We

all know that Penn State professors are experts in their fields after all,
were one of the top 30 universities in the country for a reason. But the professors
in a certain department take expert to the next level.
In fact, many of the professors in Penn States astronomy department have
discovered amazing and awe-inspiring things thousands of miles into space.
Since I couldnt take it upon myself to pick which Penn State astronomers were most
important or impressive, see the timeline below to learn about the five of the most
recent discoveries of planets and other objects of the like made by Penn State
astronomy professors.

Coldest Brown Dwarf, April 25, 2014 Kevin Luhman, Astronomy 001 professor,
discovered a brown dwarf star that appears to be the coldest of its kind (as frosty
as the Earths North Pole, according to the press release). Luhman was able to
detect the brown dwarf using NASAs Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, aka
WISE, and Spitzer Space Telescopes. Brown dwarfs are, by NASAs definition,
objects that are a size between that of a giant planet like Jupiter and that of a small
star.
The press release states that brown dwarfs start their lives like stars, as
collapsing balls of gas, but they lack the mass to burn nuclear fuel and radiate
starlight. Though their importance is not as obvious to those of us who arent
astronomically inclined, NASAs website explains that brown dwarfs are noteworthy
because a large chunk of the universe may be in brown dwarf form, and since these
bodies do not give off a significant amount of light, their existence could contribute
in part to the missing mass problem faced by cosmology.

First Earth-Sized Planet in Habitable Zone, April 17, 2014 Eric Ford, Penn
States Ph.D. Dissertation in Science full-time mentor, is one of a team of
astronomers (including other Penn State scientists) that discovered the first Earth-
sized planet in another stars habitable zone, the distance from a star where liquid
water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet.

The planet, named Kepler-186f after NASAs Kepler Space Telescope by
which it was discovered, is described as what may be the most similar planet to the
Earth yet discovered by Ford in the press release. Regardless, even though Kepler-
186f is likely to have a mass similar to Earths, Ford explains that many of its other
elements could differ from those of Earth, including its atmosphere, surface terrain,
and how heat and light coming from the sun its orbiting (about half the size of our
sun) affect it.

Third-Closest Star System to the Sun, March 11, 2013 Luhman strikes again
with the discovery of a pair of stars making up the third-closest star system to the
Sun and the closest star system discovered since 1916, according to the press
release. The star system, called WISE J104915.57-531906 because it was
discovered via NASAs WISE satellite, is made up of two brown dwarfs (We just
learned about these, remember?), and it is located marginally farther away than the
second closest star to our Sun, Barnards star, which falls just over six light years
away.

The closest star system consists of Alpha Centauri, found to be a neighbor of

the Sun in 1830 at 4.4 lightyears, and the fainter Proxima Centauri, discovered to be
a neighbor in 1917 at 4.2 lightyears away. Along with discovering WISE J104915.57-
531906 (the easy part duh), Luhman was also able to measure its distance to our
sun via parallax (the apparent shift of a star in the sky due to the Earths orbit
around the Sun).

Three New Planets & Mystery Object, October 26, 2011 Alex Wolszczan,
Astronomy 140 (Life in the Universe) professor, led an international research team
to the discovery of three new planets and a mystery object outside of our solar
system. As a side note, this isnt his first rodeo back in 1992, Wolszczan became
the first astronomer ever to discover planets outside of our solar system. The team
used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope to discover the three planets, all orbiting their
own giant, dying star.
On top of discovering three planets, the team led by Wolszczan stumbled
across something a bit more intriguing: a bonus mystery object orbiting one of the
stars alongside one of the newly discovered planets. Lets tally that up and simplify
it, shall we? Wolszczan and team discovered not one, not two, but three new
planetary systems that are more involved than our own solar system, on top of
encountering an object that they arent even sure what to make of. That being said,
the team speculates that the object could be another planet, a low-mass star, or
most interestingly a brown dwarf, according to the press release.

Planet-like Object With Earth Temperature, October 19, 2011 Kevin Luhman
once more discovered a planet-sized object as cool as Earth. The object was
discovered via photograph taken by NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope. Luhman
explains in the press release that they chose to use the Spitzer because it is the
most sensitive infrared telescope available.
This ability was crucial to their discovery because objects with cool
temperatures like the Earth are brightest at infrared wavelengths, Luhman explains.
Luhman and his colleagues compared infrared images taken years apart of more
than 600 stars near our solar system in order to spot any faint points of light that
showed the same motion across the sky as the targeted star. Any faint lights with the
same motion indicated the object was orbiting a star.
A more complete and detailed timeline on more cool stuff that Penn State
astronomists and scientists have discovered can be found at the News and Events
for Eberly College of Science webpage.