Cosmofy: GPI : Gemini Planet Imager

Cosmofy: GPI : Gemini Planet Imager: Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) , a tool that could help find Alien Life, is the world's most advanced instrument to capture the Images of ...

GPI : Gemini Planet Imager

Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), a tool that could help find Alien Life, is the world's most advanced instrument to capture the Images of Exoplanets or Extrasolar systems. This instrument has been deployed on one of the world’s biggest telescopes – the eight-metre Gemini South telescope in Chile. This can produce images of Exoplanets almost 10 times better than previous generation of instruments .

When we observe a planet with Kepler telescope , its just detecting the transit - the attenuation of light - due to the planet passing between us and the star, but with GPI, We're able to see the planet itself .

The Gemini Planet Imager's first-light image.

 

How does it Work

• GPI detects infrared radiation from young Jupiter-like planets in wide orbits around other stars, equivalent to the giant planets in our own solar system not long after their formation .

• It does this using Silicon Microchip Deformable Mirrors. By these mirrors it  removes atmospheric turbulence, and something known as coronagraphic masks - a telescopic attachment designed to block out the direct light from a star so that nearby objects .

• GPI is an Extreme Adaptive-optics imaging polarimeter/integral-field spectrometer, which will provide diffraction-limited data between 0.9 and 2.4 microns. The system will provide contrast ratios of 10^6 on companions at separations of 0.2-1 arcsecond in a 1-2 hour observation .

Cosmofy: Potentially Habitable Exoplanets Zone

Cosmofy: Potentially Habitable Exoplanets Zone: Planetary Habitability Life may develop directly on a planet or satellite or be transferred to it from another body, a theoretical pro...

Potentially Habitable Exoplanets Zone

Planetary Habitability

Life may develop directly on a planet or satellite or be transferred to it from another body, a theoretical process known as Panspermia and Planetary Habitability is measured by planet's potential to develop and sustain life. As we are not certain about the existence of life beyond Earth, Planetary Habitability is largely an extrapolation of conditions to life's flourishing .

Energy is required to support life on a planet and the notion of planetary habitability implies that many other geophysical, geochemical, and astrophysical criteria must be met before an astronomical body can support life. 

Habitable Exoplanets

Exoplanet Zone 

An Exoplanet or Extrasolar Planet is a planet outside the Solar System. Astronomers have found more than 700 planets beyond solar system, and stiil waiting for thousands planets confirmation by follow-up observations. These Exoplanet worlds are too hot or too cold to support life as we know it, but some of them are in favorable conditions.As of December 2012, We found 9 Exoplanets that have the best chance for life .

On November 4, 2013, astronomers  reported, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of sun-like stars and red dwarf stars within the Milky Way Galaxy . 11 billion of these estimated planets may be orbiting sun-like stars.The nearest such planet may be 12 light-years away, according to the scientists.

The Hue of Alien Earths