Some great science fiction

 

"The Sundering" series by D Rae Price is a really good read. It achieves the difficult goal of being very engaging, scientifically interesting and ethically satisfying. 

It can be found on Amazon/Kindle here.

The Bahá'í Faith and the Cosmos

 

Another new title has been added to the collection of ebooks on Kindle at the usual price of $0.99. The title is "The Bahá'í Faith and the Cosmos - A Short Introduction". 

The description is:

"This booklet briefly explains some Bahá'í teachings on space exploration, the universe, extraterrestrial life and the place of mankind in it all. Recent scientific findings are used provide background on exoplanets and extremophiles."

The booklet explores the statement made by Bahá’u’lláh:

“Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute.”

By looking at recent scientific research we demonstrate that the first part has already become widely accepted as likely. 

The second part is not yet accepted but is increasingly considered plausible.

Massive solar storm found - but long ago

Solar storms usually cause no more than aurora which are unknown to us here in the tropics. But if they are really bad they can disrupt electrical and communication systems all over the planet. Evidence has been found of a really big one some 2000 years ago. There was another big one which is well known about 150 years ago. According to a BBC report:

"Scientists have found evidence of a huge blast of radiation from the Sun that hit Earth more than 2,000 years ago.
The result has important implications for the present, because solar storms can disrupt modern technology.
The team found evidence in Greenland ice cores that the Earth was bombarded with solar proton particles in 660BC.
The event was about 10 times more powerful than any since modern instrumental records began."

We are now reaching the point of being able to detect storms heading our way from the sun. Protecting our technology against these rare events is difficult so shutting down is likely the only option.

See also 'Solar storm' in Wikipedia

Sub-surface lake on Mars

Exciting news from Mars. Sub-surface lakes have been found beneath the south pole of Mars. And by an orbiter which has been orbiting Mars collecting data for years. According to a BBC news item:

"What they believe to be a lake sits under the planet's south polar ice cap, and is about 20km (12 miles) across.
Lake beds like those explored by Nasa's Curiosity rover show water was present on the surface of Mars in the past.
However, the planet's climate has since cooled due to its thin atmosphere, leaving most of its water locked up in ice.
The result is exciting because scientists have long searched for signs of present-day liquid water on Mars, but these have come up empty or yielded ambiguous findings. It will also interest those studying the possibilities for life beyond Earth - though it does not yet raise the stakes in the search for biology."

Nearest star has Earth-sized planet

Big excitement over the latest exoplanet data. One report on the BBC says:

"Its data suggests Proxima b has a minimum mass 1.3 times that of Earth and orbits at a distance of about 7.5 million km from the star, taking 11.2 days to complete one revolution.
The distance between the star and its planet is considerably smaller than Earth's separation from the Sun (149 million km). But Proxima Centauri is what is termed a red dwarf star. It is much reduced in size and dimmer compared with our Sun, and so a planet can be nearer and still enjoy conditions that are potentially as benign as those on Earth."

I would expect we will hear much more about this planet in the coming years. Sorry no picture yet - those in the media are pure speculation but they do look interesting...

Life found in Trinidad pitch lake

An interesting find in our neighbour across the sea (Trinidad). According to this report in the blog "The Meridiani Journal":
"A recent discovery by scientists may have implications for possible extraterrestrial life: Bacteria have been found thriving in a lake of oil in Trinidad, again showing how life can exist in even the most inhospitable conditions on Earth. The discovery brings to mind the similar environment on Saturn?s moon Titan, where lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons (methane/ethane) exist at the moon's poles."
When you go to Trinidad make the pitch lake one of the sights to see.

A curiosity on Mars

A recent major science event has been the successful arrival and spectacular landing on Mars of the NASA rover Curiosity. This rover will be busy on Mars for years to come and developments are eagerly anticipated. See BBC reports here and here.

While not designed to detect life directly I would expect it to find some positive indications of ancient or recent life or even just of suitable environmental conditions. It has recently been found that lichen can survive under Martian conditions and the same may be true of bacteria.

First habitable planet?

Continuing in an astronomical theme - for the first time a planet has been identified (apart from Earth) which might well be habitable by known forms of life. According to a BBC article:

"This discovery is important because it's the first time climate modellers have proved that the planet is potentially habitable, and all observers agree that the exoplanet exists," he told news agency PA.

"The Gliese system is particularly exciting to us as it's very close to Earth, relatively speaking. So with future generations of telescopes, we'll be able to search for life on Gliese 581d directly."

And another interesting development of the detection of planets wandering between the stars. They were found by Japanese researchers says a BBC report:

They detected evidence of 10 Jupiter-sized objects with no parent star found within 10 Astronomical Units (AU). One AU is equivalent to the distance between our Earth and Sun. Further analysis led them to the conclusion that most of these objects did not have parent stars.

Competition for Pluto

Traditionally our schools have taught that Pluto was one of the planets of our solar system. Of course recently Pluto was reclassified and is no longer called a planet but a minor planet.

Just to give some background here is a chart of the largest objects now known in our system beyond Neptune.
We can see that Pluto is not the largest and many others are nearly as big.
In addition it is likely that even larger bodies (minor planets) will be found further out as we now know there are great numbers of objects out there in the darkness beyond Pluto.
Thanks to The Planetary Society for the picture.
I hope primary school teachers will take note of this!

Exoplanet news

Exoplanets are planets around other stars. NASA has just announced the probable discovery of another 1000 or so exoplanets. Five or so may even be like the Earth but we will not know much about them for a few years yet. Why is this important? Finding other Earth-like planets is likely to change our view of the universe. Until recently many felt that our planet was unique - now it seems that it may be far from that. From Scientific American:

"A newfound planetary system has six worlds, five of which rank among the smallest known, and the list of unconfirmed candidates has swelled to four figures"

"...it will be a few years yet before Kepler is able to identify a true Earth analogue—a small planet on a one-Earth-year orbit around a sunlike star."

Link
"Astronomers have identified some 54 new planets where conditions may be suitable for life." - BBC

More water on Mars

Watching the progress of the Rovers on Mars since the beginning when they landed has been fascinating. The big question is life or no life. But there is also the question of water which is neccessary for life that we are familiar with. Since the Rovers landed much has been learnt - from the Rovers themselves and from NASA and ESA orbiters.
The most recent excitement is over liquid water and if it reaches the surface where it would soon freeze or evaporate. What seems to be water escaping on the surface and freezing has been seen:
BBC report
Space.com article


The guy at Xenotech Research has been collecting pictures for years on this - seems he has been closer to the truth than many sceptics. Here is one of the pictures (see right).
Xenotechresearch.com

Getting up there - Space elevators

Over the past few years this exciting concept has been steadily moving towards reality. When it does happen - and I believe it will - it will be a milestone in man's development.

Basically it involves putting a very large satellite or asteroid into geostationary orbit (so it appears fixed over one place on Earth like many satellites) and dropping a cable down to earth. This cable is then used by elevators to haul material and possible people up to orbit - slowly, safely and very cheaply. Like a railroad to the heavens...

The technology does not quite exist yet especially a cable strong enough but many feel the challenges can be over come. Research is being done and companies have been set up to build elevators. There is now an prize and annual competition to test the technology for short cables.

It would also seem to be energy efficient and friendly to the environment - the elevators might even be solar powered from collectors on the satellite.

Links
Wikipedia article

National Space Society Special Interest Chapter for the Space Elevator