February 18, 2018

Discovery of Alien Life Might Not Bring the Response You'd Expect (Source: NBC)
“War of the Worlds. “Independence Day.” “Pacific Rim.” Hollywood is no stranger to tales of space aliens, and most seem to culminate in an epic fight to save the human race. But let’s say we discover space aliens not on Main Street but on some distant planet. Will we panic — or heave a global ho-hum? A new study suggests the latter response is the more likely one.

For the research, a team led by Dr. Michael Varnum, an assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University, analyzed the language used in and the tone of news reports describing three potential discoveries of extraterrestrial life. Click here. (2/18)

Forget Countries, Take an Affordable Space Holiday Soon (Source: Khaleej Times)
A trip to space could eventually be as affordable as a regular holiday on Earth, former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, the first person to send a tweet from Space, has said. Massimino is in Dubai to visit the UAE's largest science fair exhibition - the National, Science, Technology and Innovation Festival (NSTI) - taking place at the Festival Arena until February 19.

Massimino, 55, is a former NASA astronaut who was part of the STS-109 Columbia and STS-125 Atlantis shuttle missions to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. He achieved several spacewalk hours and orbits around the Earth during these missions. He has even played a recurring cameo role in the popular TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory.

"I think in order to do what we really want to do in space is - first - to have these private companies be successful. All the governments that are participating in space are necessary, but I don't see how you're going to get there without private enterprises being successful," Massimino said. "With what SpaceX has been able to do, and other companies like Blue Origin, they'll surely be able to fly people to space with paying customers and tourists." (2/18)

Oxygen Ions May Be an Easy-to-Track Sign of Life on Exoplanets (Source: Ars Technica)
Most (about seventy percent) of the stars in our Galaxy are M dwarf stars, and many of them have associated planets. The search for signs of life has largely focused on these planets, primarily because there are so many of them. However, the environments do not seem to be especially welcoming. Because M dwarf stars are dim, the hospitable zones around them are very close to the star. As a result, the planets get stuck in a gravitational lock: their orbital period and their rotational period are the same. This means that (just like our moon) these planets always have the same hemisphere facing their sun.

Like Earth, Venus and Mars are small rocky planets; they have permanent atmospheres like Earth, and their atmospheres are exposed to the same solar radiation as Earth’s. Data from the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and the Viking descent probe on Mars show that they have very similar ionospheres to each other—which don’t contain a lot of atomic O+ ions. Know what else Venus and Mars are missing? Photosynthesis.

Dalba’s contention is that photosynthesis on a planet’s surface, which generates a surfeit of molecular oxygen, is the only thing that can account for these atomic O+ ions in a planet’s ionosphere. The mere existence of life throws a planet’s atmosphere out of chemical balance. O+ would be a neat biomarker because there isn’t a numerical cutoff required—just the dominance of O+ among the ionic species in the upper atmosphere would indicate “thriving global biological activity” on the planet below. (2/18)

Making Space Travel Funny for a Change (Source: MetroWest Daily News)
Outer space is a frightening place. For one, there’s no air. Two, it’s dark. And three, it is really, really big. The size of the universe big. All good reasons to take space exploration seriously. Add to that the tagline from the original Alien movie: “In space, no one can hear you scream,” and it’s understandable that space is no joking matter.

So thank goodness for Elon Musk. He lightened the mood some by sending his own Tesla Roadster into orbit around the sun. Why did he do it? I hope for no other reason than it is kind of funny. Just knowing that right now in the dark, airless void of space there is a red roadster being “driven” by Starman, a mannequin dressed in a spacesuit, should put a smile on your face. (2/18)

Asteroid Miners Might Need a Few Good Applied Astronomers to Show Them the Way (Source: GeekWire)
Mining asteroids for water and other resources could someday become a trillion-dollar business, but not without astronomers to point the way. At least that’s the view of Martin Elvis, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who’s been taking a close look at the science behind asteroid mining.

If the industry ever takes off the way ventures such as Redmond, Wash.-based Planetary Resources and California-based Deep Space Industries hope, “that opens up new employment opportunities for astronomers,” Elvis said today in Austin at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In space, the water in asteroids can be more precious than gold — largely because it costs thousands of dollars per pound to launch supplies from Earth. That water could be used to produce oxygen and drinking water for astronauts, plus the propellants for refueling rockets. Other materials may come in handy for use as in-space building materials. But not all asteroids are created equal: Most space rocks will be worthless, Elvis said. (2/17)

NASA's Lunar Outpost Is Planned to be Ready for Crewed Mission by 2023 (Source: Interesting Engineering)
NASA is considering sending humans to the Moon again. To achieve that, the space agency will also put an outpost in orbit around the Moon. This will also advance capabilities of human space exploration farther from Earth, such as plans to send astronauts to Mars. The space station will be called the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway and it will be located in orbit around the Moon. It is designed to be ready for human habitation by 2023.

Similar to the International Space Station, or ISS, it will be assembled in space over time. The first module will be a power and propulsion system, planned for launch in 2022. The space station is planned to use high-power solar electric propulsion to preserve the position of the platform in a lunar orbit. It will also be capable of shifting the orbit closer to or away from the Moon, depending on science and exploration objectives. (2/16)