Feb. 6, 2013 ? Using publicly available data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have found that six percent of red dwarf stars have habitable, Earth-sized planets. Since red dwarfs are the most common stars in our galaxy, the closest Earth-like planet could be just 13 light-years away.
"We thought we would have to search vast distances to find an Earth-like planet. Now we realize another Earth is probably in our own backyard, waiting to be spotted," said Harvard astronomer and lead author Courtney Dressing (CfA).
Dressing presented her findings today in a press conference at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.
Red dwarf stars are smaller, cooler, and fainter than our Sun. An average red dwarf is only one-third as large and one-thousandth as bright as the Sun. From Earth, no red dwarf is visible to the naked eye.
Despite their dimness, these stars are good places to look for Earth-like planets. Red dwarfs make up three out of every four stars in our galaxy for a total of at least 75 billion. The signal of a transiting planet is larger since the star itself is smaller, so an Earth-sized world blocks more of the star's disk. And since a planet has to orbit a cool star closer in order to be in the habitable zone, it's more likely to transit from our point of view.
Dressing culled the Kepler catalog of 158,000 target stars to identify all the red dwarfs. She then reanalyzed those stars to calculate more accurate sizes and temperatures. She found that almost all of those stars were smaller and cooler than previously thought.
Since the size of a transiting planet is determined relative to the star size, based on how much of the star's disk the planet covers, shrinking the star shrinks the planet. And a cooler star will have a tighter habitable zone.
Dressing identified 95 planetary candidates orbiting red dwarf stars. This implied that at least 60 percent of such stars have planets smaller than Neptune. However, most weren't quite the right size or temperature to be considered truly Earth-like. Three planetary candidates were both warm and approximately Earth-sized. Statistically, this means that six percent of all red dwarf stars should have an Earth-like planet.
"We now know the rate of occurrence of habitable planets around the most common stars in our galaxy," said co-author David Charbonneau (CfA). "That rate implies that it will be significantly easier to search for life beyond the solar system than we previously thought."
Our Sun is surrounded by a swarm of red dwarf stars. About 75 percent of the closest stars are red dwarfs. Since 6 percent of those should host habitable planets, the closest Earth-like world is likely to be just 13 light-years away.
Locating nearby, Earth-like worlds may require a dedicated small space telescope, or a large network of ground-based telescopes. Follow-up studies with instruments like the Giant Magellan Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope could tell us whether any warm, transiting planets have an atmosphere and further probe its chemistry.
Such a world would be different from our own. Orbiting so close to its star, the planet would probably be tidally locked. However, that doesn't prohibit life since a reasonably thick atmosphere or deep ocean could transport heat around the planet. And while young red dwarf stars emit strong flares of ultraviolet light, an atmosphere could protect life on the planet's surface. In fact, such stresses could help life to evolve.
"You don't need an Earth clone to have life," said Dressing.
Since red dwarf stars live much longer than Sun-like stars, this discovery raises the interesting possibility that life on such a planet would be much older and more evolved than life on Earth.
"We might find an Earth that's 10 billion years old," speculated Charbonneau.
The three habitable-zone planetary candidates identified in this study are Kepler Object of Interest (KOI) 1422.02, which is 90 percent the size of Earth in a 20-day orbit; KOI 2626.01, 1.4 times the size of Earth in a 38-day orbit; and KOI 854.01, 1.7 times the size of Earth in a 56-day orbit. All three are located about 300 to 600 light-years away and orbit stars with temperatures between 5,700 and 5,900 degrees Fahrenheit. (For comparison, our Sun's surface is 10,000 degrees F.)
These results will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.
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New coal technology harnesses energy without burning, nears pilot-scale developmentPublic release date: 6-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Pam Frost Gorder gorder.1@osu.edu 614-292-9475 Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, OhioA new form of clean coal technology reached an important milestone recently, with the successful operation of a research-scale combustion system at Ohio State University. The technology is now ready for testing at a larger scale.
For 203 continuous hours, the Ohio State combustion unit produced heat from coal while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction.
Liang-Shih Fan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of Ohio State's Clean Coal Research Laboratory, pioneered the technology called Coal-Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL), which chemically harnesses coal's energy and efficiently contains the carbon dioxide produced before it can be released into the atmosphere.
"In the simplest sense, combustion is a chemical reaction that consumes oxygen and produces heat," Fan said. "Unfortunately, it also produces carbon dioxide, which is difficult to capture and bad for the environment. So we found a way to release the heat without burning. We carefully control the chemical reaction so that the coal never burnsit is consumed chemically, and the carbon dioxide is entirely contained inside the reactor."
Dawei Wang, a research associate and one of the group's team leaders, described the technology's potential benefits. "The commercial-scale CDCL plant could really promote our energy independence. Not only can we use America's natural resources such as Ohio coal, but we can keep our air clean and spur the economy with jobs," he said.
Though other laboratories around the world are trying to develop similar technology to directly convert coal to electricity, Fan's lab is unique in the way it processes fossil fuels. The Ohio State group typically studies coal in the two forms that are already commonly available to the power industry: crushed coal "feedstock," and coal-derived syngas.
The latter fuel has been successfully studied in a second sub-pilot research-scale unit, through a similar process called Syngas Chemical Looping (SCL). Both units are located in a building on Ohio State's Columbus campus, and each is contained in a 25-foot-high insulated metal cylinder that resembles a very tall home water heater tank.
No other lab has continuously operated a coal-direct chemical looping unit as long as the Ohio State lab did last September. But as doctoral student Elena Chung explained, the experiment could have continued.
"We voluntarily chose to stop the unit. We actually could have run longer, but honestly, it was a mutual decision by Dr. Fan and the students. It was a long and tiring week where we all shared shifts," she said.
Fan agreed that the nine-day experiment was a success. "In the two years we've been running the sub-pilot plants, our CDCL and SCL units have achieved a combined 830 operating hours, which clearly demonstrates the reliability and operability of our design," he said.
At any one time, the units each produce about 25 thermal kilowattsthat is, thermal energy, which in a full-scale power plant would be used to heat water and turn the steam-powered turbines that create electricity.
The researchers are about to take their technology to the next level: a larger-scale pilot plant is under construction at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Carbon Capture Center in Wilsonville, AL. Set to begin operations in late 2013, that plant will produce 250 thermal kilowatts using syngas.
The key to the technology is the use of tiny metal beads to carry oxygen to the fuel to spur the chemical reaction. For CDCL, the fuel is coal that's been ground into a powder, and the metal beads are made of iron oxide composites. The coal particles are about 100 micrometers acrossabout the diameter of a human hairand the iron beads are larger, about 1.5-2 millimeters across. Chung likened the two different sizes to talcum powder and ice cream sprinkles, though the mix is not nearly so colorful.
The coal and iron oxide are heated to high temperatures, where the materials react with each other. Carbon from the coal binds with the oxygen from the iron oxide and creates carbon dioxide, which rises into a chamber where it is captured. Hot iron and coal ash are left behind. Because the iron beads are so much bigger than the coal ash, they are easily separated out of the ash, and delivered to a chamber where the heat energy would normally be harnessed for electricity. The coal ash is removed from the system.
The carbon dioxide is separated and can be recycled or sequestered for storage. The iron beads are exposed to air inside the reactor, so that they become re-oxidized be used again. The beads can be re-used almost indefinitely, or recycled.
Since the process captures nearly all the carbon dioxide, it exceeds the goals that DOE has set for developing clean energy. New technologies that use fossil fuels should not raise the cost of electricity more than 35 percent, while still capturing more than 90 percent of the resulting carbon dioxide. Based on the current tests with the research-scale plants, Fan and his team believe that they can meet or exceed that requirement.
###
The DOE funded this research, and collaborating companies include Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, Inc.; CONSOL Energy, Inc.; and Clear Skies Consulting, LLC.
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu
Editor's note: An image is available from Pam Frost Gorder.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New coal technology harnesses energy without burning, nears pilot-scale developmentPublic release date: 6-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Pam Frost Gorder gorder.1@osu.edu 614-292-9475 Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, OhioA new form of clean coal technology reached an important milestone recently, with the successful operation of a research-scale combustion system at Ohio State University. The technology is now ready for testing at a larger scale.
For 203 continuous hours, the Ohio State combustion unit produced heat from coal while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction.
Liang-Shih Fan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of Ohio State's Clean Coal Research Laboratory, pioneered the technology called Coal-Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL), which chemically harnesses coal's energy and efficiently contains the carbon dioxide produced before it can be released into the atmosphere.
"In the simplest sense, combustion is a chemical reaction that consumes oxygen and produces heat," Fan said. "Unfortunately, it also produces carbon dioxide, which is difficult to capture and bad for the environment. So we found a way to release the heat without burning. We carefully control the chemical reaction so that the coal never burnsit is consumed chemically, and the carbon dioxide is entirely contained inside the reactor."
Dawei Wang, a research associate and one of the group's team leaders, described the technology's potential benefits. "The commercial-scale CDCL plant could really promote our energy independence. Not only can we use America's natural resources such as Ohio coal, but we can keep our air clean and spur the economy with jobs," he said.
Though other laboratories around the world are trying to develop similar technology to directly convert coal to electricity, Fan's lab is unique in the way it processes fossil fuels. The Ohio State group typically studies coal in the two forms that are already commonly available to the power industry: crushed coal "feedstock," and coal-derived syngas.
The latter fuel has been successfully studied in a second sub-pilot research-scale unit, through a similar process called Syngas Chemical Looping (SCL). Both units are located in a building on Ohio State's Columbus campus, and each is contained in a 25-foot-high insulated metal cylinder that resembles a very tall home water heater tank.
No other lab has continuously operated a coal-direct chemical looping unit as long as the Ohio State lab did last September. But as doctoral student Elena Chung explained, the experiment could have continued.
"We voluntarily chose to stop the unit. We actually could have run longer, but honestly, it was a mutual decision by Dr. Fan and the students. It was a long and tiring week where we all shared shifts," she said.
Fan agreed that the nine-day experiment was a success. "In the two years we've been running the sub-pilot plants, our CDCL and SCL units have achieved a combined 830 operating hours, which clearly demonstrates the reliability and operability of our design," he said.
At any one time, the units each produce about 25 thermal kilowattsthat is, thermal energy, which in a full-scale power plant would be used to heat water and turn the steam-powered turbines that create electricity.
The researchers are about to take their technology to the next level: a larger-scale pilot plant is under construction at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Carbon Capture Center in Wilsonville, AL. Set to begin operations in late 2013, that plant will produce 250 thermal kilowatts using syngas.
The key to the technology is the use of tiny metal beads to carry oxygen to the fuel to spur the chemical reaction. For CDCL, the fuel is coal that's been ground into a powder, and the metal beads are made of iron oxide composites. The coal particles are about 100 micrometers acrossabout the diameter of a human hairand the iron beads are larger, about 1.5-2 millimeters across. Chung likened the two different sizes to talcum powder and ice cream sprinkles, though the mix is not nearly so colorful.
The coal and iron oxide are heated to high temperatures, where the materials react with each other. Carbon from the coal binds with the oxygen from the iron oxide and creates carbon dioxide, which rises into a chamber where it is captured. Hot iron and coal ash are left behind. Because the iron beads are so much bigger than the coal ash, they are easily separated out of the ash, and delivered to a chamber where the heat energy would normally be harnessed for electricity. The coal ash is removed from the system.
The carbon dioxide is separated and can be recycled or sequestered for storage. The iron beads are exposed to air inside the reactor, so that they become re-oxidized be used again. The beads can be re-used almost indefinitely, or recycled.
Since the process captures nearly all the carbon dioxide, it exceeds the goals that DOE has set for developing clean energy. New technologies that use fossil fuels should not raise the cost of electricity more than 35 percent, while still capturing more than 90 percent of the resulting carbon dioxide. Based on the current tests with the research-scale plants, Fan and his team believe that they can meet or exceed that requirement.
###
The DOE funded this research, and collaborating companies include Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, Inc.; CONSOL Energy, Inc.; and Clear Skies Consulting, LLC.
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu
Editor's note: An image is available from Pam Frost Gorder.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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CHICAGO ? Chicago police say they've been inundated with tips about the death of a 15-year-old girl who had just returned from performing at President Barack Obama's inauguration festivities, but police, activists and ministers are still concerned that someone with valuable information might be holding out.
The reward for information about last week's slaying of Hadiya Pendleton has climbed to $40,000. But people may be afraid to come forward because they don't want to be thrust into a national media spotlight or because they are concerned for their own safety, police, activists and minister said Monday.
Hadiya, a drum majorette, was killed in a park about a mile from Obama's home on Chicago's South Side. Police say the shooter hopped a fence, ran at a group of about a dozen young people and opened fire, killing the girl. No arrests have been made.
"We've got a ton of tips," some of them from gang members, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said at a news conference Monday. "Nothing at this point has panned out for us."
Still, McCarthy reiterated that a "no snitch code" in the community could be preventing people from providing police with tips.
Hadiya's death has brought renewed attention to Chicago's homicide rate. The nation's third-largest city just had its deadliest January in more than a decade. Chicago had 506 homicides last year, the most since 2008.
The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and prominent activist on the city's South Side, has angrily called out anyone who might be protecting the gunman. But Pfleger also acknowledged that people more reluctant to come forward with information about a slaying that has attracted so much attention.
"Because now it is such a national story I think they're afraid if they come forward and say something it will be on the world news," he said. "We have to let people know that they can come forward anonymously with the information, that they don't even have to contact the police but can contact us (community leaders) and their identity can be withheld."
People might also be afraid that stepping forward means standing up to gangs. While police said Hadiya was not involved with gangs, they say her death was gang related.
"People are afraid if they do (come forward) their family members or they themselves might be shot," said Tio Hardiman, of CeaseFire, a violence prevention group that interacts with Chicago gang members.
Investigators suspect the gunman opened fire on Hadiya and others taking cover from the rain at a park because he may have believed someone in the group was associated with a rival gang.
"It's always legitimate when you are talking about something of this magnitude, where people are shooting each other," McCarthy said. But the superintendent said he's confident the anger over the death of the teenager will win out.
Samsung announced today that it is committing to investments in new technology, with the launch of its new Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center (SSIC), as well as a $100 million commitment to a new Samsung Catalyst Fund, to fund development of components and subsystems. That?s all alongside the $1 billion that Samsung is investing through its Venture Americas Fund.
Entertainment is not cheap these days. The price of movie tickets has risen steadily for several years. With the increased popularity of even more expensive 3-D movies, going to the theatre can cost an average of $8.06 per ticket. As teens, we may be willing to pay for a single movie ticket every week or two. However, this becomes an expensive habit once we become adults and go to the movies with a family in tow. Going out to eat can also create a significant dent in your bank account. One family meal at a sit-down restaurant can easily cost $50 or more. Dinner, movies, and other weekend activities like shopping at the mall may seem like the family-time mainstays; however, there is a more budget-friendly alternative.Family game nights have been growing in popularity since the beginning of the economic downturn. By staying home with your family and friends, you can avoid the rising costs of outside entertainment. Board and card games are a much better investment than movie tickets or an evening shopping at the mall because you can get repeated use out of a single game. Game nights can help you save money and develop a money-smart habit that will last a lifetime. Instead of going out this weekend, stay in and try these activities for a fun family game night at home:
????????? Play a favorite game or learn a new one. You can look up new board and card games online. Try selecting several different games to give you variety during your game night.
????????? Invent your own game! Design a board or cards, and write the rules. Creating the game can be a fun activity in itself.
????????? Learn to make an at-home version of your favorite take-out food (pizza, stir-fry, barbeque, etc.). Recipes and instructional videos can be found on the Internet. You may like your version more than costly restaurant food!
????????? Watch a favorite DVD as a family, or find something new from a DVD rental service. ????????? Do crafts together. Many crafts projects, such as origami, are free or almost free. You can also check out crafting books from your local library.Give these suggestions a try. If family game night becomes a weekly tradition, the savings will add up impressively.
Family Home and Life: Using PicMonkey With Scrapbook Pages
Using PicMonkey With Scrapbook Pages
I have used PicMonkey to make online Scrapbook pages for a while now. I haven't really given you a tutorial though on how to use the pages for yourself so I thought I should do that now. Please note; these pages will work for an online Scrapbook but because of the size of each page you can't print it. You can re-size them before you add your photos if you want to print them. If anyone knows of a way to print out full size pages please share with me!
You use these pages just like you would a photo; saving them, attaching them, Facebooking them just like a photo. Of course, you will want to put your photos on them and some text too. ?I put together a simple page to use for this tutorial. Start by right clicking on the scrapbook pages you want to use along with the Snowed In Color Palette and saving them to your computer as an image (save image as...). Go to PicMonkey and choose 'Edit a Photo'. Choose a saved scrapbook page for your base sheet.? If you want to print it from your computer later, then resize it first. Change the size to 607 x 758 for an 8 x 10 when printed. Apply. Or you can crop it to 8 x 10 though you will lose some design.?Now choose 'overlays-your own' and upload the Snowed In Color Palette. This will be your color palette for your page.?You won't keep it on your page, it is just for referral while choosing our design colors. Enlarge the uploaded color palette a little and put it on the side out of your way. You can?completely?move it off the page and it will still be there unseen should you want to pull it back onto your page to pick a color from it.? Now choose 'overlays-geometric' and click the rectangle. Size it by left clicking and holding onto the outer edge and pulling it. Just guess what size you want, you will be able to move or change the size later if you want.? Decide the color you want it to be and click on the color bar anywhere then on the right vertical bar. Your cursor becomes a dropper. Take it to the color palette and choose your color; the rectangle becomes the color you clicked on.? Now right click on the rectangle and choose 'Duplicate overlay' and click for the amount of photos you want. (I chose to have 3) Re-size and position them.? Now choose 'overlays-your own' and upload your photos and position them. The text option is the P on the left side. Choose your font; I used Playball. Type your text and then click it again to select it (it will have a blue background behind it) and you can then change the size by sliding the sizing button left or right. You can also change the color now too. Click on the rainbow bar to choose or use the dropper to pick your color from your color palette. You can add text any where on the page including over the photos, each one can be a different font or color that you want.? Play with other option to decorate and personalize your pages. When a feature has this little orange crown, it is a membership only feature. ?When you are finished decorating, give your page a name and save it to your pictures. You will want to make sure the Color Palette is completely off the page or deleted before you save your page.? Choose the 'overlay-your own' to upload other scrapbook pages and combine them for your own designs. I rarely use the 'merge' option - I just save as it is to my computer then I can make changes if I want while it is still on PicMonkey. If I?merge?it then you can't make any changes. Here is my finished page. This page can now be added to any online album or uploaded on Facebook or attached in a email. I can use it just like a photo. I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and pages!
I have other post about using PicMonkey; here is a tutorial how to make your own scrapbook pages.?
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Public release date: 6-Feb-2013
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Samsung announced today that it is committing to investments in new technology, with the launch of its new Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center (SSIC), as well as a $100 million commitment to a new Samsung Catalyst Fund, to fund development of components and subsystems. That?s all alongside the $1 billion that Samsung is investing through its Venture Americas Fund.