Mars Society Proposes A Year-Long Arctic Mission To Better Prepare for the Red Planet

Outside view of a structure at Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station. Credit: Mars Society

The Arctic’s a lot like Mars, according to the Mars Society. It’s cold, it’s isolated, and it’s kind of dangerous. And, the society says, it’s ready to bring humans to the Arctic for a year to make a mission there even more Mars-realistic.

The proposed Mars Arctic 365 (MA365) mission on Canada’s Devon Island would take place at Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, where missions have been sent since 2001 for periods of a few months each. This mission would encompass all seasons, though, including the bitter winter.

In a press release, Mars Society president Robert Zubrin drew comparisons of his latest venture with the Mars500 mission that saw a group of people put into a simulated Mars spacecraft in Moscow. But, he added, the Mars Society will go “much further” as the work will include field exploration similar to what Mars astronauts would do: geology, climate and microbiology. Also, the Arctic — like Mars — is a “cold and dangerous remote environment.”

Robert Zubrin. Credit: The  Mars Society
Robert Zubrin. Credit: The Mars Society

“It is only under these conditions,” Zubrin added, “where the crew is trying hard to get real scientific work done, while dealing with bulky equipment, cold, danger, discomfort, as well as isolation, that the real stresses of a human Mars mission can be encountered, and the methods for dealing with them mastered.”

The mission isn’t finalized yet, but fundraising is under way.

The society is asking for $50,000 from supporters in the next 24 days before starting the first phase (basically retrofitting the station and adding equipment) in July. Phase 2, the mission itself, would happen in 2014. Total costs for both phases are estimated at $1.13 million.

More information on MA365 — perhaps with information on crew selection — should come in August, when members of the Phase 1 crew issue a report at the 16th Annual International Mars Society Convention.

Source: The Mars Society, with a hat-tip to aerospace analyst Jeff Foust. Foust live-tweeted a talk today by Zubrin — who included mention of the effort — at the International Space Development Conference in Washington, D.C.

Rocky Alien Planets: What The Heck Is On Their Surfaces?

NASA's Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet, named Kepler-10b. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our solar system.

We don’t have the budget yet to send Star Trek‘s U.S.S. Enterprise to probe the surface of strange new worlds, but luckily for humanity, astronomers are figuring out techniques to do that without even needing to leave Earth.

One of Earth’s prolific planet-hunters, the Kepler Space Telescope, has found a lot of planet candidates with rocky surfaces. That’s exciting for astronomers, as rocky planets tend to be smaller than their gas giant counterparts. Also, learning more about rocky planets could give us more clues as to Earth’s history, and that of other planets in our solar system.

But how the heck, from so far away, can we begin to understand the surface? One idea: Check the heat signature, or in more scientific words, look at exoplanets in the infrared part of the light spectrum.

The visible colors, infrared, radio, X-rays and gamma rays are all forms of light and comprise the electromagnetic spectrum. Here you can compare their wavelengths with familiar objects and see how their frequencies (bottom numbers) increase with decreasing wavelength. Credit: ESA
The visible colors, infrared, radio, X-rays and gamma rays are all forms of light and comprise the electromagnetic spectrum. Here you can compare their wavelengths with familiar objects and see how their frequencies (bottom numbers) increase with decreasing wavelength. Credit: ESA

NASA’s Astrobiology Magazine recently published an article about this method, which we encourage you to check out. In summary, the team behind a new research paper (submitted to the Astrophysical Journal) proposes to check out “airless” exoplanets that have surface temperatures below 3,140 degrees Fahrenheit (1,726 Celsius or 2,000 Kelvin.)

Because different kinds of rocks emit “signature” spectrums in different wavelengths, it’s possible we could pick up the signs of silicate rocks or other types of material. There’s a caveat, though.

“With current technology, however, the team cautions that determining surface composition of exoplanets is a very different process than studying their solar system counterparts,” the magazine wrote. “Due to the limits of technology, the team proposes to concentrate on the most prominent mineral signatures detected from exoplanets.”

Check out more details in the scientific journal article here, or the entire Astrobiology Magazine article at this link.

Famed Pair of Stars Closer To Earth Than We Imagined

An artist's conception of the SS Cygni system, with a red dwarf star's material being pulled on to a nearby white dwarf. Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF

If you’re a semi-serious amateur astronomer, chances are you’ve heard of a variable pair of stars called SS Cygni. When you watch the system for long enough, you’re rewarded with a brightness outburst that then fades away and then returns, regularly, over and over again.

Turns out this bright pair is even closer to us than we imagined — 370 light-years away, to be precise.

Before we get into how this was discovered, a bit of background on what SS Cygni is. As the name of the system implies, it’s in the constellation of Cygnus (the Swan). The pair consists of a cooling white dwarf star that is locked in a 6.6-hour orbit with a red dwarf.

The white dwarf’s gravity, which is much stronger than that of the red dwarf, is bleeding material from its neighbor. This interaction causes outbursts — on average, about once every 50 days.

Previously, the Hubble Space Telescope put the distance to these stars much further away, at 520 light-years. But that caused some head-scratching among astronomers.

Hubble Against Earth's Horizon (1997)
Hubble Against Earth’s Horizon (1997)

“That was a problem. At that distance, SS Cygni would have been the brightest dwarf nova in the sky, and should have had enough mass moving through its disk to remain stable without any outbursts,” stated James Miller-Jones, of the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research in Perth, Australia.

Astronomers call SS Cygni a dwarf nova. When comparing it to similar systems, astronomers said the outbursts happen as matter changes its flow speed through the disc of material surrounding the white dwarf.

“At high rates of mass transfer from the red dwarf, the rotating disk remains stable, but when the rate is lower, the disk can become unstable and undergo an outburst,” stated the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. So what was happening?

A star's distance is measured by observing a slight shift in position that occurs, from Earth's perspective, on opposite sides of our planet's orbit. Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF
A star’s distance is measured by observing a slight shift in position that occurs, from Earth’s perspective, on opposite sides of our planet’s orbit. Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF

To again look at the distance of the star, astronomers used two sets of radio telescopes, the Very Large Baseline Array and the European VLBI Network. Each set has a bunch of telescopes working together as an interferometer, allowing for precise measurements of star distances.

Scientists then took measurements at opposite ends of the Earth’s orbit, using the planet itself as a tool. By measuring the star’s distance at opposite sides of the orbit, we can calculate its parallax or apparent movement in the sky from the perspective of Earth. It’s an old astronomical tool used to pin down distances, and still works.

“This is one of the best-studied systems of its type, but according to our understanding of how these things work, it should not have been having outbursts. The new distance measurement brings it into line with the standard explanation,” stated Miller-Jones.

And where did Hubble go wrong? Here’s the theory:

“The radio observations were made against a background of objects far beyond our own Milky Way Galaxy, while the Hubble observations used stars within our galaxy as reference points,” NRAO stated. “The more-distant objects provide a better, more stable, reference.”

The results were published in Science on May 24.

Source: National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Cold Fusion Experiment Maybe Holds Promise … Possibly … Hang on a Sec ….

Two images from the test of a E-Cat device performed on Nov. 20th 2012. Credit: Levi, Foschi et al.

Cold fusion has been called one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs that might likely never happen. On the surface, it seems simple – a room-temperature reaction occurring under normal pressure. But it is a nuclear reaction, and figuring it out and getting it to work has not been simple, and any success in this area could ultimately – and seriously — change the world. Despite various claims of victory over the years since 1920, none have been able to be replicated consistently and reliably.

But there’s buzz this week of a cold fusion experiment that has been replicated, twice. The tests have reportedly produced excess heat with roughly 10,000 times the energy density and 1,000 times the power density of gasoline.

The names involved are familiar in the cold fusion circles: Italian entrepreneur Andrea Rossi has been claiming for several years that his E-Cat device produces heat through a process called a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR), and puts out more energy than goes in. In the past, Rossi didn’t allow anyone to verify his device because he claimed his device was an “industrial trade secret.”

But a new paper published on arXiv last week says that seven independent scientists have performed tests of two E-Cat prototypes under controlled conditions, using high-precision instrumentation. Although the authors of the paper wrote that they weren’t allowed to see what was going on inside the sealed steel cylinder reactor, they did write in their paper, “Even by the most conservative assumptions as to the errors in the measurements, the result is still one order of magnitude greater than conventional energy sources.“

The team did two tests:

The first test experiment, lasting 96 hours (from Dec. 13th 2012, to Dec. 17th 2012), was carried out by the two first authors of this paper, Levi and Foschi, while the second experiment, lasting for 116 hours (from March 18th 2013, to March 23rd 2013), was carried out by all authors.

Previously, Rossi and his colleague Sergio Focardi have said their device works by infusing hydrogen into nickel, transmuting the nickel into copper and releasing a large amount of heat.

As expected, the paper – which is not peer-reviewed – and Rossi’s work have both been met with lots of skepticism.

Steven Krivit, writing in the New Energy Times said that the paper by Levi, Foschi et al doesn’t describe any independent test but that authors were just witnesses of a Rossi demonstration.

Ethan Seigel from “Starts With a Bang” said its just another magic trick of a charlatan that people are falling for, again.

The folks at the Martin Fleishman Memorial Project website – a group that facilitates the wide-spread replication and validation of things like LENR in an open and scientific manner – say they have an overall positive impression of the paper by Levi and Foschi.

“Our preliminary assessment among the team is that it is a generally good report with no obvious errors or glaring omissions,” they wrote on their website. “It is easily the best evidence to date that Rossi has a working technology, and, if verified openly and widely, this report could be remembered as historic.”

But they also don’t have total confidence in the paper. “It is unfortunate that there are some justified concerns about the independence of the test team, since many of the authors are names that we have seen before in the context of Rossi.” Plus, they are disappointed that none of the authors of the Levi and Foschi paper are willing to present their findings at an upcoming conference.

They also have several other technical questions and criticisms, as do many others.

Articles on Forbes and ExtremeTech are more enthusiastic.

It’s too soon to say if this latest buzz about cold fusion will amount to anything. Only time and more tests and scrutiny will reveal whether this is anything to get excited about.

Hunting for Alien Megastructures

It’s a big galaxy out there. Even the most skeptical scientist has to accept that if a civilisation like our own exists, then there’s a good chance we’re not the only one to have ever done so. When most people think about SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intellgence), they imagine someone like Ellie Arroway searching the skies for radio transmissions. But what about looking in other ways? Perhaps a highly advanced alien civilisation might build structures large enough for us to see.
Continue reading “Hunting for Alien Megastructures”

What path will lead American humans to Mars?

How long does it take to get to Mars
A new proposal for sending craft to Mars could save money and offer more flexible launch windows. Credit: NASA

Is it just us, or has there been a lot — a LOT — of talk about getting humans to Mars lately?

Here’s Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin promoting a book about Mars exploration. Over here is Mars One, currently accepting applications for a one-way trip to the Red Planet in 2023 — an opportunity that thousands of people applied for so far. Don’t forget the Inspiration Mars people, either.

Even as our robotic emissaries break otherworldly driving records and search for Mars’ missing atmosphere, it’s not enough for our exploratory horizons. The stunning pictures robots beam back from Mars only fuel the fire for human hopes to get there.

President Barack Obama has said he wants to get to Mars by the 2030s, but his is the latest in a series of plans to get there. Every president seems to have a new idea of Mars exploration.

A Congressional committee this week tried to cut through the noise to get some clear messages about what to do. (Context: NASA’s fiscal 2014 budget is up for discussion, so this has budgetary relevance.)

An artist's concept of how the spacecraft for the Inspiration Mars Foundation's "Mission for America" might be configured. Credit: Inspiration Mars.
An artist’s concept of how the spacecraft for the Inspiration Mars Foundation’s “Mission for America” might be configured. Credit: Inspiration Mars.

So. We had four witnesses with maybe 150 to 200 years of combined space experience appearing before the subcommittee on space on Tuesday (May 21), each with a plan.  To wit, here is a very brief summary of their individual positions:

Louis Friedman, executive director emeritus of The Planetary Society (who co-led the co-leader of the Keck Institute for Space Studies Asteroid Retrieval Mission Study): Do the asteroid mission proposed by NASA. It will launch four to five years from now. If done properly, it would be a great opportunity for humans to explore as well as for commercial opportunities in mining.

Paul Spudis,  senior staff scientist at the NASA-funded Lunar and Planetary Institute: Return to the moon. It’s close, so close to Earth that we can operate rovers by remote control. It’s a good spot to learn more about the solar system, and it provides practice for us in living off the resources of the land as it has water — a tool for life support and energy.

– Steve Squyres, Cornell University planetary scientist renowned for his Mars rover research: Go to cislunar space, the area close to the moon. It’s an easily accessible spot in a restricted budget environment. Thinking beyond that is not realistic in the current budget environment.

Douglas Cooke, NASA’s former associate administrator for the exploration systems mission directorate: Re-establish lunar exploration. The asteroid mission would not connect well with the long-term strategy, but the lunar surface would as (like Mars) it is a hostile environment suitable for testing planetary exploration technologies.

Artist impression of an astronaut on Mars (NASA)
Artist impression of an astronaut on Mars (NASA)

Representatives then peppered the space experts with tons of questions, such as:

– How best to bring in international partners?

– Should we be concerned about other countries talking about going to the moon themselves, such as Russia and China?

– Should we take away from other NASA programs, such as astronomy or debris retrieval in orbit, to focus on Mars exploration? (Recall that Mars science was slashed in 2012, including the loss of participation in ExoMars.)

– How do we interest the public in the mission? The asteroid retrieval (which many committee members heavily criticized as one released with little outside consultation) doesn’t seem to spark with the person on the street.

– Should we even attempt to go given the sequestration environment right now?

Take a listen of the experts’ answers in full in the archived webcast (available here).

But also — what’s your take? Is it worth going to Mars in the first place, and if so, how do we best achieve that? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Astrophotos: Triple Planetary Conjunction

Jupiter, Venus and Mercury in conjunction with the Stratosphere in the foreground.T aken May 24, 2013 at 8:38 PM from Las Vegas with a Canon T4i. Credit and copyright: John P. Lybrand.

Images are starting to come in of the bright planetary conjunction in the western sky at dusk! Jupiter, Venus and Mercury are snuggling up together, and we’ve got a wonderful weekend coming up with alignments including three separate conjunctions and ever-changing triangular arrangements as the nights go by. Mercury and Venus pair up on Friday; Mercury and Jupiter on Sunday and Venus and Jupiter on Monday. See our preview article for more detailed info on how to see the planetary trio each night, and there are more images below:

A view of the planetary conjunction on May 24, 2013, as see from the Middle East Technical Universty in Ankara, Turkey. Credit and copyright:  M. Rasid Tugral.
A view of the planetary conjunction on May 24, 2013, as see from the Middle East Technical Universty in Ankara, Turkey. Credit and copyright: M. Rasid Tugral.
Three evening planets – Jupiter, Venus and Mercury --  on May 23, 2013 at about 9pm CDT, as see from Salem, Missouri.  The photographer noted a fourth planet is also  visible in this photo: Earth! Credit and copyright: Joe Shuster.
Three evening planets – Jupiter, Venus and Mercury — on May 23, 2013 at about 9pm CDT, as see from Salem, Missouri. The photographer noted a fourth planet is also visible in this photo: Earth! Credit and copyright: Joe Shuster.
Mercury, Venus and Jupiter as seen near Tucson, Arizona on May 22, 2013. Credit and copyright: Robert Sparks.
Mercury, Venus and Jupiter as seen near Tucson, Arizona on May 22, 2013. Credit and copyright: Robert Sparks.
Planetary conjunction of Jupiter, Mercury and Venus on May 24, 2013, seen from Japan. Credit and copyright: Jason Hill.
Planetary conjunction of Jupiter, Mercury and Venus on May 24, 2013, seen from Japan. Credit and copyright: Jason Hill.
Three bright planets will highlight the northwestern sky this week and early next. Mercury is shown in pink and Jupiter in yellow. Stellarium
Three bright planets will highlight the northwestern sky this week and early next. Mercury is shown in pink and Jupiter in yellow. Stellarium
Planetary trio on May 24,  20:45  PM, from Ankara, Turkey. The photographer notes this was his first attempt to image Mercury. Credit and copyright: Yuksel Kenaroglu.
Planetary trio on May 24, 20:45 PM, from Ankara, Turkey. The photographer notes this was his first attempt to image Mercury. Credit and copyright: Yuksel Kenaroglu.
Triple planetary conjunction as see from Nashville, Tennessee on May 24, 2013. Credit and copyright: Theo Wellington.
Triple planetary conjunction as see from Nashville, Tennessee on May 24, 2013. Credit and copyright: Theo Wellington.

Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.

Hanging Out with Astronauts

The International Space Station. Credit: NASA

On May 23, NASA hosted a Google+ Hangout from the Johnson Space Center with three recently returned International Space Station Astronauts. NASA astronauts Kevin Ford, Tom Marshburn and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield answered questions about daily living in a weightless environment, all the scientific research they did, the spacewalk conducted by Marshburn, how they hope they helped the people of Earth “fall in love with their planet,” and what it is like to return back to Earth after 5-6 months in space.

Below are two more astronaut videos. The first is a post landing interview with the very popular Chris Hadfield, and the second is a video with several ESA astronauts — including Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano who is heading for the ISS next week — talking about living and working in space.

Loading…


How to See the International Space Station

How to See the International Space Station
How to See the International Space Station

The International Space Station is one of the most complicated machines ever built and the largest object ever assembled in space.

At any time there are up to six astronauts on board, each originating from one of fifteen different nations on Earth. It orbits at an altitude of approximately four-hundred kilometers, and completes an orbit around the Earth every ninety-two minutes and fifty seconds. The station has a mass of four-hundred-and-twenty metric tonnes, and contains a dozen pressurized modules, and many more unpressurized modules, trusses and solar panels.

It truly is a feat of human ingenuity.

But did you know that the International Space Station is one of the brightest objects in the night sky? And it’s easy to see if you know when, and where, to look.

In fact, with your ability to find the station you can amaze your friends and neighbours.

NASA's Spot the Station Website
NASA’s Spot the Station Website
The best place to start is NASA’s Spot the Station website. Enter your Country, Region, City along with an email address or mobile phone number. Then give your preference for notifications in the evening, morning or both and that’s it.

About twelve hours before the station is due to fly overhead, you’ll get a notification from NASA. Depending on your location, you might get notified a couple of times a week, or as rarely as once a month. As soon as you get the notification, create an alarm on your phone for about a minute before the flyover.

When the alarm goes off, take your friends outside and look to the West.

Station's path across the sky
Station’s path across the sky
The station orbits the Earth from West to East, so you’ll see it appear on the Western horizon as a very bright star, moving rapidly across the sky. It will take only few minutes to cross the entire sky.

The station moves so quickly if you’re using a telescope you will have a tough time tracking its movement. A nice pair of binoculars will make it look a lot brighter, and even let you see the H-shape of its solar panels. But even viewing it with the naked eye is a great experience.

NASA’s website is just one of the many ways you can get notifications.

@twisst
@twisst
If you use Twitter, follow @twisst. They can figure out your location and then send you a notification when the station is about to fly overhead via Twitter.

There are also dozens of Android and iPhone apps that will perform this function; many of which are free to use.

If you’ve never seen the station, head on over to NASA and set up a notification right away.

Then kick back and let orbital mechanics bring the station to your backyard at a time that’s convenient for you.

Want more details? We’ve got a detailed guide on how to View the International Space Station for Beginners, and How to Photograph the International Space Station.

New IMAX Super Short: Galaxies Across Space and Time

Hubble Deep Field. Credit: NASA

“Hubble: Galaxies Across Space and Time” is an award-winning IMAX Super Short film. In less than 3 minutes you can explore 10 billion years of cosmic history as you fly through one of Hubble’s iconic images, the Hubble Deep Field. These galaxies were photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of the Great Observatory Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) project. Hubble scientists and imaging specialists worked for months to extract individual galaxy images, placing them in a 3-D model according to their approximate true distances.

If you ever have the chance to see the big screen version of “Hubble 3-D IMAX,” do it. It’s an incredible cinematic view that portrays the immensity and gloriousness of our Universe like no other film I’ve seen. You can read my review of it here.