How to Size an Exoplanet? A Model Approach for Visualization

The realization and experiences with a physical exoplanet model in the education and outreach are described. During the tests with students in the classroom and adults at public demonstrations, the following conclusions were drawn: in the visualization it is effective to connect and install together the models of planets inside and outside the Solar System, where hot Jupiter’s easily fit into the orbit of Mercury.

The size of planets and orbital distance could be more effectively visualized with this method, using the Solar System as a context. The exoplanet model helps to expand the imagination of the audience on how does a planetary system look like, what is getting important as diverse views of explanatory systems emerging in recent years. This inexpensive model is useful in the education and outreach above all to make the audience more familiar with the parameters of exoplanets (here sizes, distances and partly masses), and it gives new input also for those persons who regularly read papers and news on exoplanets.

Does Space Weather Matter to Astrobiology? The International Space Weather Initiative

Space weather events can have significant effects all the way from the Sun to Earth. They have been implicated in the depletion of ozone and cloud formation, and their signatures may even be seen in ice core records spanning more than 400 years into the past. Solar activity at other planets, and elsewhere in the solar system, can be important, and violent flare activity can even be observed at other stars. Economically, these events may have severe consequences ranging from human exposure to increased radiation to disruption of communications, navigation and timing, and electrical power.

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Dichotomous Hypothesis of the Solar System Origin: Substantiation and Consequences for Astrobiology

The aim of this study consists in the advancement of the author’s dichotomous hypothesis of hot origin of the solar system that is alternate to the well-known hypotheses of cold accretion. The hypothesis proposes formation of solar planets and satellites through dichotomous division of the superheated proto planetary mass ejected from the youngest Sun due to strong non-equilibrium competition between gravitational contraction and heat expansion. 

Like the cold accretion hypotheses, the dichotomous hypothesis also explains the key regularities of the solar system structure (angular momentum distribution, position of the asteroid belt, back rotation of Venus and Uranus, etc.). Besides, it offers explanation of new data on extra solar planetary systems that is difficult to understand basing on the gradual cold accretion process (in particular, the misaligned proto planetary discs in the binary proto star IRS 43). Some predictions following of the given explanation can be examined during future observations. 

History of the Michelson Experiment

Gravitational waves carry information about their dramatic origins and about the nature of gravity that cannot otherwise be obtained. It has been concluded that the detected gravitational waves were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes to produce a single, more massive spinning black hole. Such a collision of two black holes had been predicted but never observed.

The gravitational waves were detected on September 14, 2015 at 5:53 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (9:53 a.m. UTC) by both of the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA.