Updated Exoplanet iPhone App

Screenshot of a new exoplanet app for iPhone and iPad.

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Just in time for the announcement yesterday of the multi-planet solar system discovery, and an upcoming exoplanet announcement by the Kepler team comes a new version of a free exoplanet app for iPhone and iPad. We got a note from Hanno Rein, who developed “Exoplanet,” and who just finished his PhD in astrophysics at the University of Cambridge. “It lists all discovered extrasolar planets with a lot of background information, many visualizations and animations,” he said. Other highlights include an easy search and filter for the database, real telescope images of the host star, visualizations of the orbits and the habitable zone, interactive 3D size comparison to our own solar system and much more.

With all the exoplanet news lately, “Exoplanet” is updated daily and push notifications are sent out whenever a new planet is discovered (although they can be turned off if you don’t want to get notifications). Pretty much everything known about any exoplanet is included, such as physical parameters, along with various visualizations and background information, which make this exciting subject accessible for a wider audience.
New for version 3.9 are direct links to planets and planetary systems, links to other planets of the same multi-planetary system have been added, and you can now link from any e-mail or website directly to this application by using a URL form of the exoplanet, for example, ://Fomalhaut

Rein developed this app while a student, and wanted to keep it free (knowing how hard it is to be a poor student!) so there are ads on the app. But a non-ad version is available for only $.99 USD.

I don’t have an iPhone or iPad (yet!) but Fraser does, and he said the Exoplanet app is very cool!

For more information, or to download, find Exoplanet at the iTunes Store.

Could the World Run on Solar and Wind Power?

More than 3,300 solar panels have been erected on a vacant five acres at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Credit: NASA/Jim Grossman

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Today, the total oil and natural gas production provides about 60 percent of global energy consumption. This percentage is expected to peak about 10 to 30 years from now, and then be followed by a rapid decline, due to declining oil reserves and, hopefully, sources of renewable energy that technologies that will become more economically viable. But will there be the technology breakthroughs needed to make clean and exhaustible energy cost effective?

Nobel prize winner Walter Kohn, Ph.D., from the University of California Santa Barbara said that the continuous research and development of alternate energy could soon lead to a new era in human history in which two renewable sources — solar and wind — will become Earth’s dominant contributor of energy.

“These trends have created two unprecedented global challenges”, Kohn said, speaking at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting. “One is the threatened global shortage of acceptable energy. The other is the unacceptable, imminent danger of global warming and its consequences.”

The nations of the world need a concerted commitment to a changeover from the current era, dominated by oil plus natural gas, to a future era dominated by solar, wind, and alternative energy sources, Kohn said, and he sees that beginning to happen.

The global photovoltaic energy production increased by a factor of about 90 and wind energy by a factor of about 10 over the last decade. Kohn expects vigorous growth of these two energies to continue during the next decade and beyond, thereby leading to a new era, what he calls the SOL/WIND era, in human history, in which solar and wind energy have become the earth’s dominant alternative energies.

Kohn noted that this challenge require a variety of responses. “The most obvious is continuing scientific and technical progress providing abundant and affordable alternative energies, safe, clean and carbon-free,” he said.

One of the biggest challenges might be leveling off global population, as well as energy consumption levels.

Source: American Chemical Society

Telescope’s Laser Pointer Clarifies Blurry Skies

The new laser adaptive optics system in action. At Mount Hopkins in Arizona, a bundle of five lasers is shot into the atmosphere to improve the imaging of the 6.3-meter MMT telescope. Image Credit: Thomas Stalcup

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While it’s handy for us humans (and all of the other life on our planet for that matter), the atmosphere is almost universally cursed among astronomers. It’s great for breathing, but when it comes to astronomical observations of faint objects, all the atmosphere tends to do is muck up the view. In the past 20 years, development of adaptive optics – essentially telescopes that change the shape of their mirrors to improve their imaging capability – has dramatically improved what we can see in space from the Earth.

With a new technique involving lasers (Yes! Lasers!), the images capable with an adaptive optics telescope could be nearly as crisp as those from the Hubble Space Telescope over a wide field of view. A team of University of Arizona astronomers led by Michael Hart has developed a technique that helps calibrate the surface of the telescope very precisely, which leads to very, very clear images of objects that would normally be very blurry.

Laser adaptive optics in telescopes are a relatively new development in getting better image quality out of ground-based telescopes. While it’s nice to be able to use space-based telescopes like the Hubble and the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope, they are certainly expensive to launch and maintain. On top of that, there are a lot of astronomers competing for very little time on these telescopes. Telescopes like the Very Large Telescope in Chile, and the Keck Telescope in Hawaii both already use laser adaptive optics to improve imaging.

Initially, adaptive optics focused in on a brighter star near the area of the sky that the telescope was observing, and actuators in the back of the mirror were moved very rapidly by a computer to cancel out atmospheric distortions. This system is limited, however, to areas of the sky that contain such an object.

Laser adaptive optics are more flexible in their usability – the technique involves using a single laser to excite molecules in the atmosphere to glow, and then using this as a “guide star” to calibrate the mirror to correct for distortions caused by turbulence in the atmosphere. A computer analyzes the incoming light from the artificial guide star, and can determine just how the atmosphere is behaving, changing the surface of the mirror to compensate.

In using a single laser, the adaptive optics can only compensate for turbulence in a very limited field of view. The new technique, pioneered at the 6.5-m MMT telescope in Arizona, uses not just one laser but five green lasers to produce five separate guide stars over a wider field of view, 2 arc minutes. The angular resolution is less than that of the single laser variety – for comparison, the Keck or VLT can produce images with a 30-60 milli-arcsecond resolution, but being able to see better over a wider field of view has many advantages.

In the image on the left, the cluster M3 appears blurry with the laser adaptive optics system turned off. Things are much clearer using the system, and individual stars in the cluster become visible, as can be seen in the image on the right. Image Credit: Michael Hart

The ability to take the spectra of older galaxies, which are very faint, is possible using this technique. By taking their spectra, scientists are better able to understand the composition and structure of objects in space. Using the new technique, taking the spectra of galaxies that are 10 billion years old – and thus have a very high red shift – should be possible from the ground.

Supermassive clusters of stars would also be more easily scrutinized using the technique, as images taken in a single pointing of the telescope on different nights would allow astronomers to understand just which stars are part of the cluster and which are not gravitationally bound.

The results of the team’s efforts was published in the Astrophysical Journal in 2009, and the original paper is available here on Arxiv.

Source: Eurekalert, Arxiv paper

Michael Laine Will Answer Your Questions on Space Elevators

Artists concept of a space elevator. Credit: Caltech

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After our recent article featuring the concept of a lunar elevator, many of you posted questions about both lunar elevators and space elevators in general. Liftport’s Michael Laine has graciously agreed to provide answers for these questions, and if anyone has additional questions, leave them in the comment section here. We’ll post Michael’s answers in a subsequent post.

For those of you who have really big questions, you may want to attend the first lunar elevator workshop in Seattle, Washington this coming weekend, July 29-August 1 in Seattle Washington. See this link for more information.

And there’s also a space elevator conference August 13-15 at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, Washington. Find more details at this link.

Developers Say Lunar Elevator Could be Built Within a Decade

Concept for a lunar elevator. Credit: Liftport, courtesy Michael Laine

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The idea of a space elevator has been around since the late 1800’s, but despite big dreams and years of research, the low-cost, easy access to orbit that a space elevator promises is likely still decades away. The biggest problem rests on the fact that no one has been able to successfully manufacture long ribbons made of ultra-light, ultra-strong carbon nanotubes, the only known material that is strong enough for a space elevator. But entrepreneur Michael Laine believes a lunar elevator – a space elevator from the surface of the Moon – could be created with materials that are available now. With more research and the right amount of capital, Laine says a lunar elevator could be built within a decade.

While Laine said he is still “emotionally very invested” in the concept of a space elevator based on Earth, for now he has shifted his focus to the lunar elevator. “There was a question of where was I going to put my time,” he told Universe Today, “and being able to do this soon – perhaps within 5-7 years and not some mythic 15-25 years in the future is enticing.”

Since the Moon’s gravity is only one sixth that of Earth, it drastically reduces the requirements of the ribbon. A material that is available now, a synthetic polymer material called Zylon (poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) which has high strength and excellent thermal stability, could be used.

Additionally, the components to build the elevator that would be sent to the Moon would be relatively lightweight, so a smaller rocket would do the job. “The physical requirements of the system look like you could use a standard Atlas or Delta rocket to launch the components.” Laine said. “That’s a big deal that you don’t need to build something like a Saturn V.”

While Laine said he believes a lunar elevator in 5-7 years is feasible, he didn’t want to go on record as saying it could be built in such a short time frame without adding some major caveats.

The biggest hurdle could be getting access to the 6 cubic meters of the Zylon material. “That actually could be the biggest challenge,” Laine said.

Additionally, there are still an untold amount of unknowns about building such a system. “I used to say for the space elevator that we still didn’t know all the questions, let alone the answers,” Laine said, “and that is even more true for the lunar elevator.”

The other hurdle is money. But a lunar elevator might actually be cheaper to build, initially, than a space elevator from Earth.

Artists concept of a space elevator. Credit: Caltech

An Earth-based elevator is essentially a long cable – perhaps 100,000km (62,000 miles) long — that is anchored on Earth at one end with a counterweight at the other end (a large satellite, for example) in (beyond) geosynchronous orbit. Gravity and centripetal acceleration keeps the cable, or ribbon rigid and a small elevator, or “Lifter,” can move up the elevator at a fraction of the energy and financial expenditure of launching an object into orbit. Once the elevator is built, using the elevator to put things in orbit could cost hundreds of dollars per pound, versus the $7,000 per pound it takes to launch satellites with the space shuttle.

A lunar elevator would use a ribbon at least 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) long extending through the Earth-Moon L1 LaGrange point from an anchor point near the center of the visible part of Earth’s moon. A smaller Atlas or Delta rocket could send the components the L1 point, and the Zylong ribbon would be spooled from that point towards the Moon and the Earth.

“You would use the Atlas hardware as part of your counter weight,” said Laine. “But that’s a very small counterweight, which means that your cargo that you are taking up and down from the Moon is going to be small. This is not like the Earth elevator where you were going to be putting 100 tons a week into space. This is a very small system, capable of transporting 200-250 kilos.”

One concept of a lunar space elevator. Credit: Star Technology and Research, Inc./Jerome Pearson

But to put that in perspective, Laine said, the entire sample return system for the Japanese Hayabusa probe that recently returned from an asteroid was only about 20 kilos.

And that’s what Laine has in mind for the first lunar elevator: a sample return mission. “It would be a lunar sample return mission within the next 5-7 years, for what we think is a pretty reasonable price,” he said.

Once the initial ribbon is up and running, Laine said you could send up more ribbon to strengthen it, using same concepts for the Earth elevator, such as multiple stages of construction and ribbons that are added to it.

Of course, none of this – including the money – is trivial. Although the first string might be less expensive than an Earth elevator, additional construction of the lunar elevator would be fairly expensive, and take more time compared to the Earth elevator. “Once the first string on the Earth elevator is built, you work from the bottom and go up, whereas on the lunar elevator you’ll have to send it from Earth. So that part starts adding up in a hurry,” Laine said. “We don’t have a complete estimate on price yet but an Atlas or Delta, that is a known and reasonable price tag. We’re not talking about billions and billions of dollars here — maybe hundreds of millions — but not billions.”

Still, he has a vision and a plan.

“It is not a flag and footprints vision of going to the Moon,” Laine said, “but it goes to the heart of the new NASA budget and focus of developing technologies and infrastructure so that things can happen. And that’s what we hope we can do by developing this ribbon. And then we jumpstart the process of creating an outpost or a research lab. We’ve played with the idea of using the counterweight at the end and using a habitat, something like a Bigelow (Laine stressed he hasn’t talked with the Bigelow people yet about this) and if we could tie a couple of modules together they would make a great counterweight and that puts you in an interesting position. Some people don’t think going to the Moon is worthwhile if you are going to Mars, but a lot of people think a fuel depot makes sense. We could be a great fuel depot for some of those long duration missions because we want that extra mass. In the Earth elevator, the counterweight is basically dead mass. For the lunar elevator, it becomes a working environment. So some people go to the modules, some people go to the Moon, some people go to Mars using this as a refueling and construction station. Once it is up and running you have safe reliable access to the moon, for the price of a Delta or an Atlas. That’s huge.”

But Laine said he doesn’t want to give anyone the impression that he and others interested in this concept have everything figured out. “We’ve studied this enough to know that it is feasible and interesting and likely to happen sooner rather than later, which is why we’re tackling it.”

So, Laine and a core group of space elevator enthusiasts are starting a series of workshops to discuss this concept and tackle some of the significant questions with anyone who is interested and who might have the brainpower and spirit to understand and undertake such a project.

The first workshop is July 29-August 1 in Seattle Washington. See this link for more information

“I’m a big believer in connecting with community, so if artists and musicians, want to come, that’s great,” Laine said. “Engineers, science guys, rocket guys would be helpful. But politicians and marketing people are equally important to answer the big questions of where we should focus our time and efforts.”

There is also a space elevator conference August 13-15 at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, Washington. Find more details at this link.

Laine started a space elevator company in 2003, LiftPort, which fell to financial problems in 2007. He sees the lunar elevator as a possible rebirth for the company, which once had 14 full-time employees. “This is a renaissance project, a rising again,” he said. “I’m applying a lot of what I learned on the Earth elevator to this new vision. While tackling the Earth elevator, all my money came from real estate, and I had plenty of money for my needs. But this time is different. For us to build this thing we are going to have to earn our way.”

“But I think it could be phenomenally lucrative, too,” Laine continued. “We are going to make discoveries along the way that will lead to products and services that are not related to going to the Moon. We think there is a solid value proposition as part of this.”

Robonaut Getting Ready for ISS Mission

NASA’s Robonaut 2 will be the first human-like robot to go to space, and teams from Johnson Space Center have been putting “R2” through a battery of tests to make sure this futuristic robot is ready for its first mission. R2 will become a permanent resident of the International Space Station, and will launch on space shuttle Discovery as part of the STS-133 mission, currently planned for November 1, 2010.

The 136 kg (300-pound) R2 consists of a head and a torso with two arms and two hands. R2 Once aboard the station, engineers will monitor how the robot operates in weightlessness. R2 is undergoing extensive testing in preparation for its flight, including vibration, vacuum and radiation testing. Watch the video for more information on how R2 operates.
Continue reading “Robonaut Getting Ready for ISS Mission”

Solar Powered Airplane Successfully Flies Through the Night

Solar Impulse's Chief Executive Officer and pilot Andre Borschberg flyes in the solar-powered HB-SIA prototype airplane for its first night flight attempt near Payerne airport July 7, 2010. Credit: KEYSTONE/Dominic Favre/POOL/SOLAR IMPULSE

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After flying for over 26 straight hours, pilot André Borschberg landed the solar-powered Solar Impulse HB-SIA airplane to cheers and applause at the Payerne airbase in Switzerland, successfully completing the goal of flying the aircraft through the night. According to Bertrand Piccard, president of Solar Impulse, there was power to spare, with over three hours of energy remaining in the sun-gathering lithium batteries. “This is a highly symbolic moment: flying by night using solely solar power is a stunning manifestation of the potential that clean technologies offer today to reduce the dependency of our society on fossil fuels!” Piccard said. “We are on the verge of the perpetual flight.”

With an official flight time of 26 hours and 9 minutes, the lightweight carbon fiber plane reached a a maximum altitude of 8,700 m (28,543 ft), a top speed of 68 knots (ground speed), an average speed of 23 knots. The HB-SIA flew solely on solar power, gathering and storing it during the daylight hours, and using the energy to fly through the night.

Solar Impulse flies towards the night. Credit: KEYSTONE/POOL/Dominic Favre/Solar Impulse

“During the whole of the flight, I just sat there and watched the battery charge level rise and rise! Sitting in a plane producing more energy than it consumes is a fantastic feeling”, said Borschberg, CEO and co-founder of the Solar Impulse project.

The Solar Impulse HB-SIA has 12,000 solar cells built into its 64.3-meter (193-foot) wings, and is a prototype for an aircraft that the Solar Impulse team hope to fly around the world in a continuous flight in 2012.

Solar impulse weights 1,600 kg (3,500 lb), and is powered by four electric motors.

“Nothing can prevent us from another day and night, and the myth of perpetual flight,” a jubilant Piccard said at a press conference following the flight.

Update: Here’s a video from Solar Impulse, as the team waited for the sunrise:

Source: Solar Impulse, Solar Impulse webcast

Here’s an article about the biggest airplane.

Solar-Powered Airplane Attempts First Night Flight

The Solar Impulse airplane. Credit: Solar Impulse

Solar Impulse, which is the first airplane designed to fly day and night without fuel, is attempting to fly for the first time at night. The plane took off at 6:51 this morning, local time from the Payerne airbase in Switzerland, and as of this writing, everything was proceeding as planned, and night was just beginning to fall. “It’s not just a question of flying the plane, but the team working together on the strategy of making the profile of flying through the night,” said Bertrand Piccard, president and founder of the Solar Impulse project, during a webcast update on the flight. “For now, cross fingers, everything is going well. The sky is completely clear, (pilot) Andre (Borscherg) is warm, and so he is looking forward to getting to a higher atmosphere, of 13,000 feet. ”

Piccard said the entire flight is a choreography of timing and execution. They don’t want the plane to reach the desired altitude too quickly, because the batteries need to be fully charged exactly when night falls, and at the top of the airplane’s climb. The lightweight lithium batteries also need to stay within a certain temperature range.

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Borscherg will stay at the highest altitude for awhile, then descend during the night. “We have to manage energy and efficiency,” Piccard said. “If everything works well, Andre will be asked to continue the flight through the night. But if there is any problem before night, we want to bring the plane down to land before 10 pm local time.”

Piccard said this effort is not just about flying an airplane on solar power, but “to show everyone on this planet that we are not so dependent on non-renewable energies as we may think.”

The ultimate goal of this project is to fly the plane around the world without stopping, which the team hopes to do in 2012. The plane made its maiden voyage in April of 2010.

You can watch the webcast at this link.“You can really follow it and really experience the suspense,” said Piccard.

“For 7 years now, the whole team has been passionately working to achieve this first decisive step of the project”, said André Borschberg a few minutes before easing himself into the cockpit for a flight expected to last until Thursday morning.

The plane has a 61 meter wingspan, and the wings are covered with 12,000 state-of-the-art photovoltaic solar cells that power the plane. Using so-called intelligent light materials and new energy storage, the plane will be able to fly both night and day, completely on solar power. Solar impulse weights 1,600 kg and can fly at speeds up to 70 kmh at a maximum altitude of 8,500 m (27,900 ft).

Here is the flight profile for Solar Impulse HB-SIA:

The plane will slowly ascend all day to an altitude of 8,500 meters, while at the same time charging its batteries in preparation for the night flight. When the sun’s rays stop being strong enough to supply the solar cells (about two hours before sunset) with energy, the HB-SIA will start a slow descent, reaching an altitude of around 1,500 meters by 23:00. It should then carry on flying, using the energy stored in its batteries, until the next sunrise. The big question is whether the pilot can make efficient use of the battery energy to fly throughout the night. If this mission is successful, it will be the longest and highest flight ever made by a solar plane.

For more information, see the Solar Impulse website. Here’s an article about the biggest plane in the world.

Separation Camera Takes Full Images and ‘Movie’ of IKAROS Solar Sail

Image of the fully deployed IKAROS solar sail, taken by a separation camera. Credit: JAXA

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Two small “separation cameras” were ejected from JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) IKAROS solar sail, which successfully took some amazing full images of the fully deployed sail. The cameras are quite small, cylindrical in shape about 6 cm in diameter and height. They were ejected from the sail using a spring, and then they looked back at IKAROS, and relayed the images wirelessly. The cameras are now floating off into space, having done their job of taking these images. Below, an animation, or movie made by combining several images.


An animation created from several pictures taken by the DCAM2 on IKAROS. The camera rotated as it was ejected from the solar sail, so it is rotating, not IKAROS. Credit: JAXA

From the JAXA press release:

We will measure and observe the power generation status of the thin film solar cells, accelerate the satellite by photon pressure, and verify the orbit control through that acceleration. Through these activities, we will ultimately aim at acquiring navigation technology through the solar sail.

So, now that we know the sail is fully deployed, next comes the big test of whether solar sailing will actually work. This is huge, to finally have the opportunity to test a solar sail in space.

Close-up of the middle of the IKAROS solar sail, taken by the DCAM2. Credit: JAXA

From the IKAROS blog, speaking as the cameras:

Unfortunately I only have the battery, and…working time is very short for about 15 minutes after I do my best work is a planets around the Sun, the world’s smallest man-made flying with IKAROS continue.

Translation: these tiny cameras only had about 15 minutes to do their job of taking pictures before becoming dead little satellites orbiting around the sun.

IKAROS was launched on May 21, 2010 from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan.

We’ll keep you posted as JAXA begins testing the solar sail.

IKAROS graphic of how the sail deployed. Credit: JAXA

Japanese Solar Sail Deploys Successfully

An image from IKAROS, showing the completion of the second stage deployment of the solar sail. Credit: JAXA

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New images and data from the IKAROS solar sail show the thin solar film has deployed and expanded successfully and is now generating power. Since its launch on May 21, 2010, teams from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), have been painstakingly checking out all the systems on IKAROS before deploying the sail, and even the process of unfurling the sail had been a slow process. JAXA began to deploy the sail on June 3, analyzing each step before proceeding. Yesterday, JAXA released a photo of a partially deployed sail (below), but didn’t offer much information as far as the status. But they now have confirmed that the sail was successfully expanded and is generating power. IKAROS is now about 7.7 million km from Earth.

In the image above, the harness is an electrical connection between the membrane and the main body, and the tether is the mechanical connection between the membrane and the main body.

And now comes the big test of the solar sail: will it provide the ability to navigate the spacecraft?

“We will measure and observe the power generation status of the thin film solar cells, accelerate the satellite by photon pressure, and verify the orbit control through that acceleration,” JAXA said in a press release. “Through these activities, we will ultimately aim at acquiring navigation technology through the solar sail.”

The craft will head towards Venus, and the exciting part will be finding out how fast and accurate the solar sail can fly.

Partial deploy of IKAROS, the first stage. Credit: JAXA

From the IKAROS blog (translated from Japanese):

First, the spin rate and learned that he had first IKAROS have successfully deployed from the attitude data. Then, I was part of the downlink data captured with the camera image monitor confirmed that the sail has been deployed from the image. On June 10 has been expanded to clean the sail, “stretched states” get the picture, confirmed the successful deployment of the sail after deployment finished the second check.

Also check the power of solar cells was carried out together, we achieved minimum success!

Power will be realized with the world’s first solar powered sail development.

Graphic showing the sail in full deployment. Credit: JAXA

See the IKAROS webpage for more info and detailed graphics.

Sources: JAXA, IKAROS blog