Tabs

Wednesday, October 17, 2012


Astronomers discover planet with four suns


An international team of amateur and professional astronomers has discovered a planet whose skies are lit up by four suns -- the first known case of such a phenomenon.
The planet, located about 5,000 light years from Earth, has been dubbed PH1 in honor of Planet Hunters, a programme led by Yale University in the United States, which enlists volunteers to look for signs of new planets.
PH1 is orbiting two suns, and in turn is orbited by a second distant pair of stars. Only six planets are known to orbit two stars, researchers say, and none of those are orbited by other distant stars.
"Circumbinary planets are the extremes of planet formation," said Yale's Meg Schwamb, lead author of a paper presented Monday at the annual meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in Nevada.
"The discovery of these systems is forcing us to go back to the drawing board to understand how such planets can assemble and evolve in these dynamically challenging environments."
US citizen scientists and Planet Hunters participants Kian Jek and Robert Gagliano were the first to identify PH1. Their observations were then confirmed by a team of US and British researchers working in Hawaii.
PH1 is a gas giant with a radius about 6.2 times that of Earth, making it slightly larger than Neptune. It orbits a pair of eclipsing stars that are 1.5 and 0.41 times the mass of the Sun roughly every 138 days.
The two other stars are orbiting the planetary system at a distance that is roughly 1,000 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.
The Planethunters.org website was created in 2010 to encourage amateur astronomers to identify planets outside our solar system, using data from the US space agency NASA's Kepler space telescope.
Kepler, launched in March 2009, is NASA's first mission in search of Earth-like planets orbiting stars similar to our Sun.
The discovery of PH1 was made available online Monday at the site arxiv.org and has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal for publication.
"It still continues to astonish me how we can detect, let alone glean so much information, about another planet thousands of light-years away just by studying the light from its parent star," Jek said.
Last week scientists reported the discovery of a "diamond planet" twice the size of earth and orbiting a sun-like star.
Up to one-third of the planet's mass and much of its surface is believed to consist of diamonds, implying that distant rocky planets can no longer be assumed to have the same features as Earth
.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Nicole Kidman to Be in London for Summer Olympics


Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban on April 1, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
It's going to be hard for Nicole Kidman to lay low this summer. Us Weekly has learned that the Oscar-winning actress, 45, will be in London for most of the 2012 Summer Olympics, which kick off in the UK later this month.
Kidman is the spokeswoman for OMEGA Watches, the official timekeeper of the Olympics, and thus will be on hand in London for various promotional appearances. Husband Keith Urban -- and presumably their daughters Sunday, 3, and Faith, 19 months -- will be at her side.
PHOTOS: How Nicole's face has changed
Still, with hundreds of millions of TV viewers watching the games -- and hundreds and hundreds of reporters in town -- it may be difficult for Kidman to avoid at least a few questions about the Hollywood story of the summer: Her ex-husband Tom Cruise's still-developing divorce and custody battle with Katie Holmes, who filed papers last Thursday after nearly six years of marriage.
PHOTOS: Tom and Nicole's marriage
Kidman and Cruise, 50, divorced in 2001 after 11 years together, and share kids Isabella, 19, and Connor, 17.
PHOTOS: How Tom has barely aged
Much has been made of Kidman's supposed estrangement from her older children, with whom she has not been photographed in years. Several former members of the Church of Scientology claimed to the Hollywood Reporter that members of the organization deliberately turned Bella and Connor against their mother -- a charge a rep for the church vehemently denied.

 

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck Give First Glimpse of Baby Samuel!


Jennifer Garner, BenAffleck INFphoto.com, Raef-Ramirez/AKM-GSI
Didn't think it was possible for the Garner-Affleck crew to get any more adorable!? Well, think again!
Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck's brood, including daughters Violet and Seraphina and the most recent addition, baby Samuel, looked the epitome of the all-American family as they hit up a Fourth of July parade together in L.A.—and also gave the world its first peep at the new member, who was decked out head to toe in patriotic garb.
So who does he take after?
MORE: Jennifer Garner and Ben Affeck Welcome a Baby Boy!
We knew the gene pool was stacked in his favor, but this lucky tot appears to have been extra blessed with both his mom's famous pout and his dad's handsome profile.
Since his arrival four months ago, the close family has been keeping baby Samuel all to themselves, and it's no wonder why. One look at this cute boy and all we can think about is pinching those deliciously chubby cheeks!

New Iron Man 3 Teaser Art: Is Tony Stark Now a Mutant?!


Iron Man
Look who's ready to suit up again!
Iron Man 3 doesn't hit theaters until next May, but we're already starting to see bits and pieces of what to expect from the Robert Downey Jr.–headlined flick.
It's what's we're not seeing in these teasers, though, that's got the geekverse abuzz.
Marvel has released an image of concept art from the flick that shows Downey's Tony Stark battling baddies in what appears to be an armored suit ermerging from his body.
MORE: Robert Downey Jr. Starts Filming Iron Man 3—Everything You Need to Know!
The pic, which was posted on The Avengers' Facebook page, depicts only sections of the suit on his left arm and left leg, with the rest of his armor MIA.
The image immediately reinforced fanboys' theories that the film's top-secret plot would indeed be based on the comic book's famous Extremis storyline, in which a scientist creates a drug that grants superhuman abilities to its subjects.
That, or Tony Stark was rushing to get dressed and forgot to strap on a few accessories. Hey, happens to all of us!
The flick already starting filming in late May with Gwyneth Paltrow, who reprises her Pepper Potts role, as well as potential new love interest Rebecca Hall. (Jessica Chastain reportedly had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.)

Guy Pearce is also on board as a geneticist named Aldrich Killian, who supposedly creates the Extremis serum.
As for the baddie, Ben Kingsley has signed on to play a supervillain, and although the studio has yet to confirm his identity, speculation is running high that he could take on the role of Mandarin, a wealthy scientist and martial-arts expert who draws his immense power from highly advanced alien technology.
Hopefully, some of those questions will get answered when Iron Man 3 hits Comic-Con on July 14 and invades the the San Diego Convention Center's vaunted Hall H.
The film arrives in theaters on May 3, 2013

 

Bikini Twitpic of the Day: Britney Spears Flaunts Her Amazing Body (and Her Adorable Kids)


Britney Spears
Britney Spears is one hot mama!
The 30-year-old X Factor judge showed off her incredible, toned figure Thursday in a super-cute Facebook shot. In the pic, Spears wears a tiny bikini and shares a laugh with her sons Sean Preston and Jayden James Federline.

"Getting ready for some pool time!" she writes. The trio is shown all in their bathing suits, but clearly still indoors. "Having a blast xxoo"
The pop star, her sons and fiancé Jason Trawick landed in Maui Sunday for a family vacation.
She definitely deserves some fun in the sun!


Jennifer Aniston, GQ SpainDoes this look familiar to you?
Well, if you follow any Jennifer Aniston media coverage, then it should. This über-sexy photo of the actress on the front of GQ Spain's July/August issue is recycled from a shoot done years ago.
READ: Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez Sound Off on Paparazzi in New Doc $ellebrity
The cover image is actually a photo taken from Vogue's December 2008 spread. Say whaaaa?!
We're not sure what prompted the magazine's decision to reuse an old shot. It's not like she looks any different from four years ago—which leads us back to questioning just how much Aniston spends a month for her beauty regimen, but then again, it could just be all the love in her life keeping her young.
Reps for the magazine did not respond to repeated calls seeking comment.
"I'll tell you what, I think the 40s are great," the Wanderlust star told the mag, and when you look like that, why wouldn't they be?!

 

Rihanna's Snake-Like Spread for Harper's Bazaar: Gotta Have It or Make It Stop?


Rihanna, Harper's Bazaar Cover Camilla Akrans/Harper's Bazaar
Fashion Police logo 80x80
It took us about 10 minutes to figure out who this was.
At first we assumed she was a Cycle-2 contestant from America's Next Top Model who somehow snuck into a Harper's Bazaar shoot. It couldn't possibly be Rihanna.
After all, the girl is wearing clothes and Ri-Ri, as everybody now knows, hates clothes. She prefers scraps of cloth that may or may not cover her all up. Until today, we guess...

So, what can we tell you about the pop python, other than she likely shed this getup like a rattlesnake as soon as the cameras stopped clicking?
Well, the friendly, super-approachable folks at the magazine inform us thusly: The "Where Have You Been" singer is wearing a dress and boots by Tom Ford and a Repossi ear cuff.