Word: dimness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...extraordinary may be too understated a descriptor for the discovery reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature: an international team led by Harvard astronomer David Charbonneau has spotted a "super-Earth," a planet 2.7 times bigger than Earth, circling a dim red star called GJ 1214, just 40 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. "It's spectacular," says Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, who is the world's most prolific planet hunter and is credited with discovering 70 of the first 100 exoplanets. "It's a top-of-the-top discovery in the quest for Earth...
...Planet hunters usually focus their attention on Sun-like stars - that is, large and hot - on the assumption that if you're looking for life, you should look in a place that is as similar to our solar system as possible. Charbonneau, however, focused on about 2,000 small, dim, red stars known as M-dwarfs, nearby Earth. M-dwarfs are much more numerous than Sun-like stars; of the 300 stars closest to Earth, says Charbonneau, 220 or so are M-dwarfs. They're also much cooler than Sun-like stars, so their habitable zones are close...
...greeted the class of 2013 for a long while, introducing herself at various tables along with Dean Dingman and the Yard Resident Deans. At around 10:10 pm, after President Faust had departed, the DJ cranked up the volume and the lights suddenly dropped to a dim glow. A giggle-infused murmur fell over the crowd. It was time for Brain Break gone wild...
...telescope is equipped, which largely cancel out atmospheric blurring; third, the telescope's top-notch coronagraph filter, which blots out most starlight to remove the glare. And finally, the whole thing operates in infrared light, a type of light that renders planets especially bright and sunlike stars relatively dim. In short, says McElwain, "We're using state-of-the-art instruments on a state-of-the-art telescope." (See TIME's video "10 Questions for Neil deGrasse Tyson...
Several dozen Harvard employees and students rallied outside the Holyoke Center last night, protesting the budget cuts that may dim the holiday season for some University staff...