Photo courtesy of NASA

With the recent government shutdown, one may wonder about many things: Obamacare, government reform, will the postal service still run? All these are valid concerns (and yes, your mail will still get to you!), but one thing is for sure: of the many agencies and operations affected by the shutdown, NASA is definitely being hit the hardest.

NASA, or the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, is the government agency responsible for all of the country’s space-related missions, research, projects, etc. They put men on the moon, the most powerful telescopes in the sky, and now it sits empty.

When the shutdown began October 1st, 97% of NASA employees were locked out of work (the highest of any agency).

The International Space Station. Photo Courtesy of the Free Software Foundation.

Only a few essential personnel remain in Houston, TX to maintain contact with 6 astronauts stranded in the International Space Station (ISS). Luckily, many outside institutions and companies run programs and operations for the agency, and remain unaffected for the time being (i.e. the Hubble Telescope and the Mars Rover: Curiosity). However, if something were to go wrong or funding were to run out, there would be nothing to do until Congress and the White House are able to come to an agreement.

An illustration of the MAVEN probe. Courtesy of the University of Colorado- Boulder Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

Other programs are not so lucky. The websites, many of which are heavily used by the public and professionals alike for informational and educational purposes, are nonoperational. So too are all programs in development. Work on MAVEN, or the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission, has been completely stopped until government funding can resume. If the shutdown lasts more than a week, the researchers will miss their launch opportunity later this year and will not be able to launch again until 2016, a major setback.

Altogether, this shutdown is not the end of the world, or even the end of space exploration. The title of this piece is a misnomer too: it doesn’t affect space in the slightest. It does affect, however, our ability to explore, understand, and learn about space. A shutdown that lasts longer than a few days would be devastating to progress that has been decades in the making. There is probably a reason why scientists stray from politics.  No matter your political inclination, incessant bureaucratic bickering only makes one frustrated and confused as to why people cannot work together and compromise. Let us hope, for the sake of NASA, federal workers, the EPA, whatever you stand for, this issue can be resolved soon.

Sources:

http://www.npr.org/2013/10/02/228502839/the-government-shutdowns-final-frontier-how-nasa-is-dealing

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/30/absolutely-everything-you-need-to-know-about-how-the-government-shutdown-will-work/

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.

Humans have always searched for life out in space, wondering if they are alone, or perhaps there is some other organism living and breathing in some distant galaxy, or even in the hidden recesses of the solar system. And while it had been believed to be plausible for other lifeforms to exist in a on some other planet in the reaches of space, the odds of finding life are much lower than previously believed. The article, The Odds of Intelligent Life in the Universe, written by Universe Today back in 2008, discussed the possibility of life elsewhere and the probability of new life emerging. According to the article, it found that the probability of intelligent life emerging is low.

A paper from the University of East Angelia finds that the chances are low due to the time it has taken for species like humans to evolve along with the remaining life of Earth. They found that the structurally complex organisms and intelligent life have evolved later on Earth, and by viewing the probability of the hard and important evolutionary steps that happened in relation to the life of Earth, provided an improved mathematical model for the continuing evolution of intelligent life. This mathematical model that the probability of each of the steps needed for the emergent of life is less than 10%, and that the chances of emerging is less than .01% over the course of 4 billion years.

Alien brothers

So many questions and so little answers. Is humanity a miracle? Or just another one of the millions of life-harboring planets? Why did the Earth form life? How is it possible in the first place? What made Earth such an anomaly? So many questions. Perhaps humanity is the only intelligent life force in the galaxy. But remember that with each probability, it must eventually come true. Perhaps we aren’t alone in the universe.

Image Sources:

http://www.environmental-watch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/earth-day.jpeg

The field of astrobiology addresses the issues of life and habitability in the universe. While there is still no conclusive evidence that points towards life outside of Earth, there is certainly evidence that suggests habitability on other planets and moons. Given that advanced life already exists on Earth though, there are important considerations (social, religious, individual) regarding the discovery, or lack of discovery, of life.

First of all, if we never discover any signs of current life, or any life for that matter (which seems increasingly unlikely as more discoveries are made), this will impart a significant impact upon human life. This would mean that we are the only living beings in the universe. Although it is quite doubtful that we would ever have the capability to confirm this, the prospect of solitude within the universe, considering its absolute vastness, would be staggering. In addition to a sense of loneliness, knowing that there are no alien brethren out there, this raises questions of purpose. If we truly are the only life in the universe, one has to ask why. Is it possible that there is some reason behind our creation, evolution, and development, that life here, on Earth, has some higher meaning than just a chain of coincidental chemical reactions. Is perhaps our meaning in existence to make it to the point in evolved thought and interpretation that we can understand why and how we came about, chemically and biologically, in our world, such as aspects of the anthropic principle might imply. Or is there some religious truth to our existence, some higher meaning to life and a higher being who oversees it. While it is also unlikely that we will ever discover a “meaning of life”, it is certain that there are many interpretations of our meaning as living beings, and while some are scientifically unlikely, none of them are necessarily wrong. This, in and of itself, gives a bright tint to our dark and lonely existence, the idea that individuals are independent in how they view our purpose on Earth and free to act upon those views however they see fit.

The other possibility is that life is plentiful in the universe, that it is a rather common occurrence, and that our existence on Earth is really nothing special. Given the sheer number of galaxies in the universe containing stars just like our sun, and likely planets just like ours, it seems increasingly doubtful that we are alone in the universe. Now, it is true that we have not found concrete evidence suggesting life that is currently in existence outside of Earth. But this is no reason not to believe that, at some point during the universe’s 4.6 billion year existence, in some corner of its hundreds of billions of galaxies, life has arisen. It seems almost foolish to think that we are truly the only life around. So, if (and I do believe when…) we discover life elsewhere in the universe, there are also some implications for humans. This possibility for life in the universe makes our existence seem far less significant. There is probably no higher meaning or purpose for human life, a potentially large blow to the religious interest on life in the universe. It implies that humans are just another creation of the right combination of planetary conditions. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that life on Earth is pointless and insignificant. While we have no idea if there may be much further evolved societies out among the stars, the things that we humans have accomplished as a race during our time on Earth, in addition to all of the living organisms on Earth, are an incredible feat and a definite “success story” for life in the universe.

So right now, we don’t really know what to think. While there is plentiful evidence suggesting potential life, or at least the necessary conditions for it, we have no definitive evidence for life outside of our home planet. Only time and continued research will tell whether we are the sole inhabitants of the universe, or just another creation of coincidence. No matter what we discover though, the societal impacts here on Earth will be felt.

Recently coming to light from an experiment involving the smashing of atoms in a large collider, the a new discovery has been made about anti-matter.  When smashing a particle and anti-particle together, pure energy is released, and then converts into particles called mesons.  These mesons come in two matter forms, neutral B-mesons and positive B-mesons, as well as their counterparts, Anti B-mesons and negative B-mesons, respectively.  The most recent discovery, however, is in how each of these particles decay.  It was discovered that neutral B-mesons decayed faster than anti B-mesons in 2004, and hence assumed that positive B-mesons would follow suit.  Proven incorrect, it has now become apparent that positive B-mesons decay slower than their antimatter counterpart.  This scientists that performed this experiment, led by Paoti Chang at the KEK-B accelerator in Japan, believe that this new discovery could completely change how particle asymmetry is viewed in the scientific world.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Linac_straight_for_600m.jpg

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1Pcvip/:jvtYG4HB:HcBdpf2!/www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1899/

One theory of how life began on Earth is that asteroids brought microbes and other simple life forms to the planets surface early on. We have gathered evidence of pre-existing life inside asteroids before. The question is, how did asteroids from the belt between Mars and Jupiter have the heat to sustain liquid water and therefor life? This has long been explained by the same radioactive chemical processes that heat Earth’s core. While this is certainly a somewhat prominent factor, models estimate temperatures that do not align with the observed reality.

http://uanews.org/story/asteroid-belt-found-around-vega

Two scientists named Roberge and Menzel were able to reevaluate another theory of how the asteroid got all of the heat that they did at one point before cooling. The alternate theory has to do with the electrical current that is created from the movement of plasma (in the asteroids) through the magnetic field of our solar system. The idea isn’t completely new, but Roberge and Menzel reworked the theory using more modern knowledge of the solar system and were able to create a consistent model. This new theory of what provided the heat to allow asteroids to become habitable changes our understanding of the universe. The calculations require the application of multi fluid magneto-hydrodynamics, which is an extremely narrow field of physics pursued by a very select few people.

Sources:

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “Researchers propose new theory to explain seeds of life in asteroids.” ScienceDaily, 1 Oct. 2013. Web. 2 Oct. 2013.

The Space Race was one of the most incredible scientific periods in human history. Not only were enormous technological leaps made during this period, but all of these advances also occurred in rapid succession. In April of 1961, Yuri Gagarin was the first man to enter space, and just over 8 years later, Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon. Even though 50 years have now passed, human civilization has yet to venture further; so what exactly is the hold up? People have been speculating about civilizations on Mars for hundreds of years now, shouldn’t we be able to confirm or deny their suspicions by now?

This is a question that rings in my head every night when I look up at the stars. However, it is clear that this lull in scientific advances has to do with money; the study of our universe requires a lot of pricey technology, and many people do not see the value of astronomy. Lots of people believe that we have no need to waste money studying other planetary bodies when we have problems of our own here on Earth. While this is a somewhat valid point, it would be silly for us to save money we would have spent on science and instead spend it in more useless areas like the defense budget. In 2011, the military budget was well over $900 billion, where NASA’s budget was just over $18 billion. In its 55 years of existence, NASA’s accumulative budget is only around $800 billion, still considerably less than what the military spent in 2011 alone.

Graph of US military budget vs. NASA budget

Now, we do of course need the military; it would be naive to dismantle our armed services for the purposes of furthering science, but clearly there needs to be a change. The disparity between the sizes of the military and NASA’s respective budgets could be evidence a fundamental problem with our society – maybe we simply value our physical power as a country more than we do our intelligence.

If this is the case, then what could have caused this change to occur? It probably had to do with the fact that in the 60s, the search for knowledge was not the United States’ only motivator. While the scientific advances were incredible, they were only occurring because of competition with the Soviet Union. It was fear that was motivating the country to put a man on the moon, not a yearning to learn. While the reasons behind the scientific push might not be the best ones, the Americans and the Soviets did prove that humans are capable of achieving magnificent things. If that mentality had continued for the decades following the space race, maybe there would be a human colony on Mars today.

Military Budget vs NASA budget information from:

http://www.upworthy.com/defense-budget-1t-50-years-of-nasa-budgets-800b-chart-of-this-ridiculous-dispari

NASA has recently captured a near-Earth asteroid, part of a mission to learn more about near-Earth bodies and nebular residue. Since asteroids in our solar system is practically “waste” from the creation of our local system, we may find things of interest within them about the beginning of mother Earth. Some scientists hypothesize that water or even life itself could’ve came from asteroids. Even our Moon, given that the most popular hypothesis is now the Giant Impact, is basically a huge asteroid (well, it’s more of a planet but it wasn’t in orbit of the sun).

We have also been observing things outside our Solar System, especially since NASA recently upgraded one of their telescopes so now we can observe exoplanets with infrared light much easier and more accurately. All this uneventful data-mining and the countless manpower and time that has been put in to space exploration may seem unnecessary at times, or not worthy of an investment. But it is also to answer one of the main questions and motivation of this work: alien life and the origin of life.  If you ask the average rocket scientist whether there’s alien life, you will most likely get a uniform answer that it is not a question of “if”, but “when” and “where”. Since we exist, and we know Earth is not as special a planet as our hubris would like us to think, there is most likely some other planet out there very similar to Earth. But the question is when we will find that new-Earth, and where it is.

http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/5641/new-images-reveal-nasas-asteroid-capture-mission

Two days ago (Sept. 30, 2013), NASA planetary scientists announced that they discovered an essential chemical in the process of making plastic on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. This ingredient is called propylene, which we combine with other propylene molecules to create polypropylene, which is one of the most common forms of plastic. But propylene is only one of the interesting chemicals found on Titan. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which discovered the propylene, also found, back in 1980, that Titans atmosphere also contains many other hydrocarbons, which are the family of molecules that make up fossil fuels. These molecules form on Titan when methane in the atmosphere is broken down by sunlight. The carbon atoms then reform into other molecules, including hydrocarbons. One of the most interesting among these hydrocarbons found on Titan is propane.

The idea of finding propane and other fossil fuels on Titan, or anywhere in our solar system, for that matter, is both incredible and terrifying. Scientific discoveries of this magnitude are always incredible, however, with our current dependence on fossil fuels, it is equally terrifying to think that we may have found a new, untapped source of hydrocarbons. It also brings about the question of how this will affect the idea of commercializing space. With oil being the perhaps the most sought after commodity on Earth, there is little doubt that oil tycoons will soon be forced to turn to a new source to supply the world with its insatiable demand for fossil fuels. Other planets could be an ideal source. All it would take is a unmanned spacecraft that could successfully land on Titan, equipped with machinery to gather fuel. The craft could even refill its tanks for the return flight home. While this would certainly lead to incredible advances in spaceflight and space exploration, it is hard to condone the idea of oil companies bringing even more fossil fuels into our atmosphere here on Earth.

Source:

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-finds-ingredient-plastic-saturns-moon-titan-145445605.html

For this blog I read another article from Scientific American, titled “Do Three Habitable Super-Earths Really Orbit a Nearby Star?”.  The article explained that orbiting the star Gliese 667 C were found two planets.  One a large rocky “super Earth” was orbiting in the star’s habitable region, and so could have liquid water on its surface. 

Modern observations have found between three and five more planes orbiting Gliese 667 C two of them could be super-Earths orbiting in the habitable area.  Unlike our system in which smaller rocky planets orbit closer to the star, with gas and ice giants further out, the planets are huddled close to each other very close to the star.  Although this seems strange from our perspective, as more and more measurements are taken of other systems these compact orbits seem to be the norm when dealing with sun like stars.  This sort of system is referred to as dynamically packed, and now we are also finding them around M dwarfs as well, like Gleise 667 C.  This is important because it expands our idea of what a habitable solar system could look like. 

It is very hard to detect planets such as these because unlike others, which were detected by looking for transits, these were detected by looking at the wobble of the star as the planets pull it to and fro while they orbit.  With a gas giant this can be fairly simple, but when you have multiple, very small planets this because all but impossible.  Scientific American describes as “listening for faint music emerging from washes of static on a poorly tuned radio”. 

As exciting as this discovery is, doubts do still remain.  The team that interpreted the data took shortcuts that made the analysis easier, but less robust.  One of the key short cuts used, was that the team assumed the orbits to be fairly circular.  While that may seem like a wild assumption, any system that is so packed would be unstable with eccentric orbits.  This means that if the planets they thought they detected are actually there, they are likely to be much as the analysis predicted.  However, if their data was off, or if the planets are not there, then their analysis will be useless.  While that is not very comforting, the prospect of multiple super-Earths is nonetheless intriguing. 

This article really excited me, because of the possibility of other Earth like planets on a near by star.  I think that it is hard to not be optimistic with findings such as these.  Though the predictions may yet be proven wrong, the mere thought that Earth like planets are not as uncommon as previously thought is a nice one.  I really hope that the data pans out and we are able to definitively call this, but until then I will remain optimistic.

The article can be found here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=habitable-super-earths