A new Stellar Catalog

Posted on May 1, 2018 by jonsastroblog

Gaia_s_HertzsprungRussell_diagram_node_full_image_2
An HR diagram created from the stars in the Gaia Catalog Source

A new two-year long study done by the European Space Agency has created the most comprehensive survey of the universe ever recorded. The Gaia project has cataloged over 1.7 billion stars, 14,000 asteroids and numerous galaxies and galaxy clusters spread throughout the universe. What started out as a relatively small affair eventually exploded into a research initiative with over 450 scientists and astronomers working tirelessly to catalogue the impressive amounts of incoming data. The data was made public on April 25th of this year and will hopefully contribute to numerous discoveries in the coming years.

The initial goal of the program was to calculate the distances to numerous stars by measuring their stellar parallax (I.e. how far they move as the Earth orbits the sun). This measurement is notoriously hard to get, but thanks to the hard work of the project members, they were able to get accurate distance measurements for 10% of the stars in the catalogue. Besides measuring distance, Gaia also tracked the apparent brightness and color of almost every star that they observed. According to Fred Jansen, Gaia’s mission manager, “Scientists will be busy with this data for many years, and we are ready to be surprised by the avalanche of discoveries that will unlock the secrets of our Galaxy.”

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A new Stellar Catalog

Posted on May 1, 2018 by jonsastroblog
Gaia_s_HertzsprungRussell_diagram_node_full_image_2
An HR diagram created from the stars in the Gaia Catalog Source

A new two-year long study done by the European Space Agency has created the most comprehensive survey of the universe ever recorded. The Gaia project has cataloged over 1.7 billion stars, 14,000 asteroids and numerous galaxies and galaxy clusters spread throughout the universe. What started out as a relatively small affair eventually exploded into a research initiative with over 450 scientists and astronomers working tirelessly to catalogue the impressive amounts of incoming data. The data was made public on April 25th of this year and will hopefully contribute to numerous discoveries in the coming years.

The initial goal of the program was to calculate the distances to numerous stars by measuring their stellar parallax (I.e. how far they move as the Earth orbits the sun). This measurement is notoriously hard to get, but thanks to the hard work of the project members, they were able to get accurate distance measurements for 10% of the stars in the catalogue. Besides measuring distance, Gaia also tracked the apparent brightness and color of almost every star that they observed. According to Fred Jansen, Gaia’s mission manager, “Scientists will be busy with this data for many years, and we are ready to be surprised by the avalanche of discoveries that will unlock the secrets of our Galaxy.”

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Viruses Are An Option

Posted on May 1, 2018 by milkymeteorite

Viruses, microscopic organisms that exist everywhere, consist of genetic material, RNA or DNA that is surrounded by a coat of protein, lipid or glycoprotein. They are classified as parasitic because of how they cannot replicate. We think of them mostly, as the cause of why we have a stomach bug, and why we just randomly wake up feeling like we have to puke.21349_lores However, there is now a group of scientists who are wanting astrobiologists to consider seaching for viruses beyond Earth. NASA has a current astrobiology strategy, where viruses are actually mentioned 6 times, where they call for the study of viruses to be incorporated into extraterrestrial science missions and astrobiological research at home, and to have a checklist for the actions needed to make more viruses noticeable. Scientists usually can try to find other life on planets by looking for certain chemicals, but virions do not create products like methane or oxygen. It is hypothesized by scientists that if viruses had been on other planets, then they wouldve changed the metabolism of other life forms; thus, creating different byproducts. Scientists want to look at other strategies like virus detection methods, especially on Europa and Enceladus because there are ancient oceans there. Often times scientists are afraid of contaminating these ancient oceans, because then what if that kills possible life that is already there?

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A New Way to Travel Through Space

Posted on May 1, 2018 by jonsastroblog

Article Image
Photo of LightSail 2 Photo Source
More info on solar sails here

Solar sails are a new and incredibly interesting propulsion system that is currently undergoing various testing around the globe. Instead of being powered by rockets, solar sails allow spacecrafts to be powered by the sun itself. Just as a sailboat is pushed along by the winds on the ocean, solar sails are pushed along by impacting photons. When a photon hits a reflective surface, it bounces off and transfers some momentum to that surface. If you multiply that tiny push a few million times over, you can use light to push a spacecraft through space.

The biggest drawback of solar sails is that you need a massive surface to capture enough sunlight to propel a spacecraft. The LightSail 2 spacecraft is a tiny probe (measuring 10x10x30 cm) that will be solely powered by solar sails after its initial launch. Even though the actual probe is only a few centimeters long, its solar sail will measure a comparatively massive 32 square meter (or 340 square feet). This means that although solar sails may not be feasible for large space craft, they could revolutionize how smaller probes travel through space.

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A New Way to Travel Through Space

Posted on May 1, 2018 by jonsastroblog
Article Image
Photo of LightSail 2 Photo Source
More info on solar sails here

Solar sails are a new and incredibly interesting propulsion system that is currently undergoing various testing around the globe. Instead of being powered by rockets, solar sails allow spacecrafts to be powered by the sun itself. Just as a sailboat is pushed along by the winds on the ocean, solar sails are pushed along by impacting photons. When a photon hits a reflective surface, it bounces off and transfers some momentum to that surface. If you multiply that tiny push a few million times over, you can use light to push a spacecraft through space.

The biggest drawback of solar sails is that you need a massive surface to capture enough sunlight to propel a spacecraft. The LightSail 2 spacecraft is a tiny probe (measuring 10x10x30 cm) that will be solely powered by solar sails after its initial launch. Even though the actual probe is only a few centimeters long, its solar sail will measure a comparatively massive 32 square meter (or 340 square feet). This means that although solar sails may not be feasible for large space craft, they could revolutionize how smaller probes travel through space.

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The Drake Equation

Posted on May 1, 2018 by interplanetira

The Drake Equation is a formula that is commonly used to stimulate discussion of the possibility of extraterrestrial life-  not to necessarily quantify the number of communicating civilizations. The Drake Equation uses many variables to quantify estimates for the number of communicating civilizations, but a number of them are quite controversial as they are not as easily defined as others. We discussed these controversial variables in class- such as those relating to the number of viable planets that develop intelligent life and the lifetime of those civilizations.

Among the most controversial variables are f(i) and L. F(i) is the variable that estimates the fraction of life that develops intelligence. Some argue that, given a near infinite amount of time, every planet capable of developing life will develop intelligent life at some point. Others argue that over the course of the billions of years that Earth has existed, and out of the billions of species that have existed, only one species has developed intelligence, humans. L is the variable that assumes how long this civilization will continue to communicate in space. The more conservative estimates use Earth-civilizations to estimate this to be around 300 years, which is problematic for a number of reasons. First, these civilizations were not capable of communicating in space, so using their lifetimes would be invalid. Secondly, it can be assumed that civilizations will have access to the previous civilizations technology, thus indistinguishable in terms of communication in space. More liberal estimates conclude that after reaching a certain level of intelligence, a civilization will overcome all of the threats to its survival, thus communicating for an infinite amount of time.

At its conception, it sparked scientific discussion, estimating that -even with conservative values (like assuming 1 star formed every year, while that actual value is closer to 1.5-3 stars per year of our galaxies lifetime) – there were roughly 1,000 to 100,000,000 communicating civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy. Now, given the varying assumptions made about the more controversial variables, current estimate ranges are much larger. Ranging from 9.1×10^-11, which says that we are likely to be alone in the galaxy, to 15,600,000 communicating civilizations.

Despite the current estimates, it has been vital to the discussion of extraterrestrial civilizations and about the Universe.

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Source: The Thinking Muse

 

 

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Astronomy’s Lasting Influence on Human Thought

Posted on May 1, 2018 by aquarianastronomy
climate chage
The fate of the Earth is in human hands. How will we respond to that reality? Source: Bended Reality.

If my short study of Astronomy has taught one thing, it is how influential Astronomy has been on our way of thinking as a species. This influence can be seen in ancient times, when civilizations such as in Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, Egypt, China, India, and Greece placed Astronomy and Astrology at the centers of their ideology, usually in the form of religion. The modern changes in our comprehension of Astronomy, whether the understanding of heliocentricity, the discovery of new planets, stars, and galaxies through advanced telescopes and mathematical predictions, or the model of space-time, have each changed the way humans not only see the universe around us but also how we see ourselves. Just as Kepler’s discovery that the sun was the center of the solar system changed much of how we perceived ourselves (as we could no longer be the center of the universe), so also has the probability of life on other worlds caused us to question our place in the universe, our identity as a species. Only time will tell how we will define ourselves or how species from other planets, if such species exist, will see us. Maybe we will be defined by global wars or self-imposed destructive climate change, or maybe we will adapt and solve these problems. Regardless, Astronomy has done much to prompt these questions which it itself cannot answer. It is up to us to address these questions; and address them we will, even if we do not set out to.

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Did the U.S. Navy detect Alien Aircraft?

Posted on May 1, 2018 by aquarianastronomy
UFO
Image from an aerial encounter between a UFO and a U.S. Navy aircraft. ABC News.

The Fermi Paradox is a fundamental piece of where human civilization currently stands concerning the question of life on other planets: if the probability of life in the universe is so high, why have we not interacted with this life before? One of the answers to this is question is simple: life from other worlds has interacted with us or has noticed us but is leaving us alone for now. Recent news coming from the U.S. Pentagon has excited this debate once more.

According to information made public by the Pentagon, the U.S. military funded a program called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP) which studied UFO’s. Among the information released were videos in which military pilots detected aircraft which they could not identify. Neither the pilots who witnessed these encounters nor the Pentagon itself knew what these objects were, but the government released the videos to make the science public. Luis Elizondo, the once-head of the program who advocated for the release of these documents, was interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition: “If you’re asking my personal opinion from here, look, I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t know where it’s from. But we’re pretty sure it’s not here.” “Now does that mean it’s ‘out there’? Whether or not it’s Russian or Chinese inside or little green men from Mars or frankly your neighbor’s dog, I wanted to purposely steer away from that because I wanted to focus on truly the raw science: What were we seeing and did it pose a threat to national security?”

Could this be some advanced technology from another foreign power such as Russia or China, or is it possibly an alien spacecraft? The jury is still out, and will likely remain so. However, if this is a military technology, it would be more advanced then what the average Navy pilot would be familiar with, as pilot David Fravor described the acceleration of the aircraft he saw as “faster than I’d ever seen anything in my life. “

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Pale Blue Dot

Posted on May 1, 2018 by yadavdhruv

Screen Shot 2018-03-18 at 10.56.13 AM

Over the course of the semester, I learned a lot of things. I started off learning about the size and scale of the universe, and the enormous distances between planets and stars. We can’t even travel a tenth of a light year in our lifetime in the fastest spaceship we own. Our furthest spacecraft, Voyager One, is only about 1 light day away from earth. Then I learned about some history, physical laws including Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion and Newton’s Law of Motion, light, and telescopes. Each of these topics gave a slight background as to how studying celestial bodies and the heavens became a profession and a hobby. It gave early astronomers a sense of where we are in our cosmic neighborhood. After that, I learned about how we came to be, how earth came to be. We talked about planetary formation theory and why the planets are the way they are. Why are rocky planets close to the sun? Why are gas giants so big? Why is earth the only planet we know of that supports life? It made me feel extremely coincidental, that earth just came to existence simply because of chance impacts and lucky positioning relative to the sun in the accretion disk during formation. This entire semester I learned about many things but most of all I found it incredible how small we are. Carl Sagan had a great quote about this when Voyager 1 turned its camera around in 1990 to take a picture of the Earth over 6 billion kilometers away. He said “We succeeded in taking that picture, and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam”. In the end, we are all on just a small pale blue dot.

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Tardigrades

Posted on May 1, 2018 by yadavdhruv

SEM_image_of_Milnesium_tardigradum_in_active_state_-_journal.pone.0045682.g001-2

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are known to be one of the strongest creatures on earth. They are an extremophile and can survive in almost any environment or climate. They’ve been found “from mountain tops to the deep sea and mud volcanoes; from tropical rain forests to the Antarctic. These micro-animals grow to a max length of about 0.5mm. They can survive for a few minutes in 304 degree F weather, 30 years are -4 degree F, and even a few days -328 degrees F. Some planets that have This extremely cold weather include Europa, whose average temperature sits around -260 degrees F. A tardigrade can definitely survive for more than just a few days on a planet like this, maybe even a few months if they somehow hitch a ride on a future shuttle’s mission to gas giant moons!

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