New Kepler results!
Scientists released additional Kepler results [pdf] today, this time describing what they are learning about the stars being observed rather than any planets that might be orbiting them. In studying each star’s minute variations of light, the astronomers can track how the star itself is oscillating like a bell ringing. From this they can do a kind of stellar seismology, finding out a great deal about what is going on inside the star. The data has thus:
- produced the most precise measurements of the size and age of another star beside the Sun. KIC 11026764 has a radius 2.05 times the size of the Sun, and is now believed to be 5.94 billion years old, slightly older than the Sun’s 4.57 billion years. Though larger than the Sun, this star is a G-type star like the Sun. So far, Kepler has observed about 1500 solar-type stars. The astronomers are still analyzing this data, with results to follow.
- measured the oscillations of a thousand red giant stars, ranging from slightly larger to dozens of times larger than the Sun. The larger the star, the faster the oscillation and the larger the amplitude, which in turn has confirmed the theories about how the nuclear processes in the core of stars evolve over time, shifting from burning hydrogen to helium. Since these red giants are what our Sun will be like when it reaches old age, we are thus learning something about the Sun’s future.
- and provided the most precise measurements ever of RR Lyrae stars, a class of unusual variable stars that have puzzled astronomers for more than a century. From this data the astronomers hope to find out exactly why these stars fluctuate as they do.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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