Amazing Event - Two Planets Collided

Amazing Event - Two Planets Collided

Astronomers at UCLA, Tennessee State Universand the California Institute of Technology have reported that two terrestrial planets orbiting a mature sun-like star some 300 light-years from Earth recently suffered a violent collision."

Astronomer are now writing a report on this event in December issue of the Astrophysical Journal.




ACCORDING TO ASTRONOMERS:

According to Benjamin Zuckerman, (Professor of physics and astronomy in UCLA), this collision was just like if Earth and Venus collided with each other,". It is the first time that Astronomers have seen such collision.
Co-author of the report and astronomer in Tennessee State University, Dr. Gregory Henry says, "If any life was present on either planet, the massive collision would have wiped out everything in a matter of minutes - the ultimate extinction event." After that collision a massive disk of infrared-emitting dust has encircled the star.

HOW THE REASEARCH CAME OUT:

Zuckerman, Henry and Michael Muno, were studying a star BD+20307 located in the constellation Aries and surrounded by a 1 million times more dust than is orbiting our sun. These astronomers gathered X-ray data using the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory and brightness data from one of TSU's automated telescopes in southern Arizona, hoping to measure the age of the star.

They thought that BD+20 307 was relatively young, a few hundred million years old , with the massive dust ring which signals the final stages in the formation of the star's planetary system. But Alycia Weinberger of Carnegie Institution of Washington announced that BD+20 307 is actually a close binary star means two stars orbiting around their common center of mass.

The new spectroscopic data collected after this announcement confirmed that BD+20 307 is composed of two stars, both very similar in mass, temperature and size to our own sun and they orbit about their common center of mass every 3.42 days. Further research also shown that these stars are much more older than estimated before. Instead of few hundred million years these stars are several billion years old.

The planetary collision in BD+20 307 was not observed directly but rather was inferred from the extraordinary quantity of dust particles that orbit the binary pair at about the same distance as Earth and Venus are from our sun. Henry said. "If this dust does indeed point to the presence of terrestrial planets, then this represents the first known example of planets of any mass in orbit around a close binary star."

BD+20 307: THE EARLIER THOUGHTS

Zuckerman and colleagues first reported in the journal Nature in July 2005 that BD+20 307, then still thought to be a single star, was surrounded by more warm orbiting dust than any other sun-like star known to astronomers. The dust is orbiting the binary system very closely, where Earth-like planets are most likely to be and where dust typically cannot survive long. Small dust particles get pushed away by stellar radiation, while larger pieces get reduced to dust in collisions within the disk and are then whisked away.

Thus, the dust-forming collision near BD+20 307 must have taken place rather recently, probably within the past few hundred thousand years and perhaps much more recently, the astronomers said.

NOW THE TWO IMPORTANT QUESTION IS:

After this all research the two most important questions before astronomers are:

1.) How do planetary orbits become destabilized in such an old, mature system?

2) Could such a collision happen in our own solar system?

According to some esteemed astronomers, there is small probability for collisions of Mercury with Earth or Venus sometime in the next billion years or more.




According to Zuckerman, major collisions have occurred in our solar system's in past. It is believed by many astronomers that our moon was formed from the collision of two planetary embryos - the young Earth and a body about the size of Mars - a crash which created tremendous debris, some of which condensed to form the moon and some of which went into orbit around the young sun. The collision of an asteroid with Earth 65 million years ago, which ultimately resulted in the demise of dinosaurs is also an example of such collision.

FUNDING

This research is federally funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA and also by Tennessee State University and the state of Tennessee, through its Centers of Excellence program.

Robot adapted to Surrounding

Robotic Engineers at MIT Humanoid Robotics Group have developed a robot which is capable of adapting to situations so that it can assist people with everyday chores, everyday life and everyday work.

This next generation robot is named as DOMO. Engineers have placed cameras inside robot's eyes which enables it to see and adapt to his surroundings. There are about 29 motors, equipped with computer chips run off a dozen computers that continuously update information.

MOTIVATION BEHIND DOMO

According to Aaron Edsinger, Engineer at MIT Humanoid Robotics Group, the main motivation behind developing DOMO is to develop a system that can assist people with everyday chores, everyday life, everyday work.

Robotic Engineers at MIT Humanoid Robotics Group have developed a robot which is capable of adapting to situations so that it can assist people with everyday chores, everyday life and everyday work.

DOMO can visually sense the surrounding conditions and adapt its functioning according to situations. For example, "it can learn about the size of an object and decide how to place it on a shelf."

HOW IT IS DIFFERENT

Although there are many humanoid robots that are being developed around the world, DOMO is different as it can take the lead and adapt to a situation. Suppose "If the robot drops something in the middle of doing a task, it can stop and try and pick it up again and start over."

This amazing quality makes it more helpful for human assistance.

HOW DOMO WORKS

1) Domo can see everything with the help of its large blue eyes that are equipped with powerful cameras that scan the entire surrounding.

2) These cameras then feed visual information to 12 computers that are used to analyze the input and decide the focusing point. This is a very important step, because for a robot to function in a real-world human environment, such as a kitchen, it must be able to ignore clutter and focus only on certain stimuli.

3) The visual system of DOMO is attuned to unexpected motion. For instance, locating human faces is critical for social interaction and people are often in motion.

4) When DOMO spots a motion that looks like a face, it locks its gaze onto it. Once Domo's gaze is captured, the human can issue verbal commands such as "to find a shelf".

5) The robot will scan the room for a shelf and then reach out a hand to touch the object to make sure it is really there.

6) If an object is then placed in its hand -- such as a bag of coffee beans -- the robot will reach up and place the object on the shelf.

adapting to situations so that it can assist people with everyday chores, everyday life and everyday work.

This next generation robot is named as DOMO. Engineers have placed cameras inside robot's eyes which enables it to see and adapt to his surroundings. There are about 29 motors, equipped with computer chips run off a dozen computers that continuously update information.

MOTIVATION BEHIND DOMO

According to Aaron Edsinger, Engineer at MIT Humanoid Robotics Group, the main motivation behind developing DOMO is to develop a system that can assist people with everyday chores, everyday life, everyday work.

Robotic Engineers at MIT Humanoid Robotics Group have developed a robot which is capable of adapting to situations so that it can assist people with everyday chores, everyday life and everyday work.

IT CAN ALSO FEEL WEIGHT

DOMO can also observe the size and weight of any object that is placed in its hand. For this, DOMO wiggles it a little. This movement is very minor but is very important for the robot's ability, which helps it to accurately place it on the shelf. DOMO is programmed such that it can learn about the size of an object by focusing on its tip, such as the cap of a water bottle. When the robot wiggles the tip back and forth, it can figure out how big the bottle is and can decide how to transfer it from hand to hand, or to place it on a shelf.

Domo can also sense when a human is touching it, thanks to springs in its arms, hands and neck that can sense force and response to it. If too much force is applied, the robot will voice its displeasure by saying..... "ouch!"