Happy Anniversary Exoplanets [Greg Laden's Blog]

(Before It's News)

This month is the twentieth anniversary of the discovery of exoplanets, which are really just planets that are not in our solar system. (Frankly, I dislike the term exoplanet. It is so solarcentric.)

When you think about it, the discovery of planets outside our solar system (we need a word for that) is a special thing. On a graph of how expected and mundane a scientific discovery is vs. how exciting a scientific discovery is, these planets are distant outliers.

For years astronomers and cosmologists and others assumed that stars would generally have planets around them, or at least, this would often be the case. This is all part of the famous Drake Equation, best stated by Carl Sagan using the word “Billions” (with two b’s) over and over again. Like this.

OK, he didn’t really use “Billions” a bunch of times. But he might have.

Anyway, Nature.com has a nice set of infographics on the topic, one of which I’ve posted above. The rest are here.

• Electrostatics of DNA nucleotide-carbon nanotube hybrids evaluated from QM:MM simulations
• Diversity of sub-bandgap states in lead-sulfide nanocrystals: real-space spectroscopy and mapping at the atomic-scale
• Aligned carbon nanotube array stiffness from stochastic three-dimensional morphology
• Real-time label-free quantitative fluorescence microscopy-based detection of ATP using a tunable fluorescent nano-aptasensor platform
• A cationic azobenzene-surfactant-modified graphene hybrid: unique photoresponse and electrochemical behavior
• Tuning the LSPR in copper chalcogenide nanoparticles by cation intercalation, cation exchange and metal growth
• Au25 cluster functionalized metal-organic nanostructures for magnetically targeted photodynamic/photothermal therapy triggered by single wavelength 808 nm near-infrared light
• One-pot synthesis of active copper-containing carbon dots with laccase-like activities
• The size-dependent morphology of Pd nanoclusters formed by gas condensation
• Unraveling the complexity of the interactions of DNA nucleotides with gold by single molecule force spectroscopy