A 'weird' planet found

Kepler the planet-hunting telescope has captured a weird world located 2,300 light years from our Earth. The word 'weird' is the most suitable expression that can be used to describe this planet which has a very unusual orbit.

Due to this living in such a planet with seasons so erratic you would hardly know whether to wear shorts or a heavy overcoat. That what is happening in this weird world-Kepler-413b-which wobbles on its spin axis, like a "child's top".

The tilt of the planet's spin axis can vary by as much as 30 degrees over 11 years, leading to rapid and erratic changes in seasons. In contrast, Earth's rotational precession is 23.5 degrees over 26,000 years. Researchers are amazed that this far-off planet is precessing on a human time scale.

Kepler 413-b is in the constellation Cygnus. It circles a close pair of orange and red dwarf stars every 66 days. The planet's orbit around the binary stars appears to wobble, too, because the plane of its orbit is tilted 2.5 degrees with respect to the plane of the star pair's orbit. As seen from Earth, the wobbling orbit moves up and down continuously.

Kepler finds planets by noticing the dimming of a star or stars when a planet transits, or travels in front of them. Normally, planets transit like clockwork. Astronomers using Kepler discovered the wobbling when they found an unusual pattern of transiting for Kepler-413b.

According to VeselinKostov, the principal on the observation by looking at the Kepler data over the course of 1,500 days, it was seen three transits in the first 180 days - one transit every 66 days - then it had 800 days with no transits at all. After that, five more transits in a row was observed. Kostov is affiliated with the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. The next transit visible from Earth's point of view is not predicted to occur until 2020. This is because the orbit moves up and down, a result of the wobbling, in such a great degree that it sometimes does not transit the stars as viewed from Earth.

Astronomers are still trying to explain why this planet is out of alignment with its stars. There could be other planetary bodies in the system that tilted the orbit. Or, it could be that a third star nearby that is a visual companion may actually be gravitationally bound to the system and exerting an influence.

Even with its changing seasons, Kepler-413b is too warm for life as we know it. Because it orbits so close to the stars, its temperatures are too high for liquid water to exist, making it uninhabitable.

It also is a Super Neptune - a giant gas planet with a mass about 65 times that of Earth - so there is no surface on which to stand.

Kepler-413b is classified as a Super Neptune, a gas giant with a mass 65 times that of Earth, notes NASA. The researchers also ruled out the possibility of liquid water on the planet as it is too hot and orbits too closely to its host stars.

If more planets with this type of orbit are discovered, it may end up revolutionising what we know about how planets and solar systems form in the first place.

Police dog barks and the man gets life term

Barking at the moon is a well known expression that says to protest in vain or something that is rather pointless.

But when a police dog barks at someone in an identification parade it refers to something serious. In this instance the result is a life term for the victim.

That is what Rajaram Babar had to undergo when appearing in an identification parade to find the killer of Subhadrabai and her paramour Nivrutti.

But as a police dog barking at an accused is in itself not a substantive piece of evidence to nail him for murder, the Bombay high court has ruled in an important judgement.

Ten years after rajaram was arrested for double murder in Solapur, a division bench of Justice P V Hardas and Justice Ajay Gadkari acquitted him saying there was no evidence to prove that he committed the killings. The judges ordered that Rajaram Babar who was serving a life term be released immediately from prison if he was not wanted in any other case.

According to the Times of India one of the crucial piece of evidence that the police had produced before the trial court was a tracker dog barking at Babar from a line up of suspects. The police said that the dog had been given some blood stained stones from the site of incident to smell. "The evidence of the tracker dog is not substantive piece of evidence and in the absence of proof of the dog barking at accused as well as proof of the article which was given to the dog for sniffing, no reliance whatsoever can be placed on the evidence of dog tracking. We find that there is no other evidence of corroborative nature which would corroborate the evidence of dog tracking," said the judges.

The incident dates back to September 2004, when the bodies of Subhadrabai and Nivrutti were found lying in front of their house. Police investigations revealed that there was a dispute between Babar and Subhadrabai over laying of pipes.

The police called in the dog squad and the tracker dog barked at Babar who was arrested for the murders. A trial court in 2005 held Babar guilty of murder, while acquitting a co-accused and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

The other evidence submitted by the police was the statement of Subhadra's daughter that the accused and others had strained relations with her deceased mother over laying of a pipeline. The court said that strained relations did not prove a motive. The other evidence was an axe and blood stained clothes recovered at Babar's instance. The HC said that there was no proof that the articles were sealed before sending it for analysis to rule out tampering.

The court said that in cases resting on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution has to prove each and every circumstance, which should be of a conclusive nature that should have definite tendency of implicating the accused. "Having examined evidence against the appellant, we find that there is no evidence which would conclusively prove the offence against Babar beyond reasonable doubt," the judges ruled while setting aside the trial court order holding him guilty of double murder.