thescienceofreality:

“New telescopes will be able to see whether the atmospheres of other, extremely distant planets contain oxygen. According to New Scientist magazine, the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), slated for completion on Cerro Armazones, a Chilean mountaintop within the next decade, will be able to divine whether the gases necessary to support life as we know it are present in a planet’s atmosphere.

Current telescopes aren’t strong enough to detect atmospheric makeup of anything but big, gaseous planets, called “gas giants.” There are two gas giants in our own solar system, Saturn and Jupiter, large planets made of liquids and gases which scientists study by examining the way light passes through their atmospheres. Ignas Snellen of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands told  New Scientist, “We do this now for Jupiter-sized planets.”

Atmospheres on smaller, rocky planets like our own are harder to detect, particularly when current telescopes have difficulty filtering out Earth’s own oxygen-rich atmosphere from its observations.

The ELT, however, will be a huge leap forward. It will boast a mirror 39 meters (about 130 feet) across and will be sensitive enough to see some of the furthest known galaxies and star systems in the universe. It will also be able to see beyond Earth’s atmosphere because it will be sensitive enough to read whether the air it’s observing is rotating with the Earth or with the other planet by way of the atmosphere’s wavelength band.

The search promises to be no easy task. A planet will have to pass between its home star and the telescope multiple times for astronomers to gather enough information about it to determine its atmospheric contents. Depending on the shape of its orbit and the size of its star, it could take between four years and four centuries to get the right data.”

Read more here & here.

This is incredible, and the future of SETI, probably.  The ability to actually see what’s ON a planet (or technically surrounding it) versus just seeing the planet itself is a huge leap forward.  It will be years before they find anything, but man I can’t wait already!

Lost in all the Curiosity hype (which is absolutely hype-worthy) is this little gem of information.

Voyager I is almost at the true edge of the solar system and is thus almost officially in interstellar space.  Ever since learning about the Voyager missions in college, I’ve been really excited to see what happens to them.  The end-game of both Voyagers is just them floating out of the solar system and reporting back as long as they can.

Very glad to see they’re not forgotten, and that since their launch in 1977 they’re still providing valuable scientific feedback.  Woohoo Voyager Mission!

This is a pretty damn cool idea.  The concept of self-replication is probably something that isn’t explored, or at least mentioned, enough in space exploration.

The last time I heard of the concept was in the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 episode where they decide to lay a mine field of cloaked, self-replicating mines in front of the wormhole to prevent the Dominion reinforcements from arriving from the Gamma Quadrant.

Yes, this is from science fiction—and this is my point. If we CAN do it now, we SHOULD. Think of how much effort and resources something like this can save?  And not just for SETI, but for the other uses mentioned in the article: clean-up and recycling of space debris, tagging and tracking of near-earth asteroids, lightspeed communications over large distances…all of this without the need for manpower or money.

And, speaking of money, how awesome is this quote:

“If [extraterrestrials] are like us, they too have a dysfunctional government and all the other problems plaguing us,” said Mathews. “They won’t want to spend a lot to communicate with us.”

HA!  Neil DeGrasse Tyson would be proud of this guy, and so am I. Everything I read these days gives me the impression that we can be so much farther ahead in space science than we actually are already, but we’re being inhibited by politics and money.

Maybe once a functional space elevator is built, we’ll start looking at things a little differently.  But that might still be 50 years off.  Aaargh.

Anyway, great article, with lots of interesting points about the current state and needs of space exploration and SETI.

This is a very cool slideshow of futuristic things that have always been considered sci-fi that are actually in production now.

However, despite there being 10 items on this list, I honestly think 2 of them are more important—or at least more exciting—than the others.  Those are #2, the Space Elevator, and #10, Wireless Electricity.

2. The Space Elevator

This idea has been around for a while, but there have of course been a whole ton of hurdles getting in the way of it.  The first, of course, is the sheer size of it and the amount of resources it would require to build it.  Not to mention the logistical issues.  But, as I said, the idea has been around forever, and it even made an appearance in at least one Star Trek episode (I believe it was a Voyager episode where Neelix and Tuvok were stuck in one).

I remember many, many years ago seeing an interview of a scientist who said that one of the main issues with the Space Elevator was finding a material that could A) retain its strength and flexibility in the near-absolute-zero temperatures of space, and B) could stand the immense wind sheer one would experience at extremely high altitudes when tethered to the ground. Incidentally, the picture in this slideshow is probably entirely inaccurate for what an eventual Space Elevator would actually look like: it would probably resemble more of a rope experiencing drag rather than a straight metal column. Considering I heard this interview at least ten years ago, I’m sure they’re much closer to having the right materials—perhaps they even do already, if Japan says they can build one now.

Anyway, the reason why this is so important should be evident to anyone who follows the current state of space travel.  The American Space Shuttle has been retired, and purchasing rides from Russia is currently our only means of reaching space now. And aside from that, the Russian method and (I think) the leading candidates for the next American space launch are all still based on chemical rockets.  For those who don’t know, chemical rockets as the means to get to space are TERRIBLE.  They are dangerous, expensive, and are an INCREDIBLE source of upper-atmosphere pollutants (they KILL the Ozone layer). In fact, I remember reading a fact I think as far back as the late 80’s that the leading cause of upper-atmosphere Ozone deterioration was actually Rocket/Space Shuttle launches.  That fact needs to be checked, but I distinctly remember something like this.

Thus, replacing the need for chemical rockets would be an incredible achievement in space travel and accessibility.  Imagine, if you will: All you’d need to do to get to space would be to hop in the car and press the metaphorical button as it were.  This would allow for many, many more trips with a fraction of the pollution and danger.  It’s a fantastic idea that, if it really can be implemented in the next 35 years, would revolutionize space access.

10. Wireless Electricity

Remember that scene in Independence Day where they meet Brent Spiner and he tells them about the ship they actually recovered from Roswell?  He says that they were never able to replicate their power source until the aliens showed up presently, and that “all the little gadgets started lighting up” once they arrived. As far back as then, I began wondering if it was possible to power something remotely. 

How amazing would this be for mobile devices? For electric cars in the near future? For just about everything with a battery, or that even uses electricity? I know that recently Induction Plates are becoming more popular.  Perhaps this is the first step toward being able to power something without it plugging in. The fanciful optimist in me imagines the possibility of wireless electricity meaning that my laptop or cellphone battery will never go dead.  Or at least that I don’t have to find a plug to charge it.

Of course, that’s not exactly what the Powermat is (see the link in the slideshow). But the next step would seemingly be the lack of a need to actually touch something to your chargeable device.  Will it one day be possible to power something in a “field”?  As in, if your phone is in this room, it will charge?  Something like that?  That’s the real future of wireless power (although the companies that charge you money for electricity usage rates might have a hard time adapting), if it’s possible.  It would be nice to have “all those little gadgets light up” without having to plug anything in.  A wireless power field would be pretty game-changing.

I hope I get to see these things in action before I die.

(Oh yeah, and, um, mind reading is pretty cool too. :D)

I discovered this article this morning via CNN.com, of all places, and not my usual science websites.  The article intrigued me for a few reasons, some of which I feel are very important to the future of both energy physics and space exploration (but for me, primarily the latter).

The moon has not been visited directly by a human being for a long time now, and there has been very good reason for that:  It’s plain old unnecessary from a scientific standpoint.  Back in 1969, before the digital age, there were many things that the first moon landers did on the moon that human beings needed to be there for.  Also, of course, no one had done it yet, and so there were experiments to be run on the effects of the moon itself on humans themselves.  That was important, and we learned a ton (and got moon rocks!  I got to hold one once…it felt like a normal rock, but I found that just the knowledge that the rock came from the moon made it a very powerful and memorable experience).

But since that time, sending actual humans to the moon for scientific experiments has become completely unnecessary.  Nowadays, there is barely anything that a human can do that we can’t achieve with a robotic probe of some sort.  This has been the nature of space exploration for the last several decades: robots!  It is more efficient, more cost-effective (I’m fairly sure…if anyone has data on this, that would be helpful), and certainly safer from a human life point of view (obviously).

The other thing about the moon is that there’s not really a ton we need to know about it that requires us going back there.  It’s largely a hunk of rock made up of the same type of material as the Earth’s mantle (hence the leading theory that the moon was broken off of the forming Earth by a large impact during the solar system’s infancy).  So that’s that.

And then I read this article, and I go “WOW!” So the moon has THAT much 3He, when the Earth has THAT little of it???  Now THAT’S useful!  Nuclear Fusion is the future of practical and applicable nuclear science all together, and I had no idea that the ability to experiment in this field has become so expensive and difficult (damn you, money!).  If they are ever going to get more energy out of Fusion that they put in, they will need to keep going, and this goal is noble: No meltdown possibility, no real direct weapons applications as a result of the fusion process, and, most importantly, NO RADIOACTIVE WASTE.  We need this, if we want to keep going with nuclear research.

And now we have a readily available source of one of the main ingredients of the fusion process, yet it’s incredible inaccessible at the moment. Is it possible or practical to go to the moon to harvest 3He?  It seems like no for the foreseeable future.  Yet the scientific impulse to do so might be growing rapidly enough—hopefully right along with the private sector’s entry into the space world—that maybe this will become a possibility sooner than humanity expects.

Especially if people are really considering sending people back to the moon.  NOW there’s a real reason to establish a base there, if it makes economic sense.  I personally don’t believe that establishing a base on the on the moon for the sole purpose of eventually sending humans to Mars is necessary or scientifically efficient CURRENTLY, but if we now have a second reason for doing so that is more valid, then the secondary function of a stepping stone to Mars is totally fine—and quite exciting!  Don’t get me wrong, I think visiting Mars in person would be amazing and awesome, but it’s just not scientifically prudent yet.  And considering our planet’s resources and economic status, prudence needs to win out.

Lastly, I do not agree that America is “behind” in the race to return to the moon.  Even though this is said by an astronaut in the article, I think his perspective is entirely off.  The reason why America is not in front in the race to return to the moon is because we’re not trying to return to the moon.  And the reason for this is that we’re so far ahead of anyone else we’re already surpassed the need to go to the moon.  Why does China want to go to to moon?  It’s a waste of resources for them, and scientifically speaking it’s not worth it to spend the resources to do that when it’s not going to gain us much value.  But that’s Communist China for you, I guess…it’s too much for them to join the actual scientific community of the rest of the world, with NASA and the European Space Agency, to join up and contribute to something worthwhile.

Ahem…but yeah, anyway, America hasn’t needed to return to the moon, but maybe now there’s a good reason to rethink that idea.  Unless, of course, you can still mine 3He with robots and not need to send people there.  The one advantage that humans would have over robots is sustainability; if a robot breaks or runs out of energy, it’s done.  As long as humans have food and air, they can stay there indefinitely.  And in a mining/shipping operation, that’s clearly a necessary advantage.  So we’ll see what happens…probably nothing will change for a long time, but here’s to hoping.