Thursday, April 26, 2012
Penn State University astronomers using the world's largest radio telescope, at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, have discovered flaring radio emissions from an ultra-cool star, not much warmer than the planet Jupiter, shattering the previous record for the lowest stellar temperature at which radio waves were detected. More information is online at http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2012-news/Wolszczan4-2012.
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Tuesday, November 25, 2008
A team of astronomers from Penn State and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland has discovered a new planet that is closely orbiting a red-giant star, HD 102272, which is much more evolved than our own Sun. The planet has a mass that is nearly six times that of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. The team includes Alexander Wolszczan, the discoverer of the first planets ever found outside our solar system, who is an Evan Pugh professor of astronomy and astrophysics and the director of the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds at Penn State; and Andrzej Niedzielski, who leads his collaborators in Poland. The team suspects that a second planet may be orbiting HD 102272, as well. The findings, which will be published in a future issue of the Astrophysical Journal, shed light on the ways in which aging stars can influence nearby planets. (more)
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Developing strategies for finding life on other planets and in extreme environments on Earth will be the focus of Penn State's new astrobiology initiative under a five-year grant from NASA's Astrobiology Institute for "Signatures of Life from Earth and Beyond." Christopher H. House, associate professor of geosciences, will lead an interdisciplinary team to develop methods to detect and characterize life, look for biological signatures in relevant ecosystems in ancient rocks and other places on Earth, and evaluate the potential for biological signatures to exist in extraterrestrial settings. Penn State is the only university that has been continuously funded by NASA's Astrobiology Institute, according to House. (more)
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
A free public lecture titled "Other Worlds in the Universe" will be given by Michel Mayor, a discoverer of the first planet orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system, as the the first in a series of events that will celebrate the inauguration of Penn State's new Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds. The lecture, which is intended for the general public as well as for scientists, will take place at 7 p.m. Sept. 24, in 112 Kern Building on the Penn State University Park campus. (more)
