Forget the Moon. Forget Mars. Forget space tourism to the International Space Station. We have a new frontier for you - Planet HD 189733b, located in the constellation Vulpecula. If, that is, you don’t mind travelling at the speed of light for 63 years, and then facing surface temperatures from 1,200-1,700 Fahrenheit and winds ripping across the planet at about 6,000 miles per hour.

Ok, so its a bit hot and windy. Well, so are vacations in Arizona and Nevada. Stop being such a wuss. That’s why we’re calling it the new frontier. Frontiers ain’t supposed to be easy to conquer. Photo courtesy & copyrights - Spitzer Science Center, California Institute of Technology.

More importantly, you might ask what attraction HD 189733b has that justifies traveling for 63 light years and facing such hostile conditions? Well, the news is that two teams of researchers have simultaneously come up conclusions that the planet’s atmosphere shows traces of carbon dioxide, water vapor and methane.

The first team, led by Mark R. Swain, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, used the Hubble Space Telescope to detect the traces of CO2, while the other team, led by Carl J. Grillmair of the California Institute of Technology, used NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to find evidence (Nature magazine, subscription required) of the presence of water vapor and methane.

Course, you wouldn’t want to book your tickets just yet, considering there’s a few logistical difficulties, such as not being able to travel at the speed of light, and such. And if getting to HD 189733b is in the realm of science fiction right now, surviving the planet would be a miracle. See, HD 189733b is too close to its star (3 million miles) and is a hot, gaseous planet like Jupiter, and whirls around its star once in 2.2 earth days. Another problem is that there’s no day or night on the planet, because the poor thing is tidally locked facing its star, like our Moon. So half the planet gets merciless heat and light from its star, while the other half is ‘in the dark’, so to speak.

Speaking of miracles, there’s a tiny miracle back home on earth, and one of the biggest attractions in San Francisco now has a new mini-star attraction. The San Francisco Zoo announced that, for the first time in 10 years, a male baby western lowland gorilla was born at the Zoo on Dec 8. Photo by acaben via flickr (creative commons).

This is only the 4th Gorilla birth this year for the whole of North America. The first-time mommy, who goes by the name of Monifa, seems to have decided not to waste any time with pesky junior, and so the zoo’s vets had to step in and take care of the baby.

In a press statement, Tanya Peterson, acting director and president of the San Francisco Zoo, said that “We are thrilled to have a new addition to the Zoo family. This is a significant birth that demonstrates our commitment to the conservation of endangered and threatened species. Our team is looking forward to sharing the gorilla infant with Zoo visitors and making him an integral part of the Zoo’s education program.”

Posted on December 12th, 2008 by PLing
Filed under: Travel News