From the Space Bar to Space Exploration: Information, References, and Resources So That You Can Boldly Go

Posted on April 27, 2017 by Ashley Garcia
f90b366b-99b3-486f-9d6c-c45aa2368584.png
Photo Credit: NASA

If you read the title, then you probably understand what is going to be included in this post. Just to clarify however, what you should expect is a bunch of interesting and hopefully useful resources in various formats (apps, software, sites, news outlets, etc) if you want to continue exploring the ‘verse outside of this class. Also just to clarify, what you should not expect is every single resource that is out there (or individual titles of books, articles, etc.), because I am only human.

apps (some may be available for only iPhone or iPad):

  • NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) : NASA’s official app (from iTunes store)
  • NASA Spinoff : profiles examples of technology used in commercial products that were originally used as NASA research and mission tools.
  • NASA 3DV : lets you explore NASA’s Deep Space Exploration projects
  • NASA Television : live and on-demand NASA programming on-the-go
  • Asteroid Redirect Mission : learn about NASA’s ARM mission and project
  • GRAIL : learn more about NASA’s GRAIL mission, the purpose of which was to obtain precise gravity measurements on Earth’s Moon
  • MESSENGER: NASA’s Mission to Mercury : see app name
  • NASA Science: A Journey of Discovery : provides data about our solar system from NASA’s sources and records
  • NASA Visualization Explorer: provides recent data from various space-based research projects
  • Spacecraft 3D : AR (augmented reality) app that allows you to view and explore a variety of spacecraft used by NASA
  • NASA Technology Innovation : e-zine (electronic magazine) that keeps you up to date on NASA’s latest technological innovations and project designs
  • NASA Patent Portfolio : lets you search NASA’s patents to see if there is technology you’d like to use for your company by partnering with NASA
  • HubbleSite : lets you explore the Hubble Space Telescope and view various images from its missions
  • STAR – Space Telescope Augmented Reality : AR exploration of various space telescopes used by NASA
  • SkyORB : just nice visualizations of astronomy related images and information about various astronomy topics
  • Sky Guide: View Stars Night or Day : supposedly show stars in real time when you hold your phone to the sky, has nice visuals and interface regardless of accuracy
  • Earth-Now : visualizes recent climate data from Earth Science satellites
  • Redshift – Astronomy : depicts night sky and provides information abou various celestial bodies
  • if you are interested in tracking solar or lunar weather/phases there are also a variety of apps to choose from available on the App Store

websites:

  • NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) : Seemed like it might have some useful space information.
  • NASA e-books page : NASA’s list of e-books, found on their site for further reading
  • APOD (astronomy picture of the day) : their YouTube channel, and archive
  • HDEV (High Definition Earth-Viewing System) : run by NASA, has a livestream from the ISS (international space station), and provides present location of the station
  • Wait But Why : not specifically an astronomy blog, however the site does have some great material related to astronomy, such as the blog post mentioned in class on The Fermi Paradox.
  • Heavens Above : several interesting and useful pages/programs
  • The Scale of the Universe : really cool interactive infographic, which is now available as an app
  • The SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) : also has a citizen science project you can participate in

podcasts:

the citizen science revolution (there are a lot of projects like these, so if you’re really interested you can definitely find more) :

  • The Globe Program (The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment Program) : international science & education program that uses the public to collect data to help research the Earth system and the global environment.
  • Stardust@home : You can analyze images from an automated scanning microscope for interstellar dust particles using a Virtual Microscope in your browser.
  • SETI@home : uses your computer to advance the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
  • List of Common Misconceptions : technically not a citizen science project, and it’s actually just a wikipedia page about common misconceptions, however wikipedia is only as accurate as the people who edit it are, and given the common misconceptions in our textbook, I thought this should be included here
  • The Zooniverse : mentioned several times during this class, this site has a ton of citizen science projects in various fields, including several astronomy related one that you can be directly involved with.

**One final disclaimer – I acknowledge that this list is far, far, from complete or comprehensive, so in true citizen science fashion, I look to you for assistance. If there is a particular program, project, website, app, or news source that you think belongs in this list, please leave a comment to let me know and I will update the list ASAP.

Sources:

apps:

NASA

NASA Spinoff

NASA 3DV

NASA Television

Asteroid Redirect Mission

GRAIL

MESSENGER: NASA’s Mission to Mercury

NASA Science: A Journey of Discovery

NASA Visualization Explorer

Spacecraft 3D

NASA Technology Innovation

NASA Patent Portfolio

HubbleSite

STAR- Space Telescope Augmented Reality 

The Scale of the Universe 2

SkyORB

Sky Guide: View Stars Night or Day

Earth-Now

Redshift – Astronomy

site:

NASA

NASA e-books page

APOD YouTube

APOD archive

HDEV

Wait But Why

The Fermi Paradox

Heavens Above

The Scale of the Universe

The SETI Institute

podcasts:

NASACast: This Week @ NASA Video / NASACast: This Week @ NASA (Audio) 

NASACast: What’s Up? Video Podcasts

Space to Ground Video Podcasts

NASACast: Solar System Video

NASA Edge

NASA 360 Vodcasts

NASA X Vodcasts

NASA in Silicon Valley

The Beautiful Universe: Chandra in HD

Hubblecast HD

projects:

The Globe Program

Stardust@home

SETI@home

List of Common Misconceptions

The Zooniverse


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Recent Landslides on Ceres display Ice Content

Posted on April 27, 2017 by njelinek425
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Types I, II, and III (left to right) of landslide photographed on Ceres’ surface

A series of landslides on Ceres’ surface has been photographed last week, displaying solid evidence for frozen water comprising a sizable portion of its composition.

Images displayed three different types of landslide classifications. Type I landslides are relatively round and large, similar to rock glaciers and landslides found on Earth. These landslides are found at higher altitudes on Ceres, where the most ice is thought to residue directly underneath the surface. Type II landslides, the most common type found on Ceres, are thinner and longer than Type I landslides, and more closely represent post-avalanche landslides found on Earth. Finally, Type III landslides are most closely associated with large impact craters. These landslides most likely form from the subsequent heat of impact melting the subsurface ice layers, leaving a resultant mud-like flow before refreezing.

Due to the formations found, strong evidence exists for a consistent subsurface layer of mixed ice and rock, with a thicker layer near the poles. Based on the prevalence and shape of the landslides, it can be estimated that between 10 to 50 percent of Ceres’ icy top layer is comprised of frozen water.

For more info, read on here.


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“Where is Everybody?”

Posted on April 27, 2017 by kic27

The Fermi Paradox is the apparent contradiction between some of the high probability estimates of the existence of extraterrestrial civilization, and the utter lack of any evidence of such civilizations. There are billions of stars in our galaxy alone, and the universe has been around for a very long time, meaning there would have to be many potential worlds to develop life. Some may develop intelligent life, and some of that life could potentially create interstellar travel. Due to the sheer number of possible worlds where this could happen, why haven’t we been contacted by anyone? There have been many proposed answers to this question, some of which are organized in the flowchart below. Whatever the truth is, all that we know for sure is that if anything else IS out there, it’s staying quiet for now.

flowchart
Source

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OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb or The Iceball Planet

Posted on April 27, 2017 by mchastr2110

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(ScienceDaily)

Yesterday, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced the discover of a new planet orbiting the star much fainter than our sun, but, it is of similar size to earth and a similar distance to earth. In fact, this is actually the smallest planet ever discovered using a technique called microlensing (ScienceDaily). Microlensing utilizes the gravitational field of a foreground and the light of a background star. As the foreground star passes in front of the other, its gravitational field acts almost as a lense for the light of the background star and the light brightens–but not really, it only appears to brighten. The rest of the technique is very similar to the transit method, in that a planet passing in front of the foreground star will cause dip in the light coming from the star. The Iceball planet recently discovered by NASA is said to be orbiting a star that is quite dim and therefore does not heat the planet enough to sustain life, hence Iceball Planet.


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Blog #7

Posted on April 27, 2017 by niharikadar

dodd_image-2-iron_structures35_200x-800x606_cropped.jpg__1240x510_q85_crop_subsampling-2Image of hematite tubes from microfossils discovered in the hydrothermal vents

We only had to memorize a few dates for Astro 2110, but one of them was how long ago life on Earth began. Memorizing such dates are easy, but I think it’s so interesting to consider how exactly scientists (and our textbook authors!) are able to determine such dates and how new or improved evidence causes them to change over time. A recent study published in Nature by lead authors Matthew Dodd and Dominic Papineau offers an example of that.The study analyzed jasper rock samples from seafloor hydrothermal vent precipitates in Quebec, Canada and found microfossils containing evidence of bacteria that was at least 3.77 billion years old (they could be older). The microfossils are very small and invisible to the naked eye. The calculated minimum age of 3.77 billion years makes the fossils the oldest evidence of life on our planet (a 2016 study also published in Nature reported finding evidence of ancient life that was 3.7 billion years old). Although the discovery is exciting, there has been some debate about the fossil findings, especially as related to the exact age of the samples. If the finding is confirmed, however, it would be especially important for the field of astrobiology because it adequately connects the beginning of life to hydrothermal vents.  Thus, research on life on other worlds like Mars could be based on a similar connection and on similar evidence.

Source: New Findings of Early Life


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Hyperthermophile

Posted on April 27, 2017 by xiangyunastr2110

A hyperthermophile is an organism that thrives in extremely hot environments—from 60 °C (140 °F) upwards. An optimal temperature for the existence of hyperthermophiles is above 80 °C (176 °F). Hyperthermophiles are a subset of extremophiles, which are often micro-organisms within the domain Archaea, although some bacteria are able to tolerate temperatures of around 100 °C (212 °F), as well – Wikipedia.

Sulfolobus acidocaldarius, both a hyperthermophile and an acidophile, was found in the late 1960s in a hot, acidic spring in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. It was the first hyperthermophile to be identified in the scientific history. It was found to grow optimally between 75 and 80 °C, with pH optimum in the range of 2-3.

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Sulfolobus Acidocaldarius. From Eye of Science

The Aquifex genus of bacteria  has been found living in hot sprigs in Yellowstone National Park, where temperatures can reach 205 degrees Fahrenheit (96 degrees Celsius).

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Hot Spring in Yellowstone. From Pinterest

However, scientists thought that it is unlikely for microbes to survive at temperatures above 150 °C, as the cohesion of DNA and other vital molecules begins to break down at this point.

 

Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthermophile

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/H/hyperthermo.html

http://www.eyeofscience.de/en/bacteria/


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A Universe Produced Home Birth Video

Posted on April 27, 2017 by Ashley Garcia

About 4.5 billion years ago, our solar system was “born”, out of a spinning disk of gas and dust, that somehow became a bunch of planets, moons, and the other miscellaneous space objects that we know and love today.

While our solar system is definitely unique in a variety of ways, it is not the only solar system to ever exist, nor will it be the last to exist. Even within our own lifetimes, we are watching new solar systems form and develop around our own. In particular, the Orion Nebulae, located relatively close to our own Sun, is especially active and useful for observing the formation process.

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Photo Credit: C.R. O’Dell (Rice U.), NASA

Back in 1994, the Hubble Space Telescope provided us with an image of proplyds within the Orion Nebulae. A proplyd is a solar system in the infancy of it’s formation. Within the region of the photo, there are four main stars of interest, however further analysis of the area had shown that out of 110 stars, more than half had proplyds associated with them. At the time, this was very intriguing and showed immense promise, and in terms of learning and observation, the Orion Nebulae has provided use with some fascinating data.

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Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (STScI/ESA), the HST Orion Treasury Project Team, & L. Ricci (ESO)

In 2009, the Hubble Space Telescope updated our Orion Nebulae images, and from the data, the proplyds that had been noted previously were much more clear and further formed. In particular, two scenarios of planet formation could be seen, one in which the proplyd glows because of close disks surrounding bright stars, and slightly dimmer proplyds which have disks slightly further from their stars that contain cooler dust.

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Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Reprocessing & Copyright: Jesús M. Vargas & Maritxu Poyal

Observations of the Orion Nebulae continue today, as it is considered one of the most active areas of stellar formation today. The four stars that had been noted and observed as now known as the Trapezium, and they continue to develop their star systems as we watch. There are also a multitude of other stellar nurseries within the Orion Nebulae that are under observation, and with the Hubble Space Telescope transmitting updates, scientists are able to study and better understand how solar systems like our own develop, and to determine whether or not any of these planets could contain life someday.

Sources: 1, 2, 3


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Blog #8: Aliens?

Posted on April 27, 2017 by zhengastronomy

One of the most common questions people have when they look at the sky is, “Are there any other life out there?” Many would think yes. Many, many stories, shows, and games have been made about alien species living out there. The math also adds up. While the Drake Equation isn’t exact, using any reasonable numbers would result in millions of potential worlds with life in our Galaxy alone.

But according to one Enrico Fermi, something about this felt off. He made a remark which would soon become known as Fermi’s paradox. “Our Galaxy should be teeming with civilizations, but where are they?” The idea behind this thought was that any civilization with rocket technology and a desire to explore could colonize an entire galaxy in 10 million years.

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Where are they?

Even though that is a long time, the age of the milky way is over a billion years making it extremely likely that some Alien species would have colonized it by now if estimates such as the Drake Equation was accurate. Unless there were no other intelligent life within the galaxy. Could we be the first race to start colonizing? Could some other race be in the middle of their 10 million year long conquest? Have we already been conquered and just don’t know it yet? The questions just keep piling up!

 

Source: https://www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/fermi-paradox


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First Super-Earth Exoplanet with Atmosphere Discovered

Posted on April 27, 2017 by njelinek425
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Artist’s rendition of super-Earth GJ 1132b

Earlier this month, scientists discovered the existence of an atmosphere on an exoplanet much like Earth, making this the first Earth-like exoplanet with atmosphere to have been detected aside from earth itself. The planet is named GJ 1132b, located in the constellation Vela as a planet of the low-mass star GJ 1132. The planet is located approximately 39 lightyears away from Earth.

The planet’s atmosphere was discovered by professor at Keele University, Dr. John Southworth at the 2.2m ESO/MPG telescope in Chile during routine observations of the planet’s host star, GJ 1132. Upon transit of the planet across the star, they noticed a slight dimming of the planet, which they attributed to the absorption of the starlight by the planet’s atmosphere. Based on simulations of possible fitting atmospheres for the planet, an atmosphere composed of water or methane would explain the specific dimming caused during transit. Since the planet has been seen to be significantly hotter and larger than Earth, the possibility that the planet is some sort of “water world” with a hot steam atmosphere is highly likely.

The discovery of an atmosphere on GJ 1132b aids greatly in the search for life, as the current strategy for doing so often involves analysis of the chemical compositions of different exoplanets’ atmospheres to look for signs of chemical imbalances that could be caused by living organisms, such as the high concentration of oxygen on Earth.

For more detail on the specific observations and calculations, read on here.


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BLOG #7-Discovering New Planets

Posted on April 27, 2017 by zhengastronomy

On April 26th 2017, Scientists from NASA discovered a curious exoplanet named OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb orbiting a small brown dwarf star 13,000 light years away with a mass only 7.8 percent of that of the Sun. This curious planet has a mass similar to that of earth and orbits its mother star at the same distance as Earth does to the sun. It is also covered entirely in ice.  Due to the low energy of the star, and the distance between it and OGLE it is unlikely that OGLE is able to support life. However while there probably won’t be any life on OGLE, its discovery marks a new step in the advancement of discovering exoplanets via the microlensing technique. Microlensing is used to find objects in the sky by using background light from stars as flashlights. When another star crosses over a target star, the gravity of the front star will bend its light around it and make the light from the target appear brighter. If a planet is orbiting the target star, then it will cause a quick blink in the star’s brightness. Microlensing is typically used to find faraway planets, the larger the mass the better, and OGLE has the smallest mass of all exoplanets found so far marking a new step forward for the technique.

 

Source:https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170426122437.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/26/us/ice-world-exoplanet-discovery-trnd/

 

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Feel Free to OGLE

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