My Inward Eye.....

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Second President of India.
"Reading a book gives us the habit of solitary reflection and true enjoyment."

THE SUPER EARTH(Gliese 581g)

It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning and that all that is and has been is but twilight of the dawn, it is possible to believe that human mind has ever accomplished, is but the dream before the awakening. Out of our...lineage , minds will spring, that will reach back to us in our littleness , to know us better than we know ourselves. A day will come, one day in the unending succession of days when beings, being who are latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this Earth as one stands upon a foot stool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amids the Stars........H.G. Wells "The Discovery of the Future".....(1902)

The Exoplanet Gliese 581g was discovered by Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution lead the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey.. A planet outside our Solar System Gliese581g is nearly 20 light years away from a red dwarf Star in the constellaion 'Libra'. Red dwarfs are 50 Times dimmer than our Sun. The planet Gliese581g is closer to its Sun still remains in the habitable zone also known as Goldilock zone. (not too hot not too cold right temperature and has liquid to sustain life.). It takes just 37days(earth) to complete its rotation round its Sun. "This really is the first Goldilocks planet," said co-discoverer R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Vogt and Butler used ground-based telescopes to track the star's precise movements over 11 years and watch for wobbles that indicate planets are circling it. The newly discovered planet is actually the sixth found circling Gliese 581. Two looked promising for habitability for a while, another turned out to be too hot and the fifth is likely too cold. This sixth one bracketed right in the sweet spot in between, Vogt said.

With the star designated "a," its sixth planet is called Gliese 581g.

"It's not a very interesting name and it's a beautiful planet," Vogt said. Unofficially, he's named it after his wife: "I call it Zarmina's World."

The Gliese581g planet is tidally locked to the Star. Meaning one side always basks in daylight and the other side in perpetual darkness. Like our moon it same side is always facing our earth. The Scientist further predict that the most habitable zone of Gliese581g will be the line between the shadow and light.(Known as the Terminator).

Gliese 581g mass is 3.1 to 4.3 times that of Earths . It is considered as Super Earth.“It’s really hard to detect a planet like this,” Vogt said. “Every time we measure the radial velocity, that’s an evening on the telescope, and it took more than 200 observations with a precision of about 1.6 meters per second to detect this planet.”

The discovery of a potentially habitable planet like Gliese 581 g so early in the search might mean that habitable planets are more widely distributed than had been previously believed. According to Vogt, the discovery "implies an interesting lower limit on the fraction of stars that have at least one potentially habitable planet as there are only ~116 known solar-type or later stars out to the 6.3 parsec distance of Gliese 581."This finding foreshadows what Vogt calls a new, second Age of Discovery in exoplanetology:(wikipedia)

Due to its proximity to Earth and potential in habitable zone.- Search for extra terristrial Life of any form is being explored by NASA.and ESA in following years. Scientist have further predicted that there are more than 10% such planets(habitable zone) in our Galaxy itself.

GLIESE 581g FACT FILE

· Diameter - 1.2 to 1.4 times that of the Earth

· Mass - 3.1 and 4.3 times that of the Earth

· Average surface temperature - between -24F and 10F (-31C and -12C)

· Distance from the Earth - 20 light years or 118,000,000,000,000 miles

· Time needed to travel to Gliese 581g in a rocket travelling one tenth the speed of light, or 19,000 miles per second - 200 years

· One of six planets to orbit the star Gliese 581

· Length of year - 37 Earth days

· Gravity - similar or slightly higher than Earth

· Distance from its sun - around six million miles

· The planet orbits a red dwarf which is 50 times cooler and a third the size of our Sun

· Composition - rocky with liquid water and atmosphere .

My above article got published in The Hitavada on 23/9/2012.

- Prajakta Dighe

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

ॐ OM is Brahman.

OM is All.

One who meditates on OM attains to Brahman.

~ Taittiriya Upanishad

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Exploring Saturn's Moon 'Titan'

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Magnificient TITAN

Heaven wheels above you displaying to you her eternal glories and still your eyes are on the ground.______ Dante

Titan is the second largest moon of Saturn. (Ganymede of Jupiter being the largest). Titan was discovered by a Dutch Astronomer Christiaan Huygens in the 1655 march 25. He named it Saturni Luna. Later John Herschel son of William Herschel(German born British Astronomer) named it Titan. Titan was a race of powerful deities descendants of Gaia and Uranus that ruled during the legendary Golden age. There are nearly 60 or more moons of Saturn. Some are very small and are still being studied. The largest among them is'Titan' it is larger than planet Mercury. The NASA's Cassinis mission has unfolded its charecteristics.. It is very dense, covered with heavy clouds. It is surrounded by an orange haze , differes from the rest of the Saturn’s moons. Titans dense atmosphere creates Green House Effect. The heat that comes from Sun through dim sunlight gets trapped inside. The scientists have found Titan very interesting as it may share some similarities to an early Earth.

The Cassini - Huygens probe sent information about Titans atmosphere. ..Its atmosphere is active and complex, mainly composed of Nitrogen(95%) and Methane (5%). Elements like Carbon Oxygen Hydrogen are also found which are essential for life. Sand dunes made of hydrocarbons and liquid methane lakes are largely found. Earths atmosphere is made up of mostly Nitrogen and small amount of Oxygen (essential for human life). This similarity makes the scientist believe that Titan may harbor some kind of Life.They believe that lifeforms on Titans could have evolved to use methane in the way that lifeforms on Earth use water, and can survive in much cooler temperature than those on Earth. The lifeforms on Earth cannot survive on Titan. Titan has very weak gravity. If humans land there it will be possible for them to fly in its atmosphere. Methane is non poisonous but flammable. There is an abundance of Methane lake in the southern pole. Liquid methane evapourates and there is methane rain occasionally. Titan is covered with thick layers of ice. Its surface temperature is -290F(-179 degrees C). Its surface pressure is slightly lighter than Earth.There is no magnetic field . Titans diameter is (50%) larger than Earths Moon and is larger than planet Mercury but its mass is half than of Mercury.

Titan orbits Saturn in neary 16 days. It takes 16 days to spin around its axis. Its rotation is called Synchronous- meaning that the same side of it always faces the Saturn.

It is indeed a marvellous and interesting moon in the Solar System for the Scientist to Explore further..

Published in The Hitavada dt.26/8/2012