Extrasolar planet 2 January 2013: Astronomers state that the Milky Way may contain as many as 400 billion exoplanets, with almost every star hosting at least one planet.[1][2][3] An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. Around 1800 such planets have been discovered[5][6][7] (1783 planets in 1105 planetary systems including 460 multiple planetary systems as of 18 April 2014).[8] The nearest known exoplanet, if confirmed, would be Alpha Centauri Bb, but there is some doubt about its existence. Almost all of the planets detected so far are within the Milky Way; however, there have been a small number of possible detections of extragalactic planets. For centuries philosophers and scientists supposed that extrasolar planets existed, but there was no way of detecting them or of knowing their frequency or how similar they might be to the planets of the Solar System. History of detection[edit] Early speculations[edit] Discredited claims[edit] In 1991 Andrew Lyne, M. Transit method
The James Webb Space Telescope Galaxy Zoo Interstellar gas allows chemical reactions caused by quantum tunneling In recent years, astronomers have detected some simple organic chemicals in the disks of material surrounding some stars. In our own Solar System, these seem to have undergone reactions that converted them into more complex molecules—some of them crucial for life—that have been found on meteorites. So, understanding the reactions that can take place in space can help provide an indication of the sorts of chemistry available to start life both here and around other stars. Based on a publication in Nature Chemistry, it seems that the chemistry that can take place in the cold clouds of gas of space is much more complex than we had predicted. The key to understanding the work is the idea of activation energy. This, as you might imagine, is a problem in a cold gas cloud. The reaction the authors were looking at involved methanol, which has been found in gas clouds, and a hydroxyl radical. Once the temperature drops sufficiently, however, things start to change.
Wildfires Smoke Crosses the Atlantic Intense wildfires in Quebec sent smoke billowing out of Canada at the end of June 2013. The fires produced towering pyrocumulus clouds that injected smoke high into the atmosphere. Upper-level winds then dispersed it across the Atlantic Ocean. Wildfire smoke is a combination of gases and aerosols—tiny solid and liquid particles suspended in air—so remote-sensing instruments that detect aerosols can find smoke. The maps above are made from data collected by the Ozone Mapper Profiler Suite (OMPS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi-NPP) satellite. They show relative aerosol concentrations, with lower concentrations appearing in yellow and higher concentrations appearing in dark orange-brown. On June 23, 2013, OMPS detected a plume dense with smoky aerosols over the North Atlantic Ocean, east of Newfoundland. The ambiguity explains why remote sensing scientists rarely use just one sensor to analyze smoke transport events like this. Instrument(s): Suomi NPP - OMPS
Laser propulsion Laser propulsion is a form of beam-powered propulsion where the energy source is a remote (usually ground-based) laser system and separate from the reaction mass. This form of propulsion differs from a conventional chemical rocket where both energy and reaction mass come from the solid or liquid propellants carried on board the vehicle. A laser launch Heat Exchanger Thruster system History[edit] The basic concepts underlying laser propulsion were first developed by Eugene Sanger and the Hungarian physicist Georgii Marx, with practical schemes being developed by Arthur Kantrowitz and Wolfgang Moekel in the 1970s.[1] Laser propulsion systems may transfer momentum to a spacecraft in two different ways. The forms described below are all of the second type, and could be described as thermal rockets. Forms[edit] There are several forms of laser propulsion. Ablative laser propulsion[edit] University of Alabama Huntsville Propulsion Research Center[3] has researched ALP.[4] CW plasma propulsion[edit]
Cassini captures gigantic hurricane on Saturn in exquisite detail Jupiter's Great Red Spot may get most of the attention, but it's hardly the only big weather event in the Solar System. Saturn, for example, has an odd hexagonal pattern in the clouds at its north pole, and when the planet tilted enough to illuminate it, the light revealed a giant hurricane embedded in the center of the hexagon. Scientists think the immense storm may have been there for years. But Saturn is also home to transient storms that show up sporadically. The most notable of these are the Great White Spots, which can persist for months and alter the weather on a planetary scale. The storm turned out to be very violent, with convective features as big as 3,000 km across that could form and dissipate in as little as 10 hours. Convection that brings warm material up from the depths of Saturn's atmosphere appears to be key to driving these storms.
Iron in Egyptian relics came from space Nickel-rich areas are colored blue on a virtual model (bottom) of the Gerzeh bead. The Open University/University of Manchester The 5,000-year-old iron bead might not look like much, but it hides a spectacular past: researchers have found that the ancient Egyptian trinket is made from a meteorite. The result, published on 20 May in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science 1 , explains how ancient Egyptians obtained iron millennia before the earliest evidence of iron smelting in the region, solving an enduring mystery. “The sky was very important to the ancient Egyptians,” says Joyce Tyldesley, an Egyptologist at the University of Manchester, UK, and a co-author on the paper. The tube-shaped bead is one of nine found in 1911 in a cemetery at Gerzeh, around 70 kilometres south of Cairo. An early study found that the iron in the beads had a high nickel content — a signature of iron meteorites — and led to the suggestion that it was of celestial origin 2 . Gifts from the gods
Does the Big Bang necessarily mean we’re part of a multiverse? For most of its history, the idea of a multiverse was the domain of science fiction and some rare speculation from physicists. In recent years, though, the idea that our Universe may be just one among many has gained traction in two different areas. The string theorists think it may help explain why, if there are a huge number of possible universes, we ended up in one with the properties we see around us. Both of these threads of thought made appearances at two events held by the World Science Festival earlier this month, and different approaches to them were presented by various theorists—including two who think that we shouldn't be bothering with the multiverse at all. The (contested) triumph of inflation We'll start with inflation, which is the leading theory to explain why our Universe looks the way it does. Inflation solves that problem, and two of the people who helped develop the theory (Alan Guth and Andrei Linde) were on hand to explain it. Infinite inflation
How It Works: NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover The largest in human history this week, the rover successfully landed on Mars. Reactive landing platform Sky Crane, hanged over the surface of the Red Planet, gradually lowered rover “Curiosity” wheels down on the nylon rope in the final destination – Gale Crater, where are deep layers the Martian soil, revealing the planet’s geological history. Willamette Meteorite The Willamette Meteorite , officially named Willamette , [ 3 ] is an iron-nickel meteorite discovered in the U.S. state of Oregon . It is the largest meteorite found in North America and the sixth largest in the world. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] There was no impact crater at the discovery site; researchers believe the meteorite landed in what is now Canada or Montana, and was transported as a glacial erratic to the Willamette Valley during the Missoula Floods at the end of the last Ice Age (~13,000 years ago). [ 6 ] The meteorite is currently on display at the American Museum of Natural History , which acquired the meteorite in 1906. [ 5 ] Having been seen by an estimated 40 million people over the years, and given its striking appearance, it is among the most famous meteorites known. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] Physical characteristics [ edit ] The Willamette Meteorite weighs about 32,000 pounds (14.5 metric tons). Modern history [ edit ] Willamette Meteorite in the early 20th century Mass [ edit ]
Last transmitter dies, finalizing retirement for ocean-sensing satellite If you have ever seen the graph displayed above, you've admired the work of the Jason satellite. Jason—along with its predecessor TOPEX, and its successor Jason-2—has been tracking the surface of the ocean level for more than two decades now. The data collected reveals regional and short-term changes in sea level, but the key finding is that the global ocean level has been rising at a rate of over 3mm/year due to a combination of melting glaciers and expansion driven by the increased heat absorbed by the oceans. Through careful planning with the satellites, NASA and its international partners have arranged it so that each orbiter has overlapped with its predecessor for a couple of years. This allows their instruments to be calibrated against each other, which is essential for creating a continuous record like the one shown above. By early last year, the Jason-2 satellite was calibrated making the original Jason superfluous.
Mysterious radio bursts come from outside our galaxy Astronomers using a radiotelescope to perform a survey of a broad patch of the sky have spotted a set of unusual events that last for just a handful of milliseconds. The events don't repeat and aren't accompanied by anything obvious at optical or X-ray wavelengths. A careful examination of their properties, however, gives reason to believe that they are likely to occur at great distances from our galaxy, suggesting they are the product of cataclysmic occurrences. Based on the four events detected during their survey of a single patch of the sky, the astronomers suggest that thousands of them may be visible from Earth each day—provided we know where to look. There's really not a lot to say about the Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) themselves. Four were identified that differ largely in intensity; all of them lasted for less than five milliseconds. If the radio bursts were coming from within our galaxy, then a variety of situations could produce signals with that kind of energy.