunlike stars.

Many exoplanets searches have focused on sunlike stars in the hopes of finding an analog to our own solar system — unsurprising because it is the one system known to foster life.

For sunlike stars, that will take a couple of more years of observations, says Kepler team member Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C..

Undaunted, researchers began to study more sunlike sources.

Study co-author Nuno Santos, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics at the University of Porto in Portugal, and his colleagues took chemical - abundance data, derived from precision light spectra, on 133 stars of roughly sunlike temperature from the HARPS survey, 30 of which are known to harbor planets.

Based on telescope observations of young sunlike stars, researchers estimate that «super» solar flares bombarded Earth with energetic particles at least once a day around 4 billion years ago.

The measurements have some degree of uncertainty, partly because Johnson's mathematical models make some assumptions, and partly because sunlike stars can exhibit activity cycles.

Although the results are based on calculations of Earth - sized worlds surrounding sunlike stars, the researchers say the process would be similar for larger worlds and stars.

This method has revealed what may be a Neptune - size body circling Epsilon Eridani, one of the closest sunlike stars.

After being hit with laser beams, a small plastic pellet (sunlike object) emits x-rays, some of which bombard a pellet of silicon (blue and purple).

These asteroid - sized objects pack sunlike masses, extremely small orbits, and incredibly fast spins.

Despite sunlike temperatures, the inner core began to solidify, and it's been growing ever since.

Befitting its «high definition» moniker, HDST's huge mirror could capture features the size of Manhattan in the cloudscapes of Jupiter and track the motions of individual sunlike stars in galaxies up to 30 million light - years away.

The second - closest, properly sunlike star seems to be at least as interesting as the Alpha Centauri stars

Kepler watched sunlike stars for telltale dips in brightness that would reveal a passing planet.

Five of the stars seem to be relatively early in their life cycles — a little older than regular sunlike stars but a little younger than red giants.

The true exoplanet gold rush didn't kick off until 1995 with the discovery of a so - called hot Jupiter in an infernally close orbit around a typical sunlike star.

To date, most coronagraph development has focused on imaging worlds around bright sunlike stars, where the star — planet contrast is far higher but offset by wider star — planet separations.

The most common type of star in the galaxy — small, dim, red stars known as M - dwarfs — outnumber sunlike stars 10 to 1, but they were generally dismissed out of hand.

The nearest sunlike stars have failed to yield exoplanets so far, but searches for Earth - like ones are ramping up.

The light show, which lasts a fraction of a second, is a side effect of a huge pulse of current intended to trigger sunlike nuclear reactions.

In August European and American researchers used seismological data from the Corot telescope (similar in concept to Kepler) to study magnetic activity on a distant sunlike star, an achievement that could provide insights into the poorly understood dynamo that drives our sun's 11 - year activity cycle.

Now observations of formerly sunlike stars called white dwarfs suggest that the overwhelming majority of them once harbored at least one rocky world.

Estimates of the odds of a planet in general vary; some studies suggest sunlike stars have about a one in 10 chance of hosting an Earth - like planet, for example, whereas others say it's possible nearly every main - sequence star has at least one planet of some type orbiting it.

Studies using the 4.2 - meter William Herschel Telescope at La Palma, Canary Islands, the 10 - meter Keck Telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and the Hubble Space Telescope revealed a more - or-less sunlike star at the known distance of the supernova (some 9200 light - years) but with an unusually high space velocity.

Rounding out the super-Earth triad In one of the Astrophysical Journal papers released this week, astronomer Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his colleagues found an even less massive super-Earth around 61 Virginis, a star just 28 light - years away that is approximately sunlike in mass, diameter and luminosity.

Two teams of researchers report today that they have detected a prebiotic molecule — a potential building block of life — around newly formed sunlike stars.

It surprises me a bit that Kepler - 22b is among the top five potentially habitable exoplanets, because, though its mother star is the only sunlike star among them (a G5 star), the planet is at least soe 30 Me, which makes it a sub / ice giant (Neptune class) at least, if not a real gas giant.

You can see that he was trying to shake them off, often obscuring figures under blocks of color or surrounding them with sunlike rays.

During the 1950s he painted abstract landscapes, which, in turn, led to his second principal style, called «bursts,» in which sunlike, static orb forms float above jagged areas.

It will revolutionize our knowledge of rocky planets and will enable the first directed search for life around sunlike stars in the next decade,» says Don Pollacco of the University of Warwick, who will lead the U.K. effort.

«Until about 10 years ago, we were only considering planets orbiting sunlike stars as suitable places for life,» Drake says.

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Astronomers have thus far found 17 planets circling other sunlike stars — enough for an early census of their properties.

But then, Phoenix, for example, scanned just one or two nearby sunlike stars out of each 100 million stars out there.

Although Kepler and Corot are focusing on sunlike stars that could support true analogues of Earth, much of the action at ground - based telescopes is concentrating on red dwarf stars, for the simple reason that planets are easier to find there.

There are a variety of other minor overlaps that make Juliet more sunlike than bouba - ish.

They then illuminated the surface with intense ultraviolet light, as you might get from a young sunlike star.

And because sunlike stars could account for up to half of the Milky Way's population of several hundred billion suns, that means hundreds or even thousands of civilizations might inhabit our galaxy.

Now we know for certain that there are many small, rocky worlds in the habitable zones of sunlike stars and can move on to the next important steps in answering the question, «Are we alone?»

Similar disks are observed today around other sunlike stars and are presumed to be new planetary systems in the making.

Such red dwarf stars are the most common in the universe and can have more angry outbursts of solar flares and coronal mass ejections than sunlike stars.

From March 2009 through May 2013, Kepler stared down about 145,000 sunlike stars in a tiny section of the night sky near the constellation Cygnus.

Kepler finished collecting its first mission's data in May 2013, when two hardware failures limited the telescope's ability to aim at one area of the night sky and stare at sunlike stars.