Kepler continues being fucking awesome! Last month it found it found the first exoplanet in its star's habitable zone (as mentioned in this thread), then it found the first Earth-sized planets (Kepler-20e and 20f in the image below). Now, just a few weeks later, it breaks that record again with three even smaller planets, the smallest being roughly the size of Mars! Pretty good catch from 120 light years away. None of those are in the habitable zone unfortunately, but still, I would bet it won't be very long until we find one that is.

Yes, it is quite exciting the rate at which all these smaller planets are being found. To be honest, this should be some of the most exciting days in astronomy yet, beyond some pockets of Internet chatter, it seems really low on peoples radar

And more exoplanet news! A British team has found a large planet with a gigantic ring system tens of millions of kilometers in diameter! For comparison, Saturn's ring system is about 300,000 km across, so this new planet's is really huge. It has gaps in its rings too, which could indicate the presence of moons. Will it be the first "exomoon" discovery?

Awesome. It looks like a gaint, galactic LP

Rocky planets in the habitable zone could be relatively common in the galaxy.

We all knew we'll eventually find another habitable planet, but in the last few months, news about the chances of finding such planets pile up. We're just waiting for the inevitable! Planets with double suns are common too. Considering our solar system formation theory and the planet findings, I think it's safe to assume stars without planetary systems are rare, I think I read an astrophysicist saying something that implied this somewhere too. Well, most supergiants would have swallowed their systems though.

This will make you shit bricks:
Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkxieS-6WuA
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySBaYMESb8o

Best watched full screen and 720p resolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFpeM3fxJoQ

A new-found exoplanet orbits so close to its star (15.7 hours orbital period) that the surface itself is literally boiling away into space. Wow.

That's cool. That art rules by the way.

I just read this whole thread, and now my head hurts.

In a good way.

The president's proposed 2013 NASA budget brings pretty sad news overall. At least JWST gets sufficient funding, but where it hurts is that Mars exploration funding would get drastically cut by a crippling 38.5%. Quite awful really. The budget request still has to pass congress so technically they could increase funding, but that's rarely the way it goes.

Damn, that is a waste of money. Isn't the US supposed to pretty much be out of Iraq anyway? The amount of science that could be funded in a couple of days, it breaks my heart to see it pissed away so.

Well, it doesn't look like a lot of people are following this thread, but just in case... There's an interesting project up on petridish.org (it's a crowd-funding site, like Kickstarter but for science projects) about finding the first exomoon. They need money for a super-computer to use in their task, so if you'd care to support to project, you can donate any amount of money you'd like (every bit helps!). The good news is that they've already reached the minimum funding level they needed ($10,000) so this is definitely going forward, but any additional money will go towards buying an even better super-computer that will reduce the time it takes to analyze each star system.

The best way to detect an exomoon is by concentrating on exoplanets that can be directly observed. Formalhaut b is a good example.

Detection of exomoons is inevitable and may occur within the next five years. Regular discoveries of exomoons won't occur until far more advanced space-based telescopes are deployed. The Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope would be one such telescope and may even be sensitive enough to directly image an exomoon.

Exomoons are bound to have as much surprises as finding exoplanets already yielded. Imagine a planet that isn't too dense, but has a diameter about twice that of Jupiter. One of its moons is a smaller ice-giant similar to Neptune. Imagine that moon having a moon of its own. That moon would probably have intense tidal forces and would likely be more volcanically active than Io.

The most exciting form of exomoons are earth-sized moons orbiting gas giants in the habitable zone.

Except Fomalhaut b may not even exist after all.

Very few exoplanets have been directly imaged, and those that have are barely visible at all... as such, I doubt the best method of finding an exomoon would be direct observation.

Even a barely visible exoplanet could still have very slight wobbles in their orbits, indicating an exomoon.

If this doesn't turn into a power/thrash metal or heavy/prog metal album cover by the end of the year, I will be heavily disappointed.

Pretty awesome video from cameras mounted on the Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters as they rode into space:

Very fucking cool, the audio is amazing.

The kids liked the video, thanks HB.

BTW, the oldest daughter just passed the entry exams and got accepted to a school that specializes on math and natural sciences, starting on the 7th grade. Happyhappyhappy!

By the end of this century, how far do you think we'll have sent man into space?

I believe by December 31st, 2099, manned missions would have been routinely sent to colonies on the moon and Mars. Martian exploration is far more fervent and frequent than ever, with discoveries still being announced on a regular basis in 2099, reported by colonists on a growing colony. There is also an extensive colony on Phobos which is used as a waypoint for martian excursions, trips back to Earth and trips beyond Mars. Manned missions that flyby Venus are also likely, as well as an established orbiting or floating cloud colony at Venus. Missions to the asteroid belt have been successful and a colony is steadily developing on Ceres. There were multiple manned missions to Callisto, the farthest of the Galilean moons and safest in terms of radiation exposure. Excursions have been conducted from Callisto to Ganymede, Europa and Io with the trip to Io being extra perilous because of how close to Jupiter it is. A drilling station on Europa for exploration of its hidden ocean recently broke through with a borehole large enough to fit a manned submarine. A manned mission to Saturn's moon Titan also occurred, being the farthest out voyage for a manned space mission yet. Explorers were able to fly like birds in the thick atmosphere and low gravity quite easily with wing-like extensions on their arms. They are the trail-blazers for the most important space colony since Mars. Mercury might have been a destination for a manned mission by this time at its polar regions.

By 2099 these missions will largely be international efforts. America's power will weaken and it may very well be that some of these colonies are Chinese, Japanese or possibly a future economic super power that emerges within the next 87 years (Brazil? Africa? Middle East?).

The world economy is an important consideration. Shit could very well happen, and it always does to some degree. Another Great Depression or a World War could make it infeasible to go beyond Mars by 2099. On the other hand, shit could get better and by 2099 we might be sending a manned mission to Alpha Centauri.

I think a manned interstellar mission is very likely, as long as we don't get killed off by ourselves or some other catastrophe, by the year 2999.

Today I attended a conference from a teacher of the University of Montreal who published a paper in Nature last December about the discovery of two exoplanets orbiting a star in such extreme conditions. The periods are about 6 and 8 hours, which is twice as fast. The temperatures are not written on the link, but if I remember correctly, it's around 8000 and 9000 Celsius, instead of 2000. The planets were probably Jupiter-sized and only their rocky core (smaller than Earth) are left. It might have been one planet too, which got teared apart. They also think they found a third one, but the signal is too thin and buried, they might know in a couple of years when the Kepler mission will end.

When I finish my aerospace engineering degree I hope to be able to explain everything in that video.

I really wish, man, but I think you're being rather too optimistic about this. Keep in mind that no human has even been beyond Earth orbit for the past thirty-five years, and there are no firm plans to land anyone on another world in the near future. Sure, many countries have announced they're planning to send manned missions to the moon, but this is far from a decisive effort at this point. Priorities shift, budgets get cut, milestone dates slip, projects get cancelled; it's always the same old song in space exploration. Just look at America's "Vision for Space Exploration" plans: "a manned mission to the moon by 2020!" they called for in 2004. That whole thing was scrapped 6 years later after huge budget overruns. Now their new plans mention a manned mission to an asteroid by 2025... yeah, we'll see. It's really sad that no one can even attempt what was already accomplished in the 70's in terms of manned missions today.

I do think we'll eventually get back to the moon though, probably some time next decade if some of the space agencies can get their shit together. This should hopefully be followed some time later by the establishment of a first permanent moon base, which could evolve into a small colony over time. Asteroids are also likely targets for relatively near-term exploration, though I'd be surprised if this happens before 2030. I expect asteroid mining will be a fairly common occurrence by the end of the century though. Mars would be next on the list of exploration targets, and while I do hope we can get there in the first half of the century, it is a huge endeavour and political will might be lacking, despite what they promise. A Mars outpost would logically follow, because it's already hard enough getting to Mars, it would just be dumb not to go there with plans to establish a permanent foothold. Anything beyond that gets increasingly difficult, and I'm not really hopeful we'll see manned exploration of the outer solar system this century. It would certainly be technically feasible, sure, but the problem is always to have someone willing to put the effort and money into it.

That said, the rise of the private space industry could really be a game changer in all this, and it's difficult to predict where that will lead. Private launch vehicles are emerging right now, led by SpaceX. Some Google Lunar X Prize teams will have rovers on the moon this decade, in particular Astrobotic could have a launch as early as 2014. Space tourism is in full development with Virgin Galactic potentially beginning commercial operations to sub-orbital space soon, and Space Adventures even offering a flight around the moon planned for 2015 ($150 million a seat, if you're interested). If there's money to be made for the private sector, that can certainly drive development much faster than waiting on the governmental agencies.

In regards to manned interstellar flights though, I'm not confident that will ever happen unless there is some dramatic new development in our understanding of physics. The closest star system is more than four light-years away; not only does that mean that it would take an extremely long time to get there, but the main problem this poses is actually for communication. Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light-years away; that means 4.2 years for a message to get to Earth, then 4.2 years for the message to get back. It's just impossible to manage a mission, much less a colony, under those circumstances. Autonomous robots are probably the only way we'll get to explore outside our solar system.

Great, a future scientist!



That's pretty cool. I bet in the coming years we will discover all sorts of really weird planets that we didn't imagine could exist.



Sounds good. When you do, make a post here detailing it all.

There are some theoretical technologies that would allow a space ship to accelerate to speeds that are a decent fraction of the speed of light. Let's say 25% - that would put the voyage to Proxima Centauri to 16.8 years, right?

Not really that simple... for the travelers it would be shorter due to time dilation. Not really sure how extreme the effects are at 0.25c but it would be easily measurable - hell, time dilation has already been measured by high speed jets, on time scales of nanoseconds.

On a ship that is self-sufficient and self-reliant, where crew members can survive for an indefinite period of time, the voyage is possible although difficult, and it is more or less a mission that probably won't see them return home. ... Although people are living longer, and cryogenics could be advanced by that time to allow a voyage that would take about 35 years total in Earth's reference time to pass by without the travelers aging a day.

A second possibility is for advanced robots to be the trailblazers, sending a fleet of robotic space ships to a nearby star that is known to have planets, preferrably worlds within the habitable zone, and for these robots to land on this world autonomously and construct a self-sufficient habitat ready for human settlement and then proceed to secure the base with advanced weaponry (in case aliens try to do stuff). This would then be followed by a manned voyage to land on the planet, settle the habitat, and live out their remaining lives on this new world, dedicating them to research and discovery.

A third possibility is that it has become the norm where either humankind is genetically altered to have lifespans exceeding thousands of years, or humankind is bio-mechanically enhanced to be more or less immortal, or a combination of the two. Say the latter is the case... these cyborg human explorers could conceivably travel the entire span of the galaxy. Voyages take several thousand years, certain parts of the crew is awakened from stasis (because just living a thousand years in empty space has the extreme potential to be boring) to guide the ship toward a known interesting planet orbiting a star, land on it, gather data and send it back to Earth with some sort of highly advanced communications technology... or store it on a thumb drive or something for the ship's eventual return to Earth.

Although a voyage thousands of lightyears into space is actually possible for a human within their life time due to time dilation. However thousands of years would have passed on Earth in the time of the voyage, the traveler would only age 40 or so years.


And finally there is the possibility that superluminal speeds can be achieved, and every fantasy of Star Trek, Star Wars and such is realized. I think there are physics that haven't been discovered yet to allow this.

@ Goatfangs predictions - Absolutely none of that will happen in the next century. None. Not one of your predictions. None. Nada. El Zilcho.

The Moon and Mars will probably get visitations, but certainly no colonisation, the closest I could see would be some kind of 2 or 3 year rotation system for Mars similar to a long term ISS, but even then I'd imagine the cost/reward topic would end up having some kind of frequency similar to our rovers, at absolute best, I can not stress that enough. I'd be happy if we just get there while I'm still alive. As for asteroids, that's actually pretty probable, asteroids of decent enough size come within the range of what we've already done pretty frequently, and all the unmanned missions to them have been hugely successful. I guess it's a matter of the right asteroid coming at the right time, but I'd think if we get to Mars by the end of the century, we'll get to an asteroid too. Also, a floating cloud colony on Venus? Who the hell is going to want to go live in the clouds of fire death world? Seriously.

I'm with Hellblazer on interstellar travel, I really can't visualise it happening at all, and as such the very notion of it happening before the end of the century is laughable. All of those little things you have brought up are currently in the "interesting tid bits that that Asain guy on discovery plays up to be way to plausible at this time" stages. That 25% of the speed of light is an obscenely huge imaginary figure, and those theoretical technologies are as logisitically unbelievable as time travel at this current time. Every one that I have heard of requires immense levels of power, and for these prodictions to be true these kinds of incomprehensibly power bursts need to become commonplace, so even if we do manage to harness dark matter or anything like that, I'm sure we won't be using them for carefree for everything we can think of within a century.

My problem with the "Private space agencies will foot the bill" idea is that I can't see to many ways of making the money. Sure you've got space tourism, but even then that is going to be mostly suborbital, and probably not hugely sustainable or likely to generate a crowded market. It's obviously just for the rich, but I can't see many individual rich folk making many return trips, if just feels like a do it once type deal. I know poeple have brought up space mining, but I can't see it, any sort of useable payload is going to require massive expenses, and would likely hinge very much on what type of asteroids just happen to be hanging around that time. I mean, are people going to spend $50 billion every time they want to get a few hundred kilos of space rock for private venture?

I wish I could be more optimistic, because all these sort of things are about the coolest thing ever, but all I seem to learn the more I look into stuff is just how devastatingly huge everything is. The most optimisitic things I could say would be I'd like to see some attempts at terraforming on Mars for a second chance in case of something happening on a planetary scale, but I wouldn't even begin to entertain the thought for a few hundred, if not thousand years. But I can't see where we could 'hop' from after that, other than moon bases.

Interstellar travel will happen, if we manage not to kill ourselves within the next, oh, 500 to 1000 years or so. All it takes is something like a religious movement focused on it as a part of their dogma, or some obscenely rich person wanting to go with 1000 of his favourite people. Of course, a private company won't sign the checks, because they have nothing to gain by sending people on a 2000-year one way trip, but some ideological entity or eccentric looney with trillions of money might use the resources it has here to get the hell off the planet. At that point, pragmatic things like "we are just going to die of old age in space, and only our descendants in the 75th generation will see the other end of the trip" don't mean shit to the people involved.

Asteroid mining is actually rather easy to turn into a profitable industry. Let's assume that 50 years from now, we've exhausted most practical earth-based energy sources and want to take advantage of solar power in an uninterrupted, environmentally sane and extremely efficient way. The best way to get 1000000 sq-km of solar panels in place without once again fucking everything up is to have them in space, thus avoiding weather limitations, problems caused by Earth's rotation, losses by atmosphere, needlessly sturdy support structures for something that essentially could be manufactured paper-thin, weren't it for the stresses it encounters in everyday environment, etc. And to get materials for that, well, using the asteroids makes more sense than hauling it up from Earth's gravity well. Cheaper, safer and cleaner that way. And TA-DAA! you have an industry that mines asteroids, makes a tangible product for a market that will likely be there until the world ends, and you can laugh all the way to the bank once it gets running.

What I'd love to see before I die is a space elevator. That would be SO cool.

Space elevators: http://gate-to-nowhere.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d18s13i

I can see Earth becoming like that planet in the far future, with a massive artificial ring and countless spokes descending down to the surface. The ring would be surrounded by huge solar panels that would generate enough power for the whole planet, sending it down through the center of the space elevators. The ring would be thick enough to cast a shadow onto the surface, temporarily eclipsing the sun for an observer on the ground.

Can't believe I haven't found this thread earlier, considering a large portion of my lyrics are space themed ^_^ Very well done, especially the art/picture posters.

What's your guys' opinion on carry capacity of Earth? Do you believe we'll ever be forced to find ways to live on distant life-sustaining planets? Of course, I am talking hundreds, maybe even thousands of years of advancement in physics and conceptual space travel.

That is fascinating!

Providing we're still alive as a species in 1.5 billion years, the sun will expand destroying Earth, but it's speculated that Mars will then be in a more habitable zone causing its ice caps to melt forming a thin atmosphere. If we've made any colonization progress on Mars at all at that point, maybe we could survive even beyond the certain doom of our planet.

Otherwise I think that in the not so distant future, space colonization will eventually become more plausible, but it's a matter of being motivated to undertake it that relies on either finding something we really want out in space, or having an urgent need to leave the Earth. I certainly think we will have the ability to at least land on Mars within the next century or so, but we won't unless we develop a strong enough need to.

"Contrary to the popular perception of black holes pulling in all of the material that gets close, we estimate up to 95 percent of the matter in the disk around IGR J17091 is expelled by the wind,”

Ashley King from the University of Michigan

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57383 ... d-by-nasa/


hypervelocity planets
Imagine living on a planet that hurtles through the Milky Way galaxy 400 times faster than us
digital journal

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... e-science/

Derigin sent me this very interesting link:

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27720/

Inverse panspermia. Wow.

Not really inverse panspermia, but just regular panspermia... except that Earth is the origin instead of the destination.

Which brings about another question, how many meteorites found on Earth are even from our solar system in the first place?

D'oh? That is not, like... reversed?

On a deeper level, I've always found the idea of panspermia interesting, but not in the sense the original idea was created. The thought of life spreading in the galaxy by hitching a ride on space rocks or something else is very enthralling, and I have little doubt about it actually being a possibility. It's also a comforting thought, in case of us nuking ourselves to hell or something.

But the way the idea has been presented in the past, as a solution to the riddle of the origin of life, it's complete bollocks. It solves nothing. If we can't come up with a theory on how abiogenesis happened, the "life came from outer space" idea is a cheap cop-out and explains nothing; it just moves the problem of abiogenesis to outer space, and we are left with even less information about the conditions where it supposedly took place.

I personally think life was born on Earth itself, but I just can't help loving the idea that Earth might be the source that spreads that life to the rest of the galaxy in the future, or even did so in the past. While it's not the purpose of anything, it would be a beautiful result of our existence if we could "contaminate" barren worlds elsewhere with life, and with this idea right here, it seems it's feasible that it has happened even without our interference. Ain't that cool?

Plans for asteroid mining emerge

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17827347

So basically, we gave the universe a giant facial?

Holy shit, that painting is awesome. It looks like something Par Olofsson would create.

Anyway, it's amazing that we're finding so many exoplanets. If I could give mountains of money to NASA to fund more sweet stuff like this I would.

That painting is really cool. Space definitely has some crazy shit going on. I just wish that astrophysics wasn't ... well... quite boring.