New planet-hunting tool chases after star system's little brown dwarf
New planet-hunting tool chases after star system's little brown dwarf
The Sphere instrument on the VLT in Chile peers with all its might into the blackness around a binary star system and returns a surprise for astronomers.
by Michael Franco
@writermfranco
/February 18, 2015 5:30 AM PST
Usually, stories related to the Very Large Telescope array -- a collection of four telescopes built by the European Southern Observatory in Chile -- have to do with astounding things the high-powered lenses have discovered. On Wednesday, the VLT made news for something it failed to spot -- namely, a brown dwarf star that was believed to have been orbiting a binary star system known as V471 Tauri, in the Taurus constellation.
One of the two closely orbiting stars that make up V471 Tauri is a white dwarf and the other is a normal star like our sun, according to a report about the star system on NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory's website. The binary system is located about 163 light-years from Earth and the distance between the two stars is one-thirtieth the distance between Mercury and the sun, which means they make a full revolution around each other every 12 hours.
When either star passes in front of each other, astronomers can read the changing light signals from the system. A team of led by Adam Hardy of Chile's Universidad Valparaiso measured the changes in brightness down to a very accurate 2 seconds by using the Ultracam system on ESO's New Technology Telescope. The Ultracam is a superfast camera attached to the VLT that can take up to 500 pictures per second in three different colors simultaneously.
The researchers discovered that the eclipses between the two stars didn't happen at a regular interval like they anticipated. To explain the anomaly, astronomers have theorized that there must be a brown dwarf orbiting the system and warping the orbit of the binary stars with its gravitational influence. Brown dwarfs, which are sometimes described as "failed stars," form when a cloud of gas and dust begins to congeal around a central core as in star formation. But in the case of the dwarfs, the material at the core never gets packed in tightly enough to start nuclear fusion and lead to a proper star. So these brown stars float through the galaxy -- not quite stars, not quite planets.
More:
http://www.cnet.com/news/very-large-telescope-fails-to-find-star-systems-little-brown-dwarf/
= new reply since forum marked as read
(Ignoring passing gas through ass, which is an aberration by itself.)
For those who do not know: All big telescopes these days are Newtonian (or other design) reflectors, with curved mirrors, not lenses.
And there are some really big ones in store in the near future.
Behold, the E-ELT, the European Extremely Large Telescope, currently under construction in Chile.
With a 39 meter aperture (that's just a bit under 130 feet for those in the USA, or the scientifically illiterate, but I repeat myself). It will dwarf every telescope that is currently operational.
And yup. It is being built by Europe, not the USA. Just like Europe has the LHC while the USA payed 2 billion dollars to bury the tunnels they spent two billion dollars digging for the Superconducting Supercollider in Texas. 
We sent people to the moon. Now we cannot even get them into suborbital, let alone orbital missions. The moon? Hah! Don't even think about a moon base. We'd rather invade Fallujah.
The sun has set on science in the USA, a country which in my lifetime has long since switched to valuing ignorance, fame, and wealth above any knowledge.
It makes me sick even to think of it.
It's a Gregorian off-axis all reflecting scope with adaptive optics..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_K._Inouye_Solar_Telescope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope
JWST's capabilities will enable a broad range of investigations across the fields of astronomy and cosmology. One particular goal involves observing some of the most distant objects in the Universe, beyond the reach of current ground and space based instruments. This includes the very first stars, the epoch of reionization, and the formation of the first galaxies. Another goal is understanding the formation of stars and planets. This will include imaging molecular clouds and star-forming clusters, studying the debris disks around stars, direct imaging of planets, and spectroscopic examination of planetary transits.
A moon base would be an extremely expensive waste of money and it would be based on science fiction fantasies. Unmanned space missions are far cheaper and can also produce great science. I'm all for increasing the budget for good science.
JWST is a huge project, but a risky one. If it gets to the Lagrange point and gets into service that will be quite an accomplishment.
As far as human occupied missions go, I am for them. But then again, I grew up in the 1950's so seeing it all happen for the first time sticks firmly into my brain. I cannot let that go. Nor will I.
I am unequivocally for manned space exploration. If we had not abandoned it we possibly could have already built a moon base. Instead, we fought wars and built an unsafe low earth orbit system. I know that this may be hyperbole, but I cannot let go thoughts on what might have been. I know, it is romance. But sometimes it takes dreams to excel.
Like Apollo. There was nothing like it in human history. Nothing ever like it. It is what inspires people to go further. I feel we have forgotten that. That is sad.
So I respectfully disagree with you on that issue.
