DailyDirt: The Rest Of The Universe

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There's a lot we don't know about the universe. Until relatively recently, we weren't even sure how big the universe is. Telescopes looking deep into space have gathered a lot of interesting information, and we're finding all sorts of strange phenomena and types of extra-solar planets. Here are just a few cool tidbits about planets from far, far away.

• Nomad planets could be floating around our galaxy without orbiting a star in surprisingly large numbers. Based on some new estimates, there might be 100,000 times more nomad planets in the Milky Way than stars. [url]
• The Hubble telescope has found a totally new class of planet that is made of an enormous amount of water. Given the density of this waterworld, GJ1214b has more water than Earth and much less rockiness. [url]
• The Kepler Space Telescope has discovered over a thousand planets outside our solar system, and a few other star systems have interesting planetary orbit patterns. One "Kepler Object of Interest" (KOI) is a system in which there are planets that share the same orbit. In another KOI, all the planets circle their star in under a week. Strange, new worlds, indeed. [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: astronomy, exoplanets, hubble, kepler, koi, nomad planets, telescopes