Alien Planet Eclipse Seen In X-Ray Light: A Cosmic First.
Alien Planet Eclipse Seen In X-Ray Light: A Cosmic First..........
Megan Gannon 1 hour ago
Nearly two decades ago, researchers started detecting exoplanets by observing the dips in starlight that result when these alien worlds pass in front of their stars. But scientists had never before observed an exoplanet eclipse, called a "transit," in X-ray light.
"Thousands of planet candidates have been seen to transit in only optical light," study researcher Katja Poppenhaeger, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass., said in a statement. "Finally being able to study one in X-rays is important because it reveals new information about the properties of an exoplanet." http://www.space.com/22184-exoplanet-x-ray-eclipse-seen-for-the-first-time-video.html See the exoplanet eclipse in X-ray light (Video)
Poppenhaeger and her colleagues focused on the "hot Jupiter" exoplanet HD 189733b, which is similar in size to the gas giant Jupiter but is scorching hot. HD 189733b is more than 30 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun, which results in temperatures over 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius) and a year that lasts just 2.2 days.
This graphic depicts HD 189733b, the first exoplanet caught passing in front of its parent star in X …At 63 light-years from Earth, the alien planet HD 189733b is the closest hot Jupiter to our planet and is often targeted by astronomers who want to study its hostile environment. Observations have also revealed that the planet rains glass in howling 4,350 mph (7,000 km/h) winds, and scientists recently used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to confirm its deep blue hue. In the new study, the researchers used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to watch six transits of HD 189733b and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton spacecraft to observe one. They found that the dip in X-ray intensity during these transits was three times greater than the corresponding drop in optical light.
"The X-ray data suggest there are extended layers of the planet's atmosphere that are transparent to optical light but opaque to X-rays," study researcher Jurgen Schmitt of Hamburger Sternwarte in Hamburg, Germany, explained in a statement. "However, we need more data to confirm this idea."
http://news.yahoo.com/alien-planet-eclipse-seen-x-ray-light-cosmic-111120910.html
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