Surface Oceans Around Distant Stars


	Surface Oceans Around Distant Stars

Silkweaver

4-28-2008 9:02 PM

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tags:

astronomy, exoplanets

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/9769e10e-c47b-4def-9fdf-cad503ef2e6a/CD68D492-ACEF-48E4-B9C9-8B7312AF9979/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1845" href="http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1845" style="font-size: 11px;">www.centauri-dreams.org</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1845">Would large amounts of water on the surface provide a glint of light in both the infrared and visible spectrum if we study a distant exoplanet long enough? That’s the premise of an investigation now in progress, one aiming to find Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of a star.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1845">If the goal sounds chimerical now, bear in mind that various planet-hunting missions like <A href="http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_index.cfm" linkindex="2" set="yes">Terrestrial Planet Finder</A> (in its various incarnations) and <A href="http://darwin.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=28" linkindex="3" set="yes">Darwin</A> are being designed to allow direct observation of planets as small as the Earth. Such observatories, which may be in place within two decades or less, could also examine the visible and infrared light curve of such planets over the course of an entire orbit.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1845">According to the paper on this work, half of all detected extrasolar planets will have orbital inclinations that make it possible to detect surface oceans. </blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/CD68D492-ACEF-48E4-B9C9-8B7312AF9979/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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