Word: eridani
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Trekkie news traveling at warp speed: University of Texas astronomer WILLIAM COCHRAN has discovered a Jupiter-size planet in the same orbit that Star Trek lore says you would find Vulcan, MR. SPOCK'S home world. That would be somewhere orbiting the star Epsilon Eridani, just a hop, skip and parsec from Earth, or 10.5 light-years to be exact...
...Epsilon Eridani was never mentioned on the 1960s TV series or in the six movies that featured the science officer played by LEONARD NIMOY--indeed, producer GENE RODDENBERRY said in 1991 that the star he envisioned was 40 Eridani, which is 4 billion years old. Epsilon, he insisted, at about a billion years old, was not old enough for any advanced life-forms to have evolved on its planet, let alone the intelligent, relentlessly logical Vulcans. But Epsilon was the star of choice in at least one Star Trek book, and the Earthling who first made contact with the Vulcans...
...solar system unique in the universe? This question has long driven astronomers to search for planets beyond our sun's. Last week three Canadian astronomers presented the first hard evidence that at least one planet, probably larger than Jupiter, may orbit around Epsilon Eridani, a nearby star favored by planet hunters...
Such planets, if they exist, are too small and dark to be detected directly. For six years the Canadians have monitored 16 stars from an observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, looking for the distinctive wobbling motion caused by the gravitational pull of nearby orbiting bodies. Epsilon Eridani, among several others, shows the telltale wobbles...
...Sprout's 24-in. refracting telescope to photograph at regular intervals the several hundred stars in the sun's immediate neighborhood in hopes of detecting any odd movements in their paths. In addition to his interest in Barnard's Star, he was particularly intrigued by Epsilon Eridani. Though most nearby stars are small, relatively faint "red dwarfs," Epsilon Eridani is a bright yellow-orange star somewhat like the sun with about seven-tenths of its mass and 30% of its luminosity. Thus, if there were any planets in orbit around Epsilon Eridani, at least one might...