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"caption": "An artist's depiction of the surface of the planet Proxima b as it orbits the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system. The planet is a bit more massive than Earth, scientists say, and circles its star once every 11 days.",
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"title": "An artist's depiction of the surface of the planet Proxima b as it orbits the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system. The planet is a bit more massive than Earth, scientists say, and circles its star once every 11 days.",
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"title": "The Human Journey to Mars: Are We There Yet?",
"headTitle": "The Human Journey to Mars: Are We There Yet? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The National Geographic Channel began airing a new series this month about the drama of humanity’s relentless outreach toward Earth’s neighbor, Mars. \u003ca href=\"http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/mars/\">The series, “Mars,” \u003c/a>is an epic coming-together of human aspirations to know Earth’s rusty red neighbor as explored in science and expressed in science fiction for well over a century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the Ridley Scott film “\u003ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/\">The Martian\u003c/a>” didn’t make you believe that humans going to Mars is inevitable—despite the fact that the movie’s plot is to bring marooned astronaut Matt Damon home from there—then National Geographic’s “Mars” might do the trick. And Season 1 runs through December 19, so you have time to get hooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The TV series blends interviews with present-day experts with a dramatized first human landing and attempted colonization set in the year 2033, which aligns with \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/journey-to-mars-overview\">NASA’s goals for an actual future mission\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as we envision this greatest human adventure, exciting discoveries continue to roll in from our robotic spacecraft and rovers, discoveries that whet our appetites with signs of water on this cold, desert planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Science and Science Fiction Unite\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In science fiction there has been a great deal of coming and going between Mars and Earth—Earthling explorers flying to the Red Planet on epic adventures, and native Martians visiting the Earth with a number of objectives, most of them hostile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1169172\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 970px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1169172\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes.jpg\" alt=\"Crater-lakebeds captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The image reveals that some of Mars' ancient lakes came along much later in its history than others. \" width=\"970\" height=\"930\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes.jpg 970w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-160x153.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-800x767.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-768x736.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-960x920.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-240x230.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-375x360.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-520x499.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-32x32.jpg 32w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 970px) 100vw, 970px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crater lake beds captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The image reveals that some of Mars’ ancient lakes came along much later in its history than others. \u003ccite>(Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Incredibly, the number of actual missions to Mars—from Mariner 4 in 1965 to the present year with Europe’s ExoMars “Trace Gas Orbiter” spacecraft—may be competitive with science fiction, even if you tally only the 23 successful missions out of about 53 attempted. This makes Mars the most explored planet outside of the Earth. Even now, there are six orbiters and two rovers in operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Must-Know Discoveries About Mars\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>October 2016: NASA’s Mars exploration rover Opportunity is set to begin a \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1940\">first-ever exploration of a liquid-carved gully\u003c/a> at the edge of Endeavour Crater, where the rover has been situated for the past five years. In its 12-year, 24-mile marathon crawl across a once water-filled basin in Meridiani Planum, Opportunity has turned up plenty of visual and mineralogical evidence of the past watery conditions of the region. But first-hand examination of a liquid-carved gully—a widespread feature that has been seen from orbit since the 1970s—is unprecedented. We hope it will bring into sharper focus our understanding of the history of water on Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>September 2016: NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance orbiter captured details of \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/mro/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1933\">now dry lake beds\u003c/a>, and determined that some ancient lakes appear to have come along much later than others in Mars’ history. This further details our understanding that Mars’ wet and watery youth likely took place over a long period, and alternated in cycles as climate changed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1169161\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1169161\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe.jpg\" alt=\"NASA's rover Curiosity at a site named Windjana, where it detected manganese oxide in rocks that suggest Mars' atmosphere once contained more oxygen.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1095\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-160x171.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-800x855.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-768x821.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-1020x1091.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-960x1027.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-240x257.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-375x401.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-520x556.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA’s rover Curiosity at a site named Windjana, where it detected manganese oxide in rocks that suggest Mars’ atmosphere once contained more oxygen. \u003ccite>(Mars Science Laboratory/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>June 2016: NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1916\">detected a chemical\u003c/a>, manganese oxide, in Martian rocks that suggest Mars’ atmosphere once contained more oxygen than it does today. At the very least this finding is more evidence of the presence of ancient groundwater action at Curiosity’s location, and bolsters the argument that Mars was once much more Earth-like. And though scientists look more to non-biological explanations for the presence of manganese oxide in Martian rocks, the possibility that ancient microbes may be responsible is not off the table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>March 2016: \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1899\">Data obtained by NASA’s\u003c/a> Mars Odyssey 2001, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the now defunct Mars Global Surveyor have produced a gravity map that gives scientists a peek into Mars’ interior. This allows scientists to perceive large-scale buried structures that provide clues to Mars’ geological past and formation. The observations have even shown that, like Earth, Mars has a molten outer core.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1169170\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 826px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1169170\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes.jpg\" alt=\"Image of an ancient flood drainage system on Mars captured by Europe's Mars Express orbiter.\" width=\"826\" height=\"657\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes.jpg 826w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes-160x127.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes-800x636.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes-768x611.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes-240x191.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes-375x298.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes-520x414.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 826px) 100vw, 826px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image of an ancient flood drainage system on Mars captured by Europe’s Mars Express orbiter. \u003ccite>(Mars Express/ESA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>February 2016: Europe’s Mars Express orbiter \u003ca href=\"http://m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Footprints_of_a_martian_flood\">detected the signs of an ancient flood\u003c/a> on Mars, when vast amounts of water flowed over a wide area, carving a complex of drainage channels in Arda Valles and pooling in the nearby Ladon Basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>November 2015: NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, sent to skim the highest extents of Mars’ atmosphere, determined that the solar wind—the stream of electrically charged gases that blows outward from the sun—\u003ca href=\"http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/617339/MARS-ATMOSPHERE-Will-answer-to-whether-Red-Planet-once-held-life-come-in-just-MINUTES?_ga=1.263594636.1842232386.1479255085\">is the culprit \u003c/a>in the “theft” of Mars’ once thick, and potentially life-supporting atmosphere of the ancient past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are We Almost There?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our visions of Mars through science, as well as fiction, and our first-hand robotic exploration of the red planet over the past 50 years, have continually brought us closer to knowing our nearest neighbor, and a past in which it appears to have been possibly very Earth-like. More than ever before, it is easy to imagine, even expect, that the day when humans go there in person is right around the corner.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Dramatic discoveries from Mars poured in this year, bringing humans closer to the epic adventure now airing on National Geographic television.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The National Geographic Channel began airing a new series this month about the drama of humanity’s relentless outreach toward Earth’s neighbor, Mars. \u003ca href=\"http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/mars/\">The series, “Mars,” \u003c/a>is an epic coming-together of human aspirations to know Earth’s rusty red neighbor as explored in science and expressed in science fiction for well over a century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the Ridley Scott film “\u003ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/\">The Martian\u003c/a>” didn’t make you believe that humans going to Mars is inevitable—despite the fact that the movie’s plot is to bring marooned astronaut Matt Damon home from there—then National Geographic’s “Mars” might do the trick. And Season 1 runs through December 19, so you have time to get hooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The TV series blends interviews with present-day experts with a dramatized first human landing and attempted colonization set in the year 2033, which aligns with \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/journey-to-mars-overview\">NASA’s goals for an actual future mission\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as we envision this greatest human adventure, exciting discoveries continue to roll in from our robotic spacecraft and rovers, discoveries that whet our appetites with signs of water on this cold, desert planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Science and Science Fiction Unite\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In science fiction there has been a great deal of coming and going between Mars and Earth—Earthling explorers flying to the Red Planet on epic adventures, and native Martians visiting the Earth with a number of objectives, most of them hostile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1169172\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 970px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1169172\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes.jpg\" alt=\"Crater-lakebeds captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The image reveals that some of Mars' ancient lakes came along much later in its history than others. \" width=\"970\" height=\"930\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes.jpg 970w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-160x153.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-800x767.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-768x736.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-960x920.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-240x230.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-375x360.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-520x499.jpg 520w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ancientlakes-32x32.jpg 32w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 970px) 100vw, 970px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crater lake beds captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The image reveals that some of Mars’ ancient lakes came along much later in its history than others. \u003ccite>(Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Incredibly, the number of actual missions to Mars—from Mariner 4 in 1965 to the present year with Europe’s ExoMars “Trace Gas Orbiter” spacecraft—may be competitive with science fiction, even if you tally only the 23 successful missions out of about 53 attempted. This makes Mars the most explored planet outside of the Earth. Even now, there are six orbiters and two rovers in operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Must-Know Discoveries About Mars\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>October 2016: NASA’s Mars exploration rover Opportunity is set to begin a \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1940\">first-ever exploration of a liquid-carved gully\u003c/a> at the edge of Endeavour Crater, where the rover has been situated for the past five years. In its 12-year, 24-mile marathon crawl across a once water-filled basin in Meridiani Planum, Opportunity has turned up plenty of visual and mineralogical evidence of the past watery conditions of the region. But first-hand examination of a liquid-carved gully—a widespread feature that has been seen from orbit since the 1970s—is unprecedented. We hope it will bring into sharper focus our understanding of the history of water on Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>September 2016: NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance orbiter captured details of \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/mro/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1933\">now dry lake beds\u003c/a>, and determined that some ancient lakes appear to have come along much later than others in Mars’ history. This further details our understanding that Mars’ wet and watery youth likely took place over a long period, and alternated in cycles as climate changed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1169161\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1169161\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe.jpg\" alt=\"NASA's rover Curiosity at a site named Windjana, where it detected manganese oxide in rocks that suggest Mars' atmosphere once contained more oxygen.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1095\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-160x171.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-800x855.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-768x821.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-1020x1091.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-960x1027.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-240x257.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-375x401.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/curiosity-manganeseoxidwe-520x556.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA’s rover Curiosity at a site named Windjana, where it detected manganese oxide in rocks that suggest Mars’ atmosphere once contained more oxygen. \u003ccite>(Mars Science Laboratory/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>June 2016: NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1916\">detected a chemical\u003c/a>, manganese oxide, in Martian rocks that suggest Mars’ atmosphere once contained more oxygen than it does today. At the very least this finding is more evidence of the presence of ancient groundwater action at Curiosity’s location, and bolsters the argument that Mars was once much more Earth-like. And though scientists look more to non-biological explanations for the presence of manganese oxide in Martian rocks, the possibility that ancient microbes may be responsible is not off the table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>March 2016: \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1899\">Data obtained by NASA’s\u003c/a> Mars Odyssey 2001, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the now defunct Mars Global Surveyor have produced a gravity map that gives scientists a peek into Mars’ interior. This allows scientists to perceive large-scale buried structures that provide clues to Mars’ geological past and formation. The observations have even shown that, like Earth, Mars has a molten outer core.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1169170\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 826px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1169170\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes.jpg\" alt=\"Image of an ancient flood drainage system on Mars captured by Europe's Mars Express orbiter.\" width=\"826\" height=\"657\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes.jpg 826w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes-160x127.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes-800x636.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes-768x611.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes-240x191.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes-375x298.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/ardes-520x414.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 826px) 100vw, 826px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image of an ancient flood drainage system on Mars captured by Europe’s Mars Express orbiter. \u003ccite>(Mars Express/ESA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>February 2016: Europe’s Mars Express orbiter \u003ca href=\"http://m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Footprints_of_a_martian_flood\">detected the signs of an ancient flood\u003c/a> on Mars, when vast amounts of water flowed over a wide area, carving a complex of drainage channels in Arda Valles and pooling in the nearby Ladon Basin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>November 2015: NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, sent to skim the highest extents of Mars’ atmosphere, determined that the solar wind—the stream of electrically charged gases that blows outward from the sun—\u003ca href=\"http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/617339/MARS-ATMOSPHERE-Will-answer-to-whether-Red-Planet-once-held-life-come-in-just-MINUTES?_ga=1.263594636.1842232386.1479255085\">is the culprit \u003c/a>in the “theft” of Mars’ once thick, and potentially life-supporting atmosphere of the ancient past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are We Almost There?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our visions of Mars through science, as well as fiction, and our first-hand robotic exploration of the red planet over the past 50 years, have continually brought us closer to knowing our nearest neighbor, and a past in which it appears to have been possibly very Earth-like. More than ever before, it is easy to imagine, even expect, that the day when humans go there in person is right around the corner.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Monday's Supermoon Will Be Extra Super -- Closest in Nearly 70 Years",
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"content": "\u003cp>The moon doesn’t get much bigger and brighter than this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Monday, Earthlings will be treated to a so-called supermoon — the closest full moon of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">To see the moon at its biggest and brightest, go outside Monday morning just before dawn.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Monday’s supermoon will be extra super — it will be the closest the moon comes to us in almost 70 years. And it won’t happen again for another 18 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA says the closest approach will occur at 6:21 a.m. EST when the moon comes within 221,523 miles (356,508 kilometers). That’s from the center of the Earth to the center of the moon. Full moon will occur at 8:52 a.m. EST.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA planetary geologist Noah Petro is urging everyone to step outside and soak in the view. At the time of closest approach, the moon will be setting and the sun rising, at least on the U.S. East Coast, so prime viewing will be Sunday and Monday nights there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ultimately, people should be more geared toward just getting outside and enjoying it,” Petro said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supermoons can appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter in the night sky. But it takes a real expert to notice the difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Petro, deputy project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter circling the moon, said Thursday that even he won’t be able to see much difference in size and luminosity. What counts, he said, is getting people “talking, thinking and caring about the moon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weather permitting, it’s a sky show the entire planet can enjoy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everyone gets to see the moon,” Petro said. “It’s a great shared resource for all humanity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last time the moon was so close — actually, 29 miles closer — was in January 1948. That’s the same year the Cleveland Indians last won the World Series, Petro noted, “a big year,” at least there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2034, the moon will come even closer, within 221,485 miles. That, too, will be a supermoon.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The moon doesn’t get much bigger and brighter than this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Monday, Earthlings will be treated to a so-called supermoon — the closest full moon of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">To see the moon at its biggest and brightest, go outside Monday morning just before dawn.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Monday’s supermoon will be extra super — it will be the closest the moon comes to us in almost 70 years. And it won’t happen again for another 18 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA says the closest approach will occur at 6:21 a.m. EST when the moon comes within 221,523 miles (356,508 kilometers). That’s from the center of the Earth to the center of the moon. Full moon will occur at 8:52 a.m. EST.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA planetary geologist Noah Petro is urging everyone to step outside and soak in the view. At the time of closest approach, the moon will be setting and the sun rising, at least on the U.S. East Coast, so prime viewing will be Sunday and Monday nights there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ultimately, people should be more geared toward just getting outside and enjoying it,” Petro said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supermoons can appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter in the night sky. But it takes a real expert to notice the difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Petro, deputy project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter circling the moon, said Thursday that even he won’t be able to see much difference in size and luminosity. What counts, he said, is getting people “talking, thinking and caring about the moon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weather permitting, it’s a sky show the entire planet can enjoy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everyone gets to see the moon,” Petro said. “It’s a great shared resource for all humanity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The last time the moon was so close — actually, 29 miles closer — was in January 1948. That’s the same year the Cleveland Indians last won the World Series, Petro noted, “a big year,” at least there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2034, the moon will come even closer, within 221,485 miles. That, too, will be a supermoon.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Vapor Plumes on Jupiter's Moon, Europa, Show New Evidence of Water",
"headTitle": "Vapor Plumes on Jupiter’s Moon, Europa, Show New Evidence of Water | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The possibility of an ocean under the frozen surface of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, has tantalized scientists for a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope \u003ca href=\"http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/2016/09/26/hubble-possible-water-plumes-on-jupiters-moon-europa\">are reporting\u003c/a> further evidence of that ocean’s existence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On at least three out of ten separate occasions in 2014, scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore report they spotted plumes of water vapor spouting from the southern polar region of the moon’s icy surface. The first ever observation of these suspected plumes was in 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1150687\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1150687\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited.jpg\" alt=\"Ultraviolet Hubble images of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, captured on three separate days, showing possible water plumes erupting from its surface outside the bottom edge of the moon’s disk. \" width=\"1000\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited.jpg 1000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-800x266.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-768x256.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-960x320.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-240x80.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-375x125.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-520x173.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"> Hubble telescope images of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, captured on three separate days, showing possible water plumes erupting from its surface (outside the bottom edge of the moon’s disk.) \u003ccite>(NASA/ESA/W. Sparks (STScI))\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This is exciting news. If the water plumes are real, and supplied by the ocean believed to be hidden under Europa’s icy crust, they may offer a way to probe and analyze the ocean’s composition directly. That could also pave the way for detecting any evidence of life deep below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The likely existence of water on Europa makes it one of NASA’s hotspots in the quest to discover extraterrestrial life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Direct exploration of a distant and deep ocean buried beneath layers of ice is currently beyond our capabilities, but missions to send probes through the plumes erupting from Jupiter’s moon are already in the works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-mission/\">NASA’s Europa mission\u003c/a> is set to launch in the 2020’s and the European “\u003ca href=\"http://sci.esa.int/juice/\">Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer” (JUICE)\u003c/a> is scheduled for launch in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1147103\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2101px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1147103\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of the European Space Agency's "JUICE" mission to explore Jupiter's icy moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. \" width=\"2101\" height=\"1620\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1.jpg 2101w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-160x123.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-800x617.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-768x592.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-1020x786.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-1920x1480.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-1180x910.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-960x740.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-240x185.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-375x289.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-520x401.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2101px) 100vw, 2101px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of the European Space Agency’s “JUICE” mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. \u003ccite>(ESA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/cassini-plunged-into-icy-plumes-of-enceladus/\">NASA’s Cassini spacecraft\u003c/a> has already flown through and analyzed similar plumes of water vapor spewing from Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. That’s another hotspot location in NASA’s quest to discover whether life exists elsewhere in our solar system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Evidence of Wate\u003c/strong>r\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists first speculated about the existence of an ocean on Europa when they observed the icy composition of its surface in the late 1970’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later, pictures taken by the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft of Europa’s so-called “\u003ca href=\"http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2011/3266.html\">chaos terrain\u003c/a>” showed a peculiar jumbling of cracks and streaks in the ice. These were interpreted as being formed by an icy crust floating atop a deep liquid water ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1147104\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1147104\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain.jpg\" alt=\"Image of "chaos terrain" in Europa's icy crust--visual evidence of the strong possibility that a deep watery ocean exist beneath. \" width=\"1000\" height=\"442\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain.jpg 1000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-160x71.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-800x354.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-768x339.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-960x424.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-240x106.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-375x166.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-520x230.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image of “chaos terrain” in Europa’s icy crust–visual evidence of the strong possibility that a deep watery ocean exist beneath. \u003ccite>(Galileo/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>An even stronger piece of evidence for a hidden ocean comes from NASA’s Galileo mission, which detected a disturbance in Jupiter’s magnetic field coming from Europa. The disturbance could be explained by the interaction of Jupiter’s magnetic field with an electrically conductive fluid inside Europa–such as a saltwater ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Possibility of Life\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With what’s believed to be a salty ocean thirty or more miles deep and containing two or three times the water of Earth’s oceans, Europa may have the conditions needed to sustain life forms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1147101\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 960px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1147101\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full.png\" alt=\"Artist concept showing a cross section of Europa's icy crust floating atop the suspected water, with crevasses spewing the ocean waters through the surface. \" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full.png 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full-160x120.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full-800x600.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full-768x576.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full-240x180.png 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full-375x281.png 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full-520x390.png 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept showing a cross section of Europa’s icy crust floating atop the suspected water, with crevasses spewing the ocean waters through the surface. \u003ccite>(NASA/JPL-Caltech)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Indeed, it’s not a huge stretch to imagine an environment similar to certain places on Earth where life forms thrive under extremely harsh conditions. We call those organisms “\u003ca href=\"http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/extremophile.html\">extremophiles\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether in the coldest bottoms of Antarctic or alpine lakes, or in the scalding hot and toxic waters of geothermal pools, or in pitch blackness on the ocean floor surrounding hydro-thermal vents, Earth’s “extremophiles” have proven they can flourish under extreme conditions that could mirror those on Europa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Remember Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey 2, involving a mission to Jupiter and a side-trip to Europa?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The movie\u003cem> \u003c/em>version gave us a brief glimpse of something green emerging from Europa’s ice — the enormous tendril-like vines described in the book that pulled a doomed Chinese spacecraft into the cold dark depths below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clark’s science fiction account of Europa made some of us thirsty to explore the moon’s mysterious ocean depths. Yet today, almost thirty-five years later, direct exploration of those waters–say with some form of ice-boring submarine robot–isn’t on the horizon. But scientists \u003cem>are\u003c/em> zeroing in on a better understanding of what lies beneath Europa’s frozen surface. As NASA’s life-searching mantra goes, “Follow the water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Scientists have dipped another toe into the mysterious dark waters of Jupiter's moon Europa. Observations made using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have turned up strong evidence of the existence of plumes of water vapor spouting from the southern polar region of the moon's icy surface.",
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"description": "Scientists have dipped another toe into the mysterious dark waters of Jupiter's moon Europa. Observations made using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have turned up strong evidence of the existence of plumes of water vapor spouting from the southern polar region of the moon's icy surface.",
"title": "Vapor Plumes on Jupiter's Moon, Europa, Show New Evidence of Water | KQED",
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"headline": "Vapor Plumes on Jupiter's Moon, Europa, Show New Evidence of Water",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The possibility of an ocean under the frozen surface of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, has tantalized scientists for a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope \u003ca href=\"http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/2016/09/26/hubble-possible-water-plumes-on-jupiters-moon-europa\">are reporting\u003c/a> further evidence of that ocean’s existence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On at least three out of ten separate occasions in 2014, scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore report they spotted plumes of water vapor spouting from the southern polar region of the moon’s icy surface. The first ever observation of these suspected plumes was in 2013.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1150687\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1150687\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited.jpg\" alt=\"Ultraviolet Hubble images of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, captured on three separate days, showing possible water plumes erupting from its surface outside the bottom edge of the moon’s disk. \" width=\"1000\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited.jpg 1000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-800x266.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-768x256.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-960x320.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-240x80.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-375x125.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa_edited-520x173.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"> Hubble telescope images of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, captured on three separate days, showing possible water plumes erupting from its surface (outside the bottom edge of the moon’s disk.) \u003ccite>(NASA/ESA/W. Sparks (STScI))\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This is exciting news. If the water plumes are real, and supplied by the ocean believed to be hidden under Europa’s icy crust, they may offer a way to probe and analyze the ocean’s composition directly. That could also pave the way for detecting any evidence of life deep below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The likely existence of water on Europa makes it one of NASA’s hotspots in the quest to discover extraterrestrial life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Direct exploration of a distant and deep ocean buried beneath layers of ice is currently beyond our capabilities, but missions to send probes through the plumes erupting from Jupiter’s moon are already in the works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-mission/\">NASA’s Europa mission\u003c/a> is set to launch in the 2020’s and the European “\u003ca href=\"http://sci.esa.int/juice/\">Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer” (JUICE)\u003c/a> is scheduled for launch in 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1147103\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2101px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1147103\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of the European Space Agency's "JUICE" mission to explore Jupiter's icy moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. \" width=\"2101\" height=\"1620\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1.jpg 2101w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-160x123.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-800x617.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-768x592.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-1020x786.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-1920x1480.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-1180x910.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-960x740.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-240x185.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-375x289.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/JUICE_Image1-520x401.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2101px) 100vw, 2101px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of the European Space Agency’s “JUICE” mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. \u003ccite>(ESA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/cassini-plunged-into-icy-plumes-of-enceladus/\">NASA’s Cassini spacecraft\u003c/a> has already flown through and analyzed similar plumes of water vapor spewing from Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. That’s another hotspot location in NASA’s quest to discover whether life exists elsewhere in our solar system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Evidence of Wate\u003c/strong>r\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists first speculated about the existence of an ocean on Europa when they observed the icy composition of its surface in the late 1970’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Later, pictures taken by the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft of Europa’s so-called “\u003ca href=\"http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2011/3266.html\">chaos terrain\u003c/a>” showed a peculiar jumbling of cracks and streaks in the ice. These were interpreted as being formed by an icy crust floating atop a deep liquid water ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1147104\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1147104\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain.jpg\" alt=\"Image of "chaos terrain" in Europa's icy crust--visual evidence of the strong possibility that a deep watery ocean exist beneath. \" width=\"1000\" height=\"442\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain.jpg 1000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-160x71.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-800x354.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-768x339.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-960x424.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-240x106.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-375x166.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/europa-chaos-terrain-520x230.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image of “chaos terrain” in Europa’s icy crust–visual evidence of the strong possibility that a deep watery ocean exist beneath. \u003ccite>(Galileo/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>An even stronger piece of evidence for a hidden ocean comes from NASA’s Galileo mission, which detected a disturbance in Jupiter’s magnetic field coming from Europa. The disturbance could be explained by the interaction of Jupiter’s magnetic field with an electrically conductive fluid inside Europa–such as a saltwater ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Possibility of Life\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With what’s believed to be a salty ocean thirty or more miles deep and containing two or three times the water of Earth’s oceans, Europa may have the conditions needed to sustain life forms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1147101\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 960px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1147101\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full.png\" alt=\"Artist concept showing a cross section of Europa's icy crust floating atop the suspected water, with crevasses spewing the ocean waters through the surface. \" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full.png 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full-160x120.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full-800x600.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full-768x576.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full-240x180.png 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full-375x281.png 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/11/731656main_pia16826-full_full-520x390.png 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept showing a cross section of Europa’s icy crust floating atop the suspected water, with crevasses spewing the ocean waters through the surface. \u003ccite>(NASA/JPL-Caltech)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Indeed, it’s not a huge stretch to imagine an environment similar to certain places on Earth where life forms thrive under extremely harsh conditions. We call those organisms “\u003ca href=\"http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/extremophile.html\">extremophiles\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether in the coldest bottoms of Antarctic or alpine lakes, or in the scalding hot and toxic waters of geothermal pools, or in pitch blackness on the ocean floor surrounding hydro-thermal vents, Earth’s “extremophiles” have proven they can flourish under extreme conditions that could mirror those on Europa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Remember Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey 2, involving a mission to Jupiter and a side-trip to Europa?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The movie\u003cem> \u003c/em>version gave us a brief glimpse of something green emerging from Europa’s ice — the enormous tendril-like vines described in the book that pulled a doomed Chinese spacecraft into the cold dark depths below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clark’s science fiction account of Europa made some of us thirsty to explore the moon’s mysterious ocean depths. Yet today, almost thirty-five years later, direct exploration of those waters–say with some form of ice-boring submarine robot–isn’t on the horizon. But scientists \u003cem>are\u003c/em> zeroing in on a better understanding of what lies beneath Europa’s frozen surface. As NASA’s life-searching mantra goes, “Follow the water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Europe's Mars Landing Ends in Crash -- But Not Total Failure",
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"content": "\u003cp>On October 19, Europe’s Schiaparelli Mars landing mission culminated in an unexpected failure. According to images captured from orbit by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, it ended in a spectacular crash-landing and possible explosion. But despite the landing not going according to plan, there is reason to count Schiaparelli’s mission as a partial success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”PLy7nmPVz9j5TZXJuk4IQl0Ls7fz5K4b”]On the Mars-exploration side, since Schiaparelli did not deliver its small suite of scientific instruments safely to Mars’ surface, no Mars-related science was accomplished. These instruments were designed to function for a few days, taking measurements of the landing site in the dry sea-bed of the planet’s Meridiani Planum—but this was not the primary purpose of the mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Schiaparelli lander is part of the European Space Agency’s bigger “\u003ca href=\"http://exploration.esa.int/mars/48088-mission-overview/\">ExoMars\u003c/a>” program that’s aimed at searching for signs of life on Mars. Schiaparelli’s main purpose was to \u003ca href=\"http://exploration.esa.int/mars/47852-entry-descent-and-landing-demonstrator-module/\">test landing systems technology\u003c/a> in preparation for a future mission, the ExoMars 2020 rover, slated for launch in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data collected during Schiaparelli’s descent before communications failed a minute prior to the planned landing \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/10/schiaparelli-landing-data-exomars-2020-rover/\">will provide valuable engineering data\u003c/a> toward improving the ExoMars 2020 rover’s landing systems. A successful landing would have been great of course, but we often learn more from our mistakes than our successes. The hope is that analysis of the data collected during descent may actually increase the 2020 rover’s chances of a successful landing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1112300\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1112300\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA.jpg\" alt=\"Artist depiction of the planned landing sequence of the Schiaparelli lander. \" width=\"1024\" height=\"675\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-800x527.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-768x506.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-1020x672.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-960x633.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-240x158.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-375x247.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-520x343.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist depiction of the planned landing sequence of the Schiaparelli lander. \u003ccite>(ESA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Schiaparelli was dropped from the \u003ca href=\"http://exploration.esa.int/mars/46475-trace-gas-orbiter/\">Trace Gas Orbiter\u003c/a> spacecraft.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>The pair are the first of the series of missions in the ExoMars program\u003cem>,\u003c/em> a partnership between the European Space Agency and the Russian Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trace Gas Orbiter’s mission is to analyze the composition of Mars’ upper atmosphere and look for trace amounts of gases like methane that might indicate biological activity on Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data relayed back to Earth from the Trace Gas Orbiter indicates that at least some of Schiaparelli’s landing systems functioned properly. The heat shield was ejected and the supersonic parachute was deployed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the parachute appears to have been ejected prematurely, and the six rockets responsible for slowing the lander through a gentle descent appear not to have fired for as long as they were supposed to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.cbsnews.com/news/european-space-probe-lands-on-mars-schiaparelli-lander/\">Schiaparelli may have fallen\u003c/a> freely for a mile or two and hit the surface at over 180 miles per hour. Its fuel tanks, possibly still containing unspent fuel, may also have exploded on impact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1112301\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1112301\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires.jpg\" alt=\"Image with inset blow-ups of the Schiaparelli lander's impact area taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HIRISE camera. Upper right: impact mark of the ejected heat shield. Lower left: the severed parachute. Upper middle: the lander's impact site. \" width=\"1024\" height=\"1101\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-160x172.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-800x860.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-768x826.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-1020x1097.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-960x1032.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-240x258.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-375x403.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-520x559.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image with inset blow-ups of the Schiaparelli lander’s impact area taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HIRISE camera. Upper right: impact mark of the ejected heat shield. Lower left: the severed parachute. Upper middle: the lander’s impact site. \u003ccite>(MRO/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/10/24/rip-schiaparelli-european-mars-landers-crash-site-seen-by-nasa-probe.html\">Images of the intended landing\u003c/a> site captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter appear to confirm the violent nature of Schiaparelli’s planet fall. The images show Schiaparelli’s severed parachute in one location, the impact site of its heat shield in another, and the dark burn-like smudge of the impact site of the lander.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who’s Winning: Earth or Mars?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Depending on how you keep score, out of a total of about 53 attempted missions to explore Mars since the early 1960s, about 30 can be written off as failures—including two or three that might be rated as at least partial successes. These include spacecraft that failed en route to or after arrival at Mars (20), as well as failures at the time of launch from Earth (10).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That leaves a balance of around 23 successful missions. Of these, eight—two rovers and six orbiters — are in operation today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schiaparelli’s demise should be a reminder that sending spacecraft out to explore distant reaches of the solar system is a very risky venture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But we should not lose sight of all that we have learned about places like Mars, even when less than half of the spacecraft accomplish their goals. If the ExoMars missions ultimately turn up what they are designed to look for—the existence of extraterrestrial life on Mars—then maybe history will count the Schiaparelli mission’s partial failure more on the partial success side of the score card.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "On October 19, Europe's \"Schiaparelli\" Mars landing mission culminated in an unexpected failure—and according to images captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a spectacular crash-landing and possible explosion. However, despite the landing not going according to plan, there is reason to count Schiaparelli mission as a partial success.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On October 19, Europe’s Schiaparelli Mars landing mission culminated in an unexpected failure. According to images captured from orbit by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, it ended in a spectacular crash-landing and possible explosion. But despite the landing not going according to plan, there is reason to count Schiaparelli’s mission as a partial success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>On the Mars-exploration side, since Schiaparelli did not deliver its small suite of scientific instruments safely to Mars’ surface, no Mars-related science was accomplished. These instruments were designed to function for a few days, taking measurements of the landing site in the dry sea-bed of the planet’s Meridiani Planum—but this was not the primary purpose of the mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Schiaparelli lander is part of the European Space Agency’s bigger “\u003ca href=\"http://exploration.esa.int/mars/48088-mission-overview/\">ExoMars\u003c/a>” program that’s aimed at searching for signs of life on Mars. Schiaparelli’s main purpose was to \u003ca href=\"http://exploration.esa.int/mars/47852-entry-descent-and-landing-demonstrator-module/\">test landing systems technology\u003c/a> in preparation for a future mission, the ExoMars 2020 rover, slated for launch in 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data collected during Schiaparelli’s descent before communications failed a minute prior to the planned landing \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/10/schiaparelli-landing-data-exomars-2020-rover/\">will provide valuable engineering data\u003c/a> toward improving the ExoMars 2020 rover’s landing systems. A successful landing would have been great of course, but we often learn more from our mistakes than our successes. The hope is that analysis of the data collected during descent may actually increase the 2020 rover’s chances of a successful landing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1112300\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1112300\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA.jpg\" alt=\"Artist depiction of the planned landing sequence of the Schiaparelli lander. \" width=\"1024\" height=\"675\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-160x105.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-800x527.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-768x506.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-1020x672.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-960x633.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-240x158.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-375x247.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/ExoMars-Schiaparelli-lander-ESA-520x343.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist depiction of the planned landing sequence of the Schiaparelli lander. \u003ccite>(ESA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Schiaparelli was dropped from the \u003ca href=\"http://exploration.esa.int/mars/46475-trace-gas-orbiter/\">Trace Gas Orbiter\u003c/a> spacecraft.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>The pair are the first of the series of missions in the ExoMars program\u003cem>,\u003c/em> a partnership between the European Space Agency and the Russian Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trace Gas Orbiter’s mission is to analyze the composition of Mars’ upper atmosphere and look for trace amounts of gases like methane that might indicate biological activity on Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Data relayed back to Earth from the Trace Gas Orbiter indicates that at least some of Schiaparelli’s landing systems functioned properly. The heat shield was ejected and the supersonic parachute was deployed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the parachute appears to have been ejected prematurely, and the six rockets responsible for slowing the lander through a gentle descent appear not to have fired for as long as they were supposed to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.cbsnews.com/news/european-space-probe-lands-on-mars-schiaparelli-lander/\">Schiaparelli may have fallen\u003c/a> freely for a mile or two and hit the surface at over 180 miles per hour. Its fuel tanks, possibly still containing unspent fuel, may also have exploded on impact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1112301\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1112301\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires.jpg\" alt=\"Image with inset blow-ups of the Schiaparelli lander's impact area taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HIRISE camera. Upper right: impact mark of the ejected heat shield. Lower left: the severed parachute. Upper middle: the lander's impact site. \" width=\"1024\" height=\"1101\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-160x172.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-800x860.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-768x826.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-1020x1097.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-960x1032.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-240x258.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-375x403.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/PIA21131_hires-520x559.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image with inset blow-ups of the Schiaparelli lander’s impact area taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HIRISE camera. Upper right: impact mark of the ejected heat shield. Lower left: the severed parachute. Upper middle: the lander’s impact site. \u003ccite>(MRO/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/10/24/rip-schiaparelli-european-mars-landers-crash-site-seen-by-nasa-probe.html\">Images of the intended landing\u003c/a> site captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter appear to confirm the violent nature of Schiaparelli’s planet fall. The images show Schiaparelli’s severed parachute in one location, the impact site of its heat shield in another, and the dark burn-like smudge of the impact site of the lander.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Who’s Winning: Earth or Mars?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Depending on how you keep score, out of a total of about 53 attempted missions to explore Mars since the early 1960s, about 30 can be written off as failures—including two or three that might be rated as at least partial successes. These include spacecraft that failed en route to or after arrival at Mars (20), as well as failures at the time of launch from Earth (10).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That leaves a balance of around 23 successful missions. Of these, eight—two rovers and six orbiters — are in operation today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schiaparelli’s demise should be a reminder that sending spacecraft out to explore distant reaches of the solar system is a very risky venture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But we should not lose sight of all that we have learned about places like Mars, even when less than half of the spacecraft accomplish their goals. If the ExoMars missions ultimately turn up what they are designed to look for—the existence of extraterrestrial life on Mars—then maybe history will count the Schiaparelli mission’s partial failure more on the partial success side of the score card.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Aliens? Why UC Scientists Aren’t Giving Up On Strange Star",
"headTitle": "Aliens? Why UC Scientists Aren’t Giving Up On Strange Star | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>For the past year many of the world’s most advanced telescopes have been pointed at \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/34303-alien-megastructure-star-strange-dimming-mystery.html\">Tabby’s Star\u003c/a> in hopes of finding extraterrestrial life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been looked at with Hubble, it’s been looked at with Keck, it’s been looked at in the infrared and radio and high energy, and every possible thing you can imagine, including a whole range of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) experiments,” says Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center. “Nothing has been found.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a team of scientists aren’t giving up. Siemion is headed to \u003ca href=\"http://greenbankobservatory.org/\">Green Bank Observatory\u003c/a> in rural West Virginia, along with Jason Wright, a UC Berkeley visiting astronomer, and \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabetha_S._Boyajian\">Tabetha Boyajian\u003c/a>, the assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University for whom the star is named. There they will aim yet another powerful instrument at the star for eight hours tonight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Green Bank Telescope is the largest fully steerable radio telescope on the planet, and it’s the largest, most sensitive telescope that’s capable of looking at Tabby’s Star given its position in the sky,” says Siemion. “The implications of detecting an advanced technology on another world is — in my opinion — the most amazing discovery that could be made in all of human inquiry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How does a radio telescope work?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/3i3pMn4NnKE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Intriguing, Aliens or Not\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the team says detecting alien life is a long shot, they can’t resist the urge to study the star’s unique behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Usually when a planet passes in front of a star it blocks only 1 or 2 percent of a star’s light. Tabby’s Star dims irregularly for days at a time, by as much as 22 percent. Some speculate that a Dyson structure, a massive orbiting array of solar collectors, could be blocking the light. The physicist Freeman Dyson once proposed that an alien civilization would naturally erect such a structure to power itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Are the Chances?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think it’s very likely – a one-in-a-billion chance or something like that – but nevertheless, we’re going to check it out,” says Dan Werthimer, chief scientist at Berkeley SETI. “But I think that ET, if it’s ever discovered, it might be something like that. It’ll be some bizarre thing that somebody finds by accident — that nobody expected — and then we look more carefully and we say, ‘Hey, that’s a civilization.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers will observe Tabby for a total of three nights over the next two months. The goal is to collect one petabyte of data through hundreds of millions of radio channels. The team plans to release the observations to the public after they analyze the data for patterns in the radio emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally, UC Berkeley.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"headline": "Aliens? Why UC Scientists Aren’t Giving Up On Strange Star",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For the past year many of the world’s most advanced telescopes have been pointed at \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/34303-alien-megastructure-star-strange-dimming-mystery.html\">Tabby’s Star\u003c/a> in hopes of finding extraterrestrial life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been looked at with Hubble, it’s been looked at with Keck, it’s been looked at in the infrared and radio and high energy, and every possible thing you can imagine, including a whole range of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) experiments,” says Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center. “Nothing has been found.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a team of scientists aren’t giving up. Siemion is headed to \u003ca href=\"http://greenbankobservatory.org/\">Green Bank Observatory\u003c/a> in rural West Virginia, along with Jason Wright, a UC Berkeley visiting astronomer, and \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabetha_S._Boyajian\">Tabetha Boyajian\u003c/a>, the assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University for whom the star is named. There they will aim yet another powerful instrument at the star for eight hours tonight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Green Bank Telescope is the largest fully steerable radio telescope on the planet, and it’s the largest, most sensitive telescope that’s capable of looking at Tabby’s Star given its position in the sky,” says Siemion. “The implications of detecting an advanced technology on another world is — in my opinion — the most amazing discovery that could be made in all of human inquiry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How does a radio telescope work?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/3i3pMn4NnKE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Intriguing, Aliens or Not\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the team says detecting alien life is a long shot, they can’t resist the urge to study the star’s unique behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Usually when a planet passes in front of a star it blocks only 1 or 2 percent of a star’s light. Tabby’s Star dims irregularly for days at a time, by as much as 22 percent. Some speculate that a Dyson structure, a massive orbiting array of solar collectors, could be blocking the light. The physicist Freeman Dyson once proposed that an alien civilization would naturally erect such a structure to power itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Are the Chances?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think it’s very likely – a one-in-a-billion chance or something like that – but nevertheless, we’re going to check it out,” says Dan Werthimer, chief scientist at Berkeley SETI. “But I think that ET, if it’s ever discovered, it might be something like that. It’ll be some bizarre thing that somebody finds by accident — that nobody expected — and then we look more carefully and we say, ‘Hey, that’s a civilization.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers will observe Tabby for a total of three nights over the next two months. The goal is to collect one petabyte of data through hundreds of millions of radio channels. The team plans to release the observations to the public after they analyze the data for patterns in the radio emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally, UC Berkeley.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "European Space Agency Probe Approaches Surface of Mars",
"headTitle": "European Space Agency Probe Approaches Surface of Mars | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>An experimental lander from the European Space Agency is making its final descent toward Mars, preparing for a controlled landing on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Schiaparelli probe detached from its mothership, the Trace Gas Orbiter, on Sunday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a moment of alarm when, after separating from the ship, Schiaparelli didn’t send the expected signals back to scientists on earth. It did send back a “carrier signal” to show it was operational, but didn’t communicate any telemetry data about its status or location.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Basically, as scientists were wondering where the probe was and how it was doing, all the probe would say is that it wasn’t dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But within a couple of hours, a full telemetry link was restored, ESA \u003ca href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/Live_updates_ExoMars_arrival_and_landing\">says\u003c/a>. A spokeswoman \u003ca href=\"https://www.afp.com/en/news/23/europe-steers-lander-towards-mars-surface\">told the AFP\u003c/a> there were “a lot of relieved people” at mission control in Germany.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Schiaparelli probe is \u003ca href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars_lander_module_named_Schiaparelli\">named after\u003c/a> the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who observed and mapped the surface of Mars. It’s part of a joint operation between the ESA and the Russian space program called ExoMars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3WCtJt46qU\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lander is currently in “hibernation mode” as it coasts towards Mars, pulled by gravity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If everything goes according to plan, the probe will make a six-minute descent through the atmosphere, protected by a heat-shield then slowed by a parachute. The landing is “controlled but not guided,” \u003ca href=\"http://exploration.esa.int/mars/47852-entry-descent-and-landing-demonstrator-module/\">ESA says. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then the lander will deploy what the ESA has dubbed the “DREAMS package” — for “Dust Characterisation, Risk Assessment, and Environment Analyser on the Martian Surface.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a few days, until its battery runs out, the probe will measure wind, humidity, pressure, transparency, temperature and electrical fields, among other things, and send that data back to Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But first the lander has to make it to its destination, and landing on Mars is notoriously tricky. There have been high-profile successes, from Viking I in 1976 to the Mars Science Laboratory and Curiosity rover in 2012. But there’s a \u003ca href=\"http://history.nasa.gov/marschro.htm\">long litany\u003c/a> of \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/16496-mars-landing-missions-timeline.html\">failures\u003c/a>, with landers lost in space or crashing to the planet’s surface. As \u003cem>Popular Science \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-08/mars-rover-curiosity%E2%80%99s-biggest-challenge-mars-itself\">noted in 2012\u003c/a>, “Mars usually wins.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The British lander Beagle 2 was one of the more recent Mars-landing letdowns. The probe, carried on ESA’s Mars Express ship, was set to land on Christmas in 2003. It set off from its mothership successfully but then went silent, missing and presumed lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, a NASA orbiter snapped a picture of the lander that showed it actually made it safely to the surface — but it failed to set itself up to \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/01/16/377659485/long-lost-british-spacecraft-spotted-by-nasa-probe-orbiting-mars\">allow communication with Earth\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=European+Space+Agency+Probe+Approaches+Surface+Of+Mars&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>An experimental lander from the European Space Agency is making its final descent toward Mars, preparing for a controlled landing on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Schiaparelli probe detached from its mothership, the Trace Gas Orbiter, on Sunday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a moment of alarm when, after separating from the ship, Schiaparelli didn’t send the expected signals back to scientists on earth. It did send back a “carrier signal” to show it was operational, but didn’t communicate any telemetry data about its status or location.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Basically, as scientists were wondering where the probe was and how it was doing, all the probe would say is that it wasn’t dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But within a couple of hours, a full telemetry link was restored, ESA \u003ca href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/Live_updates_ExoMars_arrival_and_landing\">says\u003c/a>. A spokeswoman \u003ca href=\"https://www.afp.com/en/news/23/europe-steers-lander-towards-mars-surface\">told the AFP\u003c/a> there were “a lot of relieved people” at mission control in Germany.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Schiaparelli probe is \u003ca href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars_lander_module_named_Schiaparelli\">named after\u003c/a> the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who observed and mapped the surface of Mars. It’s part of a joint operation between the ESA and the Russian space program called ExoMars.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/s3WCtJt46qU'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/s3WCtJt46qU'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The lander is currently in “hibernation mode” as it coasts towards Mars, pulled by gravity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If everything goes according to plan, the probe will make a six-minute descent through the atmosphere, protected by a heat-shield then slowed by a parachute. The landing is “controlled but not guided,” \u003ca href=\"http://exploration.esa.int/mars/47852-entry-descent-and-landing-demonstrator-module/\">ESA says. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then the lander will deploy what the ESA has dubbed the “DREAMS package” — for “Dust Characterisation, Risk Assessment, and Environment Analyser on the Martian Surface.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For a few days, until its battery runs out, the probe will measure wind, humidity, pressure, transparency, temperature and electrical fields, among other things, and send that data back to Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But first the lander has to make it to its destination, and landing on Mars is notoriously tricky. There have been high-profile successes, from Viking I in 1976 to the Mars Science Laboratory and Curiosity rover in 2012. But there’s a \u003ca href=\"http://history.nasa.gov/marschro.htm\">long litany\u003c/a> of \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/16496-mars-landing-missions-timeline.html\">failures\u003c/a>, with landers lost in space or crashing to the planet’s surface. As \u003cem>Popular Science \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-08/mars-rover-curiosity%E2%80%99s-biggest-challenge-mars-itself\">noted in 2012\u003c/a>, “Mars usually wins.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The British lander Beagle 2 was one of the more recent Mars-landing letdowns. The probe, carried on ESA’s Mars Express ship, was set to land on Christmas in 2003. It set off from its mothership successfully but then went silent, missing and presumed lost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, a NASA orbiter snapped a picture of the lander that showed it actually made it safely to the surface — but it failed to set itself up to \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/01/16/377659485/long-lost-british-spacecraft-spotted-by-nasa-probe-orbiting-mars\">allow communication with Earth\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=European+Space+Agency+Probe+Approaches+Surface+Of+Mars&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "This Sunday, the Full Moon Will Also Be a Supermoon",
"headTitle": "This Sunday, the Full Moon Will Also Be a Supermoon | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>On Sunday, October 16, the full moon will appear a bit bigger and a bit brighter than usual, since it will be closer to us than the average full moon. Called a “supermoon”, this is the first of three in a row that will grace our night skies through the autumn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s a Supermoon?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Supermoon” is an unofficial term coined in 1979 describing a full moon or a new moon that takes place when the \u003ca href=\"http://moon.nasa.gov/home.cfm\">moon \u003c/a>is closest to the Earth in its elliptical orbit. That spot is called the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/pacalc.html\">perigee\u003c/a>“—a distance of 221,526 miles. When it’s a full moon at perigee, it is also called “super full moon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1067946\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1067946\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/lunar-orbit.jpg\" alt=\"The Moon's orbit around the Earth is an ellipse, with one end closest to the Earth (perigee) and the other end farthest away (apogee). The elongation of the ellipse in this diagram is exaggerated. \" width=\"600\" height=\"299\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/lunar-orbit.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/lunar-orbit-400x199.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Moon’s orbit around the Earth is an ellipse, with one end closest to the Earth (perigee) and the other end farthest away (apogee). The elongation of the ellipse in this diagram is exaggerated. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How Often Does This Happen?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/18880-moon-phases.html\">full moon happens\u003c/a> every lunar month, but is usually not at perigee when it does–that happens less than once per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the actual definition of supermoon isn’t as exacting, requiring it to be within 90 percent of the perigee distance to be considered super. So any full moon that is less than 223,694 miles from Earth is a supermoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This qualifies the full moon of October 16 (at a distance of 222,367 miles) as “super”. The December 13 full moon is a bit farther away (222,752 miles), but still falls under the line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>November 14 brings us the closest supermoon of the year: 221,541 miles — only 15 miles outside of the absolute closest distance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1067947\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1555px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1067947\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung.jpg\" alt=\"The Earth's Moon, close to its Full phase. \" width=\"1555\" height=\"1409\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung.jpg 1555w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung-400x362.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung-800x725.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung-768x696.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung-1440x1305.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung-1180x1069.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung-960x870.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1555px) 100vw, 1555px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Earth’s Moon, close to its Full phase. \u003ccite>(Conrad Jung/Chabot Space and Science Center)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s So Super About It\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a casual glance, a supermoon might appear like any other full moon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Size-wise, it’s only 14 percent larger than a “micromoon” (yes, that’s a thing too: A full moon that coincides with apogee, the moon’s greatest distance from Earth). So unless you take pictures of the supermoon and micromoon and compare them, you probably won’t notice the difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The more notable effect is the supermoon’s brightness, as much as 30 percent greater than its mild-mannered “micro” identity. Now that’s something you can notice without comparing one month’s moon to another. The moon, and the landscapes and clouds it illuminates, will just appear that much brighter. You might even want to put on sunglasses….\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1067943\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/supermoon.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1067943\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/supermoon.jpg\" alt=\"The relative apparent size of the Full Moon as seen from Earth, at apogee (left), average distance (center), and perigee (right).\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/supermoon.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/supermoon-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/supermoon-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The relative apparent size of the Full Moon as seen from Earth, at apogee (left), average distance (center), and perigee (right). \u003ccite>(Adapted from image by Luc Viator)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For the biggest supermoon experience of all, check it out just after moonrise, or before moonset, when the moon is close to the horizon. Then, it will appear even larger by virtue of what’s called the “\u003ca href=\"http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/moon-illusion-confusion11252015/\">moon illusion\u003c/a>:” an effect of human visual perception that makes the moon appear larger than it actually is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can We Blame Anything on the Super Moon?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some have tried making a connection between supermoons and certain natural disasters on Earth, such as major earthquakes and tsunamis, though no scientific correlation between them has been found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, maybe it’s worth mentioning that the new moon that takes place on Halloween will be a micromoon—the darkest and maybe most haunting incarnation of lunar apparitions!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, if you happen to see a few more werewolves running around on Halloween this year….\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Get ready, the \"Super Moon\" is back! And, depending on where you draw the line between \"super\" and \"ordinary\", it will be with us every month this autumn. ",
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"description": "Get ready, the "Super Moon" is back! And, depending on where you draw the line between "super" and "ordinary", it will be with us every month this autumn. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On Sunday, October 16, the full moon will appear a bit bigger and a bit brighter than usual, since it will be closer to us than the average full moon. Called a “supermoon”, this is the first of three in a row that will grace our night skies through the autumn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s a Supermoon?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Supermoon” is an unofficial term coined in 1979 describing a full moon or a new moon that takes place when the \u003ca href=\"http://moon.nasa.gov/home.cfm\">moon \u003c/a>is closest to the Earth in its elliptical orbit. That spot is called the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/pacalc.html\">perigee\u003c/a>“—a distance of 221,526 miles. When it’s a full moon at perigee, it is also called “super full moon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1067946\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1067946\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/lunar-orbit.jpg\" alt=\"The Moon's orbit around the Earth is an ellipse, with one end closest to the Earth (perigee) and the other end farthest away (apogee). The elongation of the ellipse in this diagram is exaggerated. \" width=\"600\" height=\"299\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/lunar-orbit.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/lunar-orbit-400x199.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Moon’s orbit around the Earth is an ellipse, with one end closest to the Earth (perigee) and the other end farthest away (apogee). The elongation of the ellipse in this diagram is exaggerated. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How Often Does This Happen?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/18880-moon-phases.html\">full moon happens\u003c/a> every lunar month, but is usually not at perigee when it does–that happens less than once per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the actual definition of supermoon isn’t as exacting, requiring it to be within 90 percent of the perigee distance to be considered super. So any full moon that is less than 223,694 miles from Earth is a supermoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This qualifies the full moon of October 16 (at a distance of 222,367 miles) as “super”. The December 13 full moon is a bit farther away (222,752 miles), but still falls under the line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>November 14 brings us the closest supermoon of the year: 221,541 miles — only 15 miles outside of the absolute closest distance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1067947\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1555px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1067947\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung.jpg\" alt=\"The Earth's Moon, close to its Full phase. \" width=\"1555\" height=\"1409\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung.jpg 1555w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung-400x362.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung-800x725.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung-768x696.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung-1440x1305.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung-1180x1069.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/moon-leah-conradjung-960x870.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1555px) 100vw, 1555px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Earth’s Moon, close to its Full phase. \u003ccite>(Conrad Jung/Chabot Space and Science Center)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s So Super About It\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a casual glance, a supermoon might appear like any other full moon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Size-wise, it’s only 14 percent larger than a “micromoon” (yes, that’s a thing too: A full moon that coincides with apogee, the moon’s greatest distance from Earth). So unless you take pictures of the supermoon and micromoon and compare them, you probably won’t notice the difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The more notable effect is the supermoon’s brightness, as much as 30 percent greater than its mild-mannered “micro” identity. Now that’s something you can notice without comparing one month’s moon to another. The moon, and the landscapes and clouds it illuminates, will just appear that much brighter. You might even want to put on sunglasses….\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1067943\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/supermoon.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1067943\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/supermoon.jpg\" alt=\"The relative apparent size of the Full Moon as seen from Earth, at apogee (left), average distance (center), and perigee (right).\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/supermoon.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/supermoon-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/10/supermoon-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The relative apparent size of the Full Moon as seen from Earth, at apogee (left), average distance (center), and perigee (right). \u003ccite>(Adapted from image by Luc Viator)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For the biggest supermoon experience of all, check it out just after moonrise, or before moonset, when the moon is close to the horizon. Then, it will appear even larger by virtue of what’s called the “\u003ca href=\"http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/moon-illusion-confusion11252015/\">moon illusion\u003c/a>:” an effect of human visual perception that makes the moon appear larger than it actually is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can We Blame Anything on the Super Moon?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some have tried making a connection between supermoons and certain natural disasters on Earth, such as major earthquakes and tsunamis, though no scientific correlation between them has been found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, maybe it’s worth mentioning that the new moon that takes place on Halloween will be a micromoon—the darkest and maybe most haunting incarnation of lunar apparitions!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, if you happen to see a few more werewolves running around on Halloween this year….\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>NASA is already renowned for animations and breathtaking imagery from its various space missions and satellites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if you’re up for a deeper dive into the science behind all that, there is now \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/funder/nasa/\">PubSpace\u003c/a>, an online repository providing free access to results from NASA-funded research. Now, it is even easier to explore the Earth, solar system, and the universe beyond — provided that you have the stamina to read through reports written by scientists for other scientists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA created PubSpace in response to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s direction to make NASA-funded research more accessible to the public. Research results will be made available within a year, with some exceptions, including research involving national security, patents, and proprietary restrictions (that “national security” part could eliminate a lot of rocket science).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Broadening the Audience\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before PubSpace, access to these research publications was usually on a pay-to-read basis, making scientists the primary consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1026907\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 768px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1026907\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/2824_PIA17031_768.jpg\" alt=\"The liquid-methane lake Ligeia Mare on Saturn's moon Titan. \" width=\"768\" height=\"732\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/2824_PIA17031_768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/2824_PIA17031_768-400x381.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/2824_PIA17031_768-32x32.jpg 32w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The liquid-methane lake Ligeia Mare on Saturn’s moon Titan. \u003ccite>(Cassini/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By opening the gates with a singular browsable and searchable compendium with no cost deterrents, NASA hopes to expand that audience to include a much broader audience: amateur science enthusiasts and citizen scientists, students, and even casual consumers of information and lifelong learners who might enjoy browsing the headers and digging into a few abstracts that pique their curiosity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s New\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA has long made the discoveries from its Earth and space missions freely available online. NASA mission websites are brimming with flashy images and videos, articles and blogs, press releases, and educational primers for teachers and students, all derived from the cameras and other instruments on spacecraft sent to the ends of the solar system or peering out to the edge of the visible universe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve ever checked out the sites for high-profile missions like \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/\">Curiosity\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/\">Cassini\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/\">New Horizons \u003c/a>— not to mention the \u003ca href=\"http://hubblesite.org/\">Hubble Space Telescope \u003c/a>— you know what I’m talking about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But behind the glossy exteriors of those websites is the original scientific work that informs them, largely in the form of peer-reviewed scientific papers written from the analysis of raw data coming in from those missions, or investigations conducted on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>From Martian Tsunamis to Giant Clams\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are currently more than 800 listings on PubSpace, from research conducted as far back as 1961 to just last week. If you choose to explore PubSpace in search of inspiring nuggets of discovery, they are there for the finding, but you may have to sift through a bit of techno-jargon and sci-speak to uncover them—like shoveling through layers of earth to look for gemstones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On my first dig I stumbled on a paper entitled, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4223897/\">Photosymbiotic giant clams are transformers of solar flux\u003c/a>,” and I wondered if I’d wandered into a science fiction story. A read of the abstract was a bit more down to Earth, but no less fascinating when I discovered that inside these giant clams “a layer of iridescent cells called iridocytes” are processing and delivering the most beneficial colors of sunlight to feed photosynthetic microalgae living symbiotically within the clam. Who knew? Obviously someone at NASA did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some other titles that intrigued me:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4810239/\">Titan as the Abode of Life\u003c/a>: Could some form of carbon-based, meteorite-fed photosynthetic life thrive in the cryogenically frigid environment of Saturn’s moon Titan?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5008114/\">The Astrobiology Primer\u003c/a>: What is life? What does life on Earth teach us about the possibilities for life on other worlds? How will we find it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1026908\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 985px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1026908\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/color_coded_digital_elevation_model_showing_the_two_proposed_shoreline_levels_of_a_mars_ocean_from_3.4_billion_years_ago.jpg\" alt=\"Color coded maps of paleo-shorelines on Mars shaped by great tsunamis in ancient ocean. \" width=\"985\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/color_coded_digital_elevation_model_showing_the_two_proposed_shoreline_levels_of_a_mars_ocean_from_3.4_billion_years_ago.jpg 985w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/color_coded_digital_elevation_model_showing_the_two_proposed_shoreline_levels_of_a_mars_ocean_from_3.4_billion_years_ago-400x203.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/color_coded_digital_elevation_model_showing_the_two_proposed_shoreline_levels_of_a_mars_ocean_from_3.4_billion_years_ago-800x406.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/color_coded_digital_elevation_model_showing_the_two_proposed_shoreline_levels_of_a_mars_ocean_from_3.4_billion_years_ago-768x390.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/color_coded_digital_elevation_model_showing_the_two_proposed_shoreline_levels_of_a_mars_ocean_from_3.4_billion_years_ago-960x487.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 985px) 100vw, 985px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Color-coded maps of paleo-shorelines on Mars, shaped by great tsunamis in an ancient ocean. \u003ccite>(Alexis Rodriguez)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4872529/\">Tsunami Waves Extensively Resurfaced the Shorelines of an Early Martian Ocean\u003c/a>: What is the evidence that long ago Mars’ northern plains were covered by a vast ocean of liquid water? Scientists are studying land forms that were likely shaped by enormous meteorite-impact-driven tsunamis that sent water and ice tens or hundreds of miles across the Martian terrain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are just a few examples of what caught my eye. Take a dive and see what you can find.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>NASA is already renowned for animations and breathtaking imagery from its various space missions and satellites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if you’re up for a deeper dive into the science behind all that, there is now \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/funder/nasa/\">PubSpace\u003c/a>, an online repository providing free access to results from NASA-funded research. Now, it is even easier to explore the Earth, solar system, and the universe beyond — provided that you have the stamina to read through reports written by scientists for other scientists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA created PubSpace in response to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s direction to make NASA-funded research more accessible to the public. Research results will be made available within a year, with some exceptions, including research involving national security, patents, and proprietary restrictions (that “national security” part could eliminate a lot of rocket science).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Broadening the Audience\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before PubSpace, access to these research publications was usually on a pay-to-read basis, making scientists the primary consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1026907\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 768px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1026907\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/2824_PIA17031_768.jpg\" alt=\"The liquid-methane lake Ligeia Mare on Saturn's moon Titan. \" width=\"768\" height=\"732\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/2824_PIA17031_768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/2824_PIA17031_768-400x381.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/2824_PIA17031_768-32x32.jpg 32w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The liquid-methane lake Ligeia Mare on Saturn’s moon Titan. \u003ccite>(Cassini/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By opening the gates with a singular browsable and searchable compendium with no cost deterrents, NASA hopes to expand that audience to include a much broader audience: amateur science enthusiasts and citizen scientists, students, and even casual consumers of information and lifelong learners who might enjoy browsing the headers and digging into a few abstracts that pique their curiosity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s New\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA has long made the discoveries from its Earth and space missions freely available online. NASA mission websites are brimming with flashy images and videos, articles and blogs, press releases, and educational primers for teachers and students, all derived from the cameras and other instruments on spacecraft sent to the ends of the solar system or peering out to the edge of the visible universe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve ever checked out the sites for high-profile missions like \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/\">Curiosity\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/\">Cassini\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/\">New Horizons \u003c/a>— not to mention the \u003ca href=\"http://hubblesite.org/\">Hubble Space Telescope \u003c/a>— you know what I’m talking about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But behind the glossy exteriors of those websites is the original scientific work that informs them, largely in the form of peer-reviewed scientific papers written from the analysis of raw data coming in from those missions, or investigations conducted on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>From Martian Tsunamis to Giant Clams\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are currently more than 800 listings on PubSpace, from research conducted as far back as 1961 to just last week. If you choose to explore PubSpace in search of inspiring nuggets of discovery, they are there for the finding, but you may have to sift through a bit of techno-jargon and sci-speak to uncover them—like shoveling through layers of earth to look for gemstones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On my first dig I stumbled on a paper entitled, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4223897/\">Photosymbiotic giant clams are transformers of solar flux\u003c/a>,” and I wondered if I’d wandered into a science fiction story. A read of the abstract was a bit more down to Earth, but no less fascinating when I discovered that inside these giant clams “a layer of iridescent cells called iridocytes” are processing and delivering the most beneficial colors of sunlight to feed photosynthetic microalgae living symbiotically within the clam. Who knew? Obviously someone at NASA did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some other titles that intrigued me:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4810239/\">Titan as the Abode of Life\u003c/a>: Could some form of carbon-based, meteorite-fed photosynthetic life thrive in the cryogenically frigid environment of Saturn’s moon Titan?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5008114/\">The Astrobiology Primer\u003c/a>: What is life? What does life on Earth teach us about the possibilities for life on other worlds? How will we find it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1026908\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 985px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1026908\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/color_coded_digital_elevation_model_showing_the_two_proposed_shoreline_levels_of_a_mars_ocean_from_3.4_billion_years_ago.jpg\" alt=\"Color coded maps of paleo-shorelines on Mars shaped by great tsunamis in ancient ocean. \" width=\"985\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/color_coded_digital_elevation_model_showing_the_two_proposed_shoreline_levels_of_a_mars_ocean_from_3.4_billion_years_ago.jpg 985w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/color_coded_digital_elevation_model_showing_the_two_proposed_shoreline_levels_of_a_mars_ocean_from_3.4_billion_years_ago-400x203.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/color_coded_digital_elevation_model_showing_the_two_proposed_shoreline_levels_of_a_mars_ocean_from_3.4_billion_years_ago-800x406.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/color_coded_digital_elevation_model_showing_the_two_proposed_shoreline_levels_of_a_mars_ocean_from_3.4_billion_years_ago-768x390.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/color_coded_digital_elevation_model_showing_the_two_proposed_shoreline_levels_of_a_mars_ocean_from_3.4_billion_years_ago-960x487.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 985px) 100vw, 985px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Color-coded maps of paleo-shorelines on Mars, shaped by great tsunamis in an ancient ocean. \u003ccite>(Alexis Rodriguez)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4872529/\">Tsunami Waves Extensively Resurfaced the Shorelines of an Early Martian Ocean\u003c/a>: What is the evidence that long ago Mars’ northern plains were covered by a vast ocean of liquid water? Scientists are studying land forms that were likely shaped by enormous meteorite-impact-driven tsunamis that sent water and ice tens or hundreds of miles across the Martian terrain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are just a few examples of what caught my eye. Take a dive and see what you can find.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Why the Recent Rumors of E.T. ‘Phoning Home’ Were Exaggerated",
"headTitle": "Why the Recent Rumors of E.T. ‘Phoning Home’ Were Exaggerated | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>A couple of weeks ago, at the end of August, our collective ear perked up at a possible sign of intelligent life out in the universe. \u003ca href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/30/health/seti-signal-hd-164595-alien-civilization/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The buzz\u003c/a> was caused by a report that a Russian radio telescope detected a relatively strong signal at an unusual frequency for natural radio sources, from the direction of a star named \u003ca href=\"http://www.openexoplanetcatalogue.com/planet/HD%20164595%20b/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HD 164595\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">If the radio signal came from star HD 164595, it would require nearly as much power as our civilization consumes. \u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>For those who saw the movie “Contact,” this might have brought up images of Jodi Foster wearing a headset and looking quite startled by a very unambiguous intelligent radio signal of extraterrestrial origin. What a world-changer that would be!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sao.ru/Doc-en/SciNews/2016/Sotnikova/\">apparent detection of the signal\u003c/a> was nothing short of a whimper, one might even say, fizzle, as far as the E.T.-listening world is concerned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what happened?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/seti-institute/a-seti-signal\">the initial buzz\u003c/a> focused on the signal’s possible origin — a Sun-sized star 94 light years away (HD 164595) — follow-up observations failed to net a second detection. And subsequent analysis now indicates that the signal was likely Earth-based — that is, a spurious blip of noise from our own civilization. (If so, then the origin of the signal might, in fact, be an intelligent civilization: ours.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the report, scientists at Mountain View’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SETI Institute\u003c/a> pointed the powerful radio-ear of its \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/ata\">Allen Telescope Array\u003c/a> at HD 164595 for a few hours on August 28 to see if the signal could be verified, though so far have not heard anything unusual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the non-profit researches the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_993028\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-993028\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/ATA_pix1.jpg\" alt=\"Radio telescope dishes of the Allen Telescope Array at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory 290 miles northeast of San Francisco\" width=\"630\" height=\"418\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/ATA_pix1.jpg 630w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/ATA_pix1-400x265.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Radio telescope dishes of the Allen Telescope Array at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory 290 miles northeast of San Francisco \u003ccite>(SETI)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://cosmicdiary.org/fmarchis/2016/08/29/lets-be-careful-about-this-seti-signal/\">Looking at the HD 164595 E.T. rumor\u003c/a> more soberly, and doing the math on the signal strength and the power necessary to produce it, it’s evident that for the transmission to have originated from an intelligent civilization in that star system, the E.T.s’ technology would have to exceed our own considerably.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A general broadcast from that star, transmitted in every direction into space, would have required a hundred billion billion\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>watts of power to produce the signal reported by the researchers. Yep, you read that right — billion \u003cem>billion\u003c/em>. That’s millions of times more power than our own civilization currently consumes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even a more efficient and targeted communication — say, a tightly focused radio beam directed intentionally at us — would require a trillion watts, nearly as much power as our entire civilization consumes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Both scenarios require an effort far, far beyond what we ourselves could do,” says SETI senior scientist Seth Shostak, “and it’s hard to understand why anyone would want to target our solar system with a strong signal.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The E.T.-scenario supposes that the would-be denizens of HD 164595 know that a radio-receptive civilization exists on our planet, and want to send us a message. However, being 94 light years away, none of our own radio and television broadcasts will have reached them, and won’t for another couple of decades (at which time “I Love Lucy” will be one of the first shows they see).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, the numbers just don’t add up to explaining the observation as E.T.-originated — not without some extraordinary assumptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, \u003ca href=\"http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/aliens-line-one-180960067/?no-ist\">we keep on listening for signals\u003c/a> of extraterrestrial, intelligent origin. The payoff could be huge, if we ever detect any. If E.T. sends us a directed message, “Dear people of the planet Earth…,” what would it consist of? Design instructions for advanced technologies? Descriptions of the life and times of the people on their planet? A simple hello? Or possibly, “Look out, Earthlings, here we come….”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just knowing that another intelligent, technological civilization exists elsewhere in the universe would be a mind-blowing thing, even if all we detect are weak and inadvertent broadcasts of E.T.’s version of “Gilligan’s Island.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A couple of weeks ago, at the end of August, our collective ear perked up at a possible sign of intelligent life out in the universe. \u003ca href=\"http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/30/health/seti-signal-hd-164595-alien-civilization/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The buzz\u003c/a> was caused by a report that a Russian radio telescope detected a relatively strong signal at an unusual frequency for natural radio sources, from the direction of a star named \u003ca href=\"http://www.openexoplanetcatalogue.com/planet/HD%20164595%20b/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HD 164595\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">If the radio signal came from star HD 164595, it would require nearly as much power as our civilization consumes. \u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>For those who saw the movie “Contact,” this might have brought up images of Jodi Foster wearing a headset and looking quite startled by a very unambiguous intelligent radio signal of extraterrestrial origin. What a world-changer that would be!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sao.ru/Doc-en/SciNews/2016/Sotnikova/\">apparent detection of the signal\u003c/a> was nothing short of a whimper, one might even say, fizzle, as far as the E.T.-listening world is concerned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what happened?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/seti-institute/a-seti-signal\">the initial buzz\u003c/a> focused on the signal’s possible origin — a Sun-sized star 94 light years away (HD 164595) — follow-up observations failed to net a second detection. And subsequent analysis now indicates that the signal was likely Earth-based — that is, a spurious blip of noise from our own civilization. (If so, then the origin of the signal might, in fact, be an intelligent civilization: ours.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the report, scientists at Mountain View’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SETI Institute\u003c/a> pointed the powerful radio-ear of its \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/ata\">Allen Telescope Array\u003c/a> at HD 164595 for a few hours on August 28 to see if the signal could be verified, though so far have not heard anything unusual.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the non-profit researches the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_993028\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-993028\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/ATA_pix1.jpg\" alt=\"Radio telescope dishes of the Allen Telescope Array at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory 290 miles northeast of San Francisco\" width=\"630\" height=\"418\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/ATA_pix1.jpg 630w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/ATA_pix1-400x265.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Radio telescope dishes of the Allen Telescope Array at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory 290 miles northeast of San Francisco \u003ccite>(SETI)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://cosmicdiary.org/fmarchis/2016/08/29/lets-be-careful-about-this-seti-signal/\">Looking at the HD 164595 E.T. rumor\u003c/a> more soberly, and doing the math on the signal strength and the power necessary to produce it, it’s evident that for the transmission to have originated from an intelligent civilization in that star system, the E.T.s’ technology would have to exceed our own considerably.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A general broadcast from that star, transmitted in every direction into space, would have required a hundred billion billion\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>watts of power to produce the signal reported by the researchers. Yep, you read that right — billion \u003cem>billion\u003c/em>. That’s millions of times more power than our own civilization currently consumes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even a more efficient and targeted communication — say, a tightly focused radio beam directed intentionally at us — would require a trillion watts, nearly as much power as our entire civilization consumes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Both scenarios require an effort far, far beyond what we ourselves could do,” says SETI senior scientist Seth Shostak, “and it’s hard to understand why anyone would want to target our solar system with a strong signal.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The E.T.-scenario supposes that the would-be denizens of HD 164595 know that a radio-receptive civilization exists on our planet, and want to send us a message. However, being 94 light years away, none of our own radio and television broadcasts will have reached them, and won’t for another couple of decades (at which time “I Love Lucy” will be one of the first shows they see).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, the numbers just don’t add up to explaining the observation as E.T.-originated — not without some extraordinary assumptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, \u003ca href=\"http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/aliens-line-one-180960067/?no-ist\">we keep on listening for signals\u003c/a> of extraterrestrial, intelligent origin. The payoff could be huge, if we ever detect any. If E.T. sends us a directed message, “Dear people of the planet Earth…,” what would it consist of? Design instructions for advanced technologies? Descriptions of the life and times of the people on their planet? A simple hello? Or possibly, “Look out, Earthlings, here we come….”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just knowing that another intelligent, technological civilization exists elsewhere in the universe would be a mind-blowing thing, even if all we detect are weak and inadvertent broadcasts of E.T.’s version of “Gilligan’s Island.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "NASA's Other Asteroid Mission: Grab a Chunk and Put It in Orbit Around the Moon",
"headTitle": "NASA’s Other Asteroid Mission: Grab a Chunk and Put It in Orbit Around the Moon | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>NASA sent a robotic spacecraft from Florida \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/08/491482001/nasa-mission-to-retrieve-ancient-asteroid-dust-is-ready-for-launch\">out to an asteroid\u003c/a> Thursday, but that’s not the only asteroid mission the space agency has in the works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials also want to study a different asteroid with the help of astronauts. And it looks like the next president, plus Congress, will have to decide whether this \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/what-is-nasa-s-asteroid-redirect-mission\">human mission\u003c/a> to a flying rock should ever get off the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of visiting an asteroid goes back to 2010, when President Obama went to Kennedy Space Center in Florida to lay out his new plan for space exploration. He said he wanted astronauts to eventually land on Mars, and that the first steps would be to send astronauts out beyond the moon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid, for the first time in history,” he \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/about/obama_ksc_pod.html\">told\u003c/a> the NASA workers. “By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trouble is, flying people to an asteroid turned out to be really hard. The trip would take months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So NASA settled on a slightly different \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2013/04/12/176798246/in-nasas-budget-plans-to-shrink-wrap-an-asteroid\">plan\u003c/a>, called the Asteroid Redirect Mission. The agency would send a robot out to retrieve an asteroid and bring it close to the moon. That way, the astronauts could study it in lunar orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t sending people to an asteroid; it was bringing an asteroid to people. But you were still demonstrating some of the technologies that NASA wanted to demonstrate as part of its long-term goal of sending humans to Mars,” explains \u003ca href=\"http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/contributors/marcia-smith\">Marcia Smith\u003c/a>, a space policy analyst and consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it was difficult to find a small asteroid to target, and that mission seemed too daunting. “They ultimately made the decision to not move an entire asteroid, but just pluck a boulder from the asteroid’s surface, and bring the boulder to the astronauts,” Smith says. “That is the current plan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having a robot venture out tens of millions of miles, grab a multi-ton, car-sized boulder and then drag it to the moon, plus sending people up to study this rock, will cost something like $2 billion. That’s a hefty price tag, and some question whether this mission really makes sense, given NASA’s limited budget for human space exploration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If your long term goal is to go to Mars, do you need to spend $2 billion doing this mission?” Smith says. “Or can you spend it better doing other things?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/how-will-nasas-asteroid-redirect-mission-help-humans-reach-mars\">says\u003c/a> that when a crew flies up in the mid-2020s to rendezvous with this hunk of asteroid orbiting the moon, it will be a clear step forward — toward putting people on Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_982237\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-982237\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR.jpg\" alt=\"An astronaut in this artist's conception prepares to investigate the asteroid boulder. But proponents of the NASA mission say that instead of sending humans to an asteroid, it might be easier and quicker to bring the asteroid to the humans.\" width=\"800\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR-768x431.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An astronaut in this artist’s conception prepares to investigate the asteroid boulder. But proponents of the NASA mission say that instead of sending humans to an asteroid, it might be easier and quicker to bring the asteroid to the humans. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’ll be the first time we have brought humans back to the lunar vicinity,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/michele-gates.html\">Michele Gates\u003c/a>, program director for the mission at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. “They’ll actually be 50,000 miles past the surface of the moon — farther than people have ever been before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gates says planners are currently targeting a near-Earth asteroid called 2008 EV5, and that the first part of the mission would launch in December 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A major goal is to use advanced solar electric propulsion that’s already in development at NASA. “This technology that we’ll be demonstrating is truly a leap from where we currently are, and a significant step and contribution to what we’ll need for deeper-space human missions,” Gates says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another part of the mission would be to test out the so-called gravity tractor method for altering the course of an asteroid. The robotic spacecraft would hover near the asteroid for a while, using the tiny force of its gravity to tug the asteroid onto a different path. Seeing how well this works could reveal whether that’s a viable strategy for protecting our planet from any dangerous space rocks that astronomers determine are on a collision course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Speaking of collisions, NASA says that moving around a big boulder in space poses no risk to Earth, because even if there was some kind of unlikely accident, a rock this size would be expected to burn up in our atmosphere.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once astronauts met up with the captured asteroid boulder in lunar orbit, they could gather samples of the big rock to bring home. Gates says they’ll be able to retrieve more material than the fully robotic \u003ca href=\"http://www.asteroidmission.org/\">OSIRIS-REx\u003c/a> mission that just launched. And, she says, these samples “will be carefully selected, utilizing the brains, the real-time thinking, the decision-making and the visual capabilities that humans will bring.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mission has been through two key decision-making reviews — the last one wrapped up in July. “We’re currently in what we call the formulation stage,” Gates says, adding that NASA would not make any firm commitment until the next major review, scheduled for March 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone loves this mission. Asked if the space agency should do it, former astronaut \u003ca href=\"http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/voss-ji.html\">James Voss\u003c/a> told NPR, “That’s a really hard question.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_982241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-982241\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR.jpg\" alt=\"Using advanced Solar Electric Propulsion technologies would be an essential part of future missions into deep space with larger payloads, NASA says, and this mission would be a way to test the technology. But critics think there are better ways to learn how to explore places such as Mars.\" width=\"800\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR-768x431.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Using advanced Solar Electric Propulsion technologies would be an essential part of future missions into deep space with larger payloads, NASA says, and this mission would be a way to test the technology. But critics think there are better ways to learn how to explore places such as Mars. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He understands NASA’s rationale for it, but says he personally thinks the money could be better spent on something that would get people to Mars more quickly, such as the development of a Mars lander.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, if you just sat down and tried to chart a path forward to Mars, it’s hard to imagine that you’d include this kind of effort to capture an asteroid, says \u003ca href=\"http://www.leroychiao.com/\">Leroy Chiao\u003c/a>, another former astronaut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chiao says that if he were still part of the astronaut corps, he’d be excited to fly around the moon. “And if there happened to be an asteroid there that we could fly in formation with or, you know, a boulder, that’s fine. But I’d be just as happy not flying in formation with a boulder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given that NASA’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasas-journey-to-mars\">stated goal\u003c/a> is to get to Mars in the 2030s, Chiao just doesn’t see the point of this asteroid mission, which he believes is a product of budget constraints and politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On a technical level, I don’t think it’s worth doing,” Chiao says, adding that NASA seems to be trying to satisfy the White House’s desire to do something with an asteroid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He thinks we’d learn a lot more about how to explore Mars if we did something like set up a moon base to test out habitats, rovers and space suits. “But frankly,” Chiao says, “the moon was perceived as President [George W.] Bush’s program, so I don’t think that was really a starter, politically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://waynehale.wordpress.com/\">Wayne Hale\u003c/a>, the former head of NASA’s space shuttle program, tells NPR that he thinks the Asteroid Redirect Mission is “a great technology-development mission. It’s not a science mission, and that’s caused it some criticism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The long term goal, he says, remains to put humans on the surface of Mars. “If a new president were to come in and say, ‘We’re not going to go to Mars, we’re going to just junk that whole idea,” that would be a big deal,” Hale says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he thinks NASA would be OK if the next president decided that this asteroid plan should be abandoned in favor of a different step toward the Red Planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think that would be a huge shift in priorities,” Hale says. “I think that would be something the agency could accommodate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=NASA%27s+Other+Asteroid+Mission%3A+Grab+A+Chunk+And+Put+It+In+Orbit+Around+The+Moon&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Flying people to an asteroid is really hard, so NASA wants to bring part of it to them. But some former astronauts say the $2 billion plan was born of politics and budget cuts, and makes little sense.",
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"description": "Flying people to an asteroid is really hard, so NASA wants to bring part of it to them. But some former astronauts say the $2 billion plan was born of politics and budget cuts, and makes little sense.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>NASA sent a robotic spacecraft from Florida \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/08/491482001/nasa-mission-to-retrieve-ancient-asteroid-dust-is-ready-for-launch\">out to an asteroid\u003c/a> Thursday, but that’s not the only asteroid mission the space agency has in the works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials also want to study a different asteroid with the help of astronauts. And it looks like the next president, plus Congress, will have to decide whether this \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/what-is-nasa-s-asteroid-redirect-mission\">human mission\u003c/a> to a flying rock should ever get off the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of visiting an asteroid goes back to 2010, when President Obama went to Kennedy Space Center in Florida to lay out his new plan for space exploration. He said he wanted astronauts to eventually land on Mars, and that the first steps would be to send astronauts out beyond the moon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid, for the first time in history,” he \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/about/obama_ksc_pod.html\">told\u003c/a> the NASA workers. “By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trouble is, flying people to an asteroid turned out to be really hard. The trip would take months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So NASA settled on a slightly different \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2013/04/12/176798246/in-nasas-budget-plans-to-shrink-wrap-an-asteroid\">plan\u003c/a>, called the Asteroid Redirect Mission. The agency would send a robot out to retrieve an asteroid and bring it close to the moon. That way, the astronauts could study it in lunar orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t sending people to an asteroid; it was bringing an asteroid to people. But you were still demonstrating some of the technologies that NASA wanted to demonstrate as part of its long-term goal of sending humans to Mars,” explains \u003ca href=\"http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/contributors/marcia-smith\">Marcia Smith\u003c/a>, a space policy analyst and consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it was difficult to find a small asteroid to target, and that mission seemed too daunting. “They ultimately made the decision to not move an entire asteroid, but just pluck a boulder from the asteroid’s surface, and bring the boulder to the astronauts,” Smith says. “That is the current plan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having a robot venture out tens of millions of miles, grab a multi-ton, car-sized boulder and then drag it to the moon, plus sending people up to study this rock, will cost something like $2 billion. That’s a hefty price tag, and some question whether this mission really makes sense, given NASA’s limited budget for human space exploration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If your long term goal is to go to Mars, do you need to spend $2 billion doing this mission?” Smith says. “Or can you spend it better doing other things?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/how-will-nasas-asteroid-redirect-mission-help-humans-reach-mars\">says\u003c/a> that when a crew flies up in the mid-2020s to rendezvous with this hunk of asteroid orbiting the moon, it will be a clear step forward — toward putting people on Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_982237\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-982237\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR.jpg\" alt=\"An astronaut in this artist's conception prepares to investigate the asteroid boulder. But proponents of the NASA mission say that instead of sending humans to an asteroid, it might be easier and quicker to bring the asteroid to the humans.\" width=\"800\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR-768x431.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An astronaut in this artist’s conception prepares to investigate the asteroid boulder. But proponents of the NASA mission say that instead of sending humans to an asteroid, it might be easier and quicker to bring the asteroid to the humans. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’ll be the first time we have brought humans back to the lunar vicinity,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/michele-gates.html\">Michele Gates\u003c/a>, program director for the mission at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. “They’ll actually be 50,000 miles past the surface of the moon — farther than people have ever been before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gates says planners are currently targeting a near-Earth asteroid called 2008 EV5, and that the first part of the mission would launch in December 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A major goal is to use advanced solar electric propulsion that’s already in development at NASA. “This technology that we’ll be demonstrating is truly a leap from where we currently are, and a significant step and contribution to what we’ll need for deeper-space human missions,” Gates says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another part of the mission would be to test out the so-called gravity tractor method for altering the course of an asteroid. The robotic spacecraft would hover near the asteroid for a while, using the tiny force of its gravity to tug the asteroid onto a different path. Seeing how well this works could reveal whether that’s a viable strategy for protecting our planet from any dangerous space rocks that astronomers determine are on a collision course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Speaking of collisions, NASA says that moving around a big boulder in space poses no risk to Earth, because even if there was some kind of unlikely accident, a rock this size would be expected to burn up in our atmosphere.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once astronauts met up with the captured asteroid boulder in lunar orbit, they could gather samples of the big rock to bring home. Gates says they’ll be able to retrieve more material than the fully robotic \u003ca href=\"http://www.asteroidmission.org/\">OSIRIS-REx\u003c/a> mission that just launched. And, she says, these samples “will be carefully selected, utilizing the brains, the real-time thinking, the decision-making and the visual capabilities that humans will bring.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mission has been through two key decision-making reviews — the last one wrapped up in July. “We’re currently in what we call the formulation stage,” Gates says, adding that NASA would not make any firm commitment until the next major review, scheduled for March 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone loves this mission. Asked if the space agency should do it, former astronaut \u003ca href=\"http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/voss-ji.html\">James Voss\u003c/a> told NPR, “That’s a really hard question.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_982241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-982241\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR.jpg\" alt=\"Using advanced Solar Electric Propulsion technologies would be an essential part of future missions into deep space with larger payloads, NASA says, and this mission would be a way to test the technology. But critics think there are better ways to learn how to explore places such as Mars.\" width=\"800\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR-768x431.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Using advanced Solar Electric Propulsion technologies would be an essential part of future missions into deep space with larger payloads, NASA says, and this mission would be a way to test the technology. But critics think there are better ways to learn how to explore places such as Mars. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He understands NASA’s rationale for it, but says he personally thinks the money could be better spent on something that would get people to Mars more quickly, such as the development of a Mars lander.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, if you just sat down and tried to chart a path forward to Mars, it’s hard to imagine that you’d include this kind of effort to capture an asteroid, says \u003ca href=\"http://www.leroychiao.com/\">Leroy Chiao\u003c/a>, another former astronaut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chiao says that if he were still part of the astronaut corps, he’d be excited to fly around the moon. “And if there happened to be an asteroid there that we could fly in formation with or, you know, a boulder, that’s fine. But I’d be just as happy not flying in formation with a boulder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given that NASA’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasas-journey-to-mars\">stated goal\u003c/a> is to get to Mars in the 2030s, Chiao just doesn’t see the point of this asteroid mission, which he believes is a product of budget constraints and politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On a technical level, I don’t think it’s worth doing,” Chiao says, adding that NASA seems to be trying to satisfy the White House’s desire to do something with an asteroid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He thinks we’d learn a lot more about how to explore Mars if we did something like set up a moon base to test out habitats, rovers and space suits. “But frankly,” Chiao says, “the moon was perceived as President [George W.] Bush’s program, so I don’t think that was really a starter, politically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://waynehale.wordpress.com/\">Wayne Hale\u003c/a>, the former head of NASA’s space shuttle program, tells NPR that he thinks the Asteroid Redirect Mission is “a great technology-development mission. It’s not a science mission, and that’s caused it some criticism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The long term goal, he says, remains to put humans on the surface of Mars. “If a new president were to come in and say, ‘We’re not going to go to Mars, we’re going to just junk that whole idea,” that would be a big deal,” Hale says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he thinks NASA would be OK if the next president decided that this asteroid plan should be abandoned in favor of a different step toward the Red Planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think that would be a huge shift in priorities,” Hale says. “I think that would be something the agency could accommodate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=NASA%27s+Other+Asteroid+Mission%3A+Grab+A+Chunk+And+Put+It+In+Orbit+Around+The+Moon&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "How Super-Massive Black Holes Shed Light on Our Understanding of the Cosmos",
"headTitle": "How Super-Massive Black Holes Shed Light on Our Understanding of the Cosmos | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>In the 2014 science fiction movie “Interstellar,” a team of astronauts led by Matthew McConaughey uses a fictional, super-massive black hole named Gargantua to slingshot a spaceship on a desperate voyage to find a distant planet for humanity to colonize, as Earth faces environmental collapse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film piqued audience interest in black holes, and did well at the box office, earning $675 million worldwide. But since then, real-life scientific research into black holes and black hole related phenomena has turned up some dramatic stories as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Only last year, astronomers looking into the core of the galaxy NGC 1600 found a super-massive black hole that contains the mass of 17 billion sun-sized stars!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Most Massive Singular Objects in the Universe\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contrary to what the name “black hole” implies—a vacant void in space—these objects are anything but empty. In a super-massive black hole, the equivalent mass of millions, or billions, of sun-sized stars has collapsed into a single point in space: a “singularity” with infinite density.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have discovered super-massive black holes at the cores of many galaxies, including our own Milky Way. The dark heart of our galaxy is a black hole possessing the mass of about 4 million suns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That may sound like a lot, but the Milky Way’s central black hole is a mere pip compared to some we have found. One of the most massive known, \u003ca href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160218-black-hole-ngc-4889-coma-cluster-galaxy-hubble-photo/\">at the core of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4889\u003c/a>, weighs in at about 21 billion solar masses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Interstellar’s fictitious “Gargantua,” calculated by astrophysicist Kip Thorne to satisfy the movie’s storyline, is a 100 million sun-mass beast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mysteries Wrapped in Enigmas\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A month ago, researchers at the University of Turin in Italy and Harvard published a key discovery about a black hole-related phenomenon called a “\u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/science/blazers.html\">blazar\u003c/a>,” one of the most powerfully intense sources of radiation in the universe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blazars are a sort of ultimate mystery wrapped in an enigma. The mystery is a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/behemoth-black-hole-found-in-an-unlikely-place\">super-massive black hole\u003c/a> located at the core of a galaxy, the gargantuan gravitational engine that drives the blazar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_956423\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-956423 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-800x482.jpg\" alt=\"All-sky map of infrared sources produced by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE).\" width=\"800\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-800x482.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-400x241.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-768x462.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-1440x867.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-1180x710.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-960x578.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap.jpg 1701w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">All-sky map of infrared sources produced by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE). \u003ccite>(NASA/WISE)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The enigma is the mind-boggling amount of energy—in the form of gamma rays, X-rays, visible light, infrared, high-speed jets of electrically charged particles\u003cstrong>, \u003c/strong>and other forms—released by galactic material falling into the black hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we understand blazars, clouds of gases surrounding the super-massive black hole form into a flattened, spinning “accretion” disk, accelerating to higher and higher velocities as it spirals closer to the black hole’s “event horizon”—that famed point of no return from which nothing, not even light, can escape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before taking the plunge, the super-energized material emits the copious amounts of radiation that we observe, some of which is ejected from the accretion disk in a pair of “polar jets” that spew outward in opposite directions at near the speed of light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These jets are huge structures that can span [a] few to thousands of light years in size,” says Francesco Massaro of the University of Turin in Italy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The energy released by a blazar can easily exceed the brightness of the rest of the galaxy surrounding it. This is remarkable, since the source of all that energy is contained within a volume of space no bigger than our solar system—a mere pinpoint within the scope of the overall galaxy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Astronomers have realized that blazars are unique natural “laboratories” for exploring the extremely energetic processes taking place in the centers of active galaxies powered by super-massive black holes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_956424\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-956424\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/blazar-artistconcept.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of a blazar, the active core of a galaxy powered by a central super-massive black hole.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/blazar-artistconcept.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/blazar-artistconcept-400x250.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/blazar-artistconcept-800x500.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/blazar-artistconcept-768x480.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/blazar-artistconcept-960x600.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of a blazar, the active core of a galaxy powered by a central super-massive black hole. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In their recent discovery, Massaro, and Raffaele D’Abrusco of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, compared data collected by NASA’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/main/index.html\">Wide-field Infrared Explorer\u003c/a> (WISE) and the \u003ca href=\"http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/\">Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope\u003c/a>. They were looking in both data sets for the telltale emissions associated with blazars’ near-light-speed jets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is used to observe sources of gamma rays, the highest energy form of electromagnetic radiation. Gamma rays are emitted by nuclear reactions in the most energetic phenomena in the universe, such as supernovas. And they’re emitted as matter is super-heated and devoured by the gravitational power of black holes: \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasas-fermi-satellite-kicks-off-a-blazar-detecting-bonanza\">blazars\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The WISE spacecraft sets its sights on the much less energetic form of light, infrared radiation, commonly emitted by cooler objects and processes like clouds of interstellar gas, dust, newly forming planetary systems, and planetary atmospheres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_956425\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-956425 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey.jpg\" alt=\"The QUASAR SDSS J0100_2802 (reddish dot at center), one of the brightest and most distant Active Galactic Nuclei in the universe.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1549\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey-400x323.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey-800x645.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey-768x620.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey-1440x1162.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey-1180x952.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey-960x775.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The QUASAR SDSS J0100_2802 (reddish dot at center), one of the brightest and most distant Active Galactic Nuclei in the universe. \u003ccite>(Sloan Digital Sky Survey)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Normally, scientists don’t find much correspondence between cooler infrared radiation and super-energetic gamma rays in the same astronomical event, because the difference in their energy levels is so vast—a factor of ten billion. This might be compared to expecting to learn something new about an elephant by studying fleas on its body—not out of the question, but possibly surprising.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Massaro and D’Abrusco discovered a tight link in the electromagnetic radiation emitted by near-light-speed particles in the jets of blazars, between the gamma-ray and infrared wavelengths in the Fermi and WISE data sets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Observing the same behavior in such vastly different realms of the electromagnetic spectrum usually indicates appreciable similarities between processes involved at the different energies—so a picture linking the processes in blazars in gamma-rays and infrared offers scientists a window into the detailed inner workings of such objects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Furthering our understanding of distant blazars found across the sky illuminates a picture of the cosmos at the greatest distances we can observe, and the earliest times of its evolution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This would not have been possible,” says Dr. D’Abrusco, “without the sharp and deep picture of the sky produced by the WISE and Fermi telescopes in the infrared and gamma-rays, respectively.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In the 2014 science fiction movie “Interstellar,” a team of astronauts led by Matthew McConaughey uses a fictional, super-massive black hole named Gargantua to slingshot a spaceship on a desperate voyage to find a distant planet for humanity to colonize, as Earth faces environmental collapse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film piqued audience interest in black holes, and did well at the box office, earning $675 million worldwide. But since then, real-life scientific research into black holes and black hole related phenomena has turned up some dramatic stories as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Only last year, astronomers looking into the core of the galaxy NGC 1600 found a super-massive black hole that contains the mass of 17 billion sun-sized stars!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Most Massive Singular Objects in the Universe\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Contrary to what the name “black hole” implies—a vacant void in space—these objects are anything but empty. In a super-massive black hole, the equivalent mass of millions, or billions, of sun-sized stars has collapsed into a single point in space: a “singularity” with infinite density.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have discovered super-massive black holes at the cores of many galaxies, including our own Milky Way. The dark heart of our galaxy is a black hole possessing the mass of about 4 million suns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That may sound like a lot, but the Milky Way’s central black hole is a mere pip compared to some we have found. One of the most massive known, \u003ca href=\"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160218-black-hole-ngc-4889-coma-cluster-galaxy-hubble-photo/\">at the core of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4889\u003c/a>, weighs in at about 21 billion solar masses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Interstellar’s fictitious “Gargantua,” calculated by astrophysicist Kip Thorne to satisfy the movie’s storyline, is a 100 million sun-mass beast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mysteries Wrapped in Enigmas\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A month ago, researchers at the University of Turin in Italy and Harvard published a key discovery about a black hole-related phenomenon called a “\u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/science/blazers.html\">blazar\u003c/a>,” one of the most powerfully intense sources of radiation in the universe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Blazars are a sort of ultimate mystery wrapped in an enigma. The mystery is a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/behemoth-black-hole-found-in-an-unlikely-place\">super-massive black hole\u003c/a> located at the core of a galaxy, the gargantuan gravitational engine that drives the blazar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_956423\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-956423 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-800x482.jpg\" alt=\"All-sky map of infrared sources produced by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE).\" width=\"800\" height=\"482\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-800x482.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-400x241.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-768x462.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-1440x867.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-1180x710.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap-960x578.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/WISE-allskymap.jpg 1701w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">All-sky map of infrared sources produced by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WISE). \u003ccite>(NASA/WISE)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The enigma is the mind-boggling amount of energy—in the form of gamma rays, X-rays, visible light, infrared, high-speed jets of electrically charged particles\u003cstrong>, \u003c/strong>and other forms—released by galactic material falling into the black hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we understand blazars, clouds of gases surrounding the super-massive black hole form into a flattened, spinning “accretion” disk, accelerating to higher and higher velocities as it spirals closer to the black hole’s “event horizon”—that famed point of no return from which nothing, not even light, can escape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before taking the plunge, the super-energized material emits the copious amounts of radiation that we observe, some of which is ejected from the accretion disk in a pair of “polar jets” that spew outward in opposite directions at near the speed of light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These jets are huge structures that can span [a] few to thousands of light years in size,” says Francesco Massaro of the University of Turin in Italy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The energy released by a blazar can easily exceed the brightness of the rest of the galaxy surrounding it. This is remarkable, since the source of all that energy is contained within a volume of space no bigger than our solar system—a mere pinpoint within the scope of the overall galaxy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Astronomers have realized that blazars are unique natural “laboratories” for exploring the extremely energetic processes taking place in the centers of active galaxies powered by super-massive black holes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_956424\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-956424\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/blazar-artistconcept.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of a blazar, the active core of a galaxy powered by a central super-massive black hole.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/blazar-artistconcept.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/blazar-artistconcept-400x250.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/blazar-artistconcept-800x500.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/blazar-artistconcept-768x480.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/blazar-artistconcept-960x600.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of a blazar, the active core of a galaxy powered by a central super-massive black hole. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In their recent discovery, Massaro, and Raffaele D’Abrusco of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, compared data collected by NASA’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/main/index.html\">Wide-field Infrared Explorer\u003c/a> (WISE) and the \u003ca href=\"http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/\">Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope\u003c/a>. They were looking in both data sets for the telltale emissions associated with blazars’ near-light-speed jets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is used to observe sources of gamma rays, the highest energy form of electromagnetic radiation. Gamma rays are emitted by nuclear reactions in the most energetic phenomena in the universe, such as supernovas. And they’re emitted as matter is super-heated and devoured by the gravitational power of black holes: \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasas-fermi-satellite-kicks-off-a-blazar-detecting-bonanza\">blazars\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The WISE spacecraft sets its sights on the much less energetic form of light, infrared radiation, commonly emitted by cooler objects and processes like clouds of interstellar gas, dust, newly forming planetary systems, and planetary atmospheres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_956425\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-956425 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey.jpg\" alt=\"The QUASAR SDSS J0100_2802 (reddish dot at center), one of the brightest and most distant Active Galactic Nuclei in the universe.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1549\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey-400x323.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey-800x645.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey-768x620.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey-1440x1162.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey-1180x952.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/SDSS-J01002802-sloan-digital-sky-survey-960x775.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The QUASAR SDSS J0100_2802 (reddish dot at center), one of the brightest and most distant Active Galactic Nuclei in the universe. \u003ccite>(Sloan Digital Sky Survey)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Normally, scientists don’t find much correspondence between cooler infrared radiation and super-energetic gamma rays in the same astronomical event, because the difference in their energy levels is so vast—a factor of ten billion. This might be compared to expecting to learn something new about an elephant by studying fleas on its body—not out of the question, but possibly surprising.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Massaro and D’Abrusco discovered a tight link in the electromagnetic radiation emitted by near-light-speed particles in the jets of blazars, between the gamma-ray and infrared wavelengths in the Fermi and WISE data sets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Observing the same behavior in such vastly different realms of the electromagnetic spectrum usually indicates appreciable similarities between processes involved at the different energies—so a picture linking the processes in blazars in gamma-rays and infrared offers scientists a window into the detailed inner workings of such objects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Furthering our understanding of distant blazars found across the sky illuminates a picture of the cosmos at the greatest distances we can observe, and the earliest times of its evolution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This would not have been possible,” says Dr. D’Abrusco, “without the sharp and deep picture of the sky produced by the WISE and Fermi telescopes in the infrared and gamma-rays, respectively.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "this-planet-just-outside-our-solar-system-is-potentially-habitable",
"title": "This Planet Just Outside Our Solar System Is 'Potentially Habitable'",
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"headTitle": "This Planet Just Outside Our Solar System Is ‘Potentially Habitable’ | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>A potentially habitable planet about the size of Earth is orbiting the star that is nearest our solar system, according to scientists who describe the \u003ca href=\"http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature19106\">find\u003c/a> Wednesday in the journal \u003cem>Nature\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The newly discovered planet orbits \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubbles-new-shot-of-proxima-centauri-our-nearest-neighbor/#.V72pn_krJpg\">Proxima Centauri\u003c/a>, a red dwarf star that’s just 4.25 light-years from Earth — about 25 trillion miles away. The star is too faint to be seen with the naked eye and is close to a much brighter and more famous pair of stars called Alpha Centauri A and B.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘This planet has a chance to have a habitable climate.’\u003ccite>Edward Guinan, Villanova University astronomer\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Researchers detected the planet by observing how its star wobbled as the planet traveled around it. All that’s known about the planet is that it’s a bit more massive than Earth and circles its star once every 11 days. Because the star is so dim, temperatures on the planet would be mild enough that any water — if it’s there — would be liquid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re talking about a planet that has very similar properties to Earth,” says \u003ca href=\"http://astro.qmul.ac.uk/directory/g.anglada\">Guillem Anglada-Escude\u003c/a> of Queen Mary University of London, who led the research team of more than 30 scientists around the world. They have called their campaign to discover this planet \u003ca href=\"https://palereddot.org/\">Pale Red Dot\u003c/a>, after astronomer Carl Sagan’s observation that, from other solar systems, Earth would look like a pale blue dot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite some similarities to Earth, if you could stand on this other world, it would still look plenty alien. That’s because it is likely that only one side of it ever faces its star.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking up from the planet’s surface, the star would seem stationary in the sky, says Anglada-Escude, and is so orange that if the planet had an atmosphere like ours, the heavens would perpetually have the color of “a late autumn sunset.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have discovered \u003ca href=\"http://exoplanets.org/\">thousands\u003c/a> of planets orbiting distant stars, including a bunch that \u003ca href=\"http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog\">might be potentially habitable\u003c/a>. The proximity of this new planet means scientists will have an easier time doing follow-up studies to learn more about it and even obtain images.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m pretty sure that in the next 10 years, we will know if it has an atmosphere and probably if it has oxygen,” says Anglada-Escude, who adds that we could even see hints of any life that might there. He thinks the news that our closest stellar neighbor is orbited by a world that has a shot at possibly supporting life is sure to spur interest in an \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/12/473960826/forget-starships-new-proposal-would-use-starchips-to-visit-alpha-centauri\">interstellar\u003c/a> mission to pay it a visit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s tantalizing,” he says. “Now that we know the planet is there, we can be more creative. We can think about solutions — maybe to send interstellar probes or to design specific spacecraft to look for this planet and only this planet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ocohen/Contact.html\">Ofer Cohen\u003c/a> of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who was not part of the research team, says he finds the evidence of the planet’s existence convincing. But as to whether it is potentially habitable, “it’s all down to how we define habitability,” Cohen says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the temperatures at the surface might allow for liquid water, he says, “in reality, nature is much more complicated.” His studies suggest that planets orbiting this type of star need to have a strong magnetic field to protect the atmosphere from being destroyed by the stellar wind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.astronomy.villanova.edu/faculty/guinan/guinan.htm\">Edward Guinan\u003c/a>, an astronomer at Villanova University, says when he first learned of this new planet a couple of months ago, he seriously doubted that it would have any chance of being habitable. That’s because being close to a star means that a planet’s atmosphere and any water could get blown away, as the planet is exposed to the stellar wind, flares, X-rays and ultraviolet radiation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was dubious that it could work out to be habitable. My first impression is that it wouldn’t be,” Guinan says. “And the surprise was, this planet has a chance to have a habitable climate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He and a group of colleagues analyzed the possibilities and concluded that there are plausible scenarios that would have left this planet capable of supporting life. So if he were betting, he’d now say there was about a 25 percent chance that it could be a habitable world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To have the nearest star with a possibly habitable Earth-sized planet is terrific,” Guinan says. “It’s wonderful. I’m just really excited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while 4.25 light-years might seem like an impossibly vast distance, that’s practically next door in the eyes of astronomers who are used to thinking on a cosmic scale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can get to a tenth of the speed of light with present technology,” Guinan notes, pointing out that a trip to this planet would take less than half a century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And that’s not bad,” he says. “That’s feasible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=This+Planet+Just+Outside+Our+Solar+System+Is+%27Potentially+Habitable%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "It's not exactly close — 25 trillion miles from Earth, say the scientists who spotted it. But that might be near enough for further exploration. It's about Earth's size, with mild temperatures.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A potentially habitable planet about the size of Earth is orbiting the star that is nearest our solar system, according to scientists who describe the \u003ca href=\"http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature19106\">find\u003c/a> Wednesday in the journal \u003cem>Nature\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The newly discovered planet orbits \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubbles-new-shot-of-proxima-centauri-our-nearest-neighbor/#.V72pn_krJpg\">Proxima Centauri\u003c/a>, a red dwarf star that’s just 4.25 light-years from Earth — about 25 trillion miles away. The star is too faint to be seen with the naked eye and is close to a much brighter and more famous pair of stars called Alpha Centauri A and B.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘This planet has a chance to have a habitable climate.’\u003ccite>Edward Guinan, Villanova University astronomer\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Researchers detected the planet by observing how its star wobbled as the planet traveled around it. All that’s known about the planet is that it’s a bit more massive than Earth and circles its star once every 11 days. Because the star is so dim, temperatures on the planet would be mild enough that any water — if it’s there — would be liquid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re talking about a planet that has very similar properties to Earth,” says \u003ca href=\"http://astro.qmul.ac.uk/directory/g.anglada\">Guillem Anglada-Escude\u003c/a> of Queen Mary University of London, who led the research team of more than 30 scientists around the world. They have called their campaign to discover this planet \u003ca href=\"https://palereddot.org/\">Pale Red Dot\u003c/a>, after astronomer Carl Sagan’s observation that, from other solar systems, Earth would look like a pale blue dot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite some similarities to Earth, if you could stand on this other world, it would still look plenty alien. That’s because it is likely that only one side of it ever faces its star.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking up from the planet’s surface, the star would seem stationary in the sky, says Anglada-Escude, and is so orange that if the planet had an atmosphere like ours, the heavens would perpetually have the color of “a late autumn sunset.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have discovered \u003ca href=\"http://exoplanets.org/\">thousands\u003c/a> of planets orbiting distant stars, including a bunch that \u003ca href=\"http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog\">might be potentially habitable\u003c/a>. The proximity of this new planet means scientists will have an easier time doing follow-up studies to learn more about it and even obtain images.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m pretty sure that in the next 10 years, we will know if it has an atmosphere and probably if it has oxygen,” says Anglada-Escude, who adds that we could even see hints of any life that might there. He thinks the news that our closest stellar neighbor is orbited by a world that has a shot at possibly supporting life is sure to spur interest in an \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/12/473960826/forget-starships-new-proposal-would-use-starchips-to-visit-alpha-centauri\">interstellar\u003c/a> mission to pay it a visit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s tantalizing,” he says. “Now that we know the planet is there, we can be more creative. We can think about solutions — maybe to send interstellar probes or to design specific spacecraft to look for this planet and only this planet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ocohen/Contact.html\">Ofer Cohen\u003c/a> of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who was not part of the research team, says he finds the evidence of the planet’s existence convincing. But as to whether it is potentially habitable, “it’s all down to how we define habitability,” Cohen says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the temperatures at the surface might allow for liquid water, he says, “in reality, nature is much more complicated.” His studies suggest that planets orbiting this type of star need to have a strong magnetic field to protect the atmosphere from being destroyed by the stellar wind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.astronomy.villanova.edu/faculty/guinan/guinan.htm\">Edward Guinan\u003c/a>, an astronomer at Villanova University, says when he first learned of this new planet a couple of months ago, he seriously doubted that it would have any chance of being habitable. That’s because being close to a star means that a planet’s atmosphere and any water could get blown away, as the planet is exposed to the stellar wind, flares, X-rays and ultraviolet radiation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was dubious that it could work out to be habitable. My first impression is that it wouldn’t be,” Guinan says. “And the surprise was, this planet has a chance to have a habitable climate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He and a group of colleagues analyzed the possibilities and concluded that there are plausible scenarios that would have left this planet capable of supporting life. So if he were betting, he’d now say there was about a 25 percent chance that it could be a habitable world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To have the nearest star with a possibly habitable Earth-sized planet is terrific,” Guinan says. “It’s wonderful. I’m just really excited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while 4.25 light-years might seem like an impossibly vast distance, that’s practically next door in the eyes of astronomers who are used to thinking on a cosmic scale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can get to a tenth of the speed of light with present technology,” Guinan notes, pointing out that a trip to this planet would take less than half a century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And that’s not bad,” he says. “That’s feasible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=This+Planet+Just+Outside+Our+Solar+System+Is+%27Potentially+Habitable%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"marketplace": {
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"masters-of-scale": {
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"morning-edition": {
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
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"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"order": 11
},
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"on-the-media": {
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"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
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},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
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"order": 14
},
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"planet-money": {
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
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"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e0c2d153-ad36-4c8d-901d-f1da6a724824/political-breakdown",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
"meta": {
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
"subscribe": {
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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},
"pri-the-world": {
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},
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"isBot": true
}
}
