Futurist Foresight
This poses an interesting “What if” scenario - here “What if Earth had rings”.
If Earth Had Rings
First off, they would be really pretty to look at. They would also dominate the sky in both night and day at exactly the same place as they would never rise nor set. And at night you would see the Earth’s shadow swing across the rings, like in the 4th photo here.
However, life would be very different on Earth if this were the case. Nocturnal animals would have a hard time being nocturnal, as the light reflecting from the rings would illuminate the night.
Because we are closer to the Sun than Saturn is, the rings would be more rocky than ice, making them less bright but still pretty bright. In fact, you would see far less stars at night (living anywhere other than the equator or the arctic circle) because of the light pollution and not to mention ruin most meteor showers because of that.
During the day the rings would block sunlight in certain regions of the planet creating wild weather cycles and effecting plant life as well. So basically, they would be definitely pretty to look at but they would also make a whole lot of things screwy.
Illustrations by Ron Miller // io9
— Click the photos for captions
(via zeitgeistrama)
More exoplanets found in a Goldilocks zone (Habitable zone), which is a region around a star wherein a planet can maintain sufficient atmospheric pressure to maintain water in a liquid state on its surface.
The search for a far-off twin of Earth has turned up two of the most intriguing candidates yet. Scientists say these new worlds are the right size and distance from their parent star, so that you might expect to find liquid water on their surface. It is impossible to know for sure. Being 1,200 light-years away, they are beyond detailed inspection by current telescope technology. But researchers tell Science magazine, they are an exciting discovery. “They are the best candidates found to date for habitable planets,” stated Bill Borucki, who leads the team working on the US space agency Nasa’s orbiting Kepler telescope. The prolific observatory has so far confirmed the existence of more than 100 new worlds beyond our Solar System since its launch in 2009. The two now being highlighted were actually found in a group of five planets circling a star that is slightly smaller, cooler and older than our own Sun. Called Kepler-62, this star is located in the Constellation Lyra. (via BBC News - Kepler telescope spies ‘most Earth-like’ worlds to date)
The sound of the Big Bang as simulated by physicists John Cramer.
▲ A 100-second recording of the sound of the Big Bang, created by University of Washington physicist John Cramer.
Here’s What the Big Bang Sounded Like
In the beginning, there was a righteous bass.
So says physicist John Cramer, who has not only found evidence of the sound created during the Big Bang, but has also created a simulation of the low, deep noise emitted as the universe came into being.
After the Big Bang, the universe expanded so rapidly that matter itself resonated to create a deep bass noise, and sound waves themselves became stretched and warped. “As the early universe expanded, sound waves propagated through the dense medium that closed back on itself, so that the hypersphere of the universe rang like a bell,” Cramer, a professor of physics at the University of Washington, explained.
The effect would have been similar to that of a magnitude-9 earthquake that caused the entire planet to actually ring, Cramer said. However, in this case, the ringing covered the entire universe.
That sound is long gone, of course, but it left its imprint on the cosmic microwave background, which is a thermal echo of the energy released during the Big Bang.
In 2003, NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite gave scientists an unprecedented picture of the cosmic microwave background. In an article for science-fiction magazine Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Cramer wrote how this thermal data could be extrapolated into wavelengths of sound.
In other words, the universe’s cosmic microwave background is kind of like a recording of the Big Bang’s phat beat.
Two years after Cramer published his findings, the mother of an 11-year-old elementary school student wrote to Cramer, asking if there was an actual recording of the sound that her son could use for his school science-fair project. Cramer responded that there wasn’t — but there could be.
To recreate the Big Bang’s sound, Cramer converted WMAP’s wavelength data into sound using a computational program called Mathematica.
The resulting sound is low, creaky, and almost unassuming.
Recently, more precise data from the European Space Agency’s Planck telescope has allowed Cramer to create an even more accurate sound profile, which he has exported as audio files. The files are, of course, a simulation: the true sound is so deep that Cramer had to boost the frequency 100 septillion times to put it within the range of human hearing.
The sounds are available on Cramer’s website at the University of Washington. So remixers, have at it!
(via climate-changing)
A look at what Mars may have looked like once.
Different interpretations of what Mars looked like when it had an ocean
(via thedemon-hauntedworld)
A comparison of the dwarf planets in our Solar System.
Dwarf Planets of Our Solar System
— In 2006 the organization responsible for classifying celestial bodies, the International Astronomical Union, decided that a new class of objects was needed. The solar system’s erratic ninth planet, Pluto, was assigned to the new “dwarf planet” category along with four other bodies, all tinier than Earth’s moon. Some astronomers expect there may be as many as 50 dwarf planets in the solar system.
— Eris, the largest dwarf planet, is only slightly bigger than Pluto, at 1,445 miles in diameter (2,326 km). Discovered in 2003, Eris orbits at an average distance of 68 AU (that is, 68 times the Earth’s distance from the sun) and takes 561.4 Earth years to circle the sun. Eris has the orbit that is most highly inclined of all the dwarf planets, tilted nearly 47 degrees from the plane of the planets’ orbits. A day on Eris takes 25.9 hours. Eris has one moon, Dysnomia.
— Pluto, discovered in 1930, orbits the sun at an average of 39.5 times the Earth’s distance. Its diameter is 1,430 miles (2,302 km). Pluto takes 247.9 Earth years to orbit the sun, and its day is 6.39 times as long as Earth’s. Pluto has five known moons: Charon, Nix, Hydra and two that were recently discovered and have not yet been named.
— Haumea was discovered in 2003. This dwarf planet has an extremely elongated shape, with its longest dimension being about 1,218 miles long (1,960 km). Haumea rotates very rapidly and has the shortest day of all the dwarf planets, only 3.9 hours. Orbiting 43.1 times farther from the sun than Earth does, Haumea takes nearly 282 Earth years to complete one orbit. Haumea has two moons, Hi’iaka and Namaka.
— Makemake, discovered in 2005, has no known moons. Makemake orbits at 45.3 times Earth’s distance and takes more than 305 years to complete a circuit of the sun. Its day is 22.5 hours. Makemake’s average diameter is 882 miles (1,420 km).
— Ceres, first spotted by astronomers in 1801, was first called a planet and later an asteroid. In 2006 it was reclassified as a dwarf planet. Ceres is the closest dwarf planet to Earth, orbiting at only 2.8 times Earth’s distance from the sun. Its year takes 4.6 Earth years and its day is 9.1 hours. Ceres has no known moons.
(via sputnk)
A quick look at some of the astronomical events of 2013.
13 Must See StarGazing Events In 2013
http://space-pics.tumblr.com/
A look at a few astronomical mysteries. (And some great pictures).
8 Baffling Astronomy Mysteries
We’ve seen a lot of information explaining the wonders of astronomy and space, but what of the mysteries? The realm scientists have yet to fully understand. SPACE has this awesome article getting into a few, 8 in total, of those very areas in the study of the stars that continue to baffle scientists:
The universe has been around for roughly 13.7 billion years, but it still holds many mysteries that continue to perplex astronomers to this day. Ranging from dark energy to cosmic rays to the uniqueness of our own solar system, there is no shortage of cosmic oddities.
The journal Science summarized some of the most bewildering questions being asked by leading astronomers today. In no particular order, here are eight of the most enduring mysteries in astronomy:
8 What is Dark Energy?
Dark energy is thought to be the enigmatic force that is pulling the cosmos apart at ever-increasing speeds, and is used by astronomers to explain the universe’s accelerated expansion.
This elusive force has yet to be directly detected, but dark energy is thought to make up roughly 73 percent of the universe.
7 How Hot is Dark Matter?
Dark matter is an invisible mass that is thought to make up about 23 percent of the universe. Dark matter has mass but cannot be seen, so scientists infer its presence based on the gravitational pull it exerts on regular matter.
Researchers remain curious about the properties of dark matter, such as whether it is icy cold as many theories predict, or if it is warmer.
6 Where are the Missing Baryons?
Dark energy and dark matter combine to occupy approximately 95 percent of the universe, with regular matter making up the remaining 5 percent. But, researchers have been puzzled to find that more than half of this regular matter is missing.
This missing matter is called baryonic matter, and it is composed of particles such as protons and electrons that make up majority of the mass of the universe’s visible matter.
Some astrophysicists suspect that missing baryonic matter may be found between galaxies, in material known as warm-hot intergalactic medium, but the universe’s missing baryons remain a hotly debated topic.
5 How do Stars Explode?
When massive stars run out of fuel, they end their lives in gigantic explosions called supernovas. These spectacular blasts are so bright they can briefly outshine entire galaxies.
Extensive research and modern technologies have illuminated many details about supernovas, but how these massive explosions occur is still a mystery.
Scientists are keen to understand the mechanics of these stellar blasts, including what happens inside a star before it ignites as a supernova.
4 What Re-ionized the Universe?
The broadly accepted Big Bang model for the origin of the universe states that the cosmos began as a hot, dense point approximately 13.7 billion years ago.
The early universe is thought to have been a dynamic place, and about 13 billion years ago, it underwent a so-called age of re-ionization. During this period, the universe’s fog of hydrogen gas was clearing and becoming translucent to ultraviolet light for the first time.
Scientists have long been puzzled over what caused this re-ionization to occur.
3 What’s the Source of the Most Energetic Cosmic Rays?
Cosmic rays are highly energetic particles that flow into our solar system from deep in outer space, but the actual origin of these charged subatomic particles has perplexed astronomers for about a century.
The most energetic cosmic rays are extraordinarily strong, with energies up to 100 million times greater than particles that have been produced in manmade colliders. Over the years, astronomers have attempted to explain where cosmic rays originate before flowing into the solar system, but their source has proven to be an enduring astronomical mystery.
2 Why is the Solar System so Bizarre?
As alien planets around other stars are discovered, astronomers have tried to tackle and understand how our own solar system came to be.
The differences in the planets within our solar system have no easy explanation, and scientists are studying how planets are formed in hopes of better grasping the unique characteristics of our solar system.
This research could, in fact, get a boost from the hung for alien worlds, some astronomers have said, particularly if patterns arise in their observations of extrasolar planetary systems.
1 Why is the Sun’s Corona so Hot?
The sun’s corona is its ultra-hot outer atmosphere, where temperatures can reach up to a staggering 10.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (6 million degrees Celsius).
Solar physicists have been puzzled by how the sun reheats its corona, but research points to a link between energy beneath the visible surface, and processes in the sun’s magnetic field. But, the detailed mechanics behind coronal heating are still unknown.
(via niceskynewworld)
An interesting look at Asteroids in our vicinity.
The Asteroids in our Neighborhood
Check out this video from Scott Manley, tracing thirty years of asteroid discovery and the deployment of new and more sensitive instruments to find them. From the green main belt asteroids, to the yellow dots that cross Venus’ orbit, to the red that come near our own orbit … space has a lot of stuff in it. Nearly 600,000 objects known at the latest update.
But that doesn’t mean we’re in any special danger. As these objects, most very tiny, travel through their wonky, often angled orbits, they travel through a volume of 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic km, or enough to fit a trillion Earths. Space may have a lot of stuff in it, but it’s also very big.
Rest easy. We’re watching the skies.
(via jtotheizzoe)
A quick census of known near-Earth Asteroids.
(via abcstarstuff)
Another look at the ALMA telescope array in Chile and what it means to astronomy.
Chile’s ALMA telescope looks into the universe with ten times the resolution of Hubble
Though the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or the ALMA, has already been used to capture incredible images, until now the groundbreaking observatory wasn’t fully complete. After ten years of construction, the ALMA can begin to study the cosmos with a resolution ten times sharper than that of the Hubble Space Telescope. From its location in the Chilean Andes mountain range, the ALMA will be used to study infant galaxies from early periods of the universe, planets forming around suns, and the distribution of molecules between stars.
(via itsfullofstars)
