The thread for space cadets!

[peter grimes]

A common phenomenon, only shows in one of the binocular navigation cameras. On mobile, so can't link. Nothing to see here, move along..

 

[Winner]

If the ESA cut off the Russians it would virtually kill their space industry (without massive Russian government intervention). Launch services make up ~3% of the total space service industry and of that ~3%, Russia controls about a third. They have basically no other role in the space service industry (hell, they have to buy weather sat data from 3rd parties because their own attempts have failed) AFAIK and a big chunk of their launch customers are European. Cut that off and Russia's space industry would collapse even more than it already is, but I wouldn't expect major shifts for Europe as there satellite producers will shift over to Ariane/Space X and other alternatives for launch services. *the usual caveats about Space X's long-term viability applying

Well, after investing so much into the Russian programme, I doubt many in ESA will want to just walk out. They may be more careful about technology transfers and future programmes, due to the uncertainty caused by the unpredictability of Russian government.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah, that's a great point. But then again shouldn't they feel a bit betrayed right now?

 

[Pegasus_77]

Seems so cool

 

[Winner]

Yeah, that's a great point. But then again shouldn't they feel a bit betrayed right now?

I'd guess that there will be considerably lesser support for any future long-term projects involving Russia. Nobody wants to lose hundreds of millions of €uros if Putin goes crazy and invades some country, precipitating another major crisis.

Which can be good, since ESA will not be able to wriggle its way out of developing capabilities by saying that "Russia can provide them cheaper".

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Is that what the ESA has been saying about lowering costs? Why then do they appear so worried about SpaceX?

 

[bugwar]

From the article:

Right now, 500 light years away from Earth, there's a planet that looks a lot like our own.
It is bathed in dim orangeish light, which at high noon is only as bright as the golden hour before sunset back home.
NASA scientists are calling the planet Kepler-186f, and it's unlike anything they've found.

The big news: Kepler-186f is the closest relative to the Earth that researchers have discovered.
It's the first Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of another star—the sweet spot between too-hot Mercury-like planets and
too-cold Neptunes— and it is likely to give scientists their first real opportunity to seek life elsewhere in the universe.
"It's no longer in the realm of science fiction," said Elisa Quintana, a researcher at the SETI Institute.

But if there is indeed life on Kepler-186f, it may not look like what we have here.
Given the redder wavelengths of light on the planet, vegetation there would sprout in hues of yellow and orange instead of green.

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...ists-just-found-earths-closest-cousin/360843/

 

[El_Machinae]

And there's only(?) about 1 million stars within 500 light years.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

What makes them think that vegetation would sprout in yellow and orange instead of green?

The energy that Earth gets from our sun is actually more concentrated in the green part of the spectrum, which means that our plants tend to reflect what they could get the most energy by absorbing. Green plants actually do not make much sense on this planet, and would seem to make far more sense on a planet where the closest star's energy comes larger through redder wavelengths.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

They dont make much sense to us now but I suspect there is a darn good reason why plants are green that we just dont currently understand. Evolution wouldnt pass up something like that for billions of years without a reason.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

From what I just looked up, it appears that our sun's light is more green in outer space but that most of the green light gets absorbed by Earth's Atmosphere. Green chlorophyll may be the most efficient photosynthetic pigment here because of this atmospheric filtering. Red light penetrates the atmosphere more easily and so is the most abundant at the altitudes where plants actually grow.

I still don't get why they assume plants would be yellow and orange instead of green on that planet though. We don't know anything about its atmosphere yet, but if we assume that it is like ours (a huge assumption) then the local plants would have even more abundant red light and green chlorophyll would be even more efficient there than here.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah, it's pretty useless to try and predict plant colors at this point.

Anyone else think we will find life on a planet in another solar system before we find it elsewhere in this solar system or settle the case as to whether or not it is on Mars?

 

[Winner]

I love how they slap generic-texture artistic-impression images to these news releases

Reality: we don't even know whether this is indeed a rocky planet and/or whether it has an atmosphere.

Conclusion: Build telescopes capable of direct imaging of exoplanets. Or at least analysing their atmospheres.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Clorophyll works best with blue light which penetrates easily in sea water. So it makes a lot of sense if vegetal life started in the sea as phytoplankton.

 

[peter grimes]

Build telescopes capable of direct imaging of exoplanets. Or at least analysing their atmospheres.

USA#!'s got you covered

James Webb Space Telescope!

studying the debris disks around stars, direct imaging of planets, and spectroscopic examination of planetary transits.

Link to video.

 

[Winner]

USA#!'s got you covered

James Webb Space Telescope!

I am under the impression that it's nowhere near powerful enough nor dedicated to exoplanet research.

As for USA#1, it's going to be lifted to space by a European rocket

 

[peter grimes]

Oh I know it's a collaboration - everything has to be these days, and that's good.

It's a multi-mission platform. True, it won't have the time or equipment a dedicated mission at the same budget price point would, but it's certainly better than anything else we have now.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't think Hubble had a super-specific purpose either but look at all the scientific discoveries that has come from it. You cannot predict that ahead of time.

 

[Winner]

Sure. What I meant originally was that money should be allocated into a dedicated monster telescope for direct imaging of exoplanets. We could start with something less ambitious, like TPF/Darwin (both cancelled, or in deep freeze), but the end goal should be to construct an array big enough to really give us pictures of what these worlds look like.

Once people have wallpapers on their desktops with real images of real terrestrial planets, I imagine it won't hurt our cause

---

Concerning Kepler 186f, I've just read a summary on a Czech website dealing with exoplanet news (link is here, don't bother unless you can use google translate). Seems like it's not so "hot" as media make it look like.

a) it orbits a red dwarf star;
b) it receives only about 30% of the energy Earth does from its central star. If I remember correctly, Mars gets 45%.
c) unless it has a dense atmosphere with much more CO2, it's likely to be frozen.

Also, what's the likelihood of it being tidally locked?

 

[peter grimes]

How can a frozen planet be considered to orbit within the habitable zone? Maybe I don't really know what that term specifically refers to.