Month: April 2015

Looking to the Future

Posted on by conorastr201

Perhaps my biggest takeaway from this course has been an excitement for the future of space exploration and discovery. I was pretty interested in astronomical subjects coming in (obviously, or I wouldn’t have taken the course), but Dr. G’s passion for discovery and stars and planets is infectious. While I probably won’t remember the characteristics and chemical makeups of all of the Jovian planets, I will always remember that at any moment a rogue black hole could tear through our solar system, killing us all, and that there is absolutely nothing we can do about that. I look forward to watching the our flyby of Pluto and Charon, of find more extra-solar planets, of finding a way to achieve warp speed, and of discovering life outside of Earth.

Europa Report

Posted on by conorastr201

europa

Image pulled from a movie review

This past weekend, I watched a movie on Netflix called Europa Report. The movie was a detailed the gripping journey of six people on their trip Europa with the sole mission of confirming or denying the existence of life on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Not only was this a great, well done film, but it also touched on a lot of the points we talked about in class and read about in chapter 24 of our book. Europa was specifically chosen because of the liquid oceans underneath its icy exterior, they search for microbes in the water being pushed up through cracks, they sent probes don through the ice, the list goes on. I will admit, there may have been a few inaccuracies an inconsistencies throughout the picture, but overall it was far more accurate than your typical Hollywood sci-fi movie.

Studying the Effects of Space Travel on the Human Body

Posted on by conorastr201

Mark and Scott Kelly

Mark and Scott Kelly

NASA is conducting an experiment to determine the effects of living in space on the human body. Such studies have been done before, but this one is unprecedented in the length of time the subject will spend in space (a full 365 days) and in that the participants are identical twins.

One astronaut named Scott Kelly has agreed to live in the International Space Station for a full year while his identical twin brother, Mark Kelly, has agreed to take part from  the ground. Both brothers will undergo physical and psychological testing before and after Scott’s trip, and both will follow similar diets. Because the brothers share the same DNA, any changes that occur between them will likely have been caused by their environment.

This study is ground breaking as it will allow scientists to find ways to mitigate any problems that come with living in space for any future space trips, and may pave the way to one day travel to Mars, Venus, or even other systems entirely.

Planet Discovered with Four Parent Stars

Posted on by conorastr201

4starplanet

An Artist’s Depiction of the System

Binary star systems, like the one featured in the Tatooine system of Star Wars are common in the universe with half of all systems being comprised that way. Ternary system, or systems with three stars, are more rare, and even more rare are quaternion systems.

Planets within these four star systems are also rare, so much so that we have only just now found the second such a planet in the last few weeks. The planet, dubbed 30 Ari, is a “hot Jupiter” that lies exceptionally close to its primary star, orbiting once every three days. However, the planet’s primary star is thought to have had little to do with its creation; it is much more likely that it was thrown into its current orbit from gravitational interactions with the other three much larger, more distant stars.

The article does not go into the composition of the planet, but though they describe it as a “hot Jupiter,” I doubt that it has a composition close to that of Jupiter. Jupiter is full of ices that wouldn’t be able to form. Perhaps it was once a gas giant, but unless it’s magnetic field protects it, my guess is that the gases have been stripped off of it.