Space  

Researchers have found the first gamma-ray binary in another galaxy and the most luminous one ever seen. The dual-star system, dubbed LMC P3, contains a massive star and a crushed stellar core that interact to produce a cyclic flood of gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and other facilities have provided an international team of scientists with the data that shows the first gamma-ray binary star system in another galaxy and it is the most luminous one ever seen. The dual-star system, dubbed LMC P3, contains a massive star and a crushed stellar core that interact to produce a cyclic flood of gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light. The star is so luminous that pressure from the light it emits actually drives material from the surface, creating particle outflows with speeds of several million miles an hour.

A paper describing the discovery has been published in  The Astrophysical Journal..

"Fermi has detected only five of these systems in our own galaxy, so finding one so luminous and distant is quite exciting."

"Fermi has detected only five of these systems in our own galaxy, so finding one so luminous and distant is quite exciting," said lead researcher Robin Corbet at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Gamma-ray binaries are prized because the gamma-ray output changes significantly during each orbit and sometimes over longer time scales. This variation lets us study many of the emission processes common to other gamma-ray sources in unique detail."

Such systems contain either a neutron star or a black hole and radiate most of their energy in the form of gamma rays. LMC P3 is the most luminous such system known in gamma rays, X-rays, radio waves and visible light, and it's only the second one discovered with the Fermi telescope.



LMC P3 lies within the expanding debris of a supernova explosion located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small nearby galaxy about 163,000 light-years away. In 2012, scientists using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory found a strong X-ray source within the supernova remnant and showed that it was orbiting a hot, young star many times the sun's mass. The researchers concluded the compact object was either a neutron star or a black hole and classified the system as a high-mass X-ray binary (HMXB).

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In 2015, Corbet's team began looking for new gamma-ray binaries in Fermi data by searching for the periodic changes characteristic of these systems. The scientists discovered a 10.3-day cyclic change centered near one of several gamma-ray point sources recently identified in the LMC. One of them, called P3, was not linked to objects seen at any other wavelengths but was located near the HMXB. Were they the same object?

To find out, Corbet's team observed the binary in X-rays using NASA's Swift satellite, at radio wavelengths with the Australia Telescope Compact Array near Narrabri and in visible light using the 4.1-meter Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope on Cerro Pachón in Chile and the 1.9-meter telescope at the South African Astronomical Observatory near Cape Town.

The Swift observations clearly reveal the same 10.3-day emission cycle seen in gamma rays by Fermi. They also indicate that the brightest X-ray emission occurs opposite the gamma-ray peak, so when one reaches maximum the other is at minimum. Radio data exhibit the same period and out-of-phase relationship with the gamma-ray peak, confirming that LMC P3 is indeed the same system investigated by Chandra.

"The optical observations show changes due to binary orbital motion, but because we don't know how the orbit is tilted into our line of sight, we can only estimate the individual masses," said team member Jay Strader, an astrophysicist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. "The star is between 25 and 40 times the sun's mass, and if we're viewing the system at an angle midway between face-on and edge-on, which seems most likely, its companion is a neutron star about twice the sun's mass." If, however, we view the binary nearly face-on, then the companion must be significantly more massive and a black hole.

Both objects form when a massive star runs out of fuel, collapses under its own weight and explodes as a supernova. The star's crushed core may become a neutron star, with the mass of half a million Earths squeezed into a ball no larger than Washington, D.C. Or it may be further compacted into a black hole, with a gravitational field so strong not even light can escape it.

In gamma-ray binaries, the compact companion is thought to produce a "wind" of its own, one consisting of electrons accelerated to near the speed of light. The interacting outflows produce X-rays and radio waves throughout the orbit, but these emissions are detected most strongly when the compact companion travels along the part of its orbit closest to Earth.

Through a different mechanism, the electron wind also emits gamma rays. When light from the star collides with high-energy electrons, it receives a boost to gamma-ray levels. Called inverse Compton scattering, this process produces more gamma rays when the compact companion passes near the star on the far side of its orbit as seen from our perspective.

Before Fermi's launch, gamma-ray binaries were expected to be more numerous than they've turned out to be. Hundreds of HMXBs are cataloged, and these systems are thought to have originated as gamma-ray binaries following the supernova that formed the compact object.

SOURCE  NASA

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Space  

A laser-powered wafer-thin spacecraft capable of reaching Proxima Centauri in 15 years may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but it’s not. Such a launch isn’t imminent, but the possibility of one in the future does exist, according to a new NASA-funded research project.

A group of researchers are developing a space exploration project that could help propel a miniature spacecraft to the next solar system within a generation.

One of NASA’s goals and one of humanity’s grand challenges is to explore other planetary systems by remote sensing, sending probes, and eventually life to explore. This is a long standing and difficult to implement dream. The technological challenges are formidable. A step in this direction is to send small probes that will supplement the current long range remote sensing done by orbital telescopes.

NASA has awarded a $100,000 Innovative Advanced Concepts grant to Cal Poly statistics professor Gary Hughes and UC Santa Barbara physics professor Philip Lubin to create a preliminary model of a real idea with a science fiction feel.

Their idea is to propel into space a four-inch-square, silicon-crafted, wafer-thin vehicle at 18,282 miles per second — or one-tenth the speed of light.

“One of humanity’s grand challenges is to explore other solar systems by sending probes — and eventually life,” said Lubin. “We propose a system that will allow us to take the first step toward interstellar exploration using directed energy propulsion combined with miniature probes. Along with recent work on wafer-scale photonics, we can now envision combining these technologies to enable a realistic approach to sending probes far outside our solar system.”

The project is called Directed Energy Propulsion for Interstellar Exploration, or DEEP-IN.
The small device would be powered by energy generated from laser beams directed at mirrors on the craft’s reflective sails that are a square meter in size.

“The tiny bits of light push off the mirror as they’re reflected and propel the craft,” Hughes said. “One single ray doesn’t generate much energy, but when you throw a whole bunch of tiny ones at it, it starts to move — and since it’s small, it can move very quickly. The bigger the laser you build, the faster you go.”

According to the concept, still under development, the tiny craft would be propelled by an array of 1,000-watt Earth-orbiting lasers. The brainstorming includes possibilities of a laser array mounted on the international space station.

The lasers trained on the sails help push it to a transition point, at which time the craft essentially coasts all the way to the next star.

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“Since there is little ‘friction’ in interstellar space, once the craft reaches its final speed, it will continue at that speed all the way to the next star,” Hughes said in an email.

The space vehicle could potentially reach the closest star’s solar system in the next 30 years. Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system, is about 4.2 light years away, and the vehicle would need to travel at about 14 percent of the speed of light — 26,079 miles per second — to get there in 30 years.

A higher-powered propulsion system could get it there even faster, potentially in 15 years.
In comparison, the two Voyager probes, which launched in 1977, are now traveling just outside of our solar system at about 10.6 miles per second. They became the first spacecraft to reach interstellar space in 2012 and 2013, respectively. The DEEP-IN craft theoretically could reach the Voyager in a matter of weeks.

"We propose a system that will allow us to take the first step toward interstellar exploration using directed energy propulsion combined with miniature probes."

“Beyond the sun’s influence, we don’t really know what’s out there,” Hughes said. “That’s kind of fun.”

The mini spacecraft, which is envisioned to weigh about 10 grams, would have the capability to contain a camera to transmit images back to earth, as well as infrared technology and a radio transmitter.

In addition to the latest project, Hughes and Lubin also are developing a system that uses solar-powered lasers to combat asteroids that are on a collision course with Earth.

Their first phase of the DEEP-IN project will include exploration of a mechanical design of a laser. They’ve already begun analyzing the array structure.

They plan to seek a second grant, the next phase of their project, that could provide millions of dollars in funding to conduct hardware tests and other assessments to determine the feasibility of a mission.

“NASA would love to go to the next solar system,” Hughes said. “There are many things to be learned by traveling to the next star. It fits with NASA’s exploration goals.”

“We’ve had to radically rethink our strategy in order not to give up our dreams of reaching the stars,” Lubin added. “DEEP-IN posits a technological path forward that, while not simple, is within our technological reach to begin.”

SOURCE  UC Santa Barbara

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 Space  

Using images from NASA’s Voyager Mission and the orbital Galileo Mission, researchers have created the first global geological map of Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede.

Scientists, have completed the first global geological map of Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon and the largest in the solar system.

With its varied terrain and possible underground ocean, Ganymede is considered a prime target in the search for habitable environments in the solar system, and the researchers hope this new map will aid in future exploration. The work, led by Geoffrey Collins, a Ph.D. graduate of Brown University now a professor at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, took years to complete. The map was published by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Image Source - U.S. Geological Survey

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Ganymede is the largest satellite of Jupiter, and its icy surface has been formed through a variety of impact cratering, tectonic, and possibly cryovolcanic processes. The history of Ganymede can be divided into three distinct phases: an early phase dominated by impact cratering and mixing of non-ice materials in the icy crust, a phase in the middle of its history marked by great tectonic upheaval, and a late quiescent phase characterized by a gradual drop in heat flow and further impact cratering.

Ganymede also was featured prominently in Arthur C. Clarke's 3001: The Final Odyssey.

“It is very rewarding to see the results of all of our efforts here at Brown come together into this integrated global compilation that will now be used to plan the next phase of scientific exploration of the Galilean satellites,” said Jim Head, the Scherck Distinguished Professor of Geological Sciences at Brown and one of the map’s co-authors.

The researchers combined images from the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft to put the map together. Voyager was the first mission to fly through the Jupiter satellite system and passed by the icy surface of Ganymede in 1979. Those first images revealed a complex surface, segmented and fractured into dark and light terrain. In 1995, the Galileo spacecraft was placed in orbit around Jupiter and began to return high-resolution images of the surface that help to understand many of the features seen at low-resolution by Voyager.

Head was a co-investigator on the Galileo’s Solid State Imaging (SSI) experiment. In that role, he and his team were responsible for planning the imaging sequences for Ganymede in order to identify and investigate the scientific targets of highest priority. The team worked for several years to obtain the data necessary to make the global map.

Geoffrey Collins was one of the graduate students looking at the data as it came in from Galileo. Wes Patterson and Louise Prockter, now at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, also started work on the project as graduate students at Brown. Robert Pappalardo, now at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, was part of the team during postdoctoral studies at Brown.

“I’m so glad all that work has paid off in the form of this detailed global map,” Head said. “It is equally rewarding to see that the Brown team has now moved on to positions of leadership in the planetary exploration research community.”



SOURCE  Brown University

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 Mars  

Researchers have helped to confirm the idea that the surface of Phobos contains tons of dust, soil, and rock blown off the Martian surface by large projectile impacts. That means a sample-return mission planned by the Russian space agency could sample two celestial bodies for the price of one.

Anew study helps to confirm the idea that the surface of the Martian moon Phobos contains tons of dust, soil, and rock blown off the surface of Mars by large projectile impacts. Phobos' orbital path plows through occasional plumes of Martian debris, meaning the tiny moon has been gathering Martian castoffs for millions of years. That means a sample-return mission planned by the Russian space agency could sample two celestial bodies for the price of one.

"The mission is scheduled to be flown early in the next decade, so the question is not academic," said James Head, professor of geological sciences and an author on the study. "This work shows that samples from Mars can indeed be found in the soil of Phobos, and how their concentration might change with depth. That will be critical in the design of the drills other equipment."

The research appears in the latest issue of Space and Planetary Science.

The Russian mission will be the space agency's second attempt to return a sample from Phobos. Head was a participating scientist on the first try, which launched in 2011, but an engine failure felled the spacecraft before it could leave Earth orbit. The next attempt is scheduled to launch in 2020 or shortly thereafter.

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This new research grew out of preparation for the original mission, which would still be en route to Phobos had it not encountered problems. Scientists had long assumed Phobos likely contained Martian bits, but Russian mission planners wanted to know just how much might be there and where it might be found. They turned to Head and Ken Ramsley, a visiting researcher in Brown's planetary geosciences group.

To answer those questions, Ramsley and Head started with a model based on our own Moon to estimate how much of Phobos' regolith (loose rock and dust on the surface) would come from projectiles. They then used gravitational and orbital data to determine what proportion of that projectile material came from Mars.

"When an impactor hits Mars, only a certain of proportion of ejecta will have enough velocity to reach the altitude of Phobos, and Phobos' orbital path intersects only a certain proportion of that," Ramsley said. "So we can crunch those numbers and find out what proportion of material on the surface of Phobos comes from Mars."

According to those calculations, the regolith on Phobos should contain Martian material at a rate of about 250 parts per million. The Martian bits should be distributed fairly evenly across the surface, mostly in the upper layers of regolith, the researchers showed.

"Only recently — in the last several 100 million years or so — has Phobos orbited so close to Mars," Ramsley said. "In the distant past it orbited much higher up. So that's why you're going to see probably 10 to 100 times higher concentration in the upper regolith as opposed to deeper down."

And while 250 parts per million doesn't sound like a lot, the possibility of returning even a little Martian material to Earth gets planetary scientists excited. It's a nice bonus for a mission primarily aimed at learning more about Phobos, a mysterious little rock in its own right.

Scientists are still not sure where it came from. Is it a chunk of Mars that was knocked off by an impact early in Martian history, or is it an asteroid snared in Mars's orbit? There are also questions about whether its interior might hold significant amounts of water.

"Phobos has really low density," Head said. "Is that low density due to ice in its interior or is it due to Phobos being completely fragmented, like a loose rubble pile? We don't know."

If all goes well, the upcoming Russian mission will help solve some of those mysteries about Phobos. And we might learn a good deal about Mars in the process.



SOURCE  Brown University

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The Mars Society’s French chapter, announced recently that it had successfully conducted an artificial gravity test during a parabolic flight.

Association Planète Mars (APM), the Mars Society’s French chapter, announced last week that it had successfully conducted an artificial gravity test during a parabolic flight. According to Richard Heidmann, APM chapter vice president, "We were able to demonstrate an artificial gravity system during a flight of a zero-gravity (zero-g) airplane from Novespace in the skies over Bourdeaux on October 9th."

A journey to Mars based on currently available propulsion technology would take at least nine months and would involve serious threats to passengers from both radiation and weightlessness.  Without appropriate precautions any future Mars mission may deliver very sick explorers if these issues are not resolved.
The experiment had been proposed two years ago by APM to engineering students from Ecole Centrale de Lille. The project was sponsored by APM and CNES, the French space agency, which selected it as part of the framework of its annual student zero-g flight program.

“This zero-g demonstration is a great success for humans-to-Mars planning, our French chapter and the Mars Society as a whole. It's definitely an important step in developing a plausible means of transporting humans to the Red Planet in the near future,” said Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin.

Heidmann presented some of hte technical aspects of the artificial gravity system:

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The project design allowed the use of electric power rather than propellants to deploy the composite. A bearable initial rotation is given to the composite, which is then overstretched under the free action of centrifuge; then, a rather reduced supplemental impulsive rotation is given to the two linked mobiles; and finally an electric motor reduces the length of the tether until the desired g-level is obtained. 

It was too complicated to represent the whole sequence, as we considered not realistic in the frame of this project to equip the mobiles with thrusters and attitude control. But the second part of the scenario, beginning with the start of retraction, seemed achievable. The main difficulty was to design a launching and releasing system which, while giving the good rotational speed, imparts as little as possible perturbations at release. Another problem was the quite reduced space allocated to the experiment in the plane, which put undesirable constraints on the dimensioning (this explains why the mobiles look over-sized with respect to their separation). But, nevertheless, it was still possible to have representative accelerations and to observe the dynamics of the process. 

Releases were performed on 20 parabolas (for a total of 30), with movies captured from several different cameras (including from Novespace and APM) and acceleration measurements recorded aboard one of the mobiles. This data is presently under scrutiny by the students.

The idea of undertaking a small-scale demonstration of an artificial gravity system was originally proposed to the Mars Society by Tom Hill, a member of the organization’s Maryland chapter, under the title of the TEMPO3 mission. It was embraced by the Mars Society in 2008 as the winning entry in its “Mars Project Challenge” contest.  Following work done by a team led by Mr. Hill in 2009, the project was adopted by APM in 2010.

SOURCE  The Mars Society, Top Image - Tim Hornyak/CNET

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 Mars  

The first scoop of soil analyzed by the SAM instrument of NASA's Curiosity rover reveals that fine materials on the surface of the planet contain two percent water by weight. The discovery reveals new insights into the conditions on Mars and the planet's ability to support life.

NASA has announced that the Mars Curiosity rover has successfully found water in a sample of soil taken from a digging site known as "Rocknest." This isn't the first proof of water on Mars, but it could be the proof NASA needs to start realistically considering sending people to the Red Planet.

The announcement supports research from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), a NASA probe, say they've observed seasonally varying features on the surface of the Red Planet that could be carved by briny water.

Previously ice has been found on Mars at the planet's poles, inside some craters and sitting beneath the surface across vast swaths of the middle latitudes. Also, there is ample evidence that liquid water formed vast oceans on Mars in the distant past, carving valleys and other surface features.

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With a handful of exceptions, water is necessary for life as we know it. Not only is most of Earth's life water-based, but most scientists think life wouldn't have arisen in the first place if not for the watery "primordial soup" that covered the young Earth. Water makes it easier for organic molecules to swirl around and bump into each other to form interesting compounds.

"One of the most exciting results from this very first solid sample ingested by Curiosity is the high percentage of water in the soil," said Laurie Leshin, lead author of one paper and dean of the School Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. "About 2 percent of the soil on the surface of Mars is made up of water, which is a great resource, and interesting scientifically." The sample also released significant carbon dioxide, oxygen and sulfur compounds when heated.

According to NASA, each cubic foot of Martian soil contains around two pints of liquid water, though the molecules are not freely accessible; they are bound to other minerals in the soil.

Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite

The Curiosity rover has been on Mars for a little over a year now, landing in an area near the equator of the planet known as Gale Crater. Its target is to circle and climb Mount Sharp, which is near the center of the crater, a five kilometer high mound of layered rock that will help scientists unravel the history of the planet.

Now, NASA scientists published a series of five papers in the journal Science, which detail the experiments carried out by the various scientific instruments aboard Curiosity in its first four months on the martian surface. Though highlights from the year-long mission have been released at conferences and press conferences, these are the first set of formal, peer-reviewed results from the Curiosity mission.

One of those instruments was employed in the current research: the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite, which includes a gas chromatograph, a mass spectrometer and a tunable laser spectrometer. These tools enable SAM to identify a wide range of chemical compounds and determine the ratios of different isotopes of key elements.

"We tend to think of Mars as this dry place – to find water fairly easy to get out of the soil at the surface was exciting to me," said Laurie Leshin, dean of science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and lead author on the Science paper which confirmed the existence of water in the soil. "If you took about a cubic foot of the dirt and heated it up, you'd get a couple of pints of water out of that – a couple of water bottles' worth that you would take to the gym."

About 2% of the soil, by weight, was water. Curiosity made the measurement by scooping up a sample of the Martian dirt under its wheels, sieving it and dropping tiny samples into an oven in its belly, an instrument called Sample Analysis at Mars. "We heat [the soil] up to 835C and drive off all the volatiles and measure them," said Leshin. "We have a very sensitive way to sniff those and we can detect the water and other things that are released."

Aside from water, the heated soil released sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide and oxygen as the various minerals within it were decomposed as they warmed up.

Along with discoveries of organic chemicals on Mars, the existence of ample water on the planet further strengthens the impetus for humans to explore and eventually colonize Mars.


SOURCE  NASA

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 Space Exploration  

During a public event at NASA Headquarters, televised on NASA TV, agency officials and crew members aboard the International Space Station celebrated the one year anniversary of The Mars Curiosity Rover's landing on Mars and discussed how its activities and other robotic projects are helping prepare for a human mission to Mars and an asteroid.

During a public event at NASA Headquarters, televised on NASA TV, agency officials and crew members aboard the International Space Station celebrated the one year anniversary of The Mars Curiosity Rover's landing on Mars and discussed how its activities and other robotic projects are helping prepare for a human mission to Mars and an asteroid.

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The discussion focuses on the steps that will be required for NASA to put humans on Mars by the 2030's.  Jim Green, Director of Planetary Science for NASA enthusiastically went over some of the past robotic missions to Mars, like Pathfiinder and Curiosity.

"Our future is really in our hands. Our destiny is to leave low-earth orbit, and trek out into the solar system," Green says.  "The solar system is ours - let's take it."

Curiosity is presently headed to the base of the five kilometer high Mount Sharp to conduct further exploration.  In the future a new rover like Curiosity, with more instruments will be launched. Green says this mission will launch in 2020.

Mars exploration in the future

SOURCE  NASA

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The NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster or NEXT is an advanced Ion propulsion system developed at Glenn Research Center. Its unmatched fuel efficiency could give a real boost to future deep space exploration missions -- extending the reach of NASA science missions and yielding a higher return on scientific research.

While the Dawn spacecraft is visiting the asteroids Vesta and Ceres, NASA Glenn has been developing the next generation of ion thrusters for future missions.

Now, NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Project has developed a 7-kilowatt ion thruster that can provide the capabilities needed in the future.

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An ion thruster produces small levels of thrust relative to chemical thrusters, but does so at higher specific impulse (or higher exhaust velocities), which means that an ion thruster has a fuel efficiency of 10-12 times greater than a chemical thruster. The higher the rocket's specific impulse (fuel efficiency), the farther the spacecraft can go with a given amount of fuel.

Given that an ion thruster produces small levels of thrust relative to chemical thrusters, it needs to operate in excess of 10,000 hours to slowly accelerate the spacecraft to speeds necessary to reach the asteroid belt or beyond.

The NEXT ion thruster has been operated for over 43,000 hours, which for rocket scientists means that the thruster has processed over 770 kilograms of xenon propellant and can provide 30 million-newton-seconds of total impulse to the spacecraft. This demonstrated performance permits future science spacecraft to travel to varied destinations, such as extended tours of multi-asteroids, comets, and outer planets and their moons.



SOURCE  NASA

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 Search for Extraterrestrial Life  

In a lecture earlier this year, Dr. Jeff Kuhn describes a new idea for completing a nearby extraterrestrial cosmic census and describe some of the large telescope technology that exists today to undertake it. Kuhn proposes looking for heat signatures will help us find extraterrestrial civilizations, or ETCs.

Where are the extrasterrestrial civilizations and do we have the technology to find them?

We now know that we're surrounded by habitable extrasolar planets. Even half a century ago, before we knew of any extrasolar planets, Enrico Fermi speculated that the absence of any "proof" for extraterrestrial civilization could be important new for life on Earth. This is now known as the "Fermi Paradox."

Today his query is even more compelling. In the video below, Dr. Jeff Kuhn describes a new idea for completing a nearby extraterrestrial cosmic census and describe some of the technology that exists today to undertake it.

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The detection of an extraterrestrial civilization (ETC), even without further communication, is important in many gnostic and practical aspects. For instance, one of the current burning issues for our civilization is surviving global climate changes because of increasing power generation.

Kuhn proposes that detecting more advanced civilizations will demonstrate a fundamental possibility that civilization can achieve a phase of sustainable global-scale power consumption.

For a half-century we have sought radio frequency evidence and, more recently, optical communications of ETCs. However, these approaches depend on finding alien transmissions, beam "leakage", or what could be called intentional electromagnetic signals from ETCs that are operating cosmic beacons.

The proposed Colossus telescope will employ a strategy for detecting an unintentional signal caused by alien planetary warming. Thanks to its large aperture and unique coronographic properties, it will be capable of detecting the thermodynamic signal from Earth-like ETC's within an interestingly large cosmic volume.

The outcome of such a dual wavelength, visible-IR, search will be largely independent of alien communication modes and will have quantifiable statistical completeness. Even a null result will help us understand the Fermi paradox, "why do we appear to be alone?"

Detecting an ETC signal is possible with current technology but requires a telescope and sensitive detector that can measure the planet's thermal flux and its reflected optical light, while distinguishing these from the star's scattered light and the terrestrial thermal noise background. Glare from the central star comes from the terrestrial atmosphere's distorting effect on the optical wavefront and from diffraction due to telescope optics. Suppressing this noise requires highly accurate adaptive optics (AO) and a coronagraph system. These requirements are implemented in the Colossus design.

With the Colossus telescope, which Kuhn says can be built in five years with sufficient funding, we will be able to see advanced civilization heat pattern as can be seen in night lights on the Earth from space.



SOURCE  IfA Maui, The Colossus Corporation

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 Space Exploration  

Researchers report that data gathered by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) show lighter materials like plastics provide effective shielding against the radiation hazards faced by astronauts during extended space travel. The finding could help reduce health risks to humans on future missions into deep space.

On the heels of evidence that a trip to Mars would presently include potentially lethal doses of radiation for accompanying astronauts, space scientists from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) report that data gathered by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) show lighter materials like plastics provide effective shielding against the radiation hazards faced by astronauts during extended space travel. The finding could help reduce health risks to humans on future missions into deep space.

Aluminum has always been the primary material in spacecraft construction, but it provides relatively little protection against high-energy cosmic rays and can add so much mass to spacecraft that they become cost-prohibitive to launch.

The scientists have published their findings online in the American Geophysical Union journal Space Weather. Titled "Measurements of Galactic Cosmic Ray Shielding with the CRaTER Instrument," the work is based on observations made by the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) on board the LRO spacecraft.

CRaTER Spacecraft - Image Source: NASA

Lead author of the paper is Cary Zeitlin of the SwRI Earth, Oceans, and Space Department at UNH. Co-author Nathan Schwadron of the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space is the principal investigator for CRaTER.

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Says Zeitlin, "This is the first study using observations from space to confirm what has been thought for some time—that plastics and other lightweight materials are pound-for-pound more effective for shielding against cosmic radiation than aluminum. Shielding can't entirely solve the radiation exposure problem in deep space, but there are clear differences in effectiveness of different materials."

The plastic-aluminum comparison was made in earlier ground-based tests using beams of heavy particles to simulate cosmic rays. "The shielding effectiveness of the plastic in space is very much in line with what we discovered from the beam experiments, so we've gained a lot of confidence in the conclusions we drew from that work," says Zeitlin. "Anything with high hydrogen content, including water, would work well."

The space-based results were a product of CRaTER's ability to accurately gauge the radiation dose of cosmic rays after passing through a material known as "tissue-equivalent plastic," which simulates human muscle tissue. Prior to CRaTER and recent measurements by the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) on the Mars rover Curiosity, the effects of thick shielding on cosmic rays had only been simulated in computer models and in particle accelerators, with little observational data from deep space.

The CRaTER observations have validated the models and the ground-based measurements, meaning that lightweight shielding materials could safely be used for long missions, provided their structural properties can be made adequate to withstand the rigors of spaceflight.

Since LRO's launch in 2009, the CRaTER instrument has been measuring energetic charged particles—particles that can travel at nearly the speed of light and may cause detrimental health effects—from galactic cosmic rays and solar particle events. Fortunately, Earth's thick atmosphere and strong magnetic field provide adequate shielding against these dangerous high-energy particles.

SOURCE  University of New Hampshire

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 Futurism  

In his book, The Visioneers, Patrick McCray traces how Gerard O'Neill and Eric Drexler blended counter-cultural ideals with hard science, entrepreneurship, libertarianism, and unbridled optimism about the future. He shows how they built networks that communicated their ideas to writers, politicians, and corporate leaders and despite great difficulties helped shape our world today.

In 1969, Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill began looking outward to space colonies as the new frontier for humanity's expansion. A decade later, Eric Drexler, an MIT-trained engineer, turned his attention to the molecular world as the place where society's future needs could be met using self-replicating nanoscale machines.

These modern utopian idealists predicted that their technologies could transform society. As humans mastered the ability to create new worlds, undertook atomic-scale engineering, and, if truly successful, overcame their own biological limits anything seemed possible.

The new book, The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future tells the story of how these scientists and the communities they fostered imagined, designed, and popularized speculative technologies such as space colonies and nanotechnologies.

O'Neill's concept space colonies continue to influence us today.  The new movie Elysium uses a design, below, that is nearly a direct implementation of O'Neil's Cylinder shown above.

Related articles How Close Are We To Iron Man Extremis Nanotechnology?  Ralph Merkle On The Future of Nanotechnology  Eric Drexler and Nanotechnology

Author Patrick McCray traces how these visioneers blended counter-cultural ideals with hard science, entrepreneurship, libertarianism, and unbridled optimism about the future.

He shows how they built networks that communicated their ideas to writers, politicians, and corporate leaders. But the visioneers were not immune to failure--or to the lures of profit, celebrity, and hype.

Both O'Neill and Drexler faced difficulty funding their work and overcoming colleagues' skepticism, and saw their ideas co-opted and transformed by Timothy Leary, the scriptwriters of Star Trek, and many others. Ultimately, both men struggled to overcome stigma and ostracism as they tried to unshackle their visioneering from pejorative labels like "fringe" and "pseudoscience."


The Visioneers provides a balanced look at the successes and pitfalls they encountered. The book exposes the dangers of promotion--oversimplification, misuse, and misunderstanding--that can plague exploratory science. But above all, it highlights the importance of radical new ideas about the future that inspire us to support cutting-edge research into tomorrow's technologies.

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 Fermi Paradox

At a recent TEDx event, Anders Sandberg energetically discussed the Fermi Paradox, which questions why we cannot see evidence of alien life or intelligence given our own situation on earth and the billions of potential worlds for life to arise. He also touches on what this may represent for the future of humanity.

Anders Sandberg's research centres on societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement and new technology, as well as on assessing the capabilities and underlying science of future technologies. His recent contributions include work on cognitive enhancement (methods, impacts, and policy analysis); a technical roadmap on whole brain emulation; on neuroethics; and on global existential risks, particularly on the question of how to take into account the subjective uncertainty in risk estimates of low-likelihood, high-consequence risk.

Sandberg explores the long term, and how much change in the universe can a civilization possibly cause?

Sandberg is James Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, as well as associated with the Oxford Neuroethics Centre, the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology.

Sandberg's diverse interests also extend to the far reaches of outer space.  At a recent TEDx event, he energetically discussed the Fermi Paradox, which questions why we cannot see evidence of alien life or intelligence given our own situation on earth and the billions of potential worlds for life to arise.  He also touches on what this may represent for the future of humanity.



SOURCE  TEDx Talks

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