Ground Detection of a Super-Earth Transit

Forty light years from Earth, the planet 55 Cancri e was detected about a decade ago using radial velocity methods, in which the motion of the host star to and from the Earth can be precisely measured to reveal the signature of the orbiting body. Now comes news that 55 Cancri e has been bagged in a transit from the ground, using the 2.5-meter Nordic Optical Telescope on the island of La Palma, Spain. That makes the distant world's transit the shallowest we've yet detected from the Earth's surface, which bodes well for future small planet detections. Maybe 'small' isn't quite the right word -- 55 Cancri e is actually almost 26000 kilometers in diameter, a bit more than twice the diameter of the Earth -- which turned out to be enough to dim the light of the parent star by 1/2000th for almost two hours. The planet's period is 18 hours, bringing it close enough to reach temperatures on the dayside of 1700° Celsius. As the innermost of the five known worlds around 55 Cancri, 55 Cancri...

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WFIRST: The Starshade Option

What's ahead for exoplanet telescopes in space? Ashley Baldwin, who tracks today's exciting developments in telescope technology, today brings us a look at how a dark energy mission, WFIRST, may be adapted to perform exoplanet science of the highest order. One possibility is the use of a large starshade to remove excess starlight and reveal Earth-like planets many light years away. A plan is afoot to make starshades happen, as explained below. Dr. Baldwin is a consultant psychiatrist at the 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Trust (Warrington, UK), a former lecturer at Liverpool and Manchester Universities and, needless to say, a serious amateur astronomer. by Ashley Baldwin Big things have small beginnings. Hopefully. Many people will be aware of NASA's proposed 2024 WFIRST mission. Centauri Dreams readers will also be aware that this mission was originally identified in the 2010 Decadal Survey roadmap as a mission with a $1.7 billion budget to explore and quantify "dark energy". As an...

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Charter

In Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster looks at peer-reviewed research on deep space exploration, with an eye toward interstellar possibilities. For many years this site coordinated its efforts with the Tau Zero Foundation. It now serves as an independent forum for deep space news and ideas. In the logo above, the leftmost star is Alpha Centauri, a triple system closer than any other star, and a primary target for early interstellar probes. To its right is Beta Centauri (not a part of the Alpha Centauri system), with Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon Crucis, stars in the Southern Cross, visible at the far right (image courtesy of Marco Lorenzi).

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