NASA – Page 13 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

In the Zone: How Scientists Search for Habitable Planets

By Guest PostJuly 18, 2013Scienceatmosphere, exoplanets, goldilocks planets, habitable planets, habitable zone, kepler 69c, kepler mission, liquid water, lucianne walkowicz, NASA, penn state university, radiation, ravi kumar kopparapu, scientists, search, solar system, star, stephen kane, super earth, super venus planet, total energy output, venus like planet

There is only one planet we know of, so far, that is drenched with life. That planet is Earth, as you may have guessed, and it has all the right conditions for critters to thrive on its surface. Do other planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, also host life forms?

Astronomers still don’t know the answer, but they search for potentially habitable planets using a handful of criteria. Ideally, they want to find planets just like Earth, since we know without a doubt that life took root here. The hunt is on for planets about the size of Earth that orbit at just the right distance from their star – in a region termed the habitable zone. (more…)

Cloud modeling expands estimate of life-supporting planets

By Guest PostJuly 2, 2013Sciencebrazil, cloud cover, cloud modeling, dark side, dorian abbot, dwarf stars, earth like planets, earth size planet, global climate simulation, indonesia, james webb, jun yang, kepler mission, larger habitable zone, life supporting planets, milky way galaxy, NASA, nicolas cowan, northwestern university, one dimensional, space telescope, sub stellar region, thermostat, university of chicago

Larger habitable zone suggests 60 billion planets could sustain water, life

A new study that calculates the influence of cloud behavior on climate doubles the number of potentially habitable planets orbiting red dwarfs, the most common type of star in the universe. This finding means that in the Milky Way galaxy alone, 60 billion planets may be orbiting red dwarf stars in the habitable zone.

Researchers at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University based their study, which appears in Astrophysical Journal Letters, on rigorous computer simulations of cloud behavior on alien planets. This cloud behavior dramatically expanded the estimated habitable zone of red dwarfs, which are much smaller and fainter than stars like the sun. (more…)

NASA’s Voyager 1 Explores Final Frontier of Our ‘Solar Bubble’

By Guest PostJune 29, 2013Sciencecharged particles, cosmic ray, depletion region, ed stone, energetic particle data, final frontier, heliosphere, interstellar arrival, interstellar space, johns hopkins university, jupiter, leonard burlaga, magnetic field, magnetosphere, Milky Way, NASA, solar bubble, solar originating particles, stamatios krimigis, twin spacecraft, voyager 1, voyager project scientist

PASADENA, Calif. — Data from Voyager 1, now more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun, suggest the spacecraft is closer to becoming the first human-made object to reach interstellar space.

Research using Voyager 1 data and published in the journal Science today provides new detail on the last region the spacecraft will cross before it leaves the heliosphere, or the bubble around our sun, and enters interstellar space. Three papers describe how Voyager 1’s entry into a region called the magnetic highway resulted in simultaneous observations of the highest rate so far of charged particles from outside heliosphere and the disappearance of charged particles from inside the heliosphere. (more…)

All for One: What Makes an Individual

By Guest PostJune 27, 2013Scienceall for one, arizona, bacterial colony, chromosomes in cells, david shahnooshi, deborah shelton, environmental stress, erik hanschen, evolutionary process, genes in chromosomes, genomes, germ cells, hierarchy of life, individual, individual organism, Japan, Johannesburg, michods lab, molecular biology, morphology, multicellular colonies, NASA, patrick ferris, pierre durand, primate colony, rega like genes, richard michod, rick michod, somatic cell functions, somatic cells, South Africa, south america, university of arizona, university of the witwatersrand, volvocine algae, zachariah grochau wright

Life as we know it has certain properties that are consistent regardless whether you’re looking at a bacterial colony in a petri dish or a primate colony in South America. Rick Michod, UA professor and department head of ecology and evolutionary biology, has received $1.3 million from NASA to investigate what properties of biology define an individual organism.

Many things in life are not fair. But some things are at least consistent.

For example, all life as we know it has certain universal properties, which presumably define how life would be organized anywhere it evolved in the universe, said Richard Michod, professor and head of the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona. (more…)

Star with flare

By Guest PostJune 18, 2013Scienceamerican astronomical society, astronomer, behavior of sun, data, earth, habitable planets, john gizis, jupiter, kepler telescope, l dwarf, light years, magnetic fields, NASA, nasa grant, search for, star with flare, university of delaware

NASA telescope provides insights into unusual dwarf star

Astronomer John Gizis of the University of Delaware, working with data obtained by NASA’s Kepler telescope, is studying a highly unusual dwarf star and its powerful flares that may hold clues to the likelihood of life on other planets as well as to the behavior of our sun.

Gizis, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, discovered the star two years ago using a ground-based telescope and now has conducted additional research using Kepler observations over the past two years. (more…)

Unraveling the Napo’s mystery

By Guest PostJune 18, 2013Environmentamazon basin, amazon river, aquatic mammals, ecohydrology, ecological sustainability, economic, ecotourism, ecuador, environmental treasures, floodplain, jorge celi, michigan state university, mysterious, mystique, napo floodplains, napo mystery, napo river, NASA, national geographic society, oil reserves, peru, pink freshwater dolphins, river, small scale agriculture, south american country, united states, world wildlife fund

In the United States, rivers and their floodplains are well-documented and monitored. Ecuador’s largest river, however, remains largely mysterious.

Research led by Michigan State University is helping the South American country unravel the Napo River’s mystique to better balance its economic and environmental treasures. (more…)

Black Hole Naps amidst Stellar Chaos

By Guest PostJune 17, 2013Scienceann hornschemeier, black hole, bret lehmer, california institute, chandra xray observatory, daniel stern, Kenya, light years away, lou kaluzienski, malindi, NASA, ngc 253, nustar, nustar observations, pasadena, sculptor galaxy, source, star formation activity, starburst galaxy, stellar chaos, Technology, uc berkeley, ultraluminous xray, ulx

Nearly a decade ago, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory caught signs of what appeared to be a black hole snacking on gas at the middle of the nearby Sculptor galaxy. Now, NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), which sees higher-energy X-ray light, has taken a peek and found the black hole asleep.

“Our results imply that the black hole went dormant in the past 10 years,” said Bret Lehmer of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “Periodic observations with both Chandra and NuSTAR should tell us unambiguously if the black hole wakes up again. If this happens in the next few years, we hope to be watching.” Lehmer is lead author of a new study detailing the findings in the Astrophysical Journal. (more…)

Warm Ocean Causing Most Antarctic Ice Shelf Mass Loss

By Guest PostJune 15, 2013Environmentantarctic coastal waters, antarctic coastline, antarctic ice sheet, antarctic ice shelf, basal melt, bedrock, columbia university, east antarctica, eric rignot, filchner, glacier system, glaciers, global model, icebergs, mass loss, NASA, ocean circulation, operation icebridge, pole, rate, ronne, ross, stan jacobs, warm ocean, warming climate

PASADENA, Calif. — Ocean waters melting the undersides of Antarctic ice shelves are responsible for most of the continent’s ice shelf mass loss, a new study by NASA and university researchers has found.

Scientists have studied the rates of basal melt, or the melting of the ice shelves from underneath, of individual ice shelves, the floating extensions of glaciers that empty into the sea. But this is the first comprehensive survey of all Antarctic ice shelves. The study found basal melt accounted for 55 percent of all Antarctic ice shelf mass loss from 2003 to 2008, an amount much higher than previously thought. (more…)

Tag Archives: NASA