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Astronomers Predicts that Comet ISON could outshine the full Moon Next year.


The newly discovered comet, popular as comet ISON, because it travel within 1.2 million miles (1.9 million km) from the center of the sun on Nov. 28, 2013 said astronomer Donald Yeomans, chief of NASA's Near Earth Object Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Astronomers think that the approaching ISON Comet to the Earth could outshine the full moon when it passes by at the end of next year. As the comet approaches, heat from the sun will vaporize ices in its body, creating what could be a spectacular tail that is visible in Earth's night sky without telescopes or even binoculars from about October 2013 through January 2014. Comet ISON could break apart as it nears the sun, or it could fail to produce a tail of ice particles visible from Earth.

Celestial visitors like Comet ISON hail from the Oort Cloud, a cluster of frozen rocks and ices that circle the sun about 50,000 times farther away than Earth's orbit. Every so often, one will be gravitationally bumped out from the cloud and begin a long solo orbit around the sun. On Sept. 21, two amateur astronomers from Russia spotted what appeared to be a comet in images taken by a 16-inch (0.4-meter) telescope that is part of the worldwide International Scientific Optical Network, or ISON, from which the object draws its name.

"The object was slow and had a unique movement. But we could not be certain that it was a comet because the scale of our images are quite small and the object was very compact," astronomer Artyom Novichonok, one of the discoverers, wrote in a comets email list hosted by Yahoo. Novichonok and co-discoverer Vitali Nevski followed up the next night with a bigger telescope at the Maidanak Observatory in Uzbekistan. Other astronomers did likewise, confirming the object, located beyond Jupiter's orbit in the constellation Cancer, was indeed a comet.

Comet ISON's path is very similar to a comet that passed by Earth in 1680, one which was so bright its tail reportedly could be seen in daylight.The projected orbit of comet ISON is so similar to the 1680 comet that some scientists are wondering if they are fragments from a common parent body. "Comet ISONcould be the brightest comet seen in many generations - brighter even than the full moon," wrote British astronomer David Whitehouse in The Independent. In 2013, Earth has two shots at a comet show. Comet Pan-STARRS is due to pass by the planet in March, eight months before ISON's arrival. NASA's Mars Curiosity rover may be able to provide a preview. Comet ISON is due to pass by the red planet in September and could be a target for the rover from its vantage point inside Gale Crater.

www.reuters.com

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Astronomers predicts to discover 'Alien Planet' in 2013


The first alien planet is probably to be found next year, an amazing discovery that would cause mankind to reassess its place in the universe. When scientist have found a lot of exoplanets over the last few years that find one or two key features with our earth — such as size or inferred surface temperature — they have yet to bag a bona fide "alien Earth." But that should change in 2013, scientists say.
"I'm very positive that the first Earth twin will be found next year," said Abel Mendez, who runs the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo.
Astronomers found the first exoplanet orbiting a sunlike star in 1995. Since they, they've located more than 800 worlds beyond our own solar system, and many more candidates await confirmation by follow-up observations.

NASA's huges Kepler Space Telescope, for example, has flagged more than 2,300 potential planets since its March 2009 launch. Only 100 or so have been confirmed to date, but mission scientists estimate that at least 80 percent will end up being the real deal.
The first exoplanet finds were scorching-hot Jupiter-like worlds that orbit close to their parent stars, because they were the closest to detect. But over time, new devices came online and planet hunters honed their methodes, enabling the discovery of smaller and more distantly orbiting planets — places more like Earth.

Last December, for instance, Kepler found a planet 2.4 times larger than Earth orbiting in its star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances where liquid water, and perhaps life as we know it, can exist. The Kepler team and other research groups have detected several other worlds like that one (which is known as Kepler-22b), bringing the current tally of potentially habitable exoplanets to nine  by Mendez' reckoningNone of the worlds in Mendez' Habitable Exoplanets Catalog are small enough to be true Earth twins. The handful of Earth-size planets located to date all orbit too close to their stars to be suitable for life. But it's only a matter of time before a small, rocky planet is located in the habitable zone — and Mendez isn't the only astronomer who expects that time is coming soon.

"The first planet with a measured size, orbit and incident stellar flux that is suitable for life is likely to be announced in 2013," said Geoff Marcy, a veteran planet hunter at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the Kepler team. Mendez and Marcy both expect this watershed find will be made by Kepler, which spots planets by flagging the telltale brightness dips caused when they pass in front of their parent stars from the instrument's perspective. Kepler needs to witness three of these"transits" to detect a planet, so its early discoveries were tilted toward close-orbiting worlds (which transit more frequently). But over time, the telescope has been spotting more and more distantly orbiting planets — including some in the habitable zone.

www.space.com

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