Is There Life on Exoplanets?

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description: 

Most of the planetary scientists believe that there can be at least one exoplanet in our Milky Way galaxy, which has life. They have also figured out that 20% of the sun-like stars that exist on the Milky Way are circled by planets, which has the same dimensions as Earth. These planets are located in habitable zones around the stars as well. Therefore, life on exoplanets has become a popular topic among planetary scientists in the modern world. 

The habitable zone of a planet can simply be defined as the area where the temperature is not too cold or too hot. These conditions help water to exist in those planets in the form of liquid. It is vastly known that life cannot survive without water in its liquid form. Therefore, while it has been figured out that there are about 2,000 exoplanets circling beyond our own sun, the possibility to have some sort of life in these planets depends on a variety of factors. The obliquity of the planet holds a prominent place among them. Obliquity can simply be defined as the angle of axis of a planet relative to its orbital axis around the parent starts.

The planet Earth has a low obliquity when compared to other planets. It rotates around an almost perpendicular axis of its own while rotating around the sun. Planetary scientists have figured out that the obliquity can vary from one planet to another. They believe that the planets with an extreme tilt have a very low chance of having life in it. 

Recently some research scientists as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology figured out that water exists on planets that have a very high obliquity as well. Therefore, we can keep some hope that life can exist in the planets with a high obliquity. They also figured out a shallow ocean with a depth of about 50m in a specific planet, which has a comfortable temperature. According to their calculations, the average temperature of that planet was about 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit per year. 

However, a planet with a high obliquity usually has an extreme and inhospitable climate. The North Pole would receive sunlight for a period of 6 months continuously and it would have to go through an unending night for the other six months. As a result, they believed that such a planet has a very little chance of having life. That’s mainly because the planet would freeze and boil throughout the year, which is really tough for life to exist. Nevertheless, this can differ under some conditions. For example, the oceans can store heat during the summer period and give it out during winter. This can create a somewhat mild climate in the planet. Therefore, we cannot neglect with extremely oblique planets by saying that they are not in a position to inhibit life. 

It has been assumed that the Milky Way has about 200 billion stars. In addition, it has been calculated that there are about 11 billion planets with “habitable” living conditions. All these consist of hydrogen gas and they are seething hot. The planetary systems have been established circling such stars. In fact, sticky and fine dust particles melt together to create rocky cores, which eventually turns into major planets. 

The very first exoplanet was discovered by research scientists 20 years ago. It was circling a sun like star and was named as 51 Pegasi b. Since then, they have discovered a large number of exoplanets, where most of them were smaller than their very first discovery. They even discovered an exoplanet, which is 150 smaller than 51 Pegasi b. 

Many different methods are being used by research scientists in order to discover new exoplanets in the Milky Way. The Doppler Shift method can be considered as the most popular one. This is an effective method, which can be used to discover giant planets that exist closer to fiery stellar planets. This is a sensitive method and is associated with a higher chance of discovering earth-like planets. 

Throughout the past two decades, scientists have figured out many other methods to discover exoplanets apart from the Doppler Shift method. The major drawback with the Doppler Shift method is that it cannot be used to discover smaller planets that have a wider orbit around the stars. However, the recently discovered methods are in a position to help the scientists with discovering such planets. At the end of 2015, they have been able to discover more than 1,900 exoplanets that belong to over 1,200 planetary systems. 

The Kepler Space Telescope of NASA helps a lot for the scientists to discover new exoplanets. It was launched back in 2009 and has discovered few thousand candidate planets up to now. Most of these candidate planets were confirmed as exoplanets by scientists. Several statistical methods such as the verification by multiplicity were used by the scientists to figure out whether they are in a position to inhibit life or not. The Kepler Space Telescope follows a unique methodology when discovering exoplanets. It differs a lot from the Doppler Shift method. This method searches for extremely small dips in stellar brightness when a specific orbiting planet passes ahead of the glaring face of parent star. 

In the meantime, the scientists at MIT spent their efforts in order to create a model of a highly oblique aqua-planet. This planet had the same dimensions of earth and it was positioned at a distance similar to the earth’s separation from sun. This 3D model simulated circulations among sea ice, atmosphere and ocean. The effects of winds and heat were also taken into consideration. They also created a motionless planet for comparison and discovered the possibility of having life in such a planet. They had the ability to control the obliquity of this planet and they discovered that the ocean absorbs heat during the summer period. 

Given the scientific evidence and ongoing research therefore it appears that it is not science fiction to believe in life in other planets. While there is still a long way to go before we start packing, we can keep our fingers crossed for the prospect of habituating an exoplanet in the near future.

KEEP READING: Dreaming About the Future of Space Tourism

We have more goodies to read and watch. What are you waiting for, scroll on! Subscribe to our Newsletter for full access on our exclusive content.

*by andreascy*

Einstein’s Gravitational Waves Detected: A Breakthrough Discovery

Posted by Dr Stephania Savva

Description :

The discovery of Einstein’s gravitational waves reported during a blockbuster announcement in a news conference on February 11, 2016 at Washington DC, is making waves all over the world. What’s the big fuzz about it though and why should we care? This article explores the question by taking a more in-depth look into the phenomenon.

The scientific community are still overwhelmed by the news of the breakthrough discovery of gravitational waves in the form of faint ripples of gravity, reverberating invisibly through the fabric of space-time from the collision of two black holes. 

Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), designed to open the field of gravitational-wave astrophysics supported by Caltech and MIT, captured this groundbreaking moment in history reportedly on September 14, 2015. Nevertheless, what does the phenomenon entail in reality and why is it so important to us? We will try to demystify the latter in the next few paragraphs. 

What Are Gravitational Waves? 

The term gravitational waves was originally introduced by Einstein back in 1915 in establishing his theory of general relativity. The latter concept suggests that mass distorts both space and time similar to how a heavy bowling ball distorts a trampoline. 

When an object accelerates, it creates ripples in space-time, in the same way a boat causes ripples in a pond. These ripples that allude space-time are called gravitational waves. Due to the fact that they are extremely weak signals, it is difficult to detect them. Therefore, although there's convincing indirect evidence that gravitational waves exist, a direct detection had proven elusive, until now. 

Missions like LIGO and LISA are dedicated to detect these waves by observing small changes in the distances between objects at set distances. The most optimum opportunity to detect gravitational waves comes from detecting the collision of two black holes or pulsars into each other.

The Discovery

“We have detected gravitational waves. We did it,” Prof David Reitze, executive director of LIGO, told journalists. LIGO, uses the world’s most sophisticated detector, utilizing laser interferometry, which in simple terms means firing lasers into long, L-shaped tunnels; the waves disturb the light to detect the collision of black holes when they merged. A merger occurs when two black holes start to spiral towards each other and radiate energy as gravitational waves. 

Scientists listened the characteristic sound of these waves, namely a chirp, for 20 thousandths of a second as the two giant black holes, one about 36 times the mass of the Sun, the other slightly smaller at 29 solar masses, circled around each other.

The signal detected, allowed them to calculate how stars perish: the two holes had begun by circling each other 30 times a second. Before the final collision and a dark violent merger had occurred at the end of the 20 millisecond snatch of data captured, the two had accelerated to 250 times a second!

The research findings from this study, undertaken by the LIGO Collaboration, have been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Signals of Gravitational Waves, As Einstein Predicted detected by the twin LIGO observatories at Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington. Image Credit: Caltech/MIT/LIGO Lab

Why It Matters

The significance of detection of gravitational waves is attributed in the following key issues:

1. The discovery of gravitational waves opens a new window to research of the universe since it provides with insights on its existence and a potential paradigm shift on how we detect and study cosmic phenomena, in particular those that do not radiate in the electromagnetic spectrum.

2. The findings of this research confirm Einstein’s prediction of gravitational waves as part of his Theory of General Relativity and regenerate the interest in exploring the theory in depth. 

3. Re-enforces the study on the use of gravitational telescopes which allows to hear phenomena at the same time as light-based telescopes see them.

4. Since gravitational waves were detected from the energy emitted from the collision of two black holes, it is now confirmed that black holes really do exist and that mergers between two black holes proceed as predicted.

Image by THE OFFICIAL ANDREASCY: Fast Facts about Gravitational Waves

In sum, the detection of gravitational waves opens the field to completely new investigation suggesting that some exciting days lay ahead for scientists. Stephen Hawking suggests that "gravitational waves could revolutionize astronomy".

Conclusion

Through this discovery we are one step closer to solving more of the mysteries of the universe following 380,000 years after it is thought to have been generated. And possibly the biggest mystery of it all: the 'Big Bang' singularity.

SOMETHING RELEVANT: Dreaming About the Future of Space Tourism

Have something to share about this story? Kindly let us know on Twitter (use #officialandreascy in tweet).

CERN: Scientists Believe "God Particle" Has Been Found. What This means?

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description : 

The ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN Research Center near Geneva, Switzerland, today presented their latest results in the search for the long-sought Higgs boson. Both experiments see strong indications for the presence of a new particle, which could be the Higgs boson, in the mass region around 126 gigaelectronvolts (GeV).

The experiments found hints of the new particle by analysing trillions of proton-proton collisions from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2011 and 2012. The Standard Model of particle physics predicts that a Higgs boson would decay into different particles - which the LHC experiments then detect.

Both ATLAS and CMS gave the level of significance of the result as 5 sigma on the scale that particle physicists use to describe the certainty of a discovery. One sigma means the results could be random fluctuations in the data, 3 sigma counts as an observation and a 5-sigma result is a discovery. The results presented today are preliminary, as the data from 2012 is still under analysis. The complete analysis is expected to be published around the end of July.

Our Understanding of The Universe is About to Change…

Scientists say their findings are consistent with the theory that attempts to explain how the universe is held together (How Higgs boson lends mass to matter and holds the universe together).

The Higgs boson theory - proposed by British physicist Peter Higgs in the 1960s - suggests the existence of an invisible force field and associated sub-atomic particle that permeates all things, working like glue to give form to stars, planets and even humans.

Without the Higgs particle, the universe would have remained like a soup, the theory says.

In December last year, Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the "Big Bang" particle accelerator which recreates conditions a billionth of a second after the birth of the universe - revealed they had caught a first tantalising glimpse of the Higgs boson.

Since then they have sifted through vast quantities of data from innumerable high energy collisions in an effort to reduce the odds of being wrong.

Joe Incandela, spokesman for one of the two teams hunting for the Higgs particle told an audience at Cern : "This is a preliminary result, but we think it's very strong and very solid."

Professor Higgs, currently at the University of Edinburgh, welcomed the Cern results, adding: "I never expected this to happen in my lifetime and shall be asking my family to put some champagne in the fridge."

At the LHC, scientists shoot two beams of protons - the "hearts" of atoms - at each other round 27km of circular tunnels at almost the speed of light.

When the protons smash together the enormous energies involved cause them to decay into an array of more fundamental particles. These may then decay further into yet more particles.

By following the decay patterns, scientists hope to see the "fingerprint" of the Higgs boson.

Physicists need the Higgs to plug a gaping hole in the "Standard Model", the theory that explains all the particles, forces and interactions making up the universe.

What is the Higgs boson?

John Ellis a British theoretical physicist answer the question What is the Higgs boson? in preparation for the press conference following the seminar on LHC 2012 results on the Higgs boson searches, due on July 4 2012 at CERN.

How do Physicists look for it?

What comes next?

Both the ATLAS and CMS experiments have observed a new fundamental particle consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson. Now the exciting work of understanding its significance begins.

The results presented by ATLAS and CMS are labelled "very preliminary", having been prepared for presentation at the major particle physics conference of the year, ICHEP2012, which began in Melbourne on 4 July. The analyses are still being consolidated, and are expected to reach maturity by the end of the month. 

Once that has been achieved, work on determining the precise nature of the particle and its significance for our understanding of the universe can begin in earnest. In particle physics parlance, strong evidence means that the probability of an observation being attributable to a statistical fluctuation is less than one per cent. Today, both the ATLAS and CMS experiments are beyond the level of around one per million that's required to claim a discovery, and the experiments should confirm that level of confidence once these analyses are complete.

The hunt for the Higgs particle has long been one of the top priorities for particle physics. The Higgs is associated with a mechanism proposed in the mid-1960s to explain why one of nature's fundamental forces has a very short range while a similar force has infinite range. The forces in question are the electromagnetic force, which brings light to us from the stars, carries electricity around our homes, and gives structure to the atoms and molecules from which we are all made, and the weak force, which drives the energy generating processes of the stars. 

The electromagnetic force is carried by particles called photons, which have no mass, whereas the weak force is carried by particles called W and Z that do have mass. Rather like people passing a ball, interacting particles exchange these force carriers. The heavier the ball, the shorter the distance it can be thrown; the heavier the force carrier, the shorter its range. W and Z particles were discovered at CERN in the 1980s, but the mechanism that gives rise to their mass remains to be unlocked, and the Higgs boson is the key.

A simple observation is not enough, however, because the Higgs boson can take many forms. In its basic incarnation, the mechanism is the simplest theoretical model that accounts for the mass difference between photons and W and Z particles, and for the masses of other fundamental particles. But there are other formulations of the mechanism linked to theories such as supersymmetry, which could account for the universe's mysterious dark matter, or to theories predicting extra dimensions of space, which, if verified, would truly revolutionise our understanding of the universe we live in.

So once the discovery is confirmed, the next question is: "What kind of Higgs boson do we have"? Positive identification of the new particle's characteristics will take considerable time and data. It's rather like spotting a familiar face from afar; closer observation might be needed to tell whether it's an old friend who loves coffee, or her identical twin sister who favours tea. But whatever form the Higgs particle takes, our understanding of the universe is about to change.

Check the recording of the Press Conference online.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: 30 Stunning Photos of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

Thanks for reading!

*by andreascy*

NASA ScienceCasts : Hidden Magnetic Portals Around Earth

Posted by Andreas Christodoulou

Description :

Hello lovelies! 

If you're Tech addicts like us, then you'll enjoy our tweets and website updates! Follow us today and receive our news first! And don't forget to Smash that Like Button! ;) 

I simply love it when Science Fiction becomes reality! Universe is perfect, we just have to discover it. And today we have some interesting news for you out there. 

A NASA-sponsored researcher at the University of Iowa has developed a way for spacecraft to hunt down hidden magnetic portals in the vicinity of Earth. These portals link the magnetic field of our planet to that of the sun. Nice right? Check out the video below for more:

Have something to add to this story? What do you think about these mysterious portals that connect earth to the sun? Share it in the comments. 

*by andreascy*