Technology Update

Nasa space telescope finds 'twin' of Earth orbiting a distant Sun-like star

6:12 AM anantasports No comments

A rocky planet the same size as the Earth has been discovered orbiting a star like our sun.

It is the first time a planet of this size has been detected in another solar system. Scientists have hailed the technical achievement of detecting Earth sized ‘exoplanets’ - the technical term for planets outside the solar system - as it increases the chances of finding life-bearing worlds.

Although the planet, Kepler-20f could have a thick water-vapour atmosphere, its surface is believed to be too hot for life.

A second planet in the same system, Kepler-20e, is only slightly smaller than Earth and even hotter.

Both worlds circle their parent star closely with 'years' that last just nine and sixteen days respectively.

Dr Francois Fressin, one of the astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Cambridge, US, said: ‘It is the first time humanity has been able to discover an object similar to the Earth around a star, so maybe we will be able to find others.

‘This could be an important milestone. I think 10 years or maybe even 100 years from now people will look back and ask when the first Earth-sized planet was found. It is very exciting.’

The parent star, Kepler-20, is not exactly a close neighbour, being 945 light years away.

Neither lie within the ‘habitable zone’ where temperatures are just warm enough to allow liquid surface water, increasing the prospects for life.

Earlier this month the telescope discovered Kepler-22b, a planet 2.4 times the size of the Earth situated in the middle of its habitable zone. But scientists say that Kepler 22-b may not be suitable for life.

‘You could fit 13 Earths inside Kepler-22b,’ said Dr Fressin. ‘The most likely thing is that it's simply a mini-Neptune, not suitable for life. Just because a planet lies within the habitable zone that doesn't mean it is habitable.’

Like Kepler-22b, the two new planets were found by the American space agency Nasa's Kepler space telescope - which scans distant stars for the signs of 'transits', planets passing in front of them.

The findings are reported today in an early online edition of the journal Nature.

Both planets are part of a solar system family already known to contain three larger worlds.
Kepler-20f has a radius just 1.03 times larger than Earth's, while Kepler-20e is 0.87 the size of the Earth.

The astronomers spent years making sure the signals they detected really were from planets.

‘We simulated all possible alternative configurations and tried to quantify the probability that a false signal could occur,’ said Dr Fressin. ‘We confirmed that the signals were coming from an Earth-size planet. It couldn't be due to anything else.’

Both planets are believed to be rocky, with a composition of iron and silicate, and very hot.
Kepler-20f is a baking 426C and Kepler-20e a scorching 726c.

The solar system is not hugely like our own, though. In our solar system small, rocky worlds orbit close to the Sun and large, gas giant worlds orbit farther out. In contrast, the planets of Kepler-20 are organized in alternating size: big, little, big, little, big.

'We were surprised to find this system of flip-flopping planets,' said co-author David Charbonneau of the CfA.

The planets of Kepler-20 could not have formed in their current locations. Instead, they must have formed farther from their star and then migrated inward, probably through interactions with the disk of material from which all the planets orbiting the star formed from.

Kepler identifies 'objects of interest' by looking for stars that dim slightly, which can occur when a planet crosses the star's face.

To confirm a transiting planet, astronomers look for the star to wobble as it is gravitationally tugged by its orbiting companion.

Brazilian baby 'born healthy with two heads... and both are suckling mother's breasts'

5:28 AM anantasports No comments

A Brazilian woman has given birth to a baby with two heads, it was reported today.

The boy was born by caesarean at a hospital in Anajas, in Brazil's northern Para state, weighing 9.9lbs.

Scans show that while the child has two perfectly-formed heads, he has one heart and all his vital organs function as normal.

According to doctors the newborn is in perfect health and both heads have started nursing normally.

According to dailymail.co.uk the 25-year-old mother, who lives in a rural area of the state, had no ultra-sound scans during her pregnancy and only found out about the abnormality minutes before the baby was born at 1am on Monday morning.

baby born with two head in brazil

Mr Vasconcelos added that at no point did the mother, who has three other children, appear distraught that her son has two heads.

He said: 'On the contrary, the baby was received with much happiness by the family.

'The mother fed both mouths and the baby stayed with her in her room the whole time. Her desire was to take her baby straight home.'

The mother and baby were taken by air ambulance yesterday afternoon to a specialist hospital in the state capital, Belem, to carry out further tests. They are expected to be allowed home later this week.

Remarkably, this is the second time a two-headed baby has been born in Brazil this year. Sueli Ferreira, 27, gave birth to a two-headed baby in Paraiba State, but it died a few hours later because of lack of oxygen to one of the child's heads.

Apple, Google working on wearable devices

3:52 AM anantasports No comments

You have Iphone Ipad and the entire gadget which are in market. What are you dreaming of now? May be some of you are dreaming about some wearable gadget. If you are expecting for that you don’t have to wait long!!!Apple and Google are working on wearable technology that would send data to their smartphones, US media reported Monday.

Logo of apple

Researchers in Google's secret Google X lab, a facility where Google is reportedly working on projects pertaining to future technologies, have begun working on peripherals that would communicate information back to Android smartphones when they are attached to one's clothing or body, said Bits, a technology blog of the New York Times, citing sources.
Apple is said to be working on a curved-glass, wrist-wearable iPod. Users could communicate with device with Apple's artificial intelligence software Siri and the information could be relayed to iPhone, reported Xinhua.

Logo of Google

A very small group of Apple employees had been conceptualizing and prototyping some devices, said Bits, citing a person with knowledge of the plan.
The core concept of the plans is to make smartphone become the central hub for mobile communication. Some analysts said the companies still need to ensure consumers to recognize the daily value of these novelty product-like devices.

dustbin-sized camera that captures speed of light is about to be available !!!

2:45 AM anantasports No comments

A super-fast camera, which is the size of a dustbin, is capable of capturing the speed of light, a new study including Indian origin researcher has revealed.

The camera can show a bullet-shaped pulse of light travelling from one end of a laboratory flask to another in a fraction of a second but Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said that it would take some time for the camera to be commercially available.

Researchers at MIT’s ‘blue-sky science’ think tank envision that super-fast photography could benefit mankind within 10 years and could even lead to hand-held medical scanners being used in hospitals.
“With our ultra-fast imaging we can actually analyse how the photons are travelling through the world,” the Daily Mail quoted Ramesh Raskar, associate professor of media arts at the MIT Media Lab as telling The Sunday Times.
The camera, which captures images at one trillion exposes per second, can also produce 3D images, as it is competent of ‘seeing’ photons of light even inside objects.

The device was created by adapting a ‘streaker tube’ - used by chemists to scan and capture light. It can record the progress of light pulses through a flask of liquid.

“Watching this it looks like light in slow motion. It is so slow you can see the light itself move across the distance.”

“This is the speed of light captured: there is nothing in the universe that moves faster, so we are at the physical limit of high-speed photography,” Raskar added.