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wfound alien world might be able to support life — and it's just a stone's throw from Earth in the cosmic scheme of things.
An international team of astronomers has discovered an exoplanet in the star Gliese 832's "habitable zone" — the just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist on a world's surface. The planet, known as Gliese 832c, lies just 16 light-years from Earth. (For perspective, the Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years wide; the closest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years away.)
Gliese 832c is a "super-Earth" at least five times as massive as our planet, and it zips around its host star every 36 days. But that host star is a red dwarf that's much dimmer and cooler than our sun, so Gliese 832c receives about as much stellar energy as Earth does, despite orbiting much closer to its parent, researchers said. [10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life]
Indeed, Gliese 832c is one of the three most Earth-like exoplanets yet discovered according to a commonly used metric, said Abel Mendez Torres, director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo.
"The Earth Similarity Index (ESI) of Gliese 832c (ESI = 0.81) is comparable to Gliese 667Cc (ESI = 0.84) and Kepler-62e (ESI = 0.83)," Mendez wrote in a blog post today (June 25). (A perfect "Earth twin" would have an ESI of 1.)
"This makes Gliese 832c one of the top three most Earth-like planets according to the ESI (i.e., with respect to Earth's stellar flux and mass) and the closest one to Earth of all three — a prime object for follow-up observations," he added.
A team led by Robert Wittenmyer, of the University of New South Wales in Australia, discovered Gliese 832c by noticing the tiny wobbles the planet's gravity induces in the motion of its host star.
They spotted these wobbles in data gathered by three separate instruments — the University College London Echelle Spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope in Australia, the Carnegie Planet Finder Spectrograph on the Magellan II telescope in Chile and the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrograph, which is part of the European Southern Observatory's 11.8-foot (3.6 meters) telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile.
Gliese 832c is the second planet to be discovered around the star Gliese 832. The other one, Gliese 832b, was found in 2009; it's a gas giant that circles much farther out, taking about nine years to complete one orbit.
"So far, the two planets of Gliese 832 are a scaled-down version of our own solar system, with an inner, potentially Earth-like planet and an outer, Jupiter-like giant planet," Mendez wrote.
However, it's unclear at the moment just how much Gliese 832c resembles Earth. Indeed, its discoverers think the newfound world may be more similar to scorching-hot Venus, with a thick atmosphere that has led to a runaway greenhouse effect.
"Given the large mass of the planet, it seems likely that it would possess a massive atmosphere, which may well render the planet inhospitable," Wittenmyer and his team wrote in their paper, which has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. "Indeed, it is perhaps more likely that GJ [Gliese] 832c is a 'super-Venus,' featuring significant greenhouse forcing."
A US$25 million crowdfunded, student-led mission plans to send three CubeSat microsatellites all the way to Mars, landing time capsules on the surface of the Red Planet, that will contain the digital messages from tens of millions of people from all countries around the world. You can upload a picture of your own, up to 10 MB in size, by contributing just 99 cents.
Scientists analyzing data from NASA's Cassini mission have firm evidence the ocean inside Saturn's largest moon, Titan, might be as salty as Earth's Dead Sea.
The new results come from a study of gravity and topography data collected during Cassini's repeated flybys of Titan during the past 10 years. Using the Cassini data, researchers presented a model structure for Titan, resulting in an improved understanding of the structure of the moon's outer ice shell. The findings are published in this week's edition of the journal Icarus.
"Titan continues to prove itself as an endlessly fascinating world, and with our long-lived Cassini spacecraft, we're unlocking new mysteries as fast as we solve old ones," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who was not involved in the study.
Additional findings support previous indications the moon's icy shell is rigid and in the process of freezing solid. Researchers found that a relatively high density was required for Titan's ocean in order to explain the gravity data. This indicates the ocean is probably an extremely salty brine of water mixed with dissolved salts likely composed of sulfur, sodium and potassium. The density indicated for this brine would give the ocean a salt content roughly equal to the saltiest bodies of water on Earth.
"This is an extremely salty ocean by Earth standards," said the paper's lead author, Giuseppe Mitri of the University of Nantes in France. "Knowing this may change the way we view this ocean as a possible abode for present-day life, but conditions might have been very different there in the past."
Cassini data also indicate the thickness of Titan's ice crust varies slightly from place to place. The researchers said this can best be explained if the moon's outer shell is stiff, as would be the case if the ocean were slowly crystalizing and turning to ice. Otherwise, the moon's shape would tend to even itself out over time, like warm candle wax. This freezing process would have important implications for the habitability of Titan's ocean, as it would limit the ability of materials to exchange between the surface and the ocean.
Using gravitational microlensing, researchers have discovered a cold, rocky planet some 3,000 light years away orbiting one member of a binary system- a duo of stars orbiting a common center of mass. While this planet is too chilly to support life as we recognize it, the discovery opens up new locations for astronomers to scour for potentially habitable planets. The study has been published in Science.
The newly detected planet, called OGLE-2013-BLG-0341LBb, is around twice as massive as Earth and, amazingly, is orbiting its host star at almost exactly the same distance that Earth orbits the Sun. Unfortunately, the host star is much less massive than our Sun and therefore around 400 times less luminous also, meaning that the planet’s temperature is around 60 Kelvin (-213oC [-350oF]).
As mentioned, the planet’s host is part of a binary system. These are actually incredibly common in the universe but no one knew whether planets such as this could exist in these systems, let alone in Earth-like orbits, because it was assumed that planetary formation would be disrupted if the host star is locked in such a tight system.
While the host star is not quite right for supporting life on this planet, a similar planet orbiting a Sun-like star in a binary system would lie within the habitable zone and therefore may have the right conditions to support life, such as liquid water, which is exciting.
On June 30, India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) took to the skies from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, loaded with four foreign satellites from France, Germany, Canada and Singapore. What’s more, they achieved this under an impressively low budget.
The satellite launch industry brings in a few pennies annually, to say the least. According to the US Satellite Industry Association, in 2012 the profits from this industry totaled a whopping $2.2 billion, and India is keen to increase its presence in this market by providing services at a comparatively modest price.
“India has the potential to be the launch service provider of the world and must work towards this goal,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India’s low-cost space technology is certainly something to admire; last year India launched its Mangalyaan satellite to Mars at a total cost of $75 million, a fraction of NASA’s $671 million Mars mission, Maven, that was launched just days later. The budget technology has been lauded by Modi who boasted that the venture was cheaper than the $100 million box office hit movie Gravity.
SpaceX completed qualification testing for its SuperDraco thruster late last month. The engine will eventually be mounted on the manned version of the Dragon spacecraft as part of its launch escape system. It will also help the vehicle touch down on its return to Earth or on whatever other planet it visits.
SpaceX says the engine produces 16,000 pounds of thrust and can be fired multiple times. In an emergency, eight SuperDracos built into the Dragon will provide 120,000 pounds of thrust to propel the crew a safe distance from the rest of the vehicle.
The thruster’s engine chamber is made through the industrial 3-D printing process called direct laser metal sintering. It is composed of Inconel, a strong nickel-chromium superalloy able to withstand high temperatures.
“Through 3-D printing, robust and high-performing engine parts can be created at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional manufacturing methods,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a statement. “SpaceX is pushing the boundaries of what additive manufacturing can do in the 21st century, ultimately making our vehicles more efficient, reliable and robust than ever before.”
The system is expected to run through a full pad abort test later this year. SpaceX estimates that the first manned test flights using the Dragon spacecraft will happen in the next two or three years.
July 11, 2014
After a month surfing in and out of the atmosphere of Venus down to just 130 km from the planet’s surface, ESA’s Venus Express is about to embark on a 15 day climb up to the lofty heights of 460 km.
Since its arrival at Venus in 2006, the spacecraft has been conducting science observations from an elliptical 24-hour orbit that took it from a distant 66 000 km over the south pole – affording incredible global views – to altitudes around 250 km at the north pole, just above the top of the planet’s atmosphere.
Earlier today, an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket successfully launched from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Atop the rocket was one of the company’s Cygnus craft, loaded with over 3,600 pounds of supplies and scientific equipment for the International Space Station.
The successful launch marks the third successful launch for Orbital Sciences to the space station. It’s also the second one being completed under the company’s $1.9 billion contract with NASA to provide eight loads of cargo to the station through 2016.
The Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at the station at 6:39am Eastern Time on Wednesday, July 16. At that point, Steve Swanson of NASA and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency will use the station’s robotic arm to berth the spacecraft. The station’s crew will then begin unloading the equipment.
A new rocket design that incorporates methane fuel can provide a low-cost platform for launching clusters of tiny satellites, greatly improving broadband delivery and Earth observation missions.
Firefly Space Systems, a small satellite launch company, has officially announced its first launch vehicle, “Firefly Alpha.” This efficient, brand new rocket, capable of carrying 400kg (882lb) into low earth orbit, will be the world’s first dedicated light satellite launch vehicle in this mass class.
Following its launch and seed funding in January, the company – which includes highly experienced aerospace engineers from SpaceX and Virgin Galactic – has aggressively moved forward in its goal to reduce the prohibitively high costs of small satellite launches. Clusters of these micro and nanosatellites placed in low orbit could revolutionise broadband data delivery and Earth observation missions, among other uses. CubeSats like those pictured above are only a litre (10 cm cube) in volume, with masses of little more than a kilogram (2.2lb), typically using off-the-shelf components for their electronics.
“What used to cost hundreds of millions of dollars is rapidly becoming available in the single digit millions,” said Firefly CEO Thomas Markusic. “We are offering small satellite customers the launch they need for a fraction of that, around $8 or 9 million – the lowest cost in the world. It’s far cheaper than the alternatives, without the headaches of a multi manifest launch.”
Simplified and optimised for least cost – and utilising innovations such as a more aerodynamic engine design – Firefly has positioned itself to be a technological and cost effective solution for traditional manufacturers of small satellites.
“To say that this is an exciting and significant technological milestone would be an understatement,” said Michael Blum, co-founder of Firefly. “Until now, there existed virtually no dedicated launcher capacity in the small satellite industry to deliver their respective payloads to orbit. This announcement today just changed all that.”
Planetary scientist Alan Stern is counting down the days — just 365 of them now. He has spent the past 8 1/2 years waiting for the New Horizons spacecraft to make a close encounter with Pluto. Next year, on July 14, the spacecraft will reach its destination.
"Not only did we choose the date, by the way, we chose the hour and the minute. And we're on track," says Stern, the principal investigator for NASA's Pluto-Kuiper Belt Mission.
In January 2006, the New Horizons spacecraft left Earth on the 3-billion-mile journey to Pluto and beyond.
"We're arriving at Pluto on the morning of the 14th of July 2015," Stern says. "It's Bastille day. To celebrate, we're storming the gates of Pluto."
To be clear, this is an unmanned flyby mission by a spacecraft about the size and shape of a baby grand piano. No humans or robots will be landing and walking around.
" 'Arriving's' a little bit of a squishy term, I know. At closest approach, we'll be about 6,000 miles from Pluto," Stern says.
The Falcon rocket blasted off Monday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. On board were six advanced satellites for the New Jersey-based Orbcomm. Eleven more of these satellites are to be launched in the coming year.
The 374-pound satellites will offer two-way data links to help customers track, monitor and control transportation and logistics assets, heavy equipment, oil and gas infrastructure, ships and buoys, and government-owned equipment.
The launch had been delayed repeatedly since May for technical and other reasons.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp.—or SpaceX—is also working to ferry space station cargo for NASA. The company is based in Hawthorne, California.
In three years, NASA is planning to light the fuse on a huge rocket designed to bring humans further out into the solar system.
We usually talk about SLS here in the context of the astronauts it will carry inside the Orion spacecraft, which will have its own test flight later in 2014. But today, NASA advertised a possible other use for the rocket: trying to find life beyond Earth.
At a symposium in Washington on the search for life, NASA associate administrator John Grunsfeld said SLS could serve two major functions: launching bigger telescopes, and sending a mission on an express route to Jupiter’s route Europa.
The James Webb Space Telescope, with a mirror of 6.5 meters (21 feet), will in part search for exoplanets after its launch in 2018. Next-generation telescopes of 10 to 20 meters (33 to 66 feet) could pick out more, if SLS could bring them up into space.
“This will be a multi-generational search,” said Sara Seager, a planetary scientist and physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She added that the big challenge is trying to distinguish a planet like Earth from the light of its parent star; the difference between the two is a magnitude of 10 billion. “Our Earth is actually extremely hard to find,” she said.
Set to launch in 2017, NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will monitor more than half a million stars over its two-year mission, with a focus on the smallest, brightest stellar objects.
During its observations, TESS is expected to find more than 3,000 new planets outside of our solar system, most of which will be possible for ground-based telescopes to observe.
"Bright host stars are the best ones for follow-up studies of their exoplanets to pin down planet masses, and to characterize planet atmospheres," said senior research scientist George Ricker at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics in an email.
Ricker is the principle investigator of the TESS mission.
"TESS should be able to find over 200 Earths and super-Earths— defined as being twice the size of Earth," said Peter Sullivan, a physics doctoral student at MIT. "Ten to 20 of those are habitable zone planets."
Sullivan, who works with Ricker on TESS, led an analysis of the number of planets TESS would likely find based on the number and types of planets found by NASA's Kepler mission. Kepler focused on a single region of the sky and studied all transiting planets within it. TESS, on the other hand, will examine almost the entire sky over its two-year mission, but capture only the brightest stars, many of which are expected to host terrestrial planets.
A number of studies have shown that dark matter is the principle mass component of the universe making up about 80% of the mass budget. The most direct technique to reveal the dark matter distribution is by using the gravitational lensing technique. Indeed, following Einstein's theory of gravitation, we know that a mass concentration will deform locally the space-time and the observed shapes of distant galaxies seen through the such concentration will be deflected and distorted. By measuring the exact shapes of millions of these distant galaxies we can then map accurately the mass distribution in the universe, and identify the mass peaks tracing mass concentration along their line of sight. Importantly, the number of mass peaks as a function of the mass peak significance encodes important information on the cosmological world model. In particular this distribution is sensitive to the nature of gravitational force at large scales as well as the geometry of the universe. Measuring mass peaks is thus one of the most attractive ways to probe the relative importance and nature of dark matter and dark energy, measure the evolution the universe and predict its fate.
In a new publication of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, an international team, comprising researchers from Swiss, France, Brazil, Canada, and Germany present the first detailed analysis of the weak lensing peaks. This work is considered as a milestone, given the possible importance of the weak lensing peaks for cosmology. Because mass peaks are identified in two-dimensional dark matter maps directly, they can provide constraints that are free from potential selection effects and biases involved in identifying and measuring the masses of galaxy clusters. In fact a small fraction of the mass peaks are just mass concentration excess along the line of sight, and not genuine massive clusters.
To detect the weak lensing mass peaks, the research team used the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Stripe 82 Survey (CS82 in short), still one of the largest weak lensing survey yet. The Survey covers ~170 square degrees of the Stripe 82 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), an equatorial region of the south galactic cap that has been extensively studied by the SDSS project. With the precise shape measurement for more than four million faint distant galaxies, a dark matter mass map was generated. Huan Yuan Shan, the lead author of this publication explains that: "By studying the mass peaks in the map, we found that the abundance of mass peaks detected in CS82 is consistent with predictions from a LambdaCDM cosmological model. This result confirms that the dark matter distribution from weak lensing measurement can be used as a cosmological probe."
It takes a lot more money and preparation to launch a rocket than to have a plane take off. That's why DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) first initiated its Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program. The idea is that once built, the XS-1 could take off and land like a regular aircraft, but could also deliver satellite payloads into low-Earth orbit while airborne. Today, the agency announced its plans for Phase 1 of the program, which includes awarding contracts for designs of the autonomous spaceplane.
As outlined in a previous article, plans call for the unmanned XS-1 to be able to make 10 flights within 10 days, reaching a speed of Mach 10+ at least once, and launching payloads weighing between 3,000 and 5,000 pounds (1,361 to 2,268 kg) at under US$5 million a pop.
A second-stage rocket carrying each payload will fire once it's launched from the spaceplane at suborbital altitude, carrying the satellite to its final orbit. The XS-1 will proceed back to the ground, where it will land and immediately be prepared for its next launch.
In today's announcement, DARPA stated that it will be funding three companies to independently develop designs for an XS-1 demonstration vehicle. These include The Boeing Company (working with Blue Origin), Masten Space Systems (working with XCOR Aerospace), and Northrop Grumman Corporation (working with Virgin Galactic). The designs will be assessed based on criteria such as feasibility, performance, developmental and operational costs, and the potential for use in military, civil and commercial applications.
While the moon's surface is battered by millions of craters, it also has over 200 holes – steep-walled pits that in some cases might lead to caves that future astronauts could explore and use for shelter, according to new observations from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft.
Soil deep in a crater dating to some 3.7 billion years ago contains evidence that Mars was once much warmer and wetter, says University of Oregon geologist Gregory Retallack, based on images and data captured by the rover Curiosity.
The United Arab Emirates, already known for housing the tallest tower in the world, is now setting its sights a bit higher, proposing a manned mission to Mars by the year 2021, a goal which the UAE’s leaders hope will demonstrate that despite the conflict that penetrates the Middle Eastern region, the nation is still capable of making groundbreaking scientific progress.
The energy-rich country on the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula announced plans Wednesday to establish a space program to send the first Arab spaceship to Mars in 2021.
UAE plans mission to Mars
The United Arab Emirates, already known for housing the tallest tower in the world, is now setting its sights a bit higher, proposing a manned mission to Mars by the year 2021, a goal which the UAEs leaders hope will demonstrate that despite the conflict that penetrates the Middle Eastern region, the nation is still capable of making groundbreaking scientific progress.
The energy-rich country on the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula announced plans Wednesday to establish a space program to send the first Arab spaceship to Mars in 2021.
Read more: UAE plans mission to Mars | Science Recorder
