DailyDirt: Strange New Worlds

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The universe is a big place, so it's possible to find pretty much anything you can think of -- if you're patient enough to scan the vastness of space. Here are just a few weird planets that astronomers have found recently.

• Kepler 16b isn't the lecture hall for your astronomy exam. It's the un-trademarked name of Tatooine. This is the first planet that's been observed orbiting a binary star system. [url]
• The Kepler telescope has been a busy bee. It's found two planets sharing the same orbit. These two co-orbiting planets, in the KOI-730 system, are always 120 degrees apart, so they don't collide. [url]
• The planet TrES-2b is so dark. How dark is it? It reflects less than 1 percent of the incident light from its parent star, and so it's darker than coal. (sorry, no joke here.) [url]
• Apparently, there are lots of "free agent" planets floating around the universe without a star to orbit. Expect a disaster movie where one of these lonely planets is headed straight for Earth (nevermind the statistical improbabilities). [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, kepler, orbit, planets, tatooine, telescope