A planet just 3.4 parsecs away either having liquid water or just shy of having some makes an extremely appealing characterization target. Stellar activity is probably the highest concern regarding the emergence of life, and even the survival of an atmosphere, on planets orbiting M dwarfs. Restricting the target list to quiet stars would disqualify …
Space Telescopes placed at the gravitational lens points of 550 AU can image exoplanet surfaces down to 1 kilometer resolution. This would be like 13000 X 13000 pixel images of the earth. 169 megapixels images. Mason Peck talks about the Breakthrough Starshot project. When we achieve good interstellar travel (20% of lightspeed with good unmanned …
The Carnival of Space 534 is up at Urban Astronomer. Universe Today – Check Out NASA’s New Instrument that will Look for Life on Enceladus NASA hopes to send another mission to Jupiter to further explore the plumes and the interior of Enceladus. This mission will likely include a new instrument that was recently announced …
Proxima Centauri, the star closest to our Sun, is known to host at least one terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit. Here the European Space Agency reports the ALMA detection of the star at 1.3 mm wavelength and the discovery of a belt of dust orbiting around it at distances ranging between 1 and …
A Japanese space probe data confirmed that an enormous cavern stretching for about 50 kilometers exists beneath the moon’s surface, offering a possible protected site for future lunar bases, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said Oct. 18. The cavern, found in the Marius Hills area on the near side of the moon, is about 100 …
The asteroid Psyche is different than millions of other asteroids because it appears to have an exposed nickel-iron surface. Researchers at Arizona State University, in partnership with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), believe the asteroid could actually be the leftover core of an early planet. And, since we can’t directly explore any planet’s core, including …
Carnival of Space 527 is up at The Evolving Planet. Universe Today – Cassini Conducts a Final Flyby of Titan Before Crashing into Saturn The NASA Cassini spacecraft made hundreds of passes over Titan during its 13-year mission. These included a total of 127 precisely targeted encounters at close and far range (like this latest …
A total eclipse is one of the most spectacular sights you can ever see! It looks like the end of the world may be at hand. There is a black hole in the sky where the sun should be. Pink flames of solar prominences and long silver streamers of the sun’s corona stretch across the …
Carnival of Space 521 is up at Universe Today Universe Today – Hubble Eyes Stratosphere Around a Very Hot, Watery Jupiter! Artist’s concept of the hot Jupiter WASP-121b, which presents the best evidence yet of a stratosphere on an exoplanet – generated using Engine House VFX. Credit: Bristol Science Centre/University of Exeter Universe Today – …
The Carnival of Space 520 is at the Urban Astronomer >Universe Today – Advanced Civilizations Could Build a Galactic Internet with Planetary Transits In a recently-published paper (arxiv – Exoplanet Transits as the Foundation of an Interstellar Communications Network) , Dr. Duncan H. Forgan of St. Andrews University proposed that extra-terrestrial civilizations could be communicating …
The Carnival of space 519 is at The Evolving Planet Universe Today – Strange Radio Signals Detected from a Nearby Star scientists from the Arecido Observatory recently announced the detection of a strange radio signal coming from Ross 128 – a red dwarf star system located just 11 light-years from Earth. As always, this has …