Introduction

To our knowledge, Earth is the only known planet to contain life.  Considering we have discovered thousands of planets since the discovery of the first exoplanet in the mid-1990s, this is a bit shocking.  Since then, we have found multiple methods of detecting planets around stars other than our Sun, the most prominent of which are planetary transits, and Doppler shifts, also known as radial velocity measurements.  Recently, the technology to directly image the planets has been invented, but these images are still very low resolution and does not provide much information about the planets.  In order to possibly contain life, a planet must be within a star’s habitable zone.  A habitable zone is the are of a star’s orbit where liquid water could potentially exist on its surface.  NASA’s Kepler mission has been very successful discovering planets that are potentially habitable, notably Kepler-22b.  Conversely, it has discovered many more planets that have very extreme environments.

Kepler-70: A Dying Star

Far away in the constellation Cygnus, 3,849 light-years to be precise, lies a subdwarf-B star known as Kepler-70.  It is a much smaller star than the Sun, with a radius of 0.203 solar radii, only 1/5 of the Sun.  It is also much less massive at 0.496 solar masses.  The luminosity is, however, 18.9 times greater than that of the Sun.  For the luminosity of the star, the following  equation was used:

In this equation, r is the radius of the star, σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, and T is the average temperature of the star.  Kepler-70 is an ancient star, having evolved completely through the main sequence and red giant stages of its life.  Estimates determine that Kepler-70 exited the red giant stage 18.4 million years ago.  Since then, the star’s core has been fusing Helium.  Once the supply is exhausted, the star will complete its lifetime by contracting into a white dwarf.

An example of the brightness dip from a transiting planet.

Discovering Planets around Kepler-70

When a planet’s orbit lies on the same orbital plane viewable from Earth, the planet will cross in front, or transit, the star once every orbital period.  This causes the observed brightness of the star to drop relative to the size of the both the star and the planet.  Unlike other planetary detection methods, this allows the transit method to discern the radius of a transiting planet.  Three or four transits are required for conformation of an extrasolar planet.  NASA’s Kepler mission uses the transit method to discover new planets around stars, including two that have been discovered around Kepler-70 by Stephane Charpinet.  The discovery of these planets was announced on December 12, 2011.

The innermost planet, Kepler-70b, has one of the most extreme environments ever found on a planet, yet some of its characteristics are very similar to Earth.  It has a very similar density at 5500 kg/m³, compared to Earth’s 5515 kg/m³.  However, it is only 44% of Earth’s mass.  Despite some similarities, the environment on Kepler-70b is just too hostile for any forms of life as we know it to exist there.  The main obstacles, and large ones at that, standing in the way of life on Kepler-70b are its lack of an atmosphere, proximity to its host star, extreme temperatures, and it was actually inside its host star during the recent past.

What is Kepler-70b Like?

Today, Kepler-70b is not really a planet in the tradition sense.  Rather, it is all that remains of a gas giant that formed with the original star system.  Millions of years ago, Kepler-70b was likely a hot Jupiter, a Jovian-sized planet that orbits unusually close to its host star.  In the case of Kepler-70b, the planet orbits just 0.006 AU from the star.  Comparatively, Mercury orbits 65 times further from the Sun.  This is far inside the inner boundary for the habitable zone of Kepler-70, both conservative and optimistic measurement, which range from 4.13-6.08 AU and 1.95-7.39 AU respectively.  Usually, these orbital distances compare to those of   Mercury or Venus.  The inner and outer boundaries of a star’s habitable zone can be calculated using the following equations where the conservative measurement is the upper pair of equations and the optimistic is the lower two.

As Kepler-70 aged, the star expanded to become a red giant about 18.4 million years ago.  Because of 70b’s extreme proximity to the host star, the planet was actually enveloped in the expanding star’s atmosphere, consequently destroying its atmosphere.  Normally, planets in this situation are disintegrated by the extreme temperature and pressure.  However, some Jovian-sized planets are large enough that they can actually survive.  As the star exits its red giant stage and begins to shrink, the remaining iron core of the planet is all that remains.  Naturally, the temperatures of such an object are extremely high.  Kepler-70b currently holds the record for the hottest known planet with an surface equilibrium temperature of 7288˚K.  The equilibrium  temperature of a planet can be calculated using the equation:

where A_b is the albedo of the planet, D is the distance in astronomical units from the host star to the body, and L_☉ is the brightness of the host star in solar luminosities.  The estimated surface temperature of Kepler-70b was calculated using an assumed bond albedo of 0.1 because the true albedo of the planet cannot be determined by the transit method and remains unknown. Kepler-70b also orbits its star with one of the shortest orbital periods of any exoplanet: just over 5 hours.  In order to complete its orbit this quickly, it orbits at just under 5% of light speed.

Can Life Exist on This Planet?

Life as we know it cannot exist on Kepler-70b in its current state. It orbits Kepler-70 far inside both the conservative and optimistic habitable zones, roughly 65 times closer to its sun than Mercury to ours.  Not only does this create surface temperatures that exceed any temperature on Earth where life is found, but it results in the complete lack of water in any form on the planet.  In our Solar System, planets without surface water might perhaps have water vapor high in their atmosphere where conditions allow it, but Kepler-70b has no atmosphere to house water vapor.  Without an atmosphere, there is also no potential energy source that organic compounds could draw from to make energy.  Further evidence against life on Kepler-70b comes from the planet’s “solid”iron composition.  In fact, the surface is very likely completely molten, which is hostile to life.

It is possible that life could have existed on it in the past.  Scientists theorize that microbial life could exists on Jovian planets like Kepler-70b.  This life would need to live in extremely high elevations in the atmosphere in order to be at habitable pressures and temperatures, as well be near the water vapor that exists there.  In order to do so, it would  need to be be buoyant enough to stay at that elevation.  Even so, any life on the planet would have been irradiated when the Kepler-70 became a red giant.  The atmosphere was completely demolished by the expanding star, and temperatures quick rose.  The final nail in the coffin would have come when the planet was finally engulfed by the Kepler-70.  It would be impossible for any organic compounds to survive the inside of a star.  Even after Kepler-70b left the star, it has only been 18.4 million years, far too short for any life to evolve on the planet even if it its conditions were perfect.

Additionally, Kepler-70b is orbiting a star very late in its lifetime.  Soon, cosmically speaking, this star will become a white dwarf, entering the final stages of its life.  Observations of planets orbiting similarly sized stars, especially this close, show that the planets become tidally locked far sooner than it would take for life to evolve on the planet.  This holds true even for planets in the habitable zone, let alone planets only 0.006 AU from the star.  Once the planet becomes tidally locked, it will be impossible for life to evolve.

What About Sci-Fi Life?

Take a step back for a second and imagine a universe where life could evolve and adapt to changing environment conditions very quickly.  For example, if the microbial life hidden in the clouds of Kepler-70b became extremely heat resistant.  This shell of theirs would be able to shield them from the 28,000˚K interior of Kepler-70 while also protecting them from the immense pressure.  They would be able to swim, if you will, freely in the now molten surface of what used to be a gigantic Jovian planet.  As the planet emerged, the drop in both pressure and temperature allowed these organisms to drop their protective shells and float along the surface of the iron core freely.  If only such life could exist, one could argue that it would be more evolutionarily successful than any species on Earth.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, for Kepler-70b, there are too many factors standing in the way of life.  At least, life as we know it could not exist there.  If its complete lack of liquid water and location far outside of the star’s habitable zone was not enough, then the scorching temperatures and five hour day surely prevent life from evolving there.  Not to mention that the planet was literally inside a star.  Any life that could have possibly arisen there was immediately stopping in its evolutionary track, and any change of life appearing again are very slim.  Kepler-70b can hold the record for hottest temperature, shortest orbital period, and smallest mass, but it will not hold the record for being the first exoplanet to be home to life.  That is a guarantee.

Bibliography

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Planetary_transit.svg

“Kepler Discoveries.” <i>NASA</i>. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2013. &lt;http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/discoveries/&gt;.

Anderson, Paul Scott. “Two More Earth-Sized Planets Discovered by Kepler, Orbiting Former Red Giant Star.” <i>Universe Today</i>. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2013. &lt;http://www.universetoday.com/92127/two-more-earth-sized-planets-discovered-by-kepler-orbiting-former-red-giant-star/&gt;.

“Planet KOI-55 b.” The Extrasolar Planet Encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2013. <http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/koi-55_b/&gt;.

Talcott, Richard. “Top 10 Exoplanets.” Astronomy 1 Oct. 2013: 22-27. Print.

It’s no secret that a greater education level will result in a more financially profitable career later in life.  However, one variable that if often overlooked is the age of the worker.  I was curious about how these two variables affected the income of American citizens specifically, and found an NPR article about age/income and an Infoplease article about education/income.

Due to limitations of Numbers, I was unable to successfully combine both data sets onto one chart.  Even though the y-axis is identical, the x-axis is dramatically different, which forced me to make two separate graphs.

Let’s start with the Age graph:

Note that all numbers are in pre-tax dollars.

Age plays a surprising role in the amount of income that a person makes.  For example, an American adult, ages 25-34, regardless of gender or educational background, makes about $25,000-$55,000 USD annually.  To put this into perspective, this time period of their working life corresponds to the proto-star stage of stellar evolution.  During the “main-sequence”, if you will, the average American adult (ages 35-64)  income will remain very constant.  An American spends the vast majority of their working life making around $75,000 USD annually.  As a person nears retirement, likely working part time, they make only about $41,000 USD annually.  This could be considered the red giant stage of someone’s working career, before retiring to a white dwarf and making only residual income from Social Security.

According to NPR, these numbers are not surprising.  Studies over decades have shown that the peak of one’s career comes between ages 40 and 60.  While the numbers are not surprising, these are averages for the nation as a whole.  There are still plenty of people making the same money in their forties as  a 25-year-old on this graph.

Here is the graph involving Educational Level, this time separated by gender.

Note that all numbers are in pre-tax dollars.  Numbers also prevented every x-axis label from appearing due to clutter.

These numbers should not be surprising to anyone.  The more educated you are, the more likely you are to land yourself a high-skill, high-paying job.  Unlike the first graph that was an average based solely on age, this data takes into consideration educational background like I mentioned, but gender as well.  What surprises me is that women make significantly less than men do with the same degrees.  With a PhD, a women will make only about $85,000 USD annually while a man will make over $100k USD.  This means that women are not being hired for the same jobs even if they have similar qualifications since the same job will pay the same.

I hope this data has enlightened you to the importance of getting an education to secure your future.  Most importantly, ages 40-60 are when you want to maximize your potential for making money.

A planet’s lifetime is finite.  Even our own cosmic utopia Earth will die out when the Sun reaches later stages of its life.  As a star ages, it expands, heating up and shifting its habitable zone further than the orbit of Earth-like planets.  As a result, liquid water ceases to exist on these planets, killing any chance of surface life on the planet.  In our case, we have about 1.7 billion years left before Earth turns into a terrestrial hot-house like Venus is today.  The Sun will be about 118% brighter and hotter than it is today, evaporating out oceans.  Considering Earth has been around for about 4.5 billion years, about 70% of its lifetime in the Sun’s habitable zone has already passed.

Scientists believe that the best place to look for intelligent aliens is around small stars called red dwarf stars.  These stars are only about 1/5 the size of the Sun, but this results in a habitable lifetime for planets that well exceeds Earth’s.  These stars, scientists believe, should be the main targets of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) missions, since any civilization there doesn’t have the same time constraints as those around large stars.  Additionally, NASA’s Kepler mission has turned up evidence of many Earth-like planets possibly located around red dwarfs.

 A visual guide to a star’s habitable zone based on its size.  Source: Discovery

Kepler gives us information about distance from Earth, orbital period, and size.  It does not, however, give us any information about the atmospheric composition, tectonic activity, or tilt of the planet.  It also doesn’t help us determine the age of the host star, meaning we do not the evolutionary status of any hypothetical life that exists on these worlds.  Using this information, researchers have determined that the exoplanet Gilese 518g is “the most habitable exoplanet found to date”.  It orbits a red dwarf star, which means that its habitable conditions are believed to exist for another 5 billion years longer than Earth’s.

There is, of course, the threat of tidal locking occurring quickly on planets that are close to the red dwarf, because its smaller size actually accelerates the process.  If tidal locking occurs, life on planet will become impossible.

In a talk delivered on Monday, the speaker elaborated on the evolving state of the Earth’s ecosystem.  The majority of his talk was focused on the constant degradation of the natural environment and the consequential effects on the native animal species.

As a resident of California, I was disturbed to hear that the famous California Grizzly Bear actually doesn’t reside in California anymore.  In fact, a species that was native to California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Washington has been restricted more and more until now it only can be found wild in parts of Montana like Yosemite Park and western Canada.  Sadly, only 500-600 California Grizzly Bears actually live in Yosemite Park, an infinitesimal number compared to the population size a century ago.  The simple fact is that these animals are constricted because of our need to expand.  Now I’m not going to go on a rant blaming human ignorance and arrogance for this, but just consider how we affect them.

California Grizzly Bears are not the only species affected by human expansion.  Down on the border between Arizona and Mexico, relatives of deer are being blocked from their migration path by a 15-foot-high wall that is ironically more effective at stopping animals than humans.  Other migration paths, in Montana for example, are cut off by expansive inter-state highways and railways.  With the frequency of trains exceeding 4 dozen a day, incidents of groups of animals dying while waiting for an opportunity to cross the tracks are becoming more and more frequent.

An concept of an animal highway crossing.  Source: Web Ecoist

For human infrastructure that has overrun migratory paths in use for thousands of year s, plans to build an artificial crossing for native species.  The above picture is a concept art for a new crossing, but it bears many similarities to already constructed ones.  These bridges are a simple, cost-effective (relative to the total budget), and effectively solve one of the greatest problems facing the animal kingdom at the moment.

I never really understood the gravity that animal species were being effected by human expansion.  Hopefully we will see some changes soon that can help reduce the problems we’ve created for them.

SpaceX’s primary rocket engine craft, the Falcon 9, debuted in 2010 along with their Dragon spacecraft.  The engine is a very advanced, twin-engine rocket.  Unfortunately, the engine suffers from all the same problems as other engines, it’s single use.  Like all other rockets, the engine is used to propel the spacecraft into orbit, then it falls back to Earth in two stages.  On September 29, 2013 SpaceX tested a prototype replacement engine, the Falcon 9 v1.1.  What makes this so exciting is that it is able to restart itself after detaching from the rocket and slow its decent to Earth, allowing the rocket to be used multiple times.  According to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the engines are 75% of the cost of the rocket.

The new Falcon 9 v1.1 launching from Vandenberg AFB in California.  Source: Discovery

After dropping off its payload, Falcon 9 v1.1 reignited its first-stage engines, slowing its decent as it passed through Earth’s atmosphere.  For an engine to survive re-entry, this is the most important step.  Eventually, the rocket can make a soft ocean landing or even return to the launch pad and land itself.  This stage required two engine re-ignitions, the first of which was successful.  The second re-ignition was stopped after it was discovered that the engine was spinning in mid-air, causing the gas-lines to choke due to centrifugal forces.  According to Musk, “It caused the boost stage to run out of propellant… before hitting the water. It hit relatively hard. We recovered portions of the stage, but the most important thing is we now believe we have all the pieces of the puzzle”.

SpaceX has been developing a different engine which is codenamed Grasshopper.  This engine has the capacity to take-off and land itself, which aims to solve one of the greatest problems facing interplanetary travel at the moment.  Currently, all trips to other planets are strictly one-way.  In conjunction with tests run with Grasshopper and Falcon 9 v1.1, scientists believe they have sufficient data covering all aspects of a round-trip back to Earth.  Musk claims that “[we] have all the pieces necessary to achieve a full recovery of the boost stage … That’s actually what has got me most excited about this flight”.

SpaceX expects to demonstrate a full recovery of Falcon 9 v1.1 in 2014.

Yesterday, October 1st, the highly publicized Comet ISON passed its closet point to Mars.  ISON flew by mars at 10.5 million kilometers, or about 6.5 million miles for you non-science people.  An image taken from the 2 meter Liverpool telescope in the United Kingdom captured the comet just before its closest pass by Mars.  Here is the image:

Source: Universe Today

The image taken from the Liverpool telescope in the United Kingdom is a composite of 20 different exposures, each an 11 second duration.  According to scientists Ernesto Guido, Nick Howes and a new team member named Martino Nicolin, “[the image shows a] well developed coma and tail measuring at least 3 arc minutes”.

Comet ISON imaged from Liverpool.  Mars is in the bottom right.  Source: Universe Today

Above is another image taken from Wesminster, Maryland.  This image is a composite of 44 30-second exposures, and shows the comet in the top left with Mars appearing in the bottom right.  This image shows the distance between the closest pass of ISON.  According to the photographers, ISON was not visible with the telescope’s eyepiece, and stacking the images was required to view the comet.

Nick Howes explains that there was an internal debate regarding whether or not the comet had additional jet streams coming off it.  Tests run by the team showed that these were maybe spontaneous events, but one test showed that the additional jet stream might be a constant feature of the comet.  Later comparisons of data between Liverpool and The Planetary Science Institute confirmed that this feature is a in fact constant.  Additionally, it can be seen in previous ISON observations, including those from Hubble.

ISON will reach its perihelion, the closest point to the sun, on November 28.  If it survives, it will be at its closest point to Earth on December 26.  It will be some 64 million miles above the Earth’s surface.  Some might even call it a Christmas miracle.

Despite the government shutdown, observations from the Mars rover Curiosity are still ongoing because the rover is operated from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and will continue to operate unless previous NASA funding runs out.

NASA’s Kepler mission to discover exoplanets has recently reported over 1,000 planets beyond our solar system.  Of these, only 10 are Earth-sized planets orbiting in its parent star’s habitable zone.  Within this selection, Kepler-22b is the smallest of these 10 planets.  On December 5, 2011, NASA’s Kepler mission confirmed Kepler-22b to be the mission’s first potentially habitable planet discovered.  This is because it orbits in its sun’s habitable zone, the area around a star where liquid water can exist.

A diagram of Kepler-22b’s orbit compared to the inner solar system.  Source: Wikipedia

The planet is from the constellation Cygnus, a whopping 600 light-years from Earth.  So any goals of reaching this planet are, unfortunately, extremely unrealistic.  Compared to Earth, it’s radius is roughly 2.4 times the size of our planet.  Despite its relatively similar size to Earth, the composition of the planet (solid, liquid, gas) is still unknown.  The orbit of the planet is estimated to be around 290 days, not that different from Earth.  Kepler-22, the host star, is a bit smaller and cooler than our sun, but it is of the same classification as the Sun, a G-Type star.  According to NASA scientist Doug Hudgins, “This is a major milestone in discovering Earth’s twin”.

Artists rendering of Kepler-22b.  Source: Wikipedia

Planets are discovered with the Kepler spacecraft by studying stars and looking for transits of planets.  That is, when a planet crosses in front of its parent star, in this case Kepler-22.  Kepler requires three separate transits of a planet before it can be verified as a possible planet.  22b’s first transit came only three days after the mission began, and the final transit came in the holiday season of 2010.  Further research is then done by ground based telescopes and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Overall, the amount of exoplanets discovered as of December 2011 had increased by 200 (140%) since February of the same year and more planets are being discovered all the time.  Who knows how many planets have been found since.

In his 1965 science-fiction novel Dune, Frank Herbert addresses many social and political issues of the time.  Most importantly, the intersection of religion and politics.  Religion plays a very large part in the novel, influencing almost all aspects of life in the universe, from the political system to the social culture of the Fremen on Arrakis.  It is exploited by the powerful in order to gain control over civilizations.  Additionally, religion begins to corrupt Paul Atreides, the protagonist of Dune, and change his motives as the prophet of the Fremen.  Collectively, they form the entire basis of the Fremen culture on Arrakis, which is completely grounded in religious influence.

Dune takes place thousands of years from now on one of many human colonized worlds, the desert planet Arrakis, a planet which is abundant in a universally sought after spice called melange.  These worlds are ruled by the Great Houses, which includes the House of Atreides, of which the protagonist Paul Atreides is apart of, and their rivals the House of Harkonnen.  The story revolves around Paul and his mother, a Bene Gesserit woman (women trained with special powers) named Lady Jessica.  They are humans from the planet Caladan who move to Arrakis to meet up with Paul’s father Duke Leto, the ruler of Arrakis.  In doing so, the Fremen, natives of Arrakis, believe that Jessica and Paul are fulfillers of a prophecy that claims a Bene Gesserit woman will arrive on Arrakis with a son, who will lead them to terraform the Arrakis’ desert environment into a lush, green world.

After arriving on Arrakis, Duke Leto is betrayed by Dr. Yueh, a House of Atreides member.  Yueh replaces one of the Duke’s teeth with a poison capsule and delivers him to Baron Harkonnen, the Duke’s enemy.  Meanwhile, most of the Atreides are wiped out by Sardaukar, Harkonnen controlled soldiers, but Paul and Jessica escape.  Hawat and Halleck, two other members of Atreides, also escape.  Duke Leto kills himself with the poison tooth, but Baron Harkonnen survives the attempt and escapes. Hawat is captured by the Harkonnens and agrees to work for them.  Paul and Jessica are captured by the Fremen at the order to Kynes, a Fremen leader.  Paul becomes idolized as a prophet by the Fremen, and is named Maud’Dib.  Paul discovers his abilities to see into the future and back in time.  These abilities exceed those of his mother, despite her being a Bene Gesserit.  Years later,  Paul has become a spiritual leader of the Fremen, and his mother the new Reverend Mother.  The Fremen discover that Rabban, the Baron’s nephew assigned to Arrakis, has stopped receiving assistance from the Baron, so they plan to invade and take control of the Arakeen capital.  In order to stop the Fremen, Emperor Shaddam IV personally comes to Arrakis with an army of Sardaukar and Harkonnen.  However, this army is quickly defeated by the Fremen.  Baron Harkonnen is killed by Alia, Paul’s younger sister who was born on Arrakis, but Paul’s youngest son Leto dies during the battle.  Hawat is injured in the battle and dies in Paul’s arms.  Paul decides that the best way to remove Emperor Shaddam IV from power is to marry his daughter, Princess Irulan.  In protest, Feyd-Rautha, the baron’s nephew, challenges Paul to a duel.  Paul kills him, which makes the Emperor agree to Paul’s demands, thus making Paul the new Emperor of the universe.

Religion is used as a tool for the leaders to keep control of the general population and heighten their apparent divine status.  The Spacing Guild, an interstellar monopoly on space travel, abuses religion as a means to keep their control over the universe’s transportation systems.  As Herbert explains in the second appendix:

The agnostic ruling class (including the Guild) for whom religion was a kind of puppet show to amuse the populace and keep it docile, and who believed essentially that all phenomena— even religious phenomena— could be reduced to mechanical explanations. (Herbert, 812)

It is evident that, to the rich and powerful, religion is a scapegoat.  It’s a deceiving method with which to obtain power.  The Bene Gesserit, a renowned order for women, privately uses religious tactics to achieve their status.

The Bene Gesserit, a very prestigious self-proclaimed secular order, hypocritically uses religious practices in their teachings, which in turn gave Bene Gesserit members a prophet-like status among the Fremen.  Lady Jessica, for example, fulfills a prophecy that she and Paul are the saviors of the Fremen.  Hawat says to Duke Leto “Yes, my Lord. They’ve a legend here, a prophecy, that a leader will come to them, child of a Bene Gesserit, to lead them to true freedom. It follows the familiar messiah pattern” (Herbert, 163).  Herbert explains that “The Bene Gesserit, who privately denied they were a religious order, but who operated behind an almost impenetrable screen of ritual mysticism, and whose training, whose symbolism, organization, and internal teaching methods were almost wholly religious” (Herbert, 811).  Near the end of the novel, Jessica is promoted to Reverend Mother of the Fremen.  In order to do so, she must drink a poisoned liquid, a liquid which she makes safe by using her powers.  She effectively cheats to pass the test, elevating her rank in the Fremen society, and simultaneously gains more respect from the Fremen.  After the ceremony, Jessica says to herself, “Let the people drink of it and have their awareness of each other heightened for a while. The drug is safe now… now that a Reverend Mother has changed it” (Herbert, 580), acknowledging her newfound position in the Fremen society.  By becoming the Reverend Mother, Jessica also inherits the memories of the previous Reverend Mothers, which in turn provides Jessica with knowledge that will grant her even more power over the Fremen.

The influence of religion is not exclusive to the Fremen natives and also begins to corrupt Paul once he develops his sixth sense to see into the future and back in time.  He slowly becomes more and more absorbed in his newfound ability.  The more immersed he becomes, the more he begins to see his new powers as divine origin and how the Fremen prophecy must be true.  As Gurney Halleck says to the Lady Jessica, “‘Why is he doing this? Does he think to get himself killed and achieve martyrdom? This Fremen religious prattle, is that what clouds his reason?’” (Herbert, 781).  Paul becomes arrogant and selfish after obtaining his powers, going so far as the completely refuse assistance from his mother, whom he has looked up to.  He says to her “‘I want no special advantage for this one,’” followed by, “‘Step back out of my way’” (Herbert, 781).  While some of his confidence is certainly true, a good portion comes from his arrogance as a result of his figurehead status among the Fremen.  Jessica claims that “[she] found no covetousness in these faces. They were held at a distance by the religious ferment around Paul’s leadership” (Herbert, 690).  Paul’s status with the Fremen has granted Paul a great power, and he knows it.  It obvious that Paul takes advantage of this power to control the Fremen society, eventually using his influence on the Fremen to overthrow Emperor Shaddam IV from power and claim the throne for himself.

The structure of Fremen society is heavily built upon religion, which is both a major strength and a major weakness of the Fremen culture.  As Kynes’ father explains to him, in Fremen society,

‘Religion and law among our masses must be one and the same[.]  An act of disobedience must be a sin and require religious penalties. This will have the dual benefit of bringing both greater obedience and greater bravery. We must depend not so much on the bravery of individuals, you see, as upon the bravery of a whole population’ (Herbert, 444).

To the Fremen, religion is the foundation with which their entire culture has been built on.  To commit a crime against religion is to commit a crime against the Fremen people.  The Bene Gesserit exploited this, launching the Missionaria Protectiva, a program designed to reaffirm religious beliefs in cultures so the Bene Gesserit could take advantage of them.  As Lady Jessica says to herself, “So our Missionaria Protectiva even planted religious safety valves all through this hell hole. Ah, well… it’ll help, and that’s what it was meant to do” (Herbert, 459).  The strength of the Fremen society is also its weakness.  Religion unites the people, but it also provides an outlet for exploitation, as can be seen with Missionaria Protectiva.

Religion is the strongest part of Fremen society, but also its greatest weakness.  It is exploited by power organizations such as the Space Guild and the Bene Gesserit.  Most importantly, religious beliefs of the Fremen have the power to influence non-Fremen, such as Paul Atreides and Lady Jessica.  With this knowledge, the Fremen are susceptible to outside influences, and really never make choices for themselves.  They believe themselves to be an independent civilization, yet they are controlled by outside forces they are oblivious to.  Until the Fremen break free from their bonds to religion, they will forever be puppets to a greater power, even if that power is one of their own.

Works Cited

1.  Herbert, Frank (2003-08-26). Dune. Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.

Original Article from SPACE.com

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On April 3, 2013, scientists announced results from their massive particle detector, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), that had been surveying space from the International Space Station for over a year and a half.

The particle detector was designed to measure cosmic-ray particles in space.  Over the course of 18 months, AMS detected billions of these particles.  Finally, AMS picked up a signal that is likely to have originated from dark matter, which makes up over 75% of all matter in our universe.  The signal AMS picked up came from about 400,000 positrons, or positively charged electrons.  Even thought positrons are the anti-matter counterpart of an electron, scientists believe that these positrons may have been created when particles of dark matter collided with each other.  However, dark matter is not the same as anti-matter.

An artists impression of dark matter in the universe.  Source:  Star Talk Radio

Dark matter emits no light, therefore it can’t be detected with telescopes.  In addition, the amount of dark matter in the universe seems to significantly outweigh the amount of regular matter in the universe.  Physicists believe that dark matter is made of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which seldom interact with regular matter.  Because WIMPs are thought to annihilate each other, similar to dark matter, the reaction would leave behind a positron and an election.  Scientists can links these positrons to dark matter because they match predictions for dark matter created positrons discovered by PAMELA.  Positrons from dark matter should be found with energy levels higher than 10 GeV (gigaelectron volts).  Not only were these particles discovered with energy levels above 10 GeV, some particles had energies of up to 250 GeV, lending further evidence to dark matter annihilations.  Additionally, these positrons don’t come from a single source in the sky either, they originate from all over.

AMS has detected over 6.8 million positrons and electrons so far.  Even though AMS will continue to collect data, scientists will not be able to tell if these come from dark matter or another source, despite the evidence.  Another suggested theory is that these come from pulsars.  In fact, scientists actually intend to learn more about dark matter at home, via underground experiments right here on Earth.

Off of the coast of my hometown, Ventura, in southern California, lies the Channel Islands Archipelago.  The archipelago contains eight different islands, five of which are part of Channel Islands National Park, split into the Northern Islands and Southern Islands.  The Northern Islands include Anacapa, San Miguel, Santa Cruz, and Santa Rosa islands, extending from Santa Barbara to Ventura counties.  The Southern Islands are composed of San Clemente, San Nicolas, Santa Barbara, and Santa Catalina.  The Southern Islands stretch down to Los Angeles county.

The islands geologic history dates back 100 million years and is a direct result of plate tectonics in the area.  Until roughly 30 million years ago, the location of the Channel islands was the location of two tectonic plates, the Farallon Plate and the North American Plate.  As the two plate collided, they were destroyed over time by subduction.  A marine basin formed and over millions of years, the sediment that washed off the coast collected on the basin, forming the early base for the islands.  Once the Farallon Plate was completely gone, the Pacific Plate moved in and began to rub against the North American Plate.  This created the famous San Andreas fault in California.  The orientation and size of the islands is a direct result of the Pacific Plate coming into contact with the North American Plate.  The entire above surface portion of the islands has risen within the last 5 million years.

A map of the Channel Islands, showing both the Northern and Southern island groups.  Source: Wikipedia.

Some of the islands are a result of volcanic activity that took place underwater.  Anacapa and Santa Barbara islands, for example, are composed almost entirely of volcanic rock.  Evidence of this comes in the form of ‘pillow lava’, or lava that originated underwater.  Fossilized shells of oysters and other marine species can be found among the pillow lava.  The volcanic activity responsible occurred between 19 to 15 million years ago, a period in which lava covered a large portion of the area containing the Northern Channel Islands.  Evidence shows that the original islands created from these eruptions and outpouring were significantly larger than the islands that exist now.  Some claims even state peaks as high as 5,000 feet.  ‘Volcanic bombs’ have been discovered at nearby known volcanic regions, the Conejo Volcanics and Santa Rosa Island Volcanics, supporting the idea of much larger islands.  These islands, however, likely eroded very soon after volcanic activity stopped on the islands, leaving the islands we see today.

The rocks on the Northern islands are mainly composed of sedimentary rocks made of shale and sandstone, remnants of the era when the islands were formed.  The existence of round pieces of rhyolite in the sedimentary layers indicates that the islands originated near San Diego, and have since rotated 90-100 degrees since.

Information obtained from Wikipedia and the official Channel Islands page at the National Park service website.