Nikku Madhusudhan
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Nikku Madhusudhan
Nikku Madhusudhan is a Professor of Astrophysics and Exoplanetary Science at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge. He is credited with developing the technique of atmospheric retrieval to infer the compositions of exoplanets. Education Madhusudhan obtained a B. Tech at Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi before pursuing an MS and PhD at MIT. His doctoral advisor was Sara Seager. Research During his PhD, Madhusudhan developed a method for inferring the composition and temperature structure of exoplanet atmospheres known as atmospheric retrieval, which is widely used today. In 2012, Madhusudhan showed that the mass and radius of the super-Earth 55 Cancri e was consistent with a carbon-rich interior. In 2014, he led a team which obtained high-precision measurements of the atmospheric water abundances of three hot Jupiters, finding less water than would be expected given planet formation models at the time. Madhusudhan was part of a team that detected ...
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Exoplanets
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, initially detected in 1988, was confirmed in 2003. There are many methods of detecting exoplanets. Transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy have found the most, but these methods suffer from a clear observational bias favoring the detection of planets near the star; thus, 85% of the exoplanets detected are inside the tidal locking zone. In several cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star. About 1 in 5 Sun-like starsFor the purpose of this 1 in 5 statistic, "Sun-like" means G-type star. Data for Sun-like stars was not available so this statistic is an extrapolation from data about K-type stars. have an "Earth-sized"For the purpose of this 1 in 5 statistic, Earth-sized means 1–2 Earth radii. planet in the habitable zone. ...
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Indian Institute Of Technology (BHU) Varanasi
Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi (IIT BHU) is a public technical university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in 1919 as the Banaras Engineering College, it became the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University in 1968. It was later designated an Indian Institute of Technology. IIT (BHU) Varanasi has 16 departments, 3 inter-disciplinary schools and 1 Humanities & Social Sciences Section. It is located inside the Banaras Hindu University Campus. History IIT (BHU) Varanasi has formerly been known as the Banaras Engineering College (BENCO), the College of Mining and Metallurgy (MINMET), the College of Technology (TECHNO) and the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IT-BHU). Its establishment is intimately linked with that of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU). The first convocation ceremony at BHU was held on 2 December 1920. BHU has the credit of first starting degree classes in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Met ...
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Standard Conditions For Temperature And Pressure
Standard temperature and pressure (STP) are standard sets of conditions for experimental measurements to be established to allow comparisons to be made between different sets of data. The most used standards are those of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), although these are not universally accepted standards. Other organizations have established a variety of alternative definitions for their standard reference conditions. In chemistry, IUPAC changed its definition of standard temperature and pressure in 1982: * Until 1982, STP was defined as a temperature of 273.15  K (0 °C, 32 °F) and an absolute pressure of exactly 1  atm (101.325 kPa). * Since 1982, STP has been defined as a temperature of 273.15  K (0 °C, 32 °F) and an absolute pressure of exactly 105  Pa (100 kPa, 1 bar). STP should not be confused with the standard state com ...
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K2-18b
K2-18b, also known as EPIC 201912552 b, is an exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf K2-18, located away from Earth. The planet, initially discovered with the Kepler space telescope, is about eight times the mass of Earth, and is thus classified as a super Earth or a Mini-Neptune, and, as well, may be considered a hycean planet. It has a 33-day orbit within the star's Circumstellar habitable zone, habitable zone. In September 2019, two independent research studies, combining data from the Kepler space telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Hubble Space Telescope, concluded that there are significant amounts of water vapor in its atmosphere, a first for an exoplanet in the habitable zone. Discovery K2-18b was identified as part of the Kepler space telescope program, one of over 1,200 exoplanets discovered during the Kepler space telescope#Second Light (K2), "Second Light" K2 mission. The discovery of K2-18b was made in 2015, orbiting a red dwarf star (now known as K2-18) wi ...
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Mini-Neptune
A Mini-Neptune (sometimes known as a gas dwarf or transitional planet) is a planet less massive than Neptune but resembling Neptune in that it has a thick hydrogen–helium atmosphere, probably with deep layers of ice, rock or liquid oceans (made of water, ammonia, a mixture of both, or heavier volatiles). A gas dwarf is a gas planet with a rocky core that has accumulated a thick envelope of hydrogen, helium, and other volatiles, having, as a result, a total radius between 1.7 and 3.9 Earth radii (). The term is used in a three-tier, metallicity-based classification regime for short-period exoplanets, which also includes the rocky, terrestrial-like planets with less than and planets greater than , namely ice giants and gas giants. Properties Theoretical studies of such planets are loosely based on knowledge about Uranus and Neptune. Without a thick atmosphere, it would be classified as an ocean planet instead. An estimated dividing line between a rocky planet and a gaseous pla ...
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Titanium Oxide
Titanium oxide may refer to: * Titanium dioxide (titanium(IV) oxide), TiO2 * Titanium(II) oxide (titanium monoxide), TiO, a non-stoichiometric oxide * Titanium(III) oxide (dititanium trioxide), Ti2O3 * Ti3O * Ti2O * δ-TiOx (x= 0.68–0.75) * TinO2n−1 where n ranges from 3–9 inclusive, e.g. Ti3O5, Ti4O7, etc. Uses Often used as an active ingredient in sunscreens combined with oxybenzone and octyl methoxycinnamate Octyl methoxycinnamate or ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate (INCI) or octinoxate (USAN), trade names Eusolex 2292 and Uvinul MC80, is an organic compound that is an ingredient in some sunscreens and lip balms. It is an ester formed from methoxycinnam ....Serpone N, Salinaro A, Emeline AV, Horikoshi S, Hidaka H, Zhao JC. 2002. "An in vitro systematic spectroscopic examination of the photostabilities of a random set of commercial sunscreen lotions and their chemical UVB/UVA active agents". ''Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences'' 1(12): 970–981. Used to give the ...
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Hot Jupiter
Hot Jupiters (sometimes called hot Saturns) are a class of gas giant exoplanets that are inferred to be physically similar to Jupiter but that have very short orbital periods (). The close proximity to their stars and high surface-atmosphere temperatures resulted in their informal name "hot Jupiters". Hot Jupiters are the easiest extrasolar planets to detect via the radial-velocity method, because the oscillations they induce in their parent stars' motion are relatively large and rapid compared to those of other known types of planets. One of the best-known hot Jupiters is . Discovered in 1995, it was the first extrasolar planet found orbiting a Sun-like star. has an orbital period of about 4 days. General characteristics Though there is diversity among hot Jupiters, they do share some common properties. * Their defining characteristics are their large masses and short orbital periods, spanning 0.36–11.8 Jupiter masses and 1.3–111 Earth days. The mass c ...
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Carbon
Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent In chemistry, the valence (US spelling) or valency (British spelling) of an element is the measure of its combining capacity with other atoms when it forms chemical compounds or molecules. Description The combining capacity, or affinity of an ...—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent bond, covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon makes up only about 0.025 percent of Earth's crust. Three Isotopes of carbon, isotopes occur naturally, Carbon-12, C and Carbon-13, C being stable, while Carbon-14, C is a radionuclide, decaying with a half-life of about 5,730 years. Carbon is one of the Timeline of chemical element discoveries#Ancient discoveries, few elements known since antiquity. Carbon is the 15th Abundance of elements in Earth's crust, most abundant element in the Earth's crust, and the Abundance of the c ...
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55 Cancri E
55 Cancri e (abbreviated 55 Cnc e, formally named Janssen and nicknamed "Hell on Earth") is an exoplanet in the orbit of its Sun-like host star 55 Cancri A. The mass of the exoplanet is about 8.63 Earth masses and its diameter is about twice that of the Earth, thus making it the first super-Earth discovered around a main sequence star, predating Gliese 876 d by a year. It takes fewer than 18 hours to complete an orbit and is the innermost-known planet in its planetary system. 55 Cancri e was discovered on 30 August 2004. However, until the 2010 observations and recalculations, this planet had been thought to take about 2.8 days to orbit the star. In October 2012, it was announced that 55 Cancri e could be a carbon planet. In February 2016, it was announced that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope had detected hydrogen and helium (and suggestions of hydrogen cyanide), but no water vapor, in the atmosphere of 55 Cancri e, the first time the atmosphere of a super-Earth exoplanet was a ...
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Super-Earth
A super-Earth is an extrasolar planet with a mass higher than Earth's, but substantially below those of the Solar System's ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, which are 14.5 and 17 times Earth's, respectively. The term "super-Earth" refers only to the mass of the planet, and so does not imply anything about the surface conditions or habitability. The alternative term "gas dwarfs" may be more accurate for those at the higher end of the mass scale, although "mini-Neptunes" is a more common term. Definition In general, super-Earths are defined by their masses, and the term does not imply temperatures, compositions, orbital properties, habitability, or environments. While sources generally agree on an upper bound of 10 Earth masses (~69% of the mass of Uranus, which is the Solar System's giant planet with the least mass), the lower bound varies from 1 or 1.9 to 5, with various other definitions appearing in the popular media. The term "super-Earth" is also used by astronomers to ...
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Exoplanet
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, initially detected in 1988, was confirmed in 2003. There are many methods of detecting exoplanets. Transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy have found the most, but these methods suffer from a clear observational bias favoring the detection of planets near the star; thus, 85% of the exoplanets detected are inside the tidal locking zone. In several cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star. About 1 in 5 Sun-like starsFor the purpose of this 1 in 5 statistic, "Sun-like" means G-type star. Data for Sun-like stars was not available so this statistic is an extrapolation from data about K-type stars. have an "Earth-sized"For the purpose of this 1 in 5 statistic, Earth-sized means 1–2 Earth radii. planet in the habitable zone. ...
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Institute Of Astronomy, Cambridge
The Institute of Astronomy (IoA) is the largest of the three astronomy departments in the University of Cambridge, and one of the largest astronomy sites in the United Kingdom. Around 180 academics, postdocs, visitors and assistant staff work at the department. Research at the department is made in a number of scientific areas, including exoplanets, stars, star clusters, cosmology, gravitational-wave astronomy, the high-redshift universe, AGN, galaxies and galaxy clusters. This is a mixture of observational astronomy, over the entire electromagnetic spectrum, computational theoretical astronomy, and analytic theoretical research. The Kavli Institute for Cosmology is also located on the department site. This institute has an emphasis on ''The Universe at High Redshifts''. The Cavendish Astrophysics Group are based in the Battcock Centre, a building in the same grounds. History The institute was formed in 1972 from the amalgamation of earlier institutions: * The University ...
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