November 29, 2018 Page 5
Quinoa Tabbouleh Salad
with Grapes
Recipe provided by Brandpoint
Prep time: 15 minutes • Cook time: 15 minutes • Yield: Serves 6
Ingredients
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 3/4 cup quinoa, rinsed
• 3/4 cup halved red California
grapes
• 3/4 cup halved green California
grapes
• 2 cups diced English cucumber
• 2/3 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
• 1/2 cup chopped dill
• 1/4 cup chopped mint
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
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Preparation
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1. In a medium-sized saucepan, bring the water to a boil and add
the quinoa.
2. Reduce the heat and simmer until quinoa is tender, about 10 to
12 minutes.
3. Drain any excess water, then fluff the quinoa and transfer it onto a
baking sheet to cool for 10 minutes.
4. In a medium bowl, combine the grapes, cucumber, parsley, dill, mint,
olive oil, lemon juice and zest, salt and pepper.
5. Gently fold the cooled quinoa into the grape mixture and serve. •
Looking Up
A Cold Super-Earth in Our Neighborhood
Based on a Press Release from
The Max Planck Institute,
Provided by Bob Eklund
An international group of astronomers,
involving the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
(MPIA) in Heidelberg, has succeeded
in detecting a planet around Barnard’s star,
which is only six light-years away. The planet
has just over three times the mass of Earth and
is slightly colder than Saturn. The discovery
was made by measuring the periodic change
in the radial velocity of the parent star. The
spectrograph CARMENES, developed to a
large part by the MPIA, played an important
role in this discovery.
Barnard’s star (GJ 699) is the single star
closest to Earth, located at a distance of about
6 light-years. When viewed from Earth, it
appears to move across the sky faster than
any other star except Alpha Centauri. For
a long time, the search for planets orbiting
Barnard’s star has been unsuccessful. But now
astronomers have extracted a signal from 771
individual measurements they have collected
over the recent 20 years, which points to a
planet that travels around its host star once
within 233 days. The planet has been named
Barnard’s star b.
“For the analysis we used observations
from seven different instruments, spanning
20 years, making this one of the largest and
most extensive datasets ever used for precise
radial velocity studies,” explains Ignasi Ribas
of the Institut de Ciènces de l’Espai (ICE,
CSIC), Spain, the first author of the underlying
research published in Nature.
Since Barnard’s star, a red dwarf star, only
emits 0.4% of the Sun’s radiant power, the
planet Barnard’s star b only receives about
2% of the intensity the Earth collects from
the Sun. From this, the scientists conclude
that the planet with an average temperature
of about -170°C is probably a hostile, icy
desert, in which there is no liquid water.
With a mass of at least 3.3 Earth masses,
it belongs to the class of super-earths, i.e.,
exoplanets that fill the mass scale between
Earth and Neptune.
The discovery is based on the radial velocity
method. Here a sensitive spectrograph
registers small periodic shifts of the spectral
lines in the spectrum of a star due to its
movement along the line of sight caused by
the planet. From this the mass of the planet
can be calculated.
The data collected up to 2015 already
contained indications of a planet. MPIA
astronomer Martin Kürster alone contributed
76 data sets from the UVES spectrograph.
However, certainty was only obtained with
additional measurements. Therefore, an international
collaboration called “Red Dots”
was formed to examine red dwarf stars such
as Barnard’s star in more detail employing
state-of-the-art spectrographs.
Martin Kürster comments: “Until the
1980s, almost all professional and popular
astronomy books stated that two Jupiter-like
planets had been found near Barnard’s star.
This was found to be incorrect due to recent
measurements in which I was partly involved.
That is why it is all the more fascinating that
we are now able to detect this planet with a
much smaller mass.”
In 2016, a planet was detected orbiting
the star that is closest to the Sun, Proxima
Centauri. With Barnard’s star b, we now
know four planetary systems at a distance of
up to 10 light-years from the solar system.
Within a radius of 15 light-years we know
of 14. Thus, the current discovery contributes
to the perception that the formation of
planets is apparently a very frequent cosmic
phenomenon. •
Artist’s impression of the surface on the planet “Barnard’s Star b.” Image: ESO/M. Kornmesser.
“One of the big things about space exploration is that it is as expensive as it is complicated,
and you need all the countries of the world to help if you want to accomplish big goals.”
– Ellen Stofan