One of several proposals for observing exoplanets, the New Worlds Observer might offer astronomers the chance to directly observe planets orbiting other nearby stars. The principle investigator for the mission, Webster Cash, describes how the observatory might go about imaging exoplanets.
A decade following the discovery of the first extra-solar planet, the count stands at 300+.
Wayne
[Cross-posted from the IdeaFestival] I enjoyed this quote from the recent article, "For Alien-Life Seekers, New Reason to Hope," regarding the results from a new sky survey:
Whether habitable or abominable, planets are inescapable. 'You make a star, you’re probably going to get planets,' said Seth Shostak, a senior scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. 'They’re like those knives that get thrown in for free when you order a Veg-o-matic.'
The idea that there might be other planets like ours orbiting distant stars is hardly new - exo-planet hunters have cataloged over 300 in the past dozen years - but the notion that Earth-sized planets might be fairly common is a more recent development. As one planetary theorist says in the article above, it's very suggestive that just as soon as astronomers were able to find low-mass planets, they found them. And as observational techniques are further refined, the detection of an exo-planet very similar in mass to ours now seems almost a matter of time.
Wayne
Wikipedia: planetary formation
How would you like to have your name on board the craft that discovers the first Earth-sized exoplanet? Now you can. NASA has announced an opportunity for anyone to submit their name to be burned on a DVD that will accompany Kepler, scheduled for a February, 2009 launch.
The Name in Space DVD will be mounted on the exterior of the spacecraft in November 2008. A video of the DVD being mounted on the spacecraft will be taken and posted on the Kepler mission Web site prior to the spacecraft being shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in December of this year. A copy of the DVD with all of the names and messages will be given to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Washington.
Wayne
Image credit: NASA
"Life" is hard to define according to NewScientist's space blog, which points out that there are more than 280 definitions on record. The subject was at the center of a lively discussion at a just-concluded SETI Institute astrobiology conference, which seems apt.
Wayne
Conveniently divvied up into "Earth," "Heliophysics," "Planets" and "Astrophysics," NASA has launched a brand new site focused on the space sciences.
Wayne
Has planet formation been observed? Astronomers studying the young star AB Aurigae believe that maybe it has.
Wayne
Just a quick post to say that the latest Carnival of Space has been posted to Riding with Robots, a site the pulls in images from the various robotic missions currently underway.
Wayne
[Cross posted from IdeaFestival blog] While the discovered planet is far too hot to support life as we know it, the Hubble Telescope has found organic molecules in the atmosphere of a body orbiting a distant sun. NASA held a teleconference yesterday to announce the finding.
This discovery proves that Hubble and upcoming space missions, such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, can detect organic molecules on planets around other stars by using spectroscopy, which splits light into its components to reveal the 'fingerprints' of various chemicals.
'This is a crucial stepping stone to eventually characterizing prebiotic molecules on planets where life could exist,' said Mark Swain of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., who led the team that made the discovery.
Swain is the lead author of a paper that will be featured in the March 20 issue of the journal Nature.
Related, there is news about the relative presence of such molecules in the circumsteller disk of a young star. These disks are believed to be the raw material for planet formation. And because there is a higher concentration in the disk than in the intersteller cloud that led to the disk, there is evidence now that an active organic chemistry is occurring as systems take shape.
While astronomers are beginning to understand the movement of organic chemicals in planetary protosystems, one needn't observe distant worlds to see the results. Leaving aside life on our own Blue Marble, the Saturn moon Titan, visited in 2005 by the Huygens probe, is host to hydrocarbon seas.
The New York Times has posted a story on the story.
Wayne
Wikipedia: protoplanetary disk
At Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster runs down some affordable exoplanet mission concepts, one of which involves high altitude balloons.
Wayne
NASA's first ever spacecraft designed to look for Earth-sized planets is on track for a launch a year from this week. According to the PlanetQuest:
Kepler will detect planets indirectly, using the 'transit' method. A transit occurs each time a planet crosses the line-of-sight between the planet's parent star that it is orbiting and the observer. When this happens, the planet blocks some of the light from its star, resulting in a periodic dimming. This periodic signature is used to detect the planet and to determine its size and its orbit.
If you're interested in keeping up to date with the latest discoveries, PlanetQuest has made available a desktop widget, pictured above.
Wayne
If you just happen - ahem - to be in New York City this evening, The Explorers Club is hosting a free public lecture, In Search of Extrasolar Planets.
For centuries, scientists have pondered the possible existence of extrasolar planets, but only in recent years have such planets actually been discovered. As of late 2007 more than 250 extrasolar planets have been discovered. Most are giants, the mass of Jupiter or greater and inhospitable for life. Many more planets, including smaller ones more like Earth, may lurk undetected in these systems -- but will they be left undiscovered only to remain in the realms of mystery and science fiction?
Ben R. Oppenheimer, Curator in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, will present. Hat tip: The Space Calendar
Wayne
According to Universe Today, a fifth planet has been found orbiting 55 Cancri.
Think about it. Fifth planet, same star. The best news:
Perhaps the coolest part of this whole discovery: the planet orbits its parent star once every 260 days. This places it within its star's habitability zone, where liquid water can be present. It's a little closer than our Earth is to the Sun, but its star is also a little fainter, so it all evens out.
As illustrated by an artist's image above, 55 Cancri is located 41 light-years away in the constellation Cancer. During the winter it can be seen through binoculars on a clear night above and to the left of Orion, as this image shows.
Listening to a news conference about the discovery, Paul Gilster at Centauri Dreams had this to say yesterday:
I’m thinking we’re living in the golden age of exoplanet research. I remember wondering once what it must have been like to do astronomy in the Edwin Hubble era, when the size of the universe itself was being so radically redefined and our understanding of the nature of distant objects completely altered. But this is better, with the prospect of moving from single planet discoveries to fully characterized systems ahead of us.
Wow.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Wayne
Paul Gilster writes up his thoughts on one of ESA's selections for future Big Science projects, PLATO. Describing the mission some detail, he suggests that the data uncovered by PLATO, which he likens to the Kepler Mission, could be combined with information from the James Webb Telescope to determine exoplanet atmospheres with some precision.
More on the candidate missions may be found here. KySat briefly mentioned news of the selection here.
Related, Centauri Dreams reviews a paper suggesting that so-called Hot Jupiters may live with terrestrial worlds in the same solar system, which is significant news if true.
This paper suggests that all those hot Jupiter systems we’ve been more or less writing off for Earth-like planets are back in the game. These systems account for roughly one-quarter of all exoplanets thus far found, so the finding isn’t insignificant. Can Kepler, Darwin or perhaps a mission like ESA’s proposed PLATO track down a terrestrial world in such a system? The technology should be up to the task, but the first step is the realization, more than a little surprising, that we may need to add hot Jupiter systems to the target list.
Wayne
Wikipedia: exoplanet
The European Space Agency has selected candidate missions for Cosmic Vision 2015-2025. The selected missions include extended exploration of the Jovian system, an asteroid sample-return mission, a new platform to study dark energy, a new space-borne exoplanetary finder called Plato capable of separating rocky exoplanets from the star glare, and a new collaboration with Japan that would field an infrared observatory to study the origin of the universe.
The European scientific community submitted over 50 proposals to ESA for consideration.
Wayne
Paul Gilster at Centauri Dreams points out that Transitsearch, an amateur planet hunting group looking for transiting expoplanets, has found one.
Wayne
Wikipedia: finding expoplanets
It's a good question. So just how do artists portray exoplanets, particularly when what they render can be confused in its realism with something no human eye has seen in full?
Well aware of the double-edged sword they wield, artists and astronomers who dream up images of astronomical exotica often spend considerable time deciding how best to illustrate new discoveries. In the case of exoplanets, they are guided by a few key pieces of information and a healthy dose of educated guesswork.
The article in a recent Scientific American piece also includes a description of how a spectrometer is used to find other worlds and a gallery of images. KySat readers might also be interested in the work of artist Lynette Cook, who has rendered many different exoplanets, the International Association of Astronomical Artists, and of course, Exoplanets.org.
Wayne
The latest Carnival of Space is up and guess what story is dominating the news? Not willing to wait, Advanced Nanontechnology has already outlined how to win the $30 million Google Lunar Lander X Prize.
Other stories not included in the latest iteration of the space carnival include Paul Gilster's piece on Tau Ceti, which asks the question: what should the constant bombardment of potential planets in the dust belt surrounding that star tell us about the development of life on Earth?
The European Space Agency's super-chilled infrared observatory, Herschel, designed to register the faintest heat objects in the most distance past, is one step closer to being ready to fly.
Wired reports that NASA's GLAST is designed to peer into every corner of the universe as well, looking for the sources of gamma-ray radiation, the kinds of fantastic energy produced by merging neutron stars, for example. Wired's science blog also links to Scientific American articles on the future of space travel and the hard choices NASA may face - funding for every worthy goal simply isn't available.
Lastly, the image above is from Cassini's recent very close flyby of Iapetus, one of Saturn's moons. The image is of its "Himalayas." In this press release from NASA, the moon is characterized as the "Yin-and-Yang moon." Image Source: CICLOPS, the Cassini Imaging Team.
Wayne
Via Space.com, MSNBC has produced a run-down of the 10 most interesting extra-solar planets.
Wayne
The most recent Carnival of Space links to some particularly good articles.
They including whether robots or humans should explore space, the possibility of a lunar observatory, recent news from Cassini about a tiny moon of Saturn, Helen, landing on asteroids, water detected on Pluto's companion, Charon, and how nanotechology might permit the building of "worldships" from - who else? - Centauri Dreams.
There are many, many more at Music of Spheres, the current carnival host, so have a look.
The submission deadline for space stories for Carnival of Space is each Wednesday at 6p PST. I hope sometime soon to add to the mix with an article on our own Kentucky Satellite program.
Wayne
ESA's Darwin Proposal is now online, according to Centauri Dreams. Darwin's schedule has slipped because the technology being considered for use has not yet been fully developed, but its terrestrial planet-hunting mission holds the potential for a reward commensurate with the challenge.
Paul Gilster:
According to the proposal, the baseline DARWIN mission is to last five years and will target approximately 200 individual stars at mid-infrared wavelengths. The focus is on stellar types F, G, K and some M stars (about ten percent of the total). Of these, between twenty-five and fifty planets will be studied spectroscopically for evidence of gases such as CO2, O3 and H20. The mission planners are currently assuming the number of terrestrial planets in the habitable zone is one per system, adding that data from NASA’s Kepler mission will be useful in evaluating this conclusion.
Paul lists a number of other projects that are like Darwin in scope or technology or both. Among them are COROT, which is already operational, Kepler, and a Swedish proposal called Prisma, intended, according to its web site, to demonstrate "guidance/navigation strategies for Rendezvous and Formation Flying in space."
The post drew several responses on the relative merits of Big Science v. smaller missions that are also worth reading if you get the chance.
Wayne
Links for Today:
Wayne
According to Centauri Dreams, the Spitzer space telescope has obtained additional spectra of exoplanetary light from two "hot Jupiters," HD 189733b and HD 209458b, that shows "the clear signature of water."
Earlier observations had failed to turn up such evidence.
The planets are far too hot to contain liquid water, but the presence of vapor may, as Paul Gilster points out, indicate that H2O is a common element in at least one other solar system.
Wayne
The European Space Agency (ESA) has made note of 50 new mission concepts received in response to a challenge to the European scientific community. ESA:
Out of these 50 concepts, three medium-class missions (with costs to ESA not exceeding 300 million euros) and three large-class missions (with costs to ESA not exceeding 650 million euros) will be selected for assessment (or feasibility) studies starting in October this year.
The selection will follow a careful evaluation process, taking into account the scientific value and novelty of the proposal as main criteria, together with its technological maturity and its estimated cost.
At the end of the full assessment cycle in 2011, one medium- and one large-class mission will be adopted for implementation by ESA's Science Programme Committee. Their launches are currently foreseen for 2017 and 2018 respectively.
The proposals are broken into three categories: "Astrophysics," such as star transits and dark matter studies; "Fundamental physics," a theoretical exploration of time and dimension, for example, or missions to verify the laws of gravity; and science dedicated to exploring further our Solar System.
Wayne
Here are space-related links from around the Web for your Friday. Have a great weekend.
Wayne
Links for your Friday:
Have a good weekend,
Wayne
[Cross posted from the ideaFestival] Scott Hubbard is The Carl Sagan Chair for the Study of Life in the Universe, which was established at the SETI Institute in 1997. He also attended the first ever KySat conference this past May.
At my request, he graciously agreed to answer a few questions last Monday.
1) Could you explain for a moment your work at SETI? - As the Carl Sagan Chair I provide strategic direction and guidance to about 50 scientists engaged in the broad study of life in the Universe. Those include aspects of space science, planetary ring systems and so forth. My job is to help identify new areas of research, to help scientists diversify their research portfolios, to find funding opportunities and to create a sense of team work.
Is there a new way of finding exoplanets? Alice Quillen at the University of Rochester, who is an expert on stellar disks, may have developed another method to add to the list of ways exoplanetologists have for finding new worlds, according to Centauri Dreams.
Wayne
Wikipedia: coronograph
New data from Cassini suggest that Dione and Tethys, two icy moons of the planet, could be geologically active. Until this discovery, the only moons of Saturn known to be active worlds were Titan and Enceladus.
The image here is of the two moons, courtesy of NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
Wayne
Space.com has posted a a brief story, Trickle of Planet Discoveries Becomes a Flood, on exoplanetology.
It makes a good point. When new discoveries don't make the news outside science circles, progress of sorts is being made.
The regularity of planet finds, luckily, is buffered by the wild variety in the discoveries themselves, including the following contrasts: nascent worlds of just a million years versus those that are billions of years old; hot gas giants and icy Neptune-like orbs; planets that whip around their parent stars with cosmic speed and others that seem to creep at a slug's pace; and planets orbiting double-stars, red-dwarf stars and even so-called failed stars.
The development of transiting techniques, the discovery of planets with atmospheres and multi-planet systems and the welcome problem of deciding just how to organize a growing catalog of new discoveries, are all cause to be encouraged that a rocky Earth-like planet is out there, waiting to be discovered. Though that hasn't happened yet, exoplanets.org has made a file of 209 extrasolar bodies available to download for the adventurous.
I'm guess I'm going to need that CCD-equipped scope to join the chase.
Wayne
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