... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . Asteroid 2010 SO16 and the Earth follow similar orbits around . the Sun. ... out a horseshoe shape in space, taking 175 years to go from . ... Asteroid 2010 SO16 takes 175 years to make the trip from one end of the horseshoe to the other. ... Currently, three other horseshoe companions of the Earth are known to exist but, unlike 2010 SO16, these linger for a few thousand years at most before moving on to different orbits. ...

... Tonight's Sky . ... The Magazine . ... Star Atlas . ... An artificial comet holds secrets to Earths life . ... Astronomy for Kids . ... Observing springtime deep-sky objects with a large telescope . ... The planet has extreme temperature swings and perhaps active lava flows. ... A digital supplement to Astronomy magazine. ... Join TravelQuest International with Astronomy and Discover magazines on one of three great tour options surrounding this celestial spectacle . ... Astronomy Magazine . ...

... Planets . ... Earth Satellites . ... Looking in the direction of the constellation Cygnus the Swan and launched by NASA in 2009 is the Kepler Space Observatory.Many previous missions searching for exoplanets mainly detected large giant planets, like large hot Jupiters (it is easier to detect larger planets).However KeplerтАЩs main objective is to search for much smaller planets located in a habitable zone which is not too close nor too far from their star; planets which may be just like our Earth. ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... The Nine Planets . ... It isn't the first extrasolar planetary system to be discovered; the first planet outside our own solar system orbiting a normal Sunlike star was discovered in 1995. ... Still, this is the first solar system ever found besides our own to definitely have more than one planet. This is an important discovery: most people all along have been assuming that multiple planet systems exist, but we had never actually seen one. ...

... January 31, 1999 . Welcome to the Planet Earth . Credit: Apollo 17 Crew , NASA . Explanation: Welcome to Planet Earth , the third planet from a star named the Sun . The Earth is shaped like a sphere and composed mostly of rock . ... Earth has a single large Moon which is about 1/4 of its diameter and, from the planet's surface, is seen to have almost exactly the same angular size as the Sun . ... Please enjoy your stay on Planet Earth. ... About APOD > . ... NASA Technical Rep.: ...

... APOD: 2011 December 7 Kepler 22b: An Almost Earth Orbiting an Almost Sun . ... Recently discovered planet Kepler 22b has therefore instantly become the best place to find life outside our Solar System. ... The planet, Kepler 22b , is over twice the radius of the Earth and orbits slightly closer in, but lies in the habitable zone where liquid water could exist on the surface. ... Whether Kepler 22b actually contains water or life is currently unknown. ... Kepler 78b: Earth Sized Planet Discovered . ...

... The Kepler Mission: A Photometric Mission to Determine the Frequency of Inner Planets Near the Habitability Zone of Solar-like Stars . ... Kepler is a mission designed to detect and characterize Earth-sized planets around solar-like stars. ... However, if no other planetary systems exist with small inner planets, then the Kepler Mission will still discover some 1400 giant inner planets from their reflected light assuming that their frequency is as large as the results of Marcy and Butler indicate. ...

Mercury Spring 2010 Table of Contents . This artist s impression shows the transiting exoplanet Corot-9b. Credit: ESO / L. Cal ada. First Temperate Exoplanet . ... Combining observations from the CoRoT satellite and the ESO HARPS instrument, astronomers have discovered the first . ... Designated Corot-9b, the . ... If you enjoyed this excerpt from a feature article and would like to receive our quarterly Mercury magazine, we invite you to join the ASP and receive 4 issues a year. ...