Science Tidbits 3

[RJDiogenes]

Unfortunately, I think their estimates of finding life within the Solar System are highly optimistic, but I don't doubt at all that we'll have strong evidence of extrasolar life within ten years. Ironically, it will be easier to get the extrasolar evidence than the local evidence. As they say, it would have to be something easy, like a Super-Earth, at first-- I don't think we'll be detecting life on Super-Jovian moons any time soon.

Speaking of which, we got some new planets this week, one of which is in the habitable zone. HD 1605 b is 276 light years from Earth and has a year of 578 days. It's just under the mass of Jupiter and has a slightly off-center orbit approximately equal to Mars. The star is a bit larger than the Sun, so that puts it right at the inner edge of the Goldilocks Zone. Any large satellites would be pretty well positioned.

[Lupine]

I don't think we'll be detecting life on Super-Jovian moons any time soon.

I don't know. They might be able to tease something out of the existing data.

[RJDiogenes]

"Nyah nyah. Bet you're too chicken to show us your oxygen absorption spectrum. Bet you don't even have any oxygen absorption spectra. Haha."

[Madeliaette]

um...here is something i came across when searching for articles on Tibet....
http://metro.co.uk/2015/04/11/this-monk ... s-5145251/

[RJDiogenes]

Well, that's certainly an interesting attribute to be known for. Hopefully there will be protections put in place before all that new activity in the area endangers them. It sounds like there's the possibility of other new species, too.

I found this link on Jack McDevitt's website when I was checking for new books. It's probably just an artifact of a small sample, but it's an interesting phenomenon in any case.

[RJDiogenes]

I just got pinged that Messenger has died. It ran out of fuel and crashed into Mercury.

[Lupine]

Now we're going to be invaded by angry Mercurians thinking we attacked them.

[RJDiogenes]

The invasion will be televised live, Saturday night at 9pm, on Sciffy.

[Lupine]

We got some beauty shots of Ceres..

I hope the coming pics of Pluto are as good.

[RJDiogenes]

Wow, she is a beauty indeed.

And that's a fascinating tidbit that she's so dark-- only 9% versus 43%. I wonder why. That bright spot might not be so bright after all, but that doesn't make it any less mysterious and intriguing.

We should be getting some good Pluto pictures pretty soon now.

[Lupine]

And elsewhere in space volcanic activity may have been observed on an exo-planet. It's interesting that this world was once thought to be a carbon-planet, then a water world. Now it's looking like a volcanic world.

[RJDiogenes]

Amazing that we're already able to glean information like this from Exoplanets. The idea of massive volcanism makes sense. They theorize that something like that happens on Venus every couple of million years or whatever, because of the lack of plate tectonics, so something similar may be happening here and we're lucky enough to be looking at the right time. I wonder what indications they had previously that it was a carbon planet or a water planet.

[Lupine]

^I'm not sure, but it does mean that such claims with a grain of salt.

[RJDiogenes]

That's certainly true. It's all indirect evidence and very subject to misinterpretation. But it's amazing that we're able to get any clues at all. Temperature fluctuations and clouds on Exoplanets-- I'm lovin' it.