Europe's Heaviest Cargo Ship Launched to Space Station

ESA / Arianespace - ATV-4 "Albert Einstein" Mission Launch poster / ESA - ATV-4 Mission patch.

5 June 2013

 Liftoff!

ESA’s fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle, Albert Einstein, was launched into orbit last evening from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Europe’s autonomous supply ship will perform a series of manoeuvres to dock with the International Space Station on 15 June.

Ariane 5 ES with ATV-4 liftoff

The Ariane 5 rocket, operated by Arianespace, lifted off at 21:52:11 GMT (23:52:11 CEST, 18:52:11 local time) and delivered ATV-4 into the planned circular parking orbit at 260 km altitude about 64 minutes later. ATV then deployed its four power-generating solar wings and antenna boom.

The ship is being monitored by the ATV Control Centre, jointly operated by ESA and CNES, the French space agency, in Toulouse. It will complete the Launch and Early Orbit Phase in some six hours after launch and is due to rendezvous and dock automatically with the Station at 13:46 GMT (15:46 CEST) on 15 June.

Heaviest spacecraft ever launched by Ariane

At 20 190 kg, ATV Albert Einstein is the heaviest spacecraft ever launched by Ariane, beating predecessor ATV Edoardo Amaldi by some 150 kg. ESA’s resupply and reboost vehicle is the largest, most advanced and most capable of the vehicles servicing the orbital outpost.

The solar panels and antennas are deployed, the electrical power on board is normal

“With another successful launch of the ATV, and another record in lifting capacity, European industry demonstrates its capacity to produce unique spacecrafts, providing ESA with a key role among the partners of the International Space Station,” noted Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General.

“This adventure is still in the making – ATV-4 is flying but ATV-5 is following and ATV technologies will survive beyond them in promising new programmes, such as NASA’s Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle, for which ESA is developing the service module.

Orion

"From ATV to Orion, ESA is building up capabilities which will provide Europe the capacity to be a key partner in future international exploration programmes," said Thomas Reiter, ESA Director of Human Spaceflight and Operations.

“Today, we’re supporting long-term settlement and scientific research in low orbit. Tomorrow, we will take this expertise beyond Earth orbit together with our partners.”

Delivering record payload

ATV-4 is carrying a record payload of 2480 kg dry cargo, including 620 kg of ‘last minute’ items, which were installed while on top of Ariane, less than two weeks before launch. Stored in ATV’s pressurised section, this cargo is also the most diverse ever, with more than 1400 items.

Loading cargo before launch

In addition, ATV-4 has 2580 kg of propellants for reboosting the Station’s orbit and 860 kg more to refill the tanks of the Zvezda module. It will also pump 570 kg of drinking water and 100 kg of gases (two tanks of oxygen, one of air) into the Station’s tanks.

Fully autonomous docking
ATV was developed for ESA by European industry, with Astrium as prime contractor, to deliver goods and propellants under a barter agreement with NASA to support Europe’s share of the Station’s operating costs. It features high-precision navigation systems, highly redundant flight software and a fully autonomous self-monitoring and collision-avoidance system with independent power supplies, control and thrusters.

No other spaceship approaching the Station has demonstrated such a level of autonomous control.

ATV approaching Station

Albert Einstein is the fourth in a series of five ATVs. It will spend over 4 months docked to the Zvezda module, during which it will provide extra storage room and a quiet rest area for the astronauts. It also offers a powerful manoeuvring capability to raise the Station’s altitude to combat natural orbital decay and, if required, to steer it out of the way of dangerous space debris.

At the end of its mission, filled with waste, it will undock on 28 October and make a safe controlled reentry over the South Pacific.

The last ATV, Georges Lemaître, is being prepared for launch in 2014.

For more information about Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), visit: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/ATV

ATV blog: http://blogs.esa.int/atv

ATV Control Centre: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/ATV/ATV_Control_Centre

Images, Video, Text, Credits: ESA / Arianespace / NASA / Screen captures by Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Hubble Maps 3-D Structure of Ejected Material Around Erupting Star

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch.

June 4, 2013

A flash of light from a stellar outburst has provided a rare look at the 3-D structure of material ejected by an erupting nova.

Astronomers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to observe the light emitted by the close double-star system T Pyxidis, or T Pyx, a recurring nova, during its latest outburst in April 2011.

Images above: Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 imaged the double-star system T Pyxidis, or T Pyx, over a four-month period. T Pyx is a recurrent nova, erupting every 12 to 50 years. T Pyx's latest outburst was in April 2011. The star is the white blob in the middle of each image. Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Crotts, J. Sokoloski, and H. Uthas (Columbia University), and S. Lawrence (Hofstra University).

A nova erupts when a white dwarf, the burned-out core of a sun-like star, has siphoned off enough hydrogen from a companion star to trigger a thermonuclear runaway. As hydrogen builds up on the surface of the white dwarf, it becomes hotter and denser until it detonates like a colossal hydrogen bomb, leading to a 10,000-fold increase in brightness in a little more than one day. Nova explosions are extremely powerful, equal to a blast of one million billion tons of dynamite. T Pyx erupts every 12 to 50 years.

Contrary to some predictions, the astronomers were surprised to find the ejecta from earlier outbursts stayed in the vicinity of the star and formed a disk of debris around the nova. The discovery suggests material continues expanding outward along the system's orbital plane, but it does not escape the system.

"We fully expected this to be a spherical shell," says Arlin Crotts of Columbia University, a member of the research team. "This observation shows it is a disk, and it is populated with fast-moving ejecta from previous outbursts."

Team member Stephen Lawrence of Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., will present the results Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Indianapolis.

Image above: Anatomy of a Debris Disk Around T Pyxidis . This illustration shows a disk of material ejected by an erupting star, called T Pyxidis, or T Pyx. T Pyx is a recurrent nova, erupting every 12 to 50 years and ejecting material that has formed the disk around the bright star. The disk is full of clumps of material that have comet-like tails pointing away from the star. Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI/AURA).

Team member Jennifer Sokoloski, also of Columbia University and co-investigator on the project, suggests these data indicate the companion star plays an important role in shaping how material is ejected, presumably along the system's orbital plane, creating the pancake-shaped disk. The disk is tilted about 30 degrees from face-on toward Earth.

Using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, the team took advantage of the blast of light emitted by the erupting nova to trace the light's path as it lit up the disk and material from previous ejecta. The disk is so vast, about a light-year across, that the nova's light cannot illuminate all of the material at once. Instead, the light sweeps across the material, sequentially illuminating parts of the disk, a phenomenon called a light echo. The light reveals which parts of the disk are nearer to Earth and which sections are farther away. By tracing the light, the team assembled a 3-D map of the structure around the nova.

"We've all seen how light from fireworks shells during the grand finale will light up the smoke and soot from shells earlier in the show," Lawrence said. "In an analogous way, we're using light from T Pyx's latest outburst and its propagation at the speed of light to dissect its fireworks displays from decades past."

Although astronomers have witnessed light propagating through material surrounding other novae, this is the first time the immediate environment around an erupting star has been studied in three dimensions.

Hubble Space Telescope. Image credit: NASA

Astronomers have studied light echoes from other novae, but those phenomena illuminated interstellar material around the stars instead of material ejected from them.

The team also used the light echo to refine estimates of the nova's distance from Earth. The new distance is 15,600 light-years from Earth. Previous estimates were between 6,500 and 16,000 light-years. T Pyx is located in the southern constellation Pyxis, or the Mariner's Compass.

The team is continuing to analyze the Hubble data to develop an outflow model. T Pyx has a history of outbursts. Besides the 2011 event, other previous known eruptions were seen in 1890, 1902, 1920, 1944, and 1966.

Astronomers call erupting stars novae, Latin for "new," because they abruptly appear in the sky. A nova quickly begins to fade in several days or weeks as the hydrogen is exhausted and blown into space.

The team also includes Helena Uthas of Columbia University. The team's results will appear online June 5 and will be published in the June 20, 2013, issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Sokoloski is the paper's lead author.

For images, and more information about T Pyxidis, visit: http://hubblesite.org/news/2013/21

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

For more information about NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble and http://www.spacetelescope.org/

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Solar Impulse landed at Lambert-St. Louis International

Solar Impulse Across America 2013 patch.

June 4, 2013

 Mission 2013 Dallas Fort Worth to Lambert - St. Louis -Take Off

Solar Impulse landed at Lambert-St. Louis International on Thursday June 4th at 1:28 AM CDT (UTC-5). The completion of the third leg of the 2013 Across America mission also inaugurates the use of the inflatable mobile hangar, deployed for the first time during a mission.

Mission 2013 Phoenix to Dallas Fort Worth - Landing

FLIGHT

- Flight: Dallas KDFW - St. Louis KSTL
- Pilot: Bertrand Piccard, Initiator and Chairman
- Take off time: June 3nd 04:06AM CDT (UTC-5)
- Landing time: June 4th 01:28AM CDT (UTC-5)
- Flight duration: 21h21min
- Average ground speed: 49 km/h (26.3 kt)
- Highest altitude reached: 7 315 m(24 000 ft)
- Flight Distance: 1040 km (~562 NM)

Image above: Bertrand landed at Lambert-St. Louis International airport at 01:28 AM CDT (UTC-5), Tuesday June 4th, completing his longest ever flight (21 hours 21 minutes).

This was Bertrand Piccard’s longest flight, lasting 21h 21min. André Borschberg will complete the mission by connecting Washington D.C. to New York City. It was the first time the solar aircraft flew below cirrus clouds, constituted of ice crystals. To everybody’s surprise, the batteries continued to charge at 30%-50% despite the cloud formations.

Solar Impulse Mission 2013 Phoenix to Dallas Fort Worth

MOBILE HANGAR

St. Louis was struck a devastating storm on Friday May 31st, including flash floods and tornadoes that caused large-scale power outages and serious infrastructure damage. The ferocity of the storms seriously affected Lambert-St. Louis and the hangar that was supposed to house the solar airplane. Solar Impulse therefore decided to deploy its own inflatable hangar for the first time during a mission. It’s a revolutionary ultra-light, very versatile structure especially intended for the flight around the world, scheduled for 2015.

OPEN DAY - PUBLIC VISIT

Two open house days will be organized so hurry up and sign up here for Thursday June 6th between 9 AM and 12 PM or Friday June 7th between 9 AM and 1 PM. Places are limited and handed out on a first comes, first serves basis. Everybody must have a valid ticket, including children, so don’t forget to sign up all your family members and bring the ticket with you to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. To get directions to the airport, click here: http://www.solarimpulse.com/images/SOLAR_IMPULSE_Public_Visit_in_st_louis-Directions_Map.jpg

CLEAN GENERATION

Launched with the Across America mission, Clean Generation is a global initiative to gather support for the adoption of clean technologies. Solar Impulse is the Ambassador of technological innovation and the project’s co-founders, Bertrand and André, are seeking to raise awareness worldwide in support of a more sustainable future.

By becoming a project supporter you will not only receive priority news in your inbox but your name will also join that of thousands of others who have become virtual passengers in the cockpit of the solar airplane in name of the Clean Generation movement. Today to become a Friend of the project!
http://www.solarimpulse.com/join_us/

For more information about Solar Impulse, visit: http://www.solarimpulse.com

Images, Video, Text, Credit: Solar Impulse.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA's Swift Produces Best Ultraviolet Maps of the Nearest Galaxies

NASA - Swift Mission patch.

June 3, 2013

Astronomers at NASA and Pennsylvania State University have used NASA's Swift satellite to create the most detailed ultraviolet light surveys ever of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the two closest major galaxies.

"We took thousands of images and assembled them into seamless portraits of the main body of each galaxy, resulting in the highest-resolution surveys of the Magellanic Clouds at ultraviolet wavelengths," said Stefan Immler, who proposed the program and led NASA's contribution from the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

A Swift Tour of the Nearest Galaxies in UV Light

Video above: New surveys conducted by NASA's Swift provide the most detailed overviews ever captured in ultraviolet light of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the two closest major galaxies to our own. Swift team member Stefan Immler, who proposed the imaging project, narrates this quick tour. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Immler presented a 160-megapixel mosaic image of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and a 57-megapixel mosaic image of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)at the 222nd American Astronomical Society meeting in Indianapolis on Monday.

The new images reveal about 1 million ultraviolet sources in the LMC and about 250,000 in the SMC. The images include light ranging from 1,600 to 3,300 angstroms, which is a range of UV wavelengths largely blocked by Earth's atmosphere.

Images above: Nearly a million ultraviolet sources appear in this mosaic of the Large Magellanic Cloud, which was assembled from 2,200 images taken by Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope. The 160-megapixel image required a cumulative exposure of 5.4 days. The image includes light from 1,600 to 3,300 angstroms -- UV wavelengths largely blocked by Earth's atmosphere -- and has an angular resolution of 2.5 arcseconds at full size. The LMC is about 14,000 light-years across. Slide your cursor over the image to compare the galaxy's appearance in optical light with this ultraviolet portrait. UV image credit: NASA/Swift/S. Immler (Goddard) and M. Siegel (Penn State) Visible image credit: Axel Mellinger, Central Michigan Univ.

"Prior to these images, there were relatively few UV observations of these galaxies, and none at high resolution across such wide areas, so this project fills in a major missing piece of the scientific puzzle," said Michael Siegel, lead scientist for Swift's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) at the Swift Mission Operations Center at the university in State College, Pa.

The LMC and SMC lie about 163,000 light-years and 200,000 light-years away, respectively, and orbit each other as well as our own Milky Way galaxy. The LMC is about one-tenth the size of the Milky Way and contains only 1 percent of the Milky Way's mass. The SMC is half the size of the LMC and contains about two-thirds of its mass.

Despite their modest sizes, the galaxies loom large in the sky because they are so close to us. Both extend far beyond the UVOT's field of view, which meant thousands of images were needed in order to cover both galaxies in three ultraviolet colors centered at wavelengths of 1,928 angstroms, 2,246 angstroms, and 2,600 angstroms.

Image above: This visible light mosaic shows the Large Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellanic Cloud. Separated by about 21 degrees, the two galaxies are readily visible from the Southern Hemisphere as faint, glowing patches in the night sky. The LMC and SMC are the closest major galaxies to our own and lie about 163,000 and 200,000 light-years away, respectively. Credit: Axel Mellinger, Central Michigan Univ.

Viewing in the ultraviolet allows astronomers to suppress the light of normal stars like the sun, which are not very bright at such higher energies, and provides a clearer picture of the hottest stars and star-formation regions. No telescope other than UVOT can produce such high-resolution wide-field multicolor surveys in the ultraviolet. Swift's wide-field imaging capabilities provide a powerful complement to the deeper, but much narrower-field imaging power of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

Image above: The Swift mosaic of the Small Magellanic Cloud contains about 250,000 ultraviolet sources. The 57-megapixel image was assembled from 656 separate snapshots. The image has a total exposure time of 1.8 days, an angular resolution of 2.5 arcseconds at full size, and maps UV light at wavelengths between 1,600 and 3,300 angstroms. The SMC is about 7,000 light-years across. Credit: NASA/Swift/S. Immler (Goddard) and M. Siegel (Penn State).

To produce the 160-megapixel LMC mosaic, Swift's UVOT acquired 2,200 snapshots for a cumulative exposure of 5.4 days. The 57-megapixel SMC image comprises 656 individual images with a total exposure of 1.8 days.

Both images have an angular resolution of 2.5 arc seconds, which is a measure of their sharpness. Sources separated by this angle, which is equivalent to the size of a dime seen from 1mile away, are visible as distinct objects.

"With these mosaics, we can study how stars are born and evolve across each galaxy in a single view, something that's very difficult to accomplish for our own galaxy because of our location inside it," Immler said.

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are readily visible from the Southern Hemisphere as faint, glowing patches in the night sky. The galaxies are named after Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese explorer who in 1519 led an expedition to sail around the world. He and his crew were among the first Europeans to sight the objects.

Pennsylvania State University manages the Swift Mission Operations Center, which controls Swift's science and flight operations. Goddard manages Swift, which was launched in November 2004. The satellite is operated in collaboration with Penn State, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va. International collaborators are in the United Kingdom and Italy, and the mission includes contributions from Germany and Japan.

Related Links:

Download high-resolution images and video in HD formats from NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11293

Penn State University's Swift Explorer iPhone App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/swift-explorer/id465669299?mt=8

Feature: "An Image Gallery Gift from NASA's Swift": http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/swift-images.html

Penn State's "Cool UVOT Pictures" gallery: http://www.swift.psu.edu/uvot/coolPics.php

Feature: "Swift Makes Best-ever Ultraviolet Portrait of Andromeda Galaxy": http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/uv_andromeda.html

Axel Mellinger's Milky Way Panorama: http://home.arcor-online.de/axel.mellinger/

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center / Francis Reddy.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Rare Stellar Alignment Offers Opportunity To Hunt For Planets

 

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch.

June 3, 2013

Image above: This plot shows the projected motion of the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri (green line) over the next decade, as plotted from Hubble Space Telescope observations. Because of parallax due to Earth's motion around the sun, the path appears scalloped. Because Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our sun (distance, 4.2 light-years), its angular motion across the sky is relatively fast compared to much more distant background stars. This means that in 2014 and 2016 Proxima Centauri will pass in front of two background stars that are along its path. The background image shows a wider view of the region of sky in the southern constellation Centaurus that Proxima is traversing. Credit:NASA, ESA, K. Sahu and J. Anderson (STScI), H. Bond (STScI and Pennsylvania State University), M. Dominik (University of St. Andrews), and Digitized Sky Survey (STScI/AURA/UKSTU/AAO).

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope will have two opportunities in the next few years to hunt for Earth-sized planets around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri.

The opportunities will occur in October 2014 and February 2016 when Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our sun, passes in front of two other stars. Astronomers plotted Proxima Centauri's precise path in the heavens and predicted the two close encounters using data from Hubble.

"Proxima Centauri's trajectory offers a most interesting opportunity because of its extremely close passage to the two stars," said Kailash Sahu, an astronomer with the Space Science Telescope Institute in Baltimore, Md. Sahu leads a team of scientists whose work he presented Monday at the 222nd meeting of American Astronomical Society in Indianapolis.

Red dwarfs are the most common class of stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Any such star ever born is still shining today. There are about 10 red dwarfs for every star like our sun. Red dwarfs are less massive than other stars. Because lower-mass stars tend to have smaller planets, red dwarfs are ideal places to go hunting for Earth-sized planets.

Previous attempts to detect planets around Proxima Centauri have not been successful. But astronomers believe they may be able to detect smaller terrestrial planets, if they exist, by looking for microlensing effects during the two rare stellar alignments.

Microlensing occurs when a foreground star passes close to our line of sight to a more distant background star. These images of the background star may be distorted, brightened and multiplied depending on the alignment between the foreground lens and the background source.

Hubble Space Telescope in orbit. Image credit: NASA

These microlensing events, ranging from a few hours to a few days in duration, will enable astronomers to measure precisely the mass of this isolated red dwarf. Getting a precise determination of mass is critical to understanding a star's temperature, diameter, intrinsic brightness, and longevity.

Astronomers will measure the mass by examining images of each of the background stars to see how far the stars are offset from their real positions in the sky. The offsets are the result of Proxima Centauri's gravitational field warping space. The degree of offset can be used to measure Proxima Centauri's mass. The greater the offset, the greater the mass of Proxima Centauri. If the red dwarf has any planets, their gravitational fields will produce a second small position shift.

Because Proxima Centauri is so close to Earth, the area of sky warped by its gravitation field is larger than for more distant stars. This makes it easier to look for shifts in apparent stellar position caused by this effect. However, the position shifts will be too small to be perceived by any but the most sensitive telescopes in space and on the ground. The European Space Agency's Gaia space telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope on Mt. Cerro Paranal in Chile may be able to make measurements comparable to Hubble's.

To identify possible alignment events, Sahu's team searched a catalog of 5,000 stars with a high rate of angular motion across the sky and singled out Proxima Centauri. It crosses a section of sky with the apparent width of the full moon as observed from Earth every 600 years.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

For more information about NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble and http://www.spacetelescope.org/

Images (mentioned), Text, Credit: NASA.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

Rocket Proton-M with the spacecraft SES-6 was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome

ILS / ROSCOSMOS - SES-6 Launch Mission poster.


03.06.2013

Launch of the Proton-M with the spacecraft SES-6

June 3 at 13 h 18 min. Moscow time from the launch complex area 200 Baikonur calculations of rocket launchers and space industry in Russia is produced launch Vehicle (ILV) Proton-M with the upper stage (RB) Breeze-M, and telecommunications spacecraft (SC) SES-6.

Launch of the Proton-M with the spacecraft SES-6

In accordance with the cyclogram flight 13 hours 28 min. MSK head unit in the Republic of Belarus Breeze-M and the SC SES-6, separated from the third stage of the launch vehicle.

Further jettison of the spacecraft to the target orbit at the end fuel of the propulsion upper stage.

Satellite Use:

SES-6 satellite

SES-6 is a multipurpose satellite built by Astrium and will be replacing NSS-806 at 319.5° east to provide significant capacity expansion over North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, and Atlantic Ocean region. The satellite’s expanded Ku-band payload will support DTH platforms, VSAT services and government digital inclusion programs throughout Latin America. The C-band payload will add incremental capacity to support channel growth at this key cable neighborhood.

Satellite Statistics:
        
- 43 C-band 36 MHz equivalent transponders
- 48 Ku-band 36 MHz equivalent transponders
- Planned orbital location: 319.5° east longitude
- Anticipated service life: 15 years

Press Release from ROSCOSMOS: http://www.federalspace.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=20130

Images, Video, Text, Credits: Press Service of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos PAO)/ ILS / Astrium / Translation: Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Lightest Exoplanet Imaged So Far?

ESO - European Southern Observatory logo.

3 June 2013

 VLT image of exoplanet HD 95086 b

A team of astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope has imaged a faint object moving near a bright star. With an estimated mass of four to five times that of Jupiter, it would be the least massive planet to be directly observed outside the Solar System. The discovery is an important contribution to our understanding of the formation and evolution of planetary systems.

Although nearly a thousand exoplanets have been detected indirectly — most using the radial velocity or transit methods [1] — and many more candidates await confirmation, only a dozen exoplanets have been directly imaged. Nine years after ESO's Very Large Telescope captured the first image of an exoplanet, the planetary companion to the brown dwarf 2M1207 (eso0428), the same team has caught on camera what is probably the lightest of these objects so far [2][3].

The star HD 95086 in the constellation of Carina

“Direct imaging of planets is an extremely challenging technique that requires the most advanced instruments, whether ground-based or in space,” says Julien Rameau (Institut de Planetologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble, France), first author of the paper announcing the discovery. “Only a few planets have been directly observed so far, making every single discovery an important milestone on the road to understanding giant planets and how they form.”

In the new observations, the likely planet appears as a faint but clear dot close to the star HD 95086. A later observation also showed that it was slowly moving along with the star across the sky. This suggests that the object, which has been designated HD 95086 b, is in orbit around the star. Its brightness also indicates that it has a predicted mass of only four to five times that of Jupiter.

View of the sky around young star HD 95086

The team used NACO, the adaptive optics instrument mounted on one of the 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT). This instrument allows astronomers to remove most of the blurring effects of the atmosphere and obtain very sharp images. The observations were made using infrared light and a technique called differential imaging, which improves the contrast between the planet and dazzling host star.

The newly discovered planet orbits the young star HD 95086 at a distance of around 56 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun, twice the Sun–Neptune distance. The star itself is a little more massive than the Sun and is surrounded by a debris disc. These properties allowed astronomers to identify it as an ideal candidate to harbour young massive planets. The whole system lies some 300 light-years away from us.

The youth of this star, just 10 to 17 million years, leads astronomers to believe that this new planet probably formed within the gaseous and dusty disc that surrounds the star. “Its current location raises questions about its formation process. It either grew by assembling the rocks that form the solid core and then slowly accumulated gas from the environment to form the heavy atmosphere, or started forming from a gaseous clump that arose from gravitational instabilities in the disc.” explains Anne-Marie Lagrange, another team member. “Interactions between the planet and the disc itself or with other planets may have also moved the planet from where it was born.”

Another team member, Gaël Chauvin, concludes, “The brightness of the star gives HD 95086 b an estimated surface temperature of about 700 degrees Celsius. This is cool enough for water vapour and possibly methane to exist in its atmosphere. It will be a great object to study with the forthcoming SPHERE instrument on the VLT. Maybe it can also reveal inner planets in the system — if they exist.” [4]

Notes:

[1] Astronomers have already confirmed the existence of nearly a thousand planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. Almost all were found using indirect methods that could detect the effects of the planets on their parent stars — the dips of brightness produced when planets crossed in front of them (the transit method), or the wobbling caused by the gravitational pull of planets in their orbits (the radial velocity method). So far, only a dozen exoplanets have been directly observed.

[2] Fomalhaut b may have a lower mass, but its brightness seems to be contaminated by light reflected from the surrounding dust, making the precise determination of its mass uncertain.

[3] This team also has observed an exoplanet around the star Beta Pictoris (eso1024), as well as several others.

[4] SPHERE is a second generation adaptive optics instrument that will be installed on the VLT in late 2013.

More information:

This research was presented in a paper entitled, “Discovery of a probable 4-5 Jupiter-mass exoplanet to HD95086 by direct-imaging”, to appear in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The team is composed of J. Rameau (Institut de Planetologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble France [IPAG]), G. Chauvin (IPAG), A.-M. Lagrange (IPAG), A. Boccaletti (Observatoire de Paris, France; University Pierre et Marie Curie Paris 6 and University Denis Diderot Paris 7, Meudon, France), S. P. Quanz (Institute for Astronomy, ETH Zurich, Switzerland), M. Bonnefoy (Max Planck Instiute für Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany [MPIA]), J. H. Girard (ESO, Santiago, Chile), P. Delorme (IPAG), S. Desidera (INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), H. Klahr (MPIA), C. Mordasini (MPIA), C. Dumas (ESO, Santiago, Chile), M. Bonavita (INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy), Tiffany Meshkat (Leiden Observatory, the Netherlands), Vanessa Bailey (Univ. of Arizona, USA), and Matthew Kenworthy (Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands).

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning the 39-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

Links:

Research paper: http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1324/eso1324a.pdf

Photos of the VLT: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/paranal/

Images taken with NACO: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&instrument=9

Images, Text, Credits: ESO / J. Rameau / Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin / IAU and Sky & Telescope.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch