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Mars Base

Most Earthlike planets yet seen bring Kepler closer to its holy grail | Atom & Cosmos |... - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...epler_closer_to_its_holy_grail

scibyte91 scibyte92 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 19 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • five-planet system around a star called Kepler-62, some 1,200 light-years away in the constellation Lyra
  • Astronomers found the planets by analyzing nearly three years’ worth of data
  • Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f are far more accommodating. They are 1.6 and 1.4 times the diameter of Earth
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • early evidence supports the optimistic view that at least 62f is rocky
  • biggest uncertainty about both planets is their composition
  • an astronomer at the University of Washington
  • not involved in the research
  • Kepler-62e
  • may be too close to its star – and therefore too hot – to sustain life
  • if 62e is a rocky planet, it’s almost certainly tidally locked with its star, with one half of its surface always illuminated and the other perpetually dark
  • Kepler 62 is about two-thirds the size of the sun and several hundred degrees Celsius cooler
  • Finding planets in the habitable zones of larger stars
  • harder because those planets have relatively long orbits and barely cast a shadow as they pass across the faces of their suns
  • another study
  • led by
  • NASA Ames Research Center
  • identified two planets around a sunlike star called Kepler-69, some 2,700 light-years away
  • One of the planets is 1.7 times the size of Earth and teeters on the inner edge of the habitable zone
  • probably too hot for life
  • almost certainly a super-Venus rather than a super-Earth
  • even a planet 75 percent larger than Earth is potentially habitable
  • Next-generation missions like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which NASA approved earlier this month for launch in 2017, will take on the task of finding nearer planets that astronomers can study in depth
Mars Base

3 Potentially Habitable Super-Earth Planets Explained (Infographic) | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/abitable-zone-infographic.html

scibyte91 scibyte92 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 19 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Kepler-62 is a red dwarf, only 20 percent as bright as the sun
  • located 1,200 light-years away from Earth
  • The Kepler-69 system contains one known planet in that star's habitable zone
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • a sun-like star located 2,700 light-years away,
  • As of April 2013, Kepler data has uncovered more than 2,700 potential planets, with about 120 of them having been confirmed to date
  • mission scientists expect that more than 90 percent of the planets detected are real and not illusions in the data
Mars Base

Discovered! Most Earth-Like Alien Planet & 2 Other Possibly Habitable Worlds | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/e-alien-planets-discovery.html

scibyte91 scibyte92 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 19 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • The third potentially habitable planet, called Kepler-69c, is 1.7 times bigger than Earth and orbits a star similar to our own
  • It's the smallest world ever found in the habitable zone of a sunlike star
  • scientists rolled out seven new exoplanets today — five in the Kepler-62 system and two in Kepler-69
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Kepler-62e and f take 122 and 267 days, respectively, to complete one orbit around their star, which is just 20 percent as bright as the sun
  • The telescope needs to observe three transits to flag a planet candidate, so detecting a potentially habitable world in a relatively distant orbit can take several years
  • Kepler cannot search for signs of life on worlds like Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f and Kepler-69c, but the telescope is paving the way for future missions that should do just that
Mars Base

Kepler Team Finds System with Two Potentially Habitable Planets - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...-potentially-habitable-planets

scibyte91 scibyte92 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 19 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • scientists analyzing data from NASA’s Kepler mission has found a planetary system with two small, potentially rocky planets that lie within the habitable zone of their star
  • Kepler-62, is a bit smaller and cooler than our Sun, and is home to a five-planet system
  • Two of the worlds, Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f are the smallest exoplanets yet found in a habitable zone, and they might both be covered in water or ice, depending on what kind of atmosphere they might have
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • The curves show the mass-radius-relation (average density) for different types of planets
  • The blue line indicates
  • planets made mostly (75%) of water, the black line that of planets like our Earth that consist almost exclusively of rock (
  • estimate of their mass places them in a region (blue areas) where it is highly probable for them to be earth-like planets, that is: planets with a solid (if possibly covered in water) surface
  • the empirical habitable zone, liquid water can exist on the surface of a planet if that planet has sufficient cloud cover. In the narrow habitable zone, liquid water can exist on the surface even without the presence of a cloud cover
  • while the sizes of Kepler 62e and 62f are known, their mass and densities are not.
  • every planet found in their size range so far has been rocky, like Earth
  • Life on these worlds would be under water with no easy access to metals, to electricity, or fire for metallurgy
  • life’s inventiveness to get to a technology stage will surprise us
  • Kepler-62e would have a bit more clouds than Earth according to computer models
  • More distant Kepler-62f would need the greenhouse effect from plenty of carbon dioxide to warm it enough to host an ocean
  • Kepler-62e probably has a very cloudy sky and is warm and humid all the way to the polar regions
  • Kepler-62f would be cooler, but still potentially life-friendly
  • the two would exhibit distinctly different colors and make our search for signatures of life easier on such planets in the near future
  • planets in the habitable zone were until now discovered by what is known as the radial velocity method
  • gives you a lower limit for the planet’s mass, but no information about its radius
  • What makes Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f so exciting is
  • We know their radius, which indicates that these are indeed rocky planets, and they orbit their star in the habitable zone
  • makes it difficult to assess whether or not a planet is rocky, like the Earth. A small radius (less than 2 Earth radii), on the other hand, is a strong indicator that a planet around is indeed rocky – unless we are talking about a planet around a very young star
Mars Base

Habitable Worlds? New Kepler Planetary Systems in Images - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...er-planetary-systems-in-images

scibyte91 scibyte92 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 19 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • According to the Planetary Habitability Laboratory, there are now nine potential habitable worlds outside of our solar system, with 18 more potentally habitable planetary candidates found by Kepler waiting to be confirmed
  • astronomers predict there are 25 potentially habitable exomoons
  • Current known potentially habitable exoplanets. Credit: Planetary Habitability Laboratory/University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo
Mars Base

News in Brief: Comet's water still hanging around on Jupiter | Atom & Cosmos | Science ... - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...till_hanging_around_on_Jupiter

scibyte92 comet

shared by Mars Base on 26 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • In July 1994, the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 plowed into Jupiter
  • The comet also left behind
  • millions of gallons of water. Water from the impact still makes up at least 95 percent of the water in the planet’s upper atmosphere
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Telescopes had previously spotted water in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, some 100 kilometers above the planet’s ammonia cloud tops, but those surveys could not determine where the water came from
  • create a high-resolution map of water vapor distribution throughout Jupiter’s atmosphere
  • used the E
  • astronomers
  • researchers
  • found that the concentration of water peaked in the planet’s southern hemisphere, right in the region where the comet struck
  • More water also appeared at higher altitudes around the planet, which
  • supports the comet as its origin.
  • Water from other sources such as Jupiter’s icy moons would likely spread out more evenly around the planet and would gradually filter down to lower altitudes
Mars Base

Potential diabetes breakthrough: Researchers discover new hormone spurring beta cell pr... - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...kthrough-hormone-spurring.html

scibyte92 Diabetes

shared by Mars Base on 26 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • have discovered a hormone that holds promise for a dramatically more effective treatment of type 2 diabetes
  • researchers believe that the hormone might also have a role in treating type 1, or juvenile, diabetes
  • The hormone, called betatrophin, causes mice to produce insulin-secreting pancreatic beta cells at up to 30 times the normal rate
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • The new beta cells only produce insulin when called for by the body, offering the potential for the natural regulation of insulin
  • The researchers who discovered betatrophin
  • caution that much work remains to be done before it could be used as a treatment in humans
  • the results of their work, which was supported in large part by a federal research grant, already have attracted the attention of drug manufacturers.
  • could eventually mean that instead of taking insulin injections three times a day, you might take an injection of this hormone once a week or once a month, or in the best case maybe even once a year
  • Type 2 diabetes,
  • usually caused by a combination of excess weight and lack of exercise
  • causes patients to slowly lose beta cells and the ability to produce adequate insulin
  • provide this hormone, the type 2 diabetic will make more of their own insulin-producing cells, and this will slow down, if not stop, the progression of their diabetes
  • betatrophin primarily as a treatment for type 2 diabetes, he believes it might play a role in the treatment of type 1 diabetes as well
  • perhaps boosting the number of beta cells and slowing the progression of that autoimmune disease when it's first diagnosed
  • betatrophin could be in human clinical trials within three to five years, an extremely short time in the normal course of drug discovery and development
  • not for the federal funding of basic science research, there would be no betatrophin
  • impressed National Institutes of Health grant reviewers, and received federal funding for 80 percent of the work leading to the discovery of betatrophin
  • just wondering what happens when an animal doesn't have enough insulin. We were lucky to find this new gene that had largely gone unnoticed before
  • Another hint came from studying
  • What happens during pregnancy
  • During pregnancy, there are more beta cells needed, and it turns out that this hormone goes up during pregnancy
  • in pregnant mice
  • when the animal becomes pregnant this hormone is turned on to make more beta cells
  • not interested in curing mice of diabetes, and we now know the gene is a human gene
  • know that the hormone exists in human plasma; betatrophin definitely exists in humans
Mars Base

Tiny Sponge Soaks Up Venom in Blood: Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

scibyte92 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 27 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • A tiny sponge camouflaged as a red blood cell could soak up toxins ranging from anthrax to snake venom, new research suggests
  • The new "nanosponge,"
  • The nanoparticles, also called nanosponges, act as decoys that lure and inactivate the deadly compounds
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • When injected into mice, the tiny decoys protect mice against lethal doses of a toxin produced by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.
  • Follow-up studies need to be done in humans
  • One of the mainstay strategies of bacteria and poison is to poke holes in cells, disrupting their internal chemical balance and causing them to burst
  • far, researchers haven't had much success creating all-purpose treatments to exploit this vulnerability
  • researchers created a tiny spherical core of a lactic acid byproduct, which forms naturally during metabolism in the human body
  • They then wrapped the cores in the outer surface of red blood cells. (To get the outer skin of red blood cells, they used a difference in particle concentration inside and outside the cells to cause them to burst, and then collected their outer membranes
  • The entire ensemble became a tiny nanosponge, which was about 85 nanometers in diameter, or 100 times smaller than a human hair
  • In cell cultures, the camouflaged sponges act as decoys, luring the toxins from
  • the bacteria that causes strep throat) and bee venom
  • then binding to the structure the "poisons" normally use to poke through cells
  • When they stick onto the nanosponge, that particular damaging structure gets preoccupied, and then the body can digest the entire particle
  • the team injected 18 mice with a lethal dose of a MRSA toxin. Half the mice then got a dose of the nanosponges
  • Whereas all the mice in the control group died, all but one that received the treatment survived
  • Because so many bacteria use the same pore-forming strategy, the nanosponges could be used as a universal treatment option when doctors don't know exactly what is causing an illness
  • The sponges' tiny size means a small amount of blood, for camouflage, can be used to make an effective dose
  • also allows them to circulate freely through blood vessels, lure enough of the toxins to have an impact and still be degraded safely
  • the researchers want to see whether the method works in human blood, and against other toxic chemicals, such as scorpion venom and anthrax, which use similar attack strategies
Mars Base

Atlantis Exposed: Space Shuttle Fully Unwrapped for NASA Exhibit | Kennedy Space Center... - 0 views

www.space.com/tlantis-unwrapped-exhibit.html

scibyte92 shuttle

shared by Mars Base on 27 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Space shuttle Atlantis
  • is set to go on public display June 29 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida
  • revealed Friday (April 26) after workers spent two days peeling off its protective shrink-wrap cover of the past five months.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • , workers began carefully cutting back the 16,000 square feet (1,486 square meters) of shrink wrap that protected Atlantis as its $100 million exhibition building was completed around it
  • By the end of the first day, the shuttle's nose, tail, aft engines and left wing were exposed.
  • the workers completed the process, revealing Atlantis' right wing and its 60-foot-long (18 meter) payload bay
  • Opening the payload bay is
  • set to begin in May, will take about two weeks, as the doors are very slowly hoisted open, one by one.
  • Atlantis has been mounted. Thirty feet (9 meters) in the air, the space shuttle has been tilted 43.21 degrees, such that its left wing extends toward the ground.
  • Atlantis will appear to be back in space — an effect that will be enhanced by lighting and a mural-size digital screen that will project the Earth's horizon behind the shuttle
Mars Base

Private Mars Colony Won't Seek Martian Life | Mars One | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/rs-colony-search-for-life.html

scibyte92 MarsOne

shared by Mars Base on 23 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Mars colony project will do its best to avoid disturbing potential Red Planet life rather than aggressively hunt it down
  • The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One
  • opened its astronaut-selection process
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • April 22
  • plans to land four people on the Red Planet in 2023
  • permanent human colony on the Red Planet, with new crews arriving every two years thereafter
  • Human explorers
  • will doubtless contaminate whatever site is chosen for the settlement
  • so the organization will try to pick a place unlikely to host indigenous life
  • localize the pollution
  • Mars One is working with experts to minimize the risks its colonization effort may pose to potential Red Planet lifeforms
  • While Mars One hasn't picked a precise location for its settlement yet, the organization is targeting a swath of the Red Planet between 40 and 45 degrees north latitude
  • Mars One astronauts will not necessarily be scientists
  • Anyone over the age of 18 is eligible to apply, with the selection committee prizing traits such as intelligence, resourcefulness, determination and psychological stability over academic background
  • Science is
  • not the main focus of what we are doing
  • Crewmembers will take some scientific gear with them
  • but Mars One officials won't dictate what the experiments should be.
  • There will of course be a budget for equipment that they want to take for scientific research
Mars Base

SpaceShipTwo Fires Rocket Engines for First Ever Supersonic Test Flight- Photos & Video - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...st-ever-supersonic-test-flight

scibyte92 scibyte93 SpaceShipTwo

shared by Mars Base on 30 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2) commercial spaceliner named “Enterprise” lit up her hybrid rocket engines in flight and reached supersonic speeds for the first time in history
  • Monday, April 29, 2013 – in the skies over the Mojave Desert in California.
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