The interesting story of Mars

I found a nice narrated documentary clip about Mars that is quite interesting: it tries to prove that Mars was much like our Earth in the past, until a major catastrophe, at least.

Speculative Future History

You guys should read some things on this site. Don’t believe from the start everything that’s written there, remember: it’s only speculative. But the informations about the far future of our universe have a scientific meaning, so they are interesting.

Exoplanet that could harbour life

I get very excited when I discover news about new fantastic solar systems.  I bet the astronomers too, and I really regret that I don’t have enough time to read about these things(I know “I don’t have time” is the perfect excuse, but I’m being honest: there’s not enough time to study everything around you!”).

The solar system I”m talking here is located at about 20 light years away from Earth in the constellation Libra. The star is a red dwarf, and its name is “Gliese 581″ (this works if you try to find it in Celestia, but in Stelarium it will appear as “HIP 74995″). This star has almost a third of the mass of the sun, and astronomers have found at least 6 planets orbiting it.

One of these planets is believed to be orbiting in the so-called “Goldilocks zone“(an area not too far but not too near the star, an area that is hospitable for planets that can harbour life).

The planet is named Gliese 581g(exoplanets usually don’t have names, just the star’s name and a small letter meaning the position in the respective solar system). Besides being located in the Goldilocks zone, the planet characteristics also favors the existence of liquid water and thus, life.

There is one negative aspect though. Astronomers say the planet is tidally locked, meaning that one side of the planet is always facing the star. But there’s hope in the area between the bright and the dark side. That would be the actual habitable area.

Even though a lot of astronomers seem so optimistic(and I believe most of them are skeptical actually, but they do this to show-off…), given the atmospheric conditions on that planet I find it hard to believe there are actually any living organisms at all. It’s a complex subject to discuss, but imagine how thing work here on Earth. Everything is connected. Imagine, for example, the circulation of water in the atmosphere. How would that be on that planet? I think a part of it would be immediately evaporated on the sunny side, and lots of would be made ice on the dark side, leaving the “hospitable zone” without water in no-time.

Of course, this is just the beginning, and already having a planet in the Goldilocks zone discovered, I remain optimistic for the future of exploration. I bet thousands of planets wait for us to discover them!

Solar System discovered 127 light-years away

Well, I suppose it wasn’t suddenly discovered. There was some work for about 6 years studying the star HD10180 using a planet-finding instrument called “the HARPS spectrograph”, attached to ESO’s 3.6 metre (11.8ft) telescope at La Silla, Chile.

Scientists say it has about 7 planets, which makes this solar system hold the record on the number of planets so far.

Astronomers spotted the planets using spectroscopic analysis and the “wobble method,” where they look at slight wobbles in a star. These wobbles are caused by the gravitational forces from planets rotating the star, and researchers can extrapolate probable size and mass of the planets

Sadly, from what scientists have calculated, there are no planets that could sustain life or be hospitable enough for colonization, which makes this solar system improbable to colonize.

For further informations, watch this video :

Exoplanet Atmosphere Roils with Superspeed Winds

I found an interesting article today on www.scientificamerican.com. It is about an exoplanet located somewhere about 150 light-years away from us. That’s a lot, let me tell you: 1 light years is the distance traveled by light in that amount of time, and given the fact that light travels at almost 300.000 km/s, that means 9,460,730,472,580.8 km. Now you do the math for 150 light years .

Scientists say(based on astronomical observations) that on this planets winds are pretty extreme: they reach 7000 km/h !

Imagine what destructive force has a wind of, let’s say, 200 km/h, here on Earth! It’d be impossible to live in such conditions.

If you want to read more, here’s the link to the article:

Extra-Stormy Weather: Exoplanet Atmosphere Roils with Superspeed Winds