Welcome to Astronotes
Hello, I’m Colin, welcoming you to Astronotes, the Planetarium’s official blog. Here you will find the latest news and views from the fascinating worlds of astronomy and space exploration. We hope you will come here to learn what is hot and exciting, profound or even weird from worlds beyond ours . So that's the introduction out of the way, now on with the Universe!
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Exoplanets Archive
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Alpha Centauri Bb: the Planet Next Door
Posted on October 17, 2012 | 1 CommentThree years ago, across the world, audiences flocked to see James Cameron’s epic movie ‘Avatar’, the story of a crippled human who gets a chance to live a new life... -
Too Close for Comfort
Posted on August 14, 2012 | No CommentsThe hunt for planets located outside of our own Solar System is not a new concept.Since 1995 scientists and astronomers have been aware of these distant worlds orbiting their host... -
Have we found an alien Earth?
Posted on September 15, 2011 | 2 CommentsA team of astronomers based at the European Southern Observatory have announced the discovery of more than 50 new exoplanets orbiting nearby stars. This is the largest number of such... -
Barnard’s Star and its Phantom Planets
Posted on August 4, 2011 | 1 CommentOnce planets orbiting other stars were unknown as they could not be directly observed. Several decades ago one astronomer was certain he had found the planets of a nearby star... -
Eight Record-breaking Exoplanets
Posted on July 20, 2011 | 5 CommentsOnce exoplanets, worlds orbiting other stars, were the stuff of science fiction but now we know of literally hundreds of real alien planets circling other stars. Astronomers can infer and... -
Kepler-11: a strange and crowded planetary system
Posted on February 3, 2011 | No CommentsKepler-11 is an amazing, newly-discovered system of exoplanets. About 2000 light years from Earth, six planets orbit a star like our Sun. Each planet is bigger and more massive than... -
“An unnatural interest in astronomy”
Posted on January 21, 2011 | No CommentsDon Pollacco, a research astronomer at Queens University Belfast, came to Armagh Planetarium to give a fascinating talk on exoplanets in January 2011. Afterwards Dr Pollaco kindly chatted to me... -
Kepler-10b: world of lava oceans?
Posted on January 11, 2011 | No CommentsNASA’s amazing Kepler planet-searching spacecraft has made a significant new discovery. Planet Kepler-10b is an inhospitable world but it is one of the smallest confirmed exoplanets yet found and may... -
Exoplanet HAT-P-1b: weird, warm and fuzzy
Posted on November 29, 2010 | No CommentsThe extra-solar planet HAT-P-1b has baffled astronomers since it was discovered in 2006. The planet is puffed up much larger than theory predicts. HAT-P-1 has a volume nearly twice than... -
ESO finds weird doomed planet from another galaxy
Posted on November 19, 2010 | 1 CommentCould HIP 13044 b be the strangest exoplanet yet found? We are getting used to the discoveries of bizarre exoplanets but newly-discovered world HIP 13044 b not only survived the...