Earth
It may seem a bit odd to start a post about space with Earth. While we do for the most part study space because we're just plain interested, it is nice for knowledge gained by studying things beyond Earth to help us understand our home planet and vice versa. Here is a perfect example.Some rocks found in Australia were found to have Carbon-12, a chemical consistent with known life processes. What makes these rocks interesting is that they are 4.4 billion years old. The Carbon-12 is dated to 4.1 billion years ago. Here is the primary image being shared of the discovery.
Why is this a big deal? Earth is only thought to be about 4.6 billion years old. Prior estimates of the oldest known life forms is 3.8 billion years. This discovery, if it holds up under scrutiny, effectively reduces the amount of time required for life to form by about 40%. Further, it shows that life can form under much more hostile conditions than previously thought. Around 4.1 billion years ago, Earth itself was much warmer, was getting hit by asteroids and comets a lot as well as experiencing much higher levels of volcanism than at the current time.
How does this affect our understanding of life beyond Earth? Well, life beyond Earth seems to only get more likely as our knowledge increases. The abundance of planets that can harbor liquid water, the abundance of water itself in space and the number of Earthbound extremophiles (organisms that thrive in conditions seemingly hostile to life) are all recent developments that increase the likelihood of life elsewhere. The fact that life could form so early on Earth ratchets up the likelihood of life elsewhere in the Universe just a little bit more.
Mars
Regarding the idea of life elsewhere in the Universe, Mars was once a darling. In some sense, it still is. However, the prospect for "life on Mars" has slowly been amended to "life on Mars in the past." What we see today on Mars is just not very encouraging in terms of finding life now. However, with regard to life on Mars in the past, things keep looking better.
Deep Lakes
Mars appears to have had very deep lakes in the past. By analyzing sedimentary data collected by theCuriosityrover, it looks like a lake may have been as deep as 800m (half a mile). For perspective, that's twice as deep as the deepest point in the Great Lakes. Here is one of the images studied.
Such large standing bodies of water would be very helpful for the development of life as we know it. Mind you, sedimentary data can only be collected in Curiosity's immediate vicinity. Who knows what else might be found if we could only look elsewhere?
Such large standing bodies of water would be very helpful for the development of life as we know it. Mind you, sedimentary data can only be collected in Curiosity's immediate vicinity. Who knows what else might be found if we could only look elsewhere?
Atmosphere Stripping
Another Mars result was the confirmation that the solar wind is stripping Mars' atmosphere. The usual story told about Earth is that our magnetic field keeps the solar wind from being too strong when it hits our atmosphere. As a result, Earth loses very little of its atmosphere. Mars stands in stark contrast. With no global magnetic field, the solar wind plows into Mars' atmosphere, flinging portions of it beyond the planet's gravitational reach. This story of atmospheric erosion was confirmed numerically byMAVEN'sdata, which was used to produce the following video.
If we run the process of the solar wind stripping Mars' atmosphere back billions of years, a rather significant atmosphere would have been possible. Between this and the deep lakes, an ancient Mars and current Earth would be more similar to each other than the current-day Mars.
If we run the process of the solar wind stripping Mars' atmosphere back billions of years, a rather significant atmosphere would have been possible. Between this and the deep lakes, an ancient Mars and current Earth would be more similar to each other than the current-day Mars.
Jupiter
TheHubble Space Telescopestared directly at Jupiter for a solid 10 hours. The average day on Jupiter is about 10 hours, which means almost every point on the planet was imaged twice. This is part of theOPALprogram, which will fully image every outer planet annually. Often, it is not the single still image that provides useful information, but the accumulation of data over time. It isn't clear exactly what will be learned through future imaging of the other outer planets, but the pictures sure are pretty.
Already, the rate of the Great Red Spot's shrinking has been measured and a band of wave-like structures was observed. These waves had only been observed once before. Until now, it had been presumed a fluke, which is now clearly not the case.
Already, the rate of the Great Red Spot's shrinking has been measured and a band of wave-like structures was observed. These waves had only been observed once before. Until now, it had been presumed a fluke, which is now clearly not the case.
Enceladus (Saturn)
The Cassini spacecrafttook its deepest dive through Enceladus's plume. Early on in Cassini's tour around Saturn, images showing huge geysers spewing material out of Enceladus flung it to fame. Follow-up missions determined that there is a sub-surface ocean sourcing the plumes. It was also discovered that these geysers help to source the E-ring with material. Only a few images have been released so far of this latest deep dive. Because of the size of the full data and the bandwidth available, full sets of high resolution images won't be available until 2016. However, the detail of the surface in the pictures already released is pretty amazing. Each pixel represents 50 feet across, the size of a fairly modest home.
The principal purpose of this dive, however, is not close-up imaging of Enceladus' surface, though that is a nice benefit. Scientists are most interested in the chemical composition and make-up of the plume. They are also interested in the physical nature of the plume. Though it has been imaged, the depth, density and rate of material discharge is not well-known or understood. All of this information will paint a better picture of what mechanisms are actually producing the plumes and how long they have been going on. As usual when water is involved, the conclusions will also have strong implications regarding life on the moon.
Overlapping Stars (aka VFTS 352)
Two stars were found to be so close that they are actually sharing material. Collectively, the binary is known as VFTS 352. Binary star systems that share material are known as "contact binaries" or "overcontact binaries." VFTS 352 is by no means the first contact binary system discovered. However, it is the most massive, collectively about 57 times the mass of our sun. I'm not sure why theESOdidn't release an image used by the scientists; but this artist's rendition is kinda pretty.
VFTS 352 is also unusual in how close in size the two components of the binary are. As a result, material isn't being sucked from one to the other, as is most common. Instead, the two stars are actually sharing material in what might be thought of as a stable configuration. What is potentially unique about this system is that the stars may both go supernova. If that happens, a binary black hole may form, something that hasn't been accounted for by current models of stellar evolution. Personally, I'm a little skeptical that such a thing will occur; but, I'm far less qualified to speculate about such things than the experts at ESO.
VFTS 352 is also unusual in how close in size the two components of the binary are. As a result, material isn't being sucked from one to the other, as is most common. Instead, the two stars are actually sharing material in what might be thought of as a stable configuration. What is potentially unique about this system is that the stars may both go supernova. If that happens, a binary black hole may form, something that hasn't been accounted for by current models of stellar evolution. Personally, I'm a little skeptical that such a thing will occur; but, I'm far less qualified to speculate about such things than the experts at ESO.
Comets
Comets are mainly from the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. The material in these regions is considered primordial in the sense that they have changed very little since our sun began fusing. As such, they are a proxy for the conditions in the very early formation of our solar system. Discoveries related to comets, particularly their composition and chemistry, not only helps us determine which theories of solar system formation are more likely, but how quickly the complex reactions required for life might have formed. This month, two comets shed some light on these issues.
Drunk Comet (Lovejoy, of course)
Comet Lovejoy was found to have large amounts of alcohol in its tail. There are lots of forms of alcohol, but we are in fact talking about the kind that gets Samuel L Jackson drunk. Alcohol is a relatively complex molecule in the context of a pre-planetary solar system. If the extreme heating and cooling from the sun arising from comets' highly eccentric orbits brings about such complex chemistry, then life on Earth would not necessarily have had to start from complete scratch. The process that led to life on Earth could have been jump-started with complex chemicals brought by comets rather than having to synthesize everything from simple molecules like water, carbon monoxide and nitrogen.
Oxygen From Comet 67P (Churyumov-Gerasimenko)
The oxygen atom is very abundant in the Universe. However, molecular oxygen (O2) is quite rare in space because it is so reactive. O2can easily combine with hydrogen to make water, for example, and can even combine with free oxygen atoms to create ozone (O3). Nonetheless, the Rosetta spacecraftdetected O2in the tail of Comet 67P. Finding O2in a comet doesn't fit with our current models of solar system formation. The mechanisms required to trap O2within a comet are simply not there. Such a mechanism will now have to be added to account for theobservations made by Rosetta.
