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Could the Closest Extrasolar Planet Be Habitable? Astronomers Plan to Find Out The extra-solar planet known as Proxima b has occupied a special place in the public mind ever since its existence was announced in August of 2016. As the closest exoplanet to our Solar System, its discovery has raised questions about the possibility of exploring it in the not-too-distant future. And even more tantalizing are the questions relating to its potential habitability. Despite numerous studies that have attempted to indicate whether the planet could be suitable for life as we know it, nothing definitive has been produced. Fortunately, a team of astrophysics from theRead More →

New Explanation for Dark Energy? Tiny Fluctuations of Time and Space Since the late 1920s, astronomers have been aware of the fact that the Universe is in a state of expansion. Initially predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, this realization has gone on to inform the most widely-accepted cosmological model – the Big Bang Theory. However, things became somewhat confusing during the 1990s, when improved observations showed that the Universe’s rate of expansion has been accelerating for billions of years. This led to the theory of Dark Energy, a mysterious invisible force that is driving the expansion of the cosmos. Much like Dark MatterRead More →

Mysterious Flashes Coming From Earth That Puzzled Carl Sagan Finally Have An Explanation Back in 1993, Carl Sagan encountered a puzzle. The Galileo spacecraft spotted flashes coming from Earth, and nobody could figure out what they were. They called them ‘specular reflections’ and they appeared over ocean areas but not over land. The images were taken by the Galileo space probe during one of its gravitational-assist flybys of Earth. Galileo was on its way to Jupiter, and its cameras were turned back to look at Earth from a distance of about 2 million km. This was all part of an experiment aimed at finding lifeRead More →

SpaceX Blasts Biggest High Speed Communications Satellite to Orbit for Inmarsat SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying commercial Inmarsat 5 F4 broadband satellite blasts off to geostationary orbit at twilight at 7:20 p.m. EDT from Launch Complex 39A on 15 May 2017 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Ken Kremer/Kenkremer.com KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – SpaceX blasted the “largest and most complicated communications satellite ever built to orbit” for London based Inmarset at twilight this evening, May 15, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. In fact the Inmarsat 5F4 satellite is so powerful that it has the potential to reach “hundreds of millions of customers”Read More →

Finding Alien Megastructures Around Nearby Pulsars During the 1960s, Freeman Dyson and Nikolai Kardashev captured the imaginations of people everywhere by making some radical proposals. Whereas Dyson proposed that intelligent species could eventually create megastructures to harness the energy of their stars, Kardashev offered a three-tiered classification system for intelligent species based on their ability to harness the energy of their planet, solar system and galaxy, respectively. With missions that are now capable of locating extra-solar planets (i.e. the Kepler Space Observatory) scientists have been on the lookout for signs of possible alien megastructures. Unfortunately, aside from some very arguable results, no concrete evidence hasRead More →

Messier 42 – The Orion Nebula Welcome back to Messier Monday! In our ongoing tribute to the great Tammy Plotner, we take a look at that Great and most brightest of nebulae – the Orion Nebula! During the 18th century, famed French astronomer Charles Messier noted the presence of several “nebulous objects” in the night sky. Having originally mistaken them for comets, he began compiling a list of them so that others would not make the same mistake he did. In time, this list (known as the Messier Catalog) would come to include 100 of the most fabulous objects in the night sky. One ofRead More →

New Estimate Puts the Supernova Killzone Within 50 Light-Years of Earth There are a lot of ways that life on Earth could come to an end: an asteroid strike, global climate catastrophe, or nuclear war are among them. But perhaps the most haunting would be death by supernova, because there’s absolutely nothing we could do about it. We’d be sitting ducks. New research suggest that a supernova’s kill zone is bigger than we thought; about 25 light years bigger, to be exact. Iron in the Ocean In 2016, researchers confirmed that Earth has been hit with the effects from multiple supernovae. The presence of ironRead More →

SpaceX Targeting Twilight Thunder for May 15 Inmarsat Blastoff – Watch Live The Inmarsat-5 F4 satellite is loaded into the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and rolled out to Launch Complex 39A. Launch is slated for May 15, 2017. Credit: Inmarsat KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – SpaceX is targeting twilight thunder with the firms Falcon 9 rocketing skyward from the Florida Space Coast on Monday 15 carrying a commercial High-Speed broadband satellite for London based Inmarsat. Blastoff of the Inmarsat-5 Flight 4 communications satellite for commercial broadband provider Inmarsat is slated for early Monday evening, May 15 at 7:21 p.m. EDT (or 23:21 UTC) from SpaceX’sRead More →

NASA Nixes Proposal Adding Crew to First SLS/Orion Deep Space Flight Artist concept of the SLS Block 1 configuration on the Mobile Launcher at KSC. Credit: NASA/MSFC KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – After conducting a thorough review examining the feasibility of adding a two person crew to the first integrated launch of America’s new Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket and Orion capsule on a mission that would propel two astronauts to the Moon and back by late 2019, NASA nixed the proposal during a media briefing held Friday. The announcement to forgo adding crew to the flight dubbed Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) was made by NASARead More →

Astronomers Find a Rogue Supermassive Black Hole, Kicked out by a Galactic Collision When galaxies collide, all manner of chaos can ensue. Though the process takes millions of years, the merger of two galaxies can result in Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs, which reside at their centers) merging and becoming even larger. It can also result in stars being kicked out of their galaxies, sending them and even their systems of planets into space as “rogue stars“. But according to a new study by an international team of astronomers, it appears that in some cases, SMBHs could  also be ejected from their galaxies after a mergerRead More →

SpaceX Continues Torrid 2017 Launch Pace With Commercial High-Speed Inmarsat Broadband Satellite on May 15 Inmarsat-5 Flight 4 (I-5 F4) satellite undergoes prelaunch processing for liftoff on SpaceX Falcon 9. Credit: Inmarsat KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – SpaceX is all set to continue their absolutely torrid launch pace in 2017 with a commercial High-Speed broadband satellite for Inmarsat on May 15 following Thursday’s successful completion of a critical static hot-fire test of the first stage. The positive outcome for the static fire test of the first stage engines of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday afternoon, May 11, paves the path to a MondayRead More →

Asteroid Strikes on Mars Spun Out Supersonic Tornadoes that Scoured the Surface The study of another planet’s surface features can provide a window into its deep past. Take Mars for example, a planet whose surface is a mishmash of features that speak volumes. In addition to ancient volcanoes and alluvial fans that are indications of past geological activity and liquid water once flowing on the surface, there are also the many impact craters that dot its surface. In some cases, these impact craters have strange bright streaks emanating from them, ones which reach much farther than basic ejecta patterns would allow. According to a newRead More →

Weekly Space Hangout – May 12, 2017: James Trefil & Michael E. Summers Present “Exoplanets” Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain) Special Guest: We welcome Michael Summers and James Trefil to the show to discuss their new book, Exoplanets: Diamond Worlds, Super Earths, Pulsar Planets and the New Search for Life Beyond Our Solar System. Fraser will also pick the winners of the copies of this book from all the viewers who entered our giveaway! Guests: Paul M. Sutter (pmsutter.com / @PaulMattSutter) Their stories this week:Cassini to study Saturn’s Hexagon So many Crab nebula jokes, so little time We use a tool called Trello to submit andRead More →

Early Earth Was Almost Entirely Underwater, With Just A Few Islands It might seem unlikely, but tiny grains of minerals can help tell the story of early Earth. And researchers studying those grains say that 4.4 billion years ago, Earth was a barren, mountainless place, and almost everything was under water. Only a handful of islands poked above the surface. Scientists at the Australian National University are behind this study, led by researcher Dr. Antony Burnham. The mineral grains in the study are the oldest rocks ever found. They’re 4.4 billion year old zircon mineral grains from the Jack Hills of Western Australia, where theyRead More →

The Chamaeleon Constellation Welcome back to Constellation Friday! Today, in honor of the late and great Tammy Plotner, we will be dealing with that famous lizard that seems to just fit in everywhere – the Chamaeleon constellation! In the 2nd century CE, Greek-Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus (aka. Ptolemy) compiled a list of all the then-known 48 constellations. This treatise, known as the Almagest, would used by medieval European and Islamic scholars for over a thousand years to come, effectively becoming astrological and astronomical canon until the early Modern Age. In time, this list would come to be expanded as astronomers became aware of more asterismsRead More →

Europa Lander Could Carry a Microphone and “Listen” to the Ice to Find Out What’s Underneath Between the Europa Clipper and the proposed Europa Lander, NASA has made it clear that it intends to send a mission to this icy moon of Jupiter in the coming decade. Ever since the Voyager 1 and 2 probes conducted their historic flybys of the moon in 1973 and 1974 – which offered the first indications of a warm-water ocean – scientists have been eager to peak beneath the surface and see what lies within. Towards this end, NASA has issues a grant to a team of researchers fromRead More →