Meet Our 7 Newest Planetary Neighbors

United Arab Emirates’ Plan for a Mars City

It seems that everyone is really starting to get into the race to Mars! The project, dubbed “Mars 2117”, envisions a completely functioning human community on the surface of the red plane by year 2117.

According to the Emirates Mars Mission main website, Mars 2117 is a specific goal that the UAE hopes will encourage international cooperation in space exploration and scientific discovery. This ambitious project also falls under a larger umbrella of aerospace goals that the UAE has set out since 2014 when they first showed interest in entering the space industry. Some of these goals include sending an unmanned probe to Mars by 2021, studying Earth’s atmosphere using advanced technology, and collaborating with scientists worldwide.

The Mars 2117 project is an incredible vision, one that I am excited to see grow and gain more attention in the years to come. While there are many initiatives around the world that aim at reaching the famous red planet, this is the first time that an entire nation has so publicly announced support and planning for such an enormous long-term project, and looks to be moving with forward momentum.

I can only wonder what other nations and organizations are thinking about this concept, as well as marvel at how much attention the space industry has garnered recently. It seems as if there are new technical discoveries and achievements being made everyday, and it doesn’t look like the space race is stopping. With SpaceX and NASA already testing advanced aero-spacecraft for future launches, and the Dutch Mars One Mission currently under progress, Mars 2117 certainly adds more fuel to the fire.

A century is certainly a long time and anything can happen between 2017 and 2117, but I can’t wait to see what happens until then.

First Discovery of Atmosphere on Known Exoplanet

While news of Trappist-1′s potentially inhospitable environment made its way through the news feeds, a new discovery emerged to make up for it: an existing atmosphere on exoplanet GJ1132b.

Located 39 light years away (just around the corner in galactic terms), the exoplanet is similar to Earth in size and mass, and is in close-orbit to its star: a dim red dwarf just slightly cooler and smaller than our own Sun. It was discovered in 2015, but it’s only now that scientists have been able to take a closer look at its composition.

While the distance between GJ and its host star is more similar to the one between Venus and our Sun, therefore most likely rendering the exoplanet incapable of hosting life due to extreme surface temperatures of up to 370 degrees Celsius/700 degrees Fahrenheit, the most important aspect to focus on is the discovery is the atmosphere that exists on GJ.

Using advanced technology that picks out biochemical signatures such as those of oxygen, methane, and hydrogen, scientists have identified a thick atmosphere of either steam or methane surrounding GJ. While this is not a certain indicator of life, it is an crucial step in increasing our knowledge of potentially habitable alien planets out there. 

It is definitely interesting to see that scientists have found the first alien atmosphere that isn’t Earth’s. It seems that many of the Earth-like planets scientists have discovered are inclined to orbit red dwarf stars like Earth and that of GJ1132b. I wonder if we specifically target finding red dwarves, will wel increase our chances of finding more and more Earth-like exoplanets that could be capable of having life? It’s something to think about as we continue moving into the future.

Historic Milestone in Space Flight Technology

Today, March 30, 2017, marks a significant and critical step in making affordable space travel more possible than ever.

Last April, the whole scientific community worldwide was watching as Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully launched and landed the Falcon 9 rocket booster, proving for the first time in space flight history that it was possible to save and collect rockets after being launched into space. This March, SpaceX aims to up its standards by relaunching and re-landing the same rocket booster, which will deliver a communications satellite into orbit for a Luxembourg-based telecommunications company. 

Why is this important? Simply put, rocket boosters are the most expensive part to build for any type of rocket. While SpaceX claims to have the most affordable rocket launches in the world, solidifying the concept of 100% reusable rocket boosters can save space programs $18 million per launch and open more doors for cost-effective commercial space travel.

If 100% reusable rocket boosters become a reality, the cost of launching rockets, experiments, and people into space can be significantly lowered to the point where non-scientific commercial space travel can be a common occurrence.

I can only wonder, then, how much and how far this development will impact not only the space industry, but the whole world itself. If this pushes through,  there can be few excuses, then, for not recognizing the potential in looking beyond our own orbit and planet. With incredible scientific progress and discoveries happening almost every day, I think it’s only a matter of time before everyone sets their sights on the stars and starts pushing for interstellar travel.

We are no longer limited to our own solar system, and the possibilities that come with recognizing and answering to that are as unfathomable as space itself.

Exploration is wired into our brains. If we can see the horizon, we want to know what’s beyond.

Buzz Aldrin

My Constellation

I was born with stars in my eyes.

I mean this in a very literal sense! I was born in an island village that didn’t have any electricity, on a clear moonless night when millions of bright stars unfurled across the dark sky. And (according to my baby pictures) my hospital cradle was right next to the window which afforded a wide view of the ocean waves and – yep, that’s right – the stars. One of my earliest memories is that of the stars, though I’m not sure if that is from when I was a baby, or when I was slightly older.

Nevertheless, the night sky and its bright inhabitants have been constants in my life for as long as I can remember. From as early as my toddling years, I would always make it a point to my parents to let me stay outside long enough to stargaze. I didn’t know why I was so fascinated with the night sky – it was just instinctive to look up and be in wonder. My love for the stars became so apparent that my grandparents, aunts, and uncles decided to save enough money to buy me a secondhand telescope, a gift that I cherished until I had to move to the United States and leave it behind to my younger relatives.

That telescope opened up a new world for me, one where I only had to look through a pair of simple lens to excitedly meet my nighttime friends face-to-face. While the telescope wasn’t very advanced, it was strong enough to show me the faint outlines of neighboring planets, the tail-ends of occasional comets, and the blurry but beautiful glows of twinkling stars. “There’s stuff out there! STUFF!” I remember saying to my family after my first time looking through the telescope, “there’s a bunch of stuff! So much stuff!”

From there, it was inevitably easy to fall in love with outer space and all of its complications and mysteries. My curiosity and questions about the “stuff” I saw grew in leaps and bounds, propelling me to – in essence – attack our local library to get my hands on anything related to space. I was overjoyed to see an entire shelf dedicated to space science and astronomy. But when I finished devouring the texts there a few weeks later, I was devastated. Surely there was more to read, more to learn more out there?

Can you imagine, then, how I reacted when I was told that my parents and I were moving to America? The America that had sent people to the moon, built incredible spacecrafts and satellites that were currently circling the globe in low orbit, and helped found the International Space Station? I was ecstatic, and my hopes for the future far outweighed my reservations about leaving the only home I had ever known.

If there were any reservations, though, they disappeared the moment I woke up at some point during the 22-hour flight, looked out my tiny plane window, and saw with wide eyes…

… the stars – right there – right in front of me – right within my reach. At eight years old, I genuinely thought the plane was flying in a sea of stars, and kept my face mushed against the glass until a plane attendant asked me to close the window (I did close the window, but I opened it again after she left.)

It’s funny, looking back at that starry-eyed eight-year-old. I want to tell her that there’s only so much more to look forward to. I want to tell her that when she’s ten, she’s going to visit a place called Kennedy Space Center and firmly declare to everyone in the tour group that she will become an astronaut one day. I want to tell her that when she’s thirteen, she’ll visit another place called the Orlando Science Center and peek through an enormous telescope that will show her the distant planet of Saturn in color, and she’ll be so shocked that she’ll ask if the picture was a sticker on the lens. I want to tell her that when she’s eighteen, she’ll gain two mentors who will encourage her to pursue her love for the stars, and help her get started on the path to getting there… I want to tell her that the next eleven years won’t be easy, and there will be times when she’ll feel as if the stars could never be more far away or unreachable.

But I think she’ll end up just fine. She was born with stars in her eyes, after all.

ALMA and the center of the Milky Way

via reddit

Let me start off by saying that I think Crash Course is a great resource for people who want to get the basic details of any subject the creators offer. CC’s series for astronomy is particularly wonderful. The science behind astronomy and space can be mind-boggling due to the complexities of physics, mathematics, photonics, and other relevant subjects; CC makes it easy and fun to learn about astronomy without being too technical or in-depth. Great series of videos if you have time to check them out!

Beautiful! Would like to visit all of these places someday <3

World’s largest salt flat: Salar de Uyini, Bolivia

Origins is one of my favorite documentaries of all time. Neil deGrasse Tyson does a marvelous job of narrating a story interwoven with strong scientific evidence, great artistic visuals, and immersive story-telling. While Origins is an old documentary (first shown in 2004), many of its content is still applicable today.

One of my favorite aspects of Origins is its ability to explain to the viewer why understanding the start of our universe is important. Often times, the answer to “How did life start?” is filled with complex scientific concepts and theories. Origins breaks down these complicated explanations into points that anyone can digest. I highly recommend it to any space enthusiast out there.