Carnival of Space 165 – Habitable Zone and Kepler Exoplanets

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The Carnival of Space 165 is up at Cumbrian Sky

Weird Warp discusses the habitable or goldilocks zone of solar systems.


This site provided an article about China’s considering the development of a heavy lift vehicle that would be in the range of a Russian Energia rocket in a 5 engine configuration.

The Space Elevator power beaming competition has been delayed until March or April 2011.

Ian O’Neill covers the ongoing controversy around the release of Kepler information on exoplanets at a TED talk and the enusing NASA press release that indicates those claims are premature and require confirmation.

The Universe Today makes the case for further space missions to the moon.

“With all of these new discoveries, we should have ample reason to believe that humans will follow,” said Chaikin. But right now, he added, the man in the Moon looks a little like Rodney Dangerfield. “The Moon wants – and deserves – respect.”

“It appears NASA’s focus might be shifting to Near Earth Objects,” said Neal, “but the Moon is the nearest Near Earth Object. It’s quicker, safer and cheaper to get humans there, and the important thing to recognized that there’s a lot left to explore, and a lot to do on the Moon.”

Only 5% of the Moon’s surface has been explored by humans, and Neal showed scaled maps of the Apollo landing sites overlaid on maps of Africa, Europe and the US. Additionally, the latest data reveal that the Apollo sites were in no way representative of the entire Moon.

In light of the proposed plan to give up on the Moon, Neal said there probably is a lot of misperceptions by the American public, as well as in other countries that there’s nothing to do or learn at the Moon. But he believes nothing could be further from the truth.

“What we’ve heard over the last couple of days are fantastic talks and seen wonderful posters in regard to the vibrancy of lunar exploration and science, and seen that exploration enables science and that science enables exploration. The Moon is a Rosetta Stone for solar system exploration and science. The recognition of a possible lunar magma ocean has resulted in terrestrial and Martian magma oceans being proposed. This could be the way terrestrial planets evolve and the Moon is begging us to go back and explore to figure that out.”

There’s also the studies of preserved impacts on the lunar surface which represents a look back in time where we can figure out how to do date planetary surfaces, test cataclysm hypotheses, and study how airless bodies undergo space weathering, which has a direct application to NEO research. Studying cold trap deposits has direct applicability to learning more about the planet Mercury, and lunar regolith contains information about the history of our Sun.

There are proposals for doing radio astronomy from the lunar farside, which will probe the dark ages of the Universe and look back to when the first stars turned on. “So the Moon is a gateway to the Universe,” Neal said. “You can do so much more with the moon — its not just the moon, it’s the solar system and beyond.”

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Carnival of Space 165 – Habitable Zone and Kepler Exoplanets

by

Ad Support : Nano Technology   Netbook    Technology News    Computer Software

The Carnival of Space 165 is up at Cumbrian Sky

Weird Warp discusses the habitable or goldilocks zone of solar systems.


This site provided an article about China’s considering the development of a heavy lift vehicle that would be in the range of a Russian Energia rocket in a 5 engine configuration.

The Space Elevator power beaming competition has been delayed until March or April 2011.

Ian O’Neill covers the ongoing controversy around the release of Kepler information on exoplanets at a TED talk and the enusing NASA press release that indicates those claims are premature and require confirmation.

The Universe Today makes the case for further space missions to the moon.

“With all of these new discoveries, we should have ample reason to believe that humans will follow,” said Chaikin. But right now, he added, the man in the Moon looks a little like Rodney Dangerfield. “The Moon wants – and deserves – respect.”

“It appears NASA’s focus might be shifting to Near Earth Objects,” said Neal, “but the Moon is the nearest Near Earth Object. It’s quicker, safer and cheaper to get humans there, and the important thing to recognized that there’s a lot left to explore, and a lot to do on the Moon.”

Only 5% of the Moon’s surface has been explored by humans, and Neal showed scaled maps of the Apollo landing sites overlaid on maps of Africa, Europe and the US. Additionally, the latest data reveal that the Apollo sites were in no way representative of the entire Moon.

In light of the proposed plan to give up on the Moon, Neal said there probably is a lot of misperceptions by the American public, as well as in other countries that there’s nothing to do or learn at the Moon. But he believes nothing could be further from the truth.

“What we’ve heard over the last couple of days are fantastic talks and seen wonderful posters in regard to the vibrancy of lunar exploration and science, and seen that exploration enables science and that science enables exploration. The Moon is a Rosetta Stone for solar system exploration and science. The recognition of a possible lunar magma ocean has resulted in terrestrial and Martian magma oceans being proposed. This could be the way terrestrial planets evolve and the Moon is begging us to go back and explore to figure that out.”

There’s also the studies of preserved impacts on the lunar surface which represents a look back in time where we can figure out how to do date planetary surfaces, test cataclysm hypotheses, and study how airless bodies undergo space weathering, which has a direct application to NEO research. Studying cold trap deposits has direct applicability to learning more about the planet Mercury, and lunar regolith contains information about the history of our Sun.

There are proposals for doing radio astronomy from the lunar farside, which will probe the dark ages of the Universe and look back to when the first stars turned on. “So the Moon is a gateway to the Universe,” Neal said. “You can do so much more with the moon — its not just the moon, it’s the solar system and beyond.”

If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on Reddit, or StumbleUpon. Thanks

Supporting Advertising

Business Success
   How to Make Money    
Executive Jobs   
Paid Surveys

Thank You