Tag: Astronomy

Yes! Earth 2!

More sdiencey stuff…..the stuff that makes it worthwhile to be on the ‘net….

Back in January of this year when I made my predictions for the year I said then that scientist would discover Earth 2……..and it looks like Nostradamus has a rival….ME!

Newser) – The Kepler telescope is certainly earning its keep. It has found even more Earth-like planets, NASA announced today, and one is being described as the most Earth-like yet. The news of Kepler-62f comes as part of the discovery of three exoplanets that could possibly support life, explains Space.com. Kepler-62f is just 40% bigger than our own planet, and orbits a star that’s only 20% as bright as our sun; the neighboring Kepler-62e circles the same star, which is 1,200 light years away. And as the AP explains, they’re just the right size (past ones have been too big, and are likely gas balls like Neptune) and in just the right place (ie, the habitable zone, where it’s not too hot or cold) near their star. “This is the first one where I’m thinking ‘Huh, Kepler-62f really might have life on it’,” says a co-author of the study on the two, published today.

Space.com explains that a separate modeling study indicates the planets might be completely covered in oceans. As for temperature, chief Kepler scientist William Borucki says Kepler-62e is a bit warm, like a Hawaiian world, and Kepler-62f is a bit chilly, more Alaskan. The third exoplanet spotted is Kepler-69c; it’s 70% bigger than Earth but revolves around a star much like our own; it’s being described as the smallest world located in the habitable zone of a star akin to our sun. These are just the most promising of Kepler’s latest lot; an additional four planets were found in the two new solar systems identified, but none of them could support life.

And I did it without the necessity of a de-coder ring……huh?

Water, Water Everywhere!

They say that there must be water if we are to find life on other planets……remember life here started out there……..so will we find the element needed for life?

It is Sunday and a day without politics and a day with scieney stuff……

Newser) – Scientists say they’ve spotted water vapor and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of a huge gas planet some 130 light-years from Earth, NBC News reports. That doesn’t mean life exists there—the planet, HR 8799c, is way too hot and gassy—but it does highlight our growing ability to learn about far-away worlds. “The big surprise was actually that we could do it,” says the co-author of the study, published in Science. “We can actually see the individual lines of these molecules.”

Astronomers used a telescope in Hawaii to conduct the scan, the most detailed ever of an alien planet’s atmosphere. One day they could do the same with smaller, earth-sized planets, they say, if the telescope is planted on a dedicated spacecraft. Another neat finding: The authors say planets in the system formed as Earth did, by accruing the dust and gas that surrounds infant stars. But not everyone buys that interpretation: “Theorists are clever,” says a dubious astrophysicist. “It’s hard to paint them into a corner.”

Will this be Earth 2?

Martian Life?

The weekend is here and time for my weekly sciencey stuff……..I get frustrated with the antics of our elected officials and so on the weekends I tried to give my brain a rest from manure…….

So after all the cash spent to go and explore Mars….what do we have for our investment?

(Newser) – So, can flowers grow at -65 Fahrenheit? That was apparently the belief of one website reader after the Curiosity rover sent back a photo of a hard-to-identify, light-colored object on Mars, Space.com reports. Noting its reflection of sunlight, “translucent appearance,” and “irregular confirmation (like pistils),” the reader on Above Top Secret dubbed it a “Martian Flower.” Other readers likened it to a crystal, quartz rock, “part of the rover,” and “the ring I lost years ago. I wondered where it had go to!”

So NBC’s Alan Boyle went to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for answers. He asked whether the “flower” might be a broken part of Curiosity, as was another tiny, bright object the rover spotted in October. “That appears to be part of the rock, not debris from the spacecraft,” said a spokesperson. That’s all for now—but Boyle concludes that if flowers really are growing on Mars, “you’ll know it’s time to cue up the ‘X-Files’ theme. Either way, the truth is out there.”

Could this be the beginning of many more such discoveries on Mars?

Earth 2?

Back on 01 January I did my annual prediction post and I said that Earth 2 would be discovered…….

Scientists this week announced at the 221st meeting of American Astronomical Society that the Kepler telescope has found a “super-Earth” whose radius is 1.5 times that of our own; it exists in the habitable zone, orbits a star similar to our sun, and possibly contains water. Space.com dubs it “the most Earth-like world yet detected” outside of our solar system. “This was very exciting because it’s our first habitable-zone super Earth around a sun-type star,” says a Kepler astronomer. The Earth-like planet orbits a G-type star, one that’s nearly as hot as our sun, once every 242 days. “It’s a big deal,” adds an astrophysicist of the planet named KOI 172.02. “It’s definitely a good candidate for life.” (The news comes just a couple of days after astronomers announced there were probably around 17 billion Earth-size planets around the Milky Way.)

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Nostradamus……looks like my predictions are off to a good start….the Oracle Of Delphi can kiss my butt……SCHOOLED!

The “Homeless” Planet

It could be the title of a really poor SyFy movie…..or it could be an idea of how to handle the growing homeless population……or ……….

(Newser) – Astronomers have identified a “homeless” planet for the first time and given it a rather un-catchy label: CFBDSIR2149. This young and very cold planet is drifting about 100 light-years away with a group of roughly 30 stars, but isn’t orbiting any of them—which makes its blue light stand out well against the black backdrop of the universe. Astronomers have spotted other homeless-planet candidates but weren’t sure if they were really brown dwarfs, the smallest kind of star, the Smithsonian’s Surprising Science blog reports.

Theorists have speculated that such drifting planets exist and may even be as common as ordinary stars—but seeing them is the problem. “Looking for planets around their stars is akin to studying a firefly sitting one centimeter away from a distant, powerful car headlight,” says the lead author in the study. “This nearby free-floating object offered the opportunity to study the firefly in detail without the dazzling lights of the car messing everything up.”

After I read this I thought of a Star Trek (I believe) episode where the Enterprise encountered a wandering planet and it was actually a very large ship that the inhabitants did not know they lived in a star ship…..other than that a pretty cool discovery……..

For All You Star Wars Geeks

Do you remember Tatooine?  The home of Anakin and Jabba the Hutt…….that desolate planet on the edge of known space that has a inhospitable climate and residents?   Fiction is fun but there may be some credence to the idea of Tatooine.

(Newser) – Luke Skywalker would not consider this a big deal, but some of us earthlings are getting excited. Astronomers have discovered a Tatooine-like planet that orbits two suns and is also orbited by two other stars, Space.com reports. Called PH1, the gas giant is about six times bigger than Earth and resides roughly 5,000 light-years away in a planetary system with four stars—the first ever discovered, the Independent reports.

“It’s fascinating to try and imagine what it would be like to visit a planet with four suns in its sky, but this new world is confusing astronomers,” says one astronomer. “It’s not at all clear how it formed in such a busy environment.” A pair of amateur US skywatchers spotted the alien world in a project called Planet Hunters, launched by Yale University to help professional and armchair astronomers delve into data collected by NASA’s Kepler telescope.

Personally, I would like to think that it is more like Arrakis, the desert planet in Dune……..a more interesting planet that Tatooine…….

Could It Be Earth 2?

Not that sappy TV show from the 90’s, but rather a new planet that could be colonized in the case of an emergency….you know kinda like an asteroid that cannot be diverted…..since the Hubble went into orbit we have been finding new stars and new worlds…..one of the latest discoveries is promising….

From the UK’s Independent

An Earth-like planet has been discovered around the nearest star to our own Sun but astronomers have discounted the possibility of it harbouring life because its molten surface stews at about 1,500C.

The planet is the closest and smallest among about 800 “exoplanets” that scientists have identified beyond the Solar System since 1995 when they detected the first extra-solar planet.

Little is known about the newly discovered planet except that it has a mass similar to Earth and spins around the our nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, once every 3.2 days at a distance of 6 million kilometres (3.7m miles).

Alpha Centauri is the brightest star in the southern sky and is just 4.3 light years from Earth – it would still take 40,000 years to travel there with existing rocket technology. It is actually composed of three stars, Alpha Centauri A and B and a third, more distant star known as Proxima Centauri.

The relatively close proximity of the new planet to Alpha Centauri B means that the planet is closer to its own star than the distance between Mercury – the innermost planet in the Solar System – and the Sun. This means the planet is too hot for either liquid water or life, or at least life as we know it.

Astronomers discovered the planet using a technique that monitors subtle changes to the wavelength of light coming from a star. This “Doppler wobble” of the star can indicate whether its movements are affected by the gravitational pull of a nearby planet as it completes each orbit.

It was the same technique – and same team of astronomers – who discovered the first exoplanet in 1995, a giant gas planet similar to Jupiter orbiting the star 51 Peg. However, the “Doppler wobble” technique has since been refined to enable the astronomers to detect Earth-sized planets about 150 times smaller than the giant planet found around 51 Peg.

The Alpha Centauri B planet was found using the HARPS instrument attached to the European Southern Observatory’s telescope at La Silla in Chile, which measures tiny changes in the speed at which the star is moving towards or away from the Earth.

The instrument effectively monitors the gravitational pull on the star caused by the planet and can do so down to a velocity of about 1.8km per hour, which is about the same speed of a crawling baby.

We are finding these types of planets at an alarming rate….the problem, at least for now, is that we have NO way of getting there if the need should arise….maybe this will help the squints come up with some sort of propulsion other than the antiquated form we use now….

Titan, The Fart Joke

It is my last day of non-political fun…..I am sticking with my sciencey stuff…..

I have heard some blame global warming/climate change on methane…..well methane created by cows farting….while I enjoy a good fart joke this one is not that funny…..it seems that NASA has found a a large lake of this substance on the Saturn’s  moon of Titan…….

(Newser) – University of Arizona researchers have discovered a massive methane lake in the arid tropics of Titan, they announced today, suggesting that Saturn’s biggest moon may have subterranean channels of the liquid. Titan has long been known to contain liquid methane, which forms pools, clouds, and rains much as water does on Earth, but until now it’s always been concentrated at the poles, Space.comexplains. Scientists assumed its tropics were too hot for anything similar.

The findings were based on readings from the Cassini spacecraft. “This discovery was absolutely not expected,” the lead researcher says. “Lakes at the poles are easy to explain, but lakes in the tropics are not.” She says the lake is roughly the size of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. “Our work also suggests the existence of a handful of smaller and shallower ponds similar to marshes on Earth with knee- to ankle-level depths.”

This is all too cool…but if I am not mistaken is not methane a gas that is created by the decomposition of organic material (if I recall my high school chem class)…..so does that mean that at some point there was organic material of some sort on Titan?  Just thinking!

The Red Planet

Sunday and a cookout to end my two days of relaxation, mostly mental relaxation, before I return to what can only be called…..a political kabuki.  A small celebration with family for Memorial Day……

We have all seen the movies about what Mars was like in the past….War of the Worlds, Red Planet, Mission Mars, on and on…….but do we really know what it was like on Mars, prehistory?

A new survey has those answers for us…….as reported in Newser.com

(Newser) – A far denser atmosphere may have allowed Earth-like oceans to flourish on Mars billions of years ago, the Telegraph reports. Analyzing data from the Mars rover Spirit, Professor Josef Dufek of Georgia Tech University concluded that the planet’s atmosphere was once 20 times denser—perfect for harboring lots of water. “Our study is consistent with growing research that early Mars was at least a transiently watery world with a much denser atmosphere than we see today,” says Dufek.

Dufek’s team examined the mark left by a flying Martian rock during a volcanic eruption about 3.5 billion years ago, LiveScience reports. Judging by the mark’s depth, the rock must have flown at less than 43 yards per second—which requires a much denser Martian atmosphere. Talk of water on Mars isn’t exactly new: Last year, the Spirit rover found a light-colored rock that hinted at water on the Red Planet.

Did life here begin out there?

God!  I love this sciencey stuff!  Thoughts?

Will There Be A 2013?

Sunday and more for you to consider in life…….

We all have seen or heard all the theories about what could happen in 2012……December 21st to be exact……the world could end….the rapture could be happening…..or more than likely the Maya just needed to buy a new calendar…..

But in any case there is updated info……..

According to The Washington Post‘s Brian Vastag, researchers excavating the “lost” city of Xultún in present-day Guatemala discovered new astronomical tables carved into the wall of a “1200-year-old residential building.” Much like the Maya codices that conspiracy theorists say predict an end-of-the-world date in December 2012, the tables chart planetary movements, moon and star patterns, and can predict the positions of celestial bodies thousands of years into the past and the future.

Numerous doomsday predictions are based on the claim that previously known codieces, like the famous Dresden Codex, chart the entire length of human history, but mysteriously stop on December 21, 2012 as if the Mayans knew that would be the last day humans would be around. However, the archeologists say that these the newly discovered tables — which pre-date the oldest known codex by as much as 500 years — span over 7,000 years of time, stretching far beyond of present age.

So sports fans, if you wake up on December 22 alive…..don’t get cocky…..there maybe be NO reason to smile or celebrate……because…it ain’t over until its over!

(Newser) – Astronomers are keeping their eyes on an asteroid with the potential to make life very uncomfortable for a lot of Earthlings 28 years from now. The near-Earth asteroid 2011 AG5, a chunk of rock roughly 460 feet wide, will be close to our planet in 2040, and scientists believe there is a 1 in 625 chance that Earth’s gravitational pull could put it on course to crash into us on February 5 of that year.

For the asteroid’s orbit to be perturbed by gravity, it would need to pass through a small “keyhole” region in space in the year 2023. If observations over the next year or two find the asteroid headed straight for the keyhole, a deflection mission will be planned. Hopefully, it will be a “straightforward task to alter the asteroid’s trajectory enough to miss the keyhole,” the head of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations Program tells Space.com

My advice would be to NOT get too excited until the rest of this equation is known……I know somebody has got to have a thought or two on this…….sock it to me!