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"content": "\u003cp>Just when it seemed that new discoveries of extrasolar planets couldn’t possibly get more exciting, three exoplanets have been detected that could top the charts for some time to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why the fuss over these exo-worlds? In a nutshell, all three of them are about the size of Earth, are close to their star’s “habitable zone,” and in fact orbit the \u003ca href=\"http://www.eso.org/public/usa/videos/eso1615c/\">very same star\u003c/a>, only 40 light years from us—an extreme close-up by astronomical standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A star’s habitable zone, also called the “Goldilocks Zone,” is the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface—not so close that the water would boil away, and not so distant that it would freeze. In other words, just right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of this adds up to make this exoplanetary system the best place we’ve found to search for signs of life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>An “Exo-citing” Discovery\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_692293\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-692293\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/sun-and-trappist1.jpg\" alt=\"The star TRAPPIST-1 compared to our sun. This cool, low-mass red dwarf star is not much larger than the planet Jupiter.\" width=\"640\" height=\"460\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/sun-and-trappist1.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/sun-and-trappist1-400x288.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The star TRAPPIST-1 compared to our sun. This cool, low-mass red dwarf star is not much larger than the planet Jupiter. \u003ccite>(ESO)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The star, named TRAPPIST-1, is a very small, ultra-cool red dwarf, not too much larger than the planet Jupiter. This type of dim, low-mass star is very common in the galaxy, but this is the first detection of planets orbiting one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The discovery was made by astronomers using the Belgian “TRAPPIST” telescope at the La Silla site of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.eso.org/public/usa/news/eso1615/\">European Southern Observatory\u003c/a>, in Chile, who detected brief intervals when the star’s light dimmed, indicating possible planets passing in front of it—or “transiting.” Follow-up observations confirmed the presence of three planets, and that they were small, Earth-sized bodies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_692294\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-692294\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/planettransit.jpg\" alt=\"Diagram showing how a star's light is partially blocked, and dims slightly, when one of its planets transits in front of it.\" width=\"640\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/planettransit.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/planettransit-400x170.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diagram showing how a star’s light is partially blocked and dims slightly, when one of its planets transits in front of it. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Two of these planets zip around their star in a mere 1.5 and 2.4 days, respectively, telling us that they are very close to their sun–maybe a bit too close to be fully within the habitable zone, though the possibility of water-friendly regions on their surfaces cannot be ruled out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Is There Life In The Twilight Zone?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Being so close to their star, these planets are probably “tidally locked” to it, with the same side always facing toward sunlight—not unlike how our moon always presents the same face to the Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A situation like this might allow for a balance between extremes, creating temperate conditions somewhere between the perpetually day-lit side and the side of unending night, a realm of constant twilight—and maybe in a crossfire of weather conditions generated by the opposing hemispheres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The period of revolution of the third planet is still in question; it may be anywhere from 4.5 to 73 days. Depending on the answer, this one could lie well within the habitable zone—something that further observations might reveal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sometimes Less Is More\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not only do their Earth-like sizes and moderate, possibly water-friendly temperatures make them potentially suitable environments for life as we understand it, the nature of their star itself increases our chances of making that discovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because TRAPPIST-1 is such a faint star, astronomers can make measurements of the exoplanets’ atmospheres (if they have atmospheres) that are not yet possible with brighter stars—stars like our sun. Subtle effects on TRAPPIST-1’s light as it passes through a planet’s atmosphere can be measured, which could potentially reveal clues about any life that might exist there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Close Worlds, Still Too Far\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_692295\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-692295\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/trappist-1-scene.jpg\" alt=\"Artist depiction of the TRAPPIST-1 system.\" width=\"640\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/trappist-1-scene.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/trappist-1-scene-400x280.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist depiction of the TRAPPIST-1 system. \u003ccite>(ESO)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At forty light years, TRAPPIST-1 and its entourage are right in our sun’s stellar neighborhood, practically at its front door. Yet, by the standards of our current space-flight technology, it is still well beyond our physical reach. Even a speedy robotic probe moving at a tenth the speed of light (still well beyond our present means) would take 400 years to get there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as Yogi Berra famously pointed out, “You can observe a lot by just watching” — and the watching will get better with \u003ca href=\"http://discovermagazine.com/2013/dec/16-meet-the-new-planet-hunters\">further advancements in technology\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the future launches of Kepler’s exoplanet-hunting successor, \u003ca href=\"http://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/\">TESS \u003c/a>(2017), and the Hubble Space Telescope’s replacement, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/\">James Webb Space Telescope\u003c/a> (2018), powerful new observational technologies will be brought to bear on the question of exoplanets, habitable environments, and the potential for life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first detection of an exoplanet was made in 1992, when the available technology allowed only the observation of large, Jupiter-sized planets orbiting close to their stars—so called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/03/29/this-mysterious-hot-jupiter-is-on-a-wild-orbital-ride/\">hot Jupiters\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advancements and refinements in techniques and technology over the last two decades have expanded our reach into the realm of our galaxy’s exoplanets. Our ability to detect and study smaller, Earth-sized planets orbiting farther from their stars in habitable zones has blossomed, especially with the launch of \u003ca href=\"http://kepler.nasa.gov/\">NASA’s Kepler\u003c/a> spacecraft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prior to 1992, we didn’t know if the formation of planets around other stars was a rarity, or commonplace—and now we know: planets are about as common as dirt, even planets with potentially Earth-like conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of July 2015, Kepler alone has verified the existence of 1,284 exoplanets, and 1,327 other candidates that are very likely planets as well. This brings the grand total of confirmed \u003ca href=\"http://www.exoplanets.org/\">extrasolar planets\u003c/a> to over 2,000, with thousands of other candidates awaiting confirmation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a lot of territory out there.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Just when it seemed that new discoveries of extrasolar planets couldn’t possibly get more exciting, three exoplanets have been detected that could top the charts for some time to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why the fuss over these exo-worlds? In a nutshell, all three of them are about the size of Earth, are close to their star’s “habitable zone,” and in fact orbit the \u003ca href=\"http://www.eso.org/public/usa/videos/eso1615c/\">very same star\u003c/a>, only 40 light years from us—an extreme close-up by astronomical standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A star’s habitable zone, also called the “Goldilocks Zone,” is the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface—not so close that the water would boil away, and not so distant that it would freeze. In other words, just right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of this adds up to make this exoplanetary system the best place we’ve found to search for signs of life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>An “Exo-citing” Discovery\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_692293\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-692293\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/sun-and-trappist1.jpg\" alt=\"The star TRAPPIST-1 compared to our sun. This cool, low-mass red dwarf star is not much larger than the planet Jupiter.\" width=\"640\" height=\"460\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/sun-and-trappist1.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/sun-and-trappist1-400x288.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The star TRAPPIST-1 compared to our sun. This cool, low-mass red dwarf star is not much larger than the planet Jupiter. \u003ccite>(ESO)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The star, named TRAPPIST-1, is a very small, ultra-cool red dwarf, not too much larger than the planet Jupiter. This type of dim, low-mass star is very common in the galaxy, but this is the first detection of planets orbiting one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The discovery was made by astronomers using the Belgian “TRAPPIST” telescope at the La Silla site of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.eso.org/public/usa/news/eso1615/\">European Southern Observatory\u003c/a>, in Chile, who detected brief intervals when the star’s light dimmed, indicating possible planets passing in front of it—or “transiting.” Follow-up observations confirmed the presence of three planets, and that they were small, Earth-sized bodies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_692294\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-692294\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/planettransit.jpg\" alt=\"Diagram showing how a star's light is partially blocked, and dims slightly, when one of its planets transits in front of it.\" width=\"640\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/planettransit.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/planettransit-400x170.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diagram showing how a star’s light is partially blocked and dims slightly, when one of its planets transits in front of it. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Two of these planets zip around their star in a mere 1.5 and 2.4 days, respectively, telling us that they are very close to their sun–maybe a bit too close to be fully within the habitable zone, though the possibility of water-friendly regions on their surfaces cannot be ruled out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Is There Life In The Twilight Zone?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Being so close to their star, these planets are probably “tidally locked” to it, with the same side always facing toward sunlight—not unlike how our moon always presents the same face to the Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A situation like this might allow for a balance between extremes, creating temperate conditions somewhere between the perpetually day-lit side and the side of unending night, a realm of constant twilight—and maybe in a crossfire of weather conditions generated by the opposing hemispheres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The period of revolution of the third planet is still in question; it may be anywhere from 4.5 to 73 days. Depending on the answer, this one could lie well within the habitable zone—something that further observations might reveal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sometimes Less Is More\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not only do their Earth-like sizes and moderate, possibly water-friendly temperatures make them potentially suitable environments for life as we understand it, the nature of their star itself increases our chances of making that discovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because TRAPPIST-1 is such a faint star, astronomers can make measurements of the exoplanets’ atmospheres (if they have atmospheres) that are not yet possible with brighter stars—stars like our sun. Subtle effects on TRAPPIST-1’s light as it passes through a planet’s atmosphere can be measured, which could potentially reveal clues about any life that might exist there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Close Worlds, Still Too Far\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_692295\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-692295\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/trappist-1-scene.jpg\" alt=\"Artist depiction of the TRAPPIST-1 system.\" width=\"640\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/trappist-1-scene.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/05/trappist-1-scene-400x280.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist depiction of the TRAPPIST-1 system. \u003ccite>(ESO)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At forty light years, TRAPPIST-1 and its entourage are right in our sun’s stellar neighborhood, practically at its front door. Yet, by the standards of our current space-flight technology, it is still well beyond our physical reach. Even a speedy robotic probe moving at a tenth the speed of light (still well beyond our present means) would take 400 years to get there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as Yogi Berra famously pointed out, “You can observe a lot by just watching” — and the watching will get better with \u003ca href=\"http://discovermagazine.com/2013/dec/16-meet-the-new-planet-hunters\">further advancements in technology\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the future launches of Kepler’s exoplanet-hunting successor, \u003ca href=\"http://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/\">TESS \u003c/a>(2017), and the Hubble Space Telescope’s replacement, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/\">James Webb Space Telescope\u003c/a> (2018), powerful new observational technologies will be brought to bear on the question of exoplanets, habitable environments, and the potential for life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first detection of an exoplanet was made in 1992, when the available technology allowed only the observation of large, Jupiter-sized planets orbiting close to their stars—so called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/03/29/this-mysterious-hot-jupiter-is-on-a-wild-orbital-ride/\">hot Jupiters\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Advancements and refinements in techniques and technology over the last two decades have expanded our reach into the realm of our galaxy’s exoplanets. Our ability to detect and study smaller, Earth-sized planets orbiting farther from their stars in habitable zones has blossomed, especially with the launch of \u003ca href=\"http://kepler.nasa.gov/\">NASA’s Kepler\u003c/a> spacecraft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prior to 1992, we didn’t know if the formation of planets around other stars was a rarity, or commonplace—and now we know: planets are about as common as dirt, even planets with potentially Earth-like conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of July 2015, Kepler alone has verified the existence of 1,284 exoplanets, and 1,327 other candidates that are very likely planets as well. This brings the grand total of confirmed \u003ca href=\"http://www.exoplanets.org/\">extrasolar planets\u003c/a> to over 2,000, with thousands of other candidates awaiting confirmation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a lot of territory out there.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "NASA Spots 1,284 New Planets, 9 Are 'Potentially Habitable'",
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"content": "\u003cp>NASA announced Tuesday the discovery of an unprecedented number of planets beyond our solar system — astronomers have confirmed the existence of 1,284 new worlds orbiting distant stars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These planets beyond our solar system – exoplanets — were discovered with the help of \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html\">NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope\u003c/a>, which launched in 2009.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When NASA decided to build and launch the Kepler Space Telescope, we did not know if exoplanets — especially small, rocky exoplanets — were common or rare in the galaxy,” says \u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/about-us/organization-and-leadership/division-bios/dr-paul-hertz/\">Paul Hertz\u003c/a>, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. “We now know that exoplanets are common, that most stars in our galaxy have planetary systems, and that a reasonable fraction of the stars in our galaxy have potentially habitable planets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler was designed to search for planets by staring for years at over 100,000 stars. Whenever a planet passed in front of a star and blocked some of its light, Kepler would see a telltale dimming of the starlight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But to make sure that dimming really \u003cem>was\u003c/em> caused by a planet, scientists would have to do follow-up observations with other telescopes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The process of verifying a candidate as a true planet has traditionally involved detailed, in-depth study on a case by case basis,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.princeton.edu/astro/people/research/\">Timothy Morton\u003c/a>, a researcher at Princeton University. Trouble is, that takes time and a lot of effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Morton developed a new, automated technique that let him quantify the probability that a Kepler signal was really a planet — without having to do those cumbersome follow-up observations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now he and his colleagues have \u003ca href=\"http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~tdm/koi-fpp/ms.pdf\">published evidence\u003c/a>, in the current issue of \u003cem>The Astrophysical Journal\u003c/em>, showing that a slew of Kepler’s observations have more than a 99 percent probability of being real planets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the most exoplanets that have ever been announced at one time,” says Morton. And it more than doubles the number of verified planets discovered by the Kepler telescope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Based on size, nearly 550 could be rocky planets like Earth. And 9 of them orbit in their star’s “Goldilocks Zone” — the region around a star that’s not too hot or too cold for liquid water — and maybe even life. Previously, the Kepler team had only known of a dozen such planets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the 1,284 newly verified planets, Morton’s analysis shows that an additional 1,327 candidates spotted by Kepler that are more likely to be planets than not — but they need more study for confirmation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://spacescience.arc.nasa.gov/staff/natalie-batalha\">Natalie Batalha\u003c/a>, the Kepler mission scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, says the space telescope is giving researchers a real sense of what kind of planets are out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re talking about tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets out there in the galaxy,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next year, NASA is planning to launch another space telescope called \u003ca href=\"http://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/\">TESS\u003c/a>. It will be similar to Kepler but will search the entire sky to find Earth-like planets around closer, brighter stars. Astronomers should have an easier time studying those planets to learn more about what they’re like and whether they might be right for life.\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+Spots+1%2C284+New+Planets%2C+Including+9+That+Are+%27Potentially+Habitable%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>NASA announced Tuesday the discovery of an unprecedented number of planets beyond our solar system — astronomers have confirmed the existence of 1,284 new worlds orbiting distant stars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These planets beyond our solar system – exoplanets — were discovered with the help of \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html\">NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope\u003c/a>, which launched in 2009.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When NASA decided to build and launch the Kepler Space Telescope, we did not know if exoplanets — especially small, rocky exoplanets — were common or rare in the galaxy,” says \u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/about-us/organization-and-leadership/division-bios/dr-paul-hertz/\">Paul Hertz\u003c/a>, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. “We now know that exoplanets are common, that most stars in our galaxy have planetary systems, and that a reasonable fraction of the stars in our galaxy have potentially habitable planets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler was designed to search for planets by staring for years at over 100,000 stars. Whenever a planet passed in front of a star and blocked some of its light, Kepler would see a telltale dimming of the starlight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But to make sure that dimming really \u003cem>was\u003c/em> caused by a planet, scientists would have to do follow-up observations with other telescopes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The process of verifying a candidate as a true planet has traditionally involved detailed, in-depth study on a case by case basis,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.princeton.edu/astro/people/research/\">Timothy Morton\u003c/a>, a researcher at Princeton University. Trouble is, that takes time and a lot of effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Morton developed a new, automated technique that let him quantify the probability that a Kepler signal was really a planet — without having to do those cumbersome follow-up observations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now he and his colleagues have \u003ca href=\"http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~tdm/koi-fpp/ms.pdf\">published evidence\u003c/a>, in the current issue of \u003cem>The Astrophysical Journal\u003c/em>, showing that a slew of Kepler’s observations have more than a 99 percent probability of being real planets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the most exoplanets that have ever been announced at one time,” says Morton. And it more than doubles the number of verified planets discovered by the Kepler telescope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Based on size, nearly 550 could be rocky planets like Earth. And 9 of them orbit in their star’s “Goldilocks Zone” — the region around a star that’s not too hot or too cold for liquid water — and maybe even life. Previously, the Kepler team had only known of a dozen such planets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the 1,284 newly verified planets, Morton’s analysis shows that an additional 1,327 candidates spotted by Kepler that are more likely to be planets than not — but they need more study for confirmation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://spacescience.arc.nasa.gov/staff/natalie-batalha\">Natalie Batalha\u003c/a>, the Kepler mission scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, says the space telescope is giving researchers a real sense of what kind of planets are out there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re talking about tens of billions of potentially habitable, Earth-size planets out there in the galaxy,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next year, NASA is planning to launch another space telescope called \u003ca href=\"http://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/\">TESS\u003c/a>. It will be similar to Kepler but will search the entire sky to find Earth-like planets around closer, brighter stars. Astronomers should have an easier time studying those planets to learn more about what they’re like and whether they might be right for life.\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+Spots+1%2C284+New+Planets%2C+Including+9+That+Are+%27Potentially+Habitable%27&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Mars by 2018? SpaceX and NASA Announce a New Space Project",
"headTitle": "Mars by 2018? SpaceX and NASA Announce a New Space Project | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Its name will be “Red Dragon.” And if the latest partnership between SpaceX and NASA works out, the privately funded craft will land on Mars to collect scientific data — possibly within the next two years. The plan is to use the Dragon capsule, but without a human crew.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“SpaceX is planning to send Dragons to Mars as early as 2018,” the company \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/SpaceX/\">said via Facebook\u003c/a> Wednesday. “These missions will help demonstrate the technologies needed to land large payloads propulsively on Mars.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A propulsive landing, we’ll remind you, is the use of powerful rockets to lower the spacecraft in a stable — and, if all goes well, reusable — position.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can’t land on Mars using parachutes like you would on Earth,” NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel tells us, “because the atmosphere isn’t thick enough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Dragon craft is meant to carry astronauts, but SpaceX founder Elon Musk says the SUV-sized interior of the craft would make it difficult for humans to endure any trips longer than from the Earth to the moon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman says that her agency is closer “to sending American astronauts to Mars than anyone, anywhere, at any time has ever been.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement about the collaboration with SpaceX, Newman says a new and broad consensus is emerging that calls for sending astronauts to Mars in the 2030s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SpaceX’s Musk \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/725364699303301120\">adds via Twitter\u003c/a> that the new Dragon 2 craft is “designed to be able to land anywhere in the solar system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few details were announced along with the news of SpaceX and NASA’s Mars collaboration; more details are likely to come out this fall. For now, a SpaceX representative says that while the company will fund the mission, NASA will give technical support — along with access to the Deep Space Network for communications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After announcing the plan, SpaceX tweeted a video clip of its Dragon 2 capsule using its “SuperDraco propulsive landing system” to seemingly hold itself in a stable position a few feet off the ground at its test facility in Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to figuring out the logistics and tools that are necessary for interplanetary human travel, the Mars mission could answer enduring questions, Newman says: “Is it habitable and did life ever exist on Mars?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan to land a capsule on Mars comes more than 50 years after the U.S. sent the Mariner 4 scientific probe streaking past the planet, back in July of 1965.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The news led to some excitement on SpaceX’s Facebook page, where many people praised the aspiration of reaching the red planet. Here are the top two comments:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>” JUST DO IT! Don’t let your dreams be dreams.” — Mark Smed\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>“Make this happen while it still can. I don’t want our descendants to see us as ‘the only generation that could have colonized Mars, but in the end didn’t bother, but instead sat around watching streaming video on their phones.’ ” – Jeff Stoner\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\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=Mars+By+2018%3F+SpaceX+And+NASA+Announce+A+New+Space+Project&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The Red Dragon missions are aimed at figuring out what's needed \"to land large payloads propulsively on Mars.\" For now, the plan doesn't include sending astronauts to the red planet.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Its name will be “Red Dragon.” And if the latest partnership between SpaceX and NASA works out, the privately funded craft will land on Mars to collect scientific data — possibly within the next two years. The plan is to use the Dragon capsule, but without a human crew.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“SpaceX is planning to send Dragons to Mars as early as 2018,” the company \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/SpaceX/\">said via Facebook\u003c/a> Wednesday. “These missions will help demonstrate the technologies needed to land large payloads propulsively on Mars.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A propulsive landing, we’ll remind you, is the use of powerful rockets to lower the spacecraft in a stable — and, if all goes well, reusable — position.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can’t land on Mars using parachutes like you would on Earth,” NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel tells us, “because the atmosphere isn’t thick enough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Dragon craft is meant to carry astronauts, but SpaceX founder Elon Musk says the SUV-sized interior of the craft would make it difficult for humans to endure any trips longer than from the Earth to the moon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman says that her agency is closer “to sending American astronauts to Mars than anyone, anywhere, at any time has ever been.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement about the collaboration with SpaceX, Newman says a new and broad consensus is emerging that calls for sending astronauts to Mars in the 2030s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SpaceX’s Musk \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/725364699303301120\">adds via Twitter\u003c/a> that the new Dragon 2 craft is “designed to be able to land anywhere in the solar system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few details were announced along with the news of SpaceX and NASA’s Mars collaboration; more details are likely to come out this fall. For now, a SpaceX representative says that while the company will fund the mission, NASA will give technical support — along with access to the Deep Space Network for communications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After announcing the plan, SpaceX tweeted a video clip of its Dragon 2 capsule using its “SuperDraco propulsive landing system” to seemingly hold itself in a stable position a few feet off the ground at its test facility in Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to figuring out the logistics and tools that are necessary for interplanetary human travel, the Mars mission could answer enduring questions, Newman says: “Is it habitable and did life ever exist on Mars?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan to land a capsule on Mars comes more than 50 years after the U.S. sent the Mariner 4 scientific probe streaking past the planet, back in July of 1965.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The news led to some excitement on SpaceX’s Facebook page, where many people praised the aspiration of reaching the red planet. Here are the top two comments:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>” JUST DO IT! Don’t let your dreams be dreams.” — Mark Smed\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>“Make this happen while it still can. I don’t want our descendants to see us as ‘the only generation that could have colonized Mars, but in the end didn’t bother, but instead sat around watching streaming video on their phones.’ ” – Jeff Stoner\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\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=Mars+By+2018%3F+SpaceX+And+NASA+Announce+A+New+Space+Project&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Where and When to See the Lyrid Meteor Shower",
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"content": "\u003cp>In the pre-dawn hours on Friday, the annual Lyrid Meteor Shower returns to Bay Area skies, offering what can be a breathtaking celestial light show for those willing to trade in a little sleep time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>When to View the Lyrids\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lyrid meteors are active from around April 16th to the 25th, but the peak in their activity usually lasts less than a day. This year, greatest activity is expected to take place on the morning of Friday, April 22nd, sometime before dawn. The best viewing is generally around 3:00 a.m., but you can expect to glimpse meteors anytime between midnight and dawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_647163\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 525px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-647163\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/Untitled-2.jpg\" alt=\"The radiant point of the Lyrid Meteors lies between the constellations Lyra and Hercules.\" width=\"525\" height=\"265\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/Untitled-2.jpg 525w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/Untitled-2-400x202.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The radiant point of the Lyrid Meteors lies between the constellations Lyra and Hercules. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lyrid meteors will appear to emanate from a point in the sky (the shower’s “radiant point”) near the constellation Lyra (hence the name “Lyrids”). Lyra rises in the northeast in the late evening, and is marked by the bright star Vega. By 3:00 a.m., Vega and the rest of Lyra will be high in the eastern sky. Wherever you end up watching from, make sure you have an unobstructed view of the eastern sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The light of the nearly full moon will interfere with viewing this year, drowning out the fainter meteors in the shower, but the brighter meteors should still be visible. Fortunately, by 3:00 a.m. the moon will be in the southwest and hence behind you if you are looking eastward toward the Lyrids’ radiant point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where to See the Lyrids\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As long as you have a clear sky you can hope to see a Lyrid meteor from your own backyard — but to increase your chances, it helps to get as far away from city light pollution as possible. Fortunately, even though the San Francisco Bay Area is a major metropolitan area, the geography of surrounding mountain ranges creates a number of “dark spots” that may be less than half an hour’s drive from your home, depending on where you live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Generally, staying away from the coastal region reduces your chances of being fogged out, if marine fog is in the forecast. It takes real dedication to get up at 2:30 a.m. and drive half an hour to a dark spot, but if you’re game:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>In the North Bay there are plenty of dark choices, from the coastal hills out toward Bodega and Point Reyes (though beware of the marine fog forecast), to Sonoma Mountain east of Rohnert Park and Cotati, to the Napa Valley.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In the East Bay some of the glare from Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro, and Hayward is blocked by the East Bay Hills, offering shelter from some light pollution. The ridgeline (Skyline Blvd., Grizzly Peak Blvd.) should be okay, but moving east gets you farther from the source of major light pollution on the Bay side.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The slopes of Mount Diablo offer a good view, and one far from the coast. Though the gate of \u003ca href=\"http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=517\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mount Diablo State Park\u003c/a> closes at sunset, on the road below the gate there are pullouts to be found.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The Sunol area is also a good East Bay choice, protected by hills on all sides.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Farther south, east of Morgan Hill, is \u003ca href=\"http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=561\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Henry Coe State Park\u003c/a>, an ideal spot for meteor viewing for several reasons. It’s away from the coast and major urban centers, and the park gates are open around the clock.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>On the peninsula south of San Mateo, on Skyline Blvd., there are a few good spots to pull over and give the meteor watching a go.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Wherever you choose to view the Lyrids from, stay safe, of course don’t park where you aren’t supposed to, and make sure you’re not trespassing on private property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Causes a Meteor Shower?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A meteor — also called a shooting star — is a tiny bit of metal or rock, usually no bigger than a fingernail, that burns up in Earth’s atmosphere. A single meteor can be seen at any time of the year when a rogue bit of material flying around the solar system enters Earth’s atmosphere at random.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_647161\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-647161\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/earth-and-dust-trail-800x554.jpg\" alt=\"Illustration showing Earth passing through a trail of dust left by the passage of a comet, the source of a meteor shower. \" width=\"800\" height=\"554\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/earth-and-dust-trail-800x554.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/earth-and-dust-trail-400x277.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/earth-and-dust-trail-768x532.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/earth-and-dust-trail-960x665.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/earth-and-dust-trail.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Illustration showing Earth passing through a trail of dust left by the passage of a comet, the source of a meteor shower. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://geology.com/articles/meteor-shower.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Meteor \u003cem>showers\u003c/em>\u003c/a> occur when a cloud of dust strikes our atmosphere around the same time — or more accurately, when the Earth passes through a trail of dust left behind by a comet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The side of the Earth that faces into the dust cloud as Earth moves through it happens to be under morning skies, which is why you can only see a meteor shower between midnight and dawn. It’s a little like when a car, speeding down a freeway, passes through a swarm of flying insects, which strike the windshield of the car and not the rear window, leaving splats and streaks on the front end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As comets pass close to the sun they warm up and some of their ices are vaporized, forming the comet’s familiar tail. The vapors carry dust and leave behind a trail of particles. When Earth slams into the dust trail at its orbital velocity of 18 miles per second, the dust particles burn up in our atmosphere and vaporize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lyrid meteor shower is one of the oldest known, with some observational records dating back 2,700 years. A record from China described the meteors of the Lyrid shower of 687 BCE as “falling like rain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_647162\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 474px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-647162\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/meteor_shower_19thcentury_engraving-7939311.jpg\" alt='Engraving depicting the exceptional 1833 \"meteor storm\" of the Leonid Meteor Shower.' width=\"474\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/meteor_shower_19thcentury_engraving-7939311.jpg 474w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/meteor_shower_19thcentury_engraving-7939311-400x443.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Engraving depicting the exceptional 1833 “meteor storm” of the Leonid Meteor Shower. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Each meteor shower originates from the dusty leavings of a different comet. The comet responsible for the Lyrids is named \u003ca href=\"http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/c1861g1thatcher/indepth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">C/1861 G1 Thatcher\u003c/a>. We have no photographs of Thatcher since it last passed through our part of the solar system in 1861, on an orbit that takes 415 years to complete — so this comet won’t come close again until the year 2276.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the legacy of comet Thatcher’s visit — the trail of dust it left behind — still lights up our skies every year.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In the pre-dawn hours on Friday, the annual Lyrid Meteor Shower returns to Bay Area skies, offering what can be a breathtaking celestial light show for those willing to trade in a little sleep time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>When to View the Lyrids\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lyrid meteors are active from around April 16th to the 25th, but the peak in their activity usually lasts less than a day. This year, greatest activity is expected to take place on the morning of Friday, April 22nd, sometime before dawn. The best viewing is generally around 3:00 a.m., but you can expect to glimpse meteors anytime between midnight and dawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_647163\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 525px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-647163\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/Untitled-2.jpg\" alt=\"The radiant point of the Lyrid Meteors lies between the constellations Lyra and Hercules.\" width=\"525\" height=\"265\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/Untitled-2.jpg 525w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/Untitled-2-400x202.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The radiant point of the Lyrid Meteors lies between the constellations Lyra and Hercules. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lyrid meteors will appear to emanate from a point in the sky (the shower’s “radiant point”) near the constellation Lyra (hence the name “Lyrids”). Lyra rises in the northeast in the late evening, and is marked by the bright star Vega. By 3:00 a.m., Vega and the rest of Lyra will be high in the eastern sky. Wherever you end up watching from, make sure you have an unobstructed view of the eastern sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The light of the nearly full moon will interfere with viewing this year, drowning out the fainter meteors in the shower, but the brighter meteors should still be visible. Fortunately, by 3:00 a.m. the moon will be in the southwest and hence behind you if you are looking eastward toward the Lyrids’ radiant point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where to See the Lyrids\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As long as you have a clear sky you can hope to see a Lyrid meteor from your own backyard — but to increase your chances, it helps to get as far away from city light pollution as possible. Fortunately, even though the San Francisco Bay Area is a major metropolitan area, the geography of surrounding mountain ranges creates a number of “dark spots” that may be less than half an hour’s drive from your home, depending on where you live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Generally, staying away from the coastal region reduces your chances of being fogged out, if marine fog is in the forecast. It takes real dedication to get up at 2:30 a.m. and drive half an hour to a dark spot, but if you’re game:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>In the North Bay there are plenty of dark choices, from the coastal hills out toward Bodega and Point Reyes (though beware of the marine fog forecast), to Sonoma Mountain east of Rohnert Park and Cotati, to the Napa Valley.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In the East Bay some of the glare from Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro, and Hayward is blocked by the East Bay Hills, offering shelter from some light pollution. The ridgeline (Skyline Blvd., Grizzly Peak Blvd.) should be okay, but moving east gets you farther from the source of major light pollution on the Bay side.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The slopes of Mount Diablo offer a good view, and one far from the coast. Though the gate of \u003ca href=\"http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=517\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mount Diablo State Park\u003c/a> closes at sunset, on the road below the gate there are pullouts to be found.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The Sunol area is also a good East Bay choice, protected by hills on all sides.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Farther south, east of Morgan Hill, is \u003ca href=\"http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=561\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Henry Coe State Park\u003c/a>, an ideal spot for meteor viewing for several reasons. It’s away from the coast and major urban centers, and the park gates are open around the clock.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>On the peninsula south of San Mateo, on Skyline Blvd., there are a few good spots to pull over and give the meteor watching a go.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Wherever you choose to view the Lyrids from, stay safe, of course don’t park where you aren’t supposed to, and make sure you’re not trespassing on private property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Causes a Meteor Shower?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A meteor — also called a shooting star — is a tiny bit of metal or rock, usually no bigger than a fingernail, that burns up in Earth’s atmosphere. A single meteor can be seen at any time of the year when a rogue bit of material flying around the solar system enters Earth’s atmosphere at random.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_647161\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-647161\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/earth-and-dust-trail-800x554.jpg\" alt=\"Illustration showing Earth passing through a trail of dust left by the passage of a comet, the source of a meteor shower. \" width=\"800\" height=\"554\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/earth-and-dust-trail-800x554.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/earth-and-dust-trail-400x277.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/earth-and-dust-trail-768x532.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/earth-and-dust-trail-960x665.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/earth-and-dust-trail.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Illustration showing Earth passing through a trail of dust left by the passage of a comet, the source of a meteor shower. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://geology.com/articles/meteor-shower.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Meteor \u003cem>showers\u003c/em>\u003c/a> occur when a cloud of dust strikes our atmosphere around the same time — or more accurately, when the Earth passes through a trail of dust left behind by a comet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The side of the Earth that faces into the dust cloud as Earth moves through it happens to be under morning skies, which is why you can only see a meteor shower between midnight and dawn. It’s a little like when a car, speeding down a freeway, passes through a swarm of flying insects, which strike the windshield of the car and not the rear window, leaving splats and streaks on the front end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As comets pass close to the sun they warm up and some of their ices are vaporized, forming the comet’s familiar tail. The vapors carry dust and leave behind a trail of particles. When Earth slams into the dust trail at its orbital velocity of 18 miles per second, the dust particles burn up in our atmosphere and vaporize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lyrid meteor shower is one of the oldest known, with some observational records dating back 2,700 years. A record from China described the meteors of the Lyrid shower of 687 BCE as “falling like rain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_647162\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 474px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-647162\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/meteor_shower_19thcentury_engraving-7939311.jpg\" alt='Engraving depicting the exceptional 1833 \"meteor storm\" of the Leonid Meteor Shower.' width=\"474\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/meteor_shower_19thcentury_engraving-7939311.jpg 474w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/meteor_shower_19thcentury_engraving-7939311-400x443.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Engraving depicting the exceptional 1833 “meteor storm” of the Leonid Meteor Shower. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Each meteor shower originates from the dusty leavings of a different comet. The comet responsible for the Lyrids is named \u003ca href=\"http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/c1861g1thatcher/indepth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">C/1861 G1 Thatcher\u003c/a>. We have no photographs of Thatcher since it last passed through our part of the solar system in 1861, on an orbit that takes 415 years to complete — so this comet won’t come close again until the year 2276.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the legacy of comet Thatcher’s visit — the trail of dust it left behind — still lights up our skies every year.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Seventy-five million miles out in space is not where you want to be when an emergency crops up, but that’s exactly where \u003ca href=\"http://kepler.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Kepler spacecraft\u003c/a> was earlier this week when the red lights and sirens went off back at mission control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler suddenly placed itself in “emergency mode,” for reasons under investigation. Mission operators at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California were given immediate priority to use NASA’s Deep Space Network of radio dishes to communicate with Kepler and download data to help them diagnose the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite a 13-minute round-trip communication delay, project engineers managed to get Kepler out of emergency mode and placed the spacecraft into a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/feature/mission-manager-update-kepler-recovered-from-emergency-and-stable\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">stable waiting state\u003c/a>, as they analyze the diagnostic data and figure out what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mission managers hope to return Kepler to science operations soon, once the spacecraft is given a clean bill of health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Seven-Year Hunting Trip\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler is a sun-orbiting space telescope designed to discover small, Earth-sized planets orbiting their stars at the right distance so that liquid water could exist on their surfaces—planets within their stars’ so-called “Goldilocks Zone,” or \u003ca href=\"http://quest.nasa.gov/projects/astrobiology/astroventure/challenge/Articles/habitablezone.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Habitable Zone\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_637201\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-637201\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/NewKeplerPlanetCandidates-20150723.jpg\" alt=\"Graph showing new Kepler exoplanet candidates as of January 2015 (blue) and July 2015 (yellow). \" width=\"400\" height=\"300\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Graph showing new Kepler exoplanet candidates as of January 2015 (blue) and July 2015 (yellow). \u003ccite>(NASA Ames/W. Stenzel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since its launch in 2009, the \u003ca href=\"http://kepler.nasa.gov/multimedia/animations/orrery3/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kepler spacecraft has detected\u003c/a> and confirmed about 1,080 extrasolar planets, and 4,966 candidate exoplanets awaiting confirmation, adding greatly to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.exoplanets.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">totals of all exoplanet discoveries\u003c/a>. Of these detections, about a dozen are smaller than twice Earth’s size, and orbit within their stars’ Habitable Zones, making them \u003ca href=\"http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">prime prospects for possessing life-friendly environments\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gravitational Microlensing\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler was preparing to begin a search for distant exoplanets through measurements of their effect on the light of more distant stars, a science campaign that was to begin on April 10th. As an exoplanet passes between Earth and the more distant star, its gravity can bend the star’s light and focus it toward Earth, causing a distortion in the starlight that Kepler can detect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_637199\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-637199\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/gif_diagram.gif\" alt=\"Diagram showing how the Kepler spacecraft detects the presence of distant exoplanets by measuring its gravitational effect on the light of a more distant star. \" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diagram showing how the Kepler spacecraft detects the presence of distant exoplanets by measuring its gravitational effect on the light of a more distant star. \u003ccite>(NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This effect is called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHh0Qx7LPJY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">gravitational microlensing\u003c/a>,” and is similar in concept to how a glass lens bends and focuses light, but on a much larger scale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gravitational microlensing, then, lets us detect the presence–as well as estimate the masses–of planets so far away that they are normally undetectable. The most distant exoplanets yet discovered were detected by this method, some as far as the central core of the Milky Way Galaxy, tens of thousands of light years away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Change in Kepler’s Game Plan\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The detection of exoplanets by gravitational microlensing was not Kepler’s original method of discovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler’s initial exoplanet-finding tactic was to measure the dimming of a star’s light as one of its own planets crossed in front of it, an event called a \u003ca href=\"http://kepler.nasa.gov/multimedia/Interactives/keplerFlashAdvDiscovery/#\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">transit\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler spent three years staring at about 145,000 stars near the constellation Cygnus, waiting for any of them to “blink” as a planet transited. By “staring” at the same patch of stars for multiple years, Kepler was also able to confirm planets at Earth-like distances from their stars—planets that we can only observe to transit once in many months, or years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in 2012, one of Kepler’s four stabilizing gyroscopes stopped working, followed in 2013 by a second gyroscope failure. The loss of these gyroscopes meant that Kepler could no longer remain pointing steadily at its target patch of space, and continued observations of planetary transits could no longer take place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then in May of 2013, a new operating mode was approved that would allow Kepler to continue conducting scientific investigations using only its two remaining gyroscopes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"http://keplerscience.arc.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">K2\u003c/a>” was born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its K2 incarnation, Kepler can conduct a number of observations, including detecting exoplanets through gravitational microlensing, searching for supernovas in distant galaxies, and studying young stars in clusters to expand our understanding of how planetary systems form.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With any luck, K2 will resume science operations in a week or so, bringing to knowledge yet more \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler20130717.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">strange and distant worlds\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Seventy-five million miles out in space is not where you want to be when an emergency crops up, but that’s exactly where \u003ca href=\"http://kepler.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Kepler spacecraft\u003c/a> was earlier this week when the red lights and sirens went off back at mission control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler suddenly placed itself in “emergency mode,” for reasons under investigation. Mission operators at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California were given immediate priority to use NASA’s Deep Space Network of radio dishes to communicate with Kepler and download data to help them diagnose the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite a 13-minute round-trip communication delay, project engineers managed to get Kepler out of emergency mode and placed the spacecraft into a \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/feature/mission-manager-update-kepler-recovered-from-emergency-and-stable\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">stable waiting state\u003c/a>, as they analyze the diagnostic data and figure out what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mission managers hope to return Kepler to science operations soon, once the spacecraft is given a clean bill of health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Seven-Year Hunting Trip\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler is a sun-orbiting space telescope designed to discover small, Earth-sized planets orbiting their stars at the right distance so that liquid water could exist on their surfaces—planets within their stars’ so-called “Goldilocks Zone,” or \u003ca href=\"http://quest.nasa.gov/projects/astrobiology/astroventure/challenge/Articles/habitablezone.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Habitable Zone\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_637201\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-637201\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/NewKeplerPlanetCandidates-20150723.jpg\" alt=\"Graph showing new Kepler exoplanet candidates as of January 2015 (blue) and July 2015 (yellow). \" width=\"400\" height=\"300\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Graph showing new Kepler exoplanet candidates as of January 2015 (blue) and July 2015 (yellow). \u003ccite>(NASA Ames/W. Stenzel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since its launch in 2009, the \u003ca href=\"http://kepler.nasa.gov/multimedia/animations/orrery3/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kepler spacecraft has detected\u003c/a> and confirmed about 1,080 extrasolar planets, and 4,966 candidate exoplanets awaiting confirmation, adding greatly to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.exoplanets.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">totals of all exoplanet discoveries\u003c/a>. Of these detections, about a dozen are smaller than twice Earth’s size, and orbit within their stars’ Habitable Zones, making them \u003ca href=\"http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">prime prospects for possessing life-friendly environments\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gravitational Microlensing\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler was preparing to begin a search for distant exoplanets through measurements of their effect on the light of more distant stars, a science campaign that was to begin on April 10th. As an exoplanet passes between Earth and the more distant star, its gravity can bend the star’s light and focus it toward Earth, causing a distortion in the starlight that Kepler can detect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_637199\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-637199\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/gif_diagram.gif\" alt=\"Diagram showing how the Kepler spacecraft detects the presence of distant exoplanets by measuring its gravitational effect on the light of a more distant star. \" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diagram showing how the Kepler spacecraft detects the presence of distant exoplanets by measuring its gravitational effect on the light of a more distant star. \u003ccite>(NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This effect is called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHh0Qx7LPJY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">gravitational microlensing\u003c/a>,” and is similar in concept to how a glass lens bends and focuses light, but on a much larger scale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gravitational microlensing, then, lets us detect the presence–as well as estimate the masses–of planets so far away that they are normally undetectable. The most distant exoplanets yet discovered were detected by this method, some as far as the central core of the Milky Way Galaxy, tens of thousands of light years away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Change in Kepler’s Game Plan\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The detection of exoplanets by gravitational microlensing was not Kepler’s original method of discovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler’s initial exoplanet-finding tactic was to measure the dimming of a star’s light as one of its own planets crossed in front of it, an event called a \u003ca href=\"http://kepler.nasa.gov/multimedia/Interactives/keplerFlashAdvDiscovery/#\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">transit\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler spent three years staring at about 145,000 stars near the constellation Cygnus, waiting for any of them to “blink” as a planet transited. By “staring” at the same patch of stars for multiple years, Kepler was also able to confirm planets at Earth-like distances from their stars—planets that we can only observe to transit once in many months, or years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in 2012, one of Kepler’s four stabilizing gyroscopes stopped working, followed in 2013 by a second gyroscope failure. The loss of these gyroscopes meant that Kepler could no longer remain pointing steadily at its target patch of space, and continued observations of planetary transits could no longer take place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then in May of 2013, a new operating mode was approved that would allow Kepler to continue conducting scientific investigations using only its two remaining gyroscopes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"http://keplerscience.arc.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">K2\u003c/a>” was born.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its K2 incarnation, Kepler can conduct a number of observations, including detecting exoplanets through gravitational microlensing, searching for supernovas in distant galaxies, and studying young stars in clusters to expand our understanding of how planetary systems form.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With any luck, K2 will resume science operations in a week or so, bringing to knowledge yet more \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/news/kepler20130717.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">strange and distant worlds\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Hawking, Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs Want to Send Tiny Robots to Distant Star System",
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"content": "\u003cp>An Internet investor has enlisted famed physicist Stephen Hawking and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to help him with a futuristic plan for seeking life in outer space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Milner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Yuri Milner\u003c/a> announced the $100 million project Tuesday. It’s aimed at establishing the feasibility of sending a swarm of tiny spacecraft, each weighing far less than an ounce, to the Alpha Centauri star system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Powered by energy from a huge, Earth-based laser, the spacecraft would fly at about one-fifth the speed of light. Their target would be a planet with potential for holding life. No such planet has been discovered yet at Alpha Centauri, but experts say one may lurk there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spacecraft would take 20 years to reach the star system, where they would make observations and send back data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/science/alpha-centauri-breakthrough-starshot-yuri-milner-stephen-hawking.html?smid=tw-nytimesscience&smtyp=cur&_r=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more\u003c/a> via The New York Times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>Friday was a landmark day for the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It launched into space a resupply capsule bearing a new inflatable habitat for the International Space Station. Then the rocket’s “first stage” returned to Earth for a sea landing — without exploding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though the SpaceX rocket had successfully \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/22/460649324/spacex-rocket-successfully-lands-after-launching-satellites\">landed on solid ground\u003c/a> before, the last attempt to land the rocket on a barge at sea ended in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/18/463461790/watch-spacex-rocket-explodes-trying-to-land-on-a-barge\">fiery crash\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off, carrying an inflatable space module that will be added to the station. NASA hopes this kind of expandable room in space could someday help astronauts get to Mars,” NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel reports for our Newscast Unit. “As the rocket’s second stage carried this cargo into orbit, the first stage did something unprecedented. It turned around, flew back to Earth and touched down vertically on a robotic barge floating off the coast of Florida.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As NPR’s Joe Palca \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/07/473089336/nasa-to-test-inflatable-room-for-astronauts-in-space\">reported\u003c/a> earlier this week, the idea for inflatable habitats in space dates back to the 1990s when “the space agency was trying to figure out how to get astronauts to Mars, without the crew going crazy living in a tiny capsule for months on end.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it’s folded up, the expandable room is about 6 feet by 6 feet, Joe says, but when inflated, “it’s about 12 feet by 10 feet, approximately the size of a small RV.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new habitat could mean more comfortable living during a future trip to Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the successful landing of the SpaceX rocket will mean much more affordable space travel, as SpaceX can reuse the expensive “first stage,” Geoff says. \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=SpaceX+Rocket+Lands+Safely+On+A+Ship+At+Sea+For+the+First+Time&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Friday was a landmark day for the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It launched into space a resupply capsule bearing a new inflatable habitat for the International Space Station. Then the rocket’s “first stage” returned to Earth for a sea landing — without exploding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though the SpaceX rocket had successfully \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/22/460649324/spacex-rocket-successfully-lands-after-launching-satellites\">landed on solid ground\u003c/a> before, the last attempt to land the rocket on a barge at sea ended in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/18/463461790/watch-spacex-rocket-explodes-trying-to-land-on-a-barge\">fiery crash\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off, carrying an inflatable space module that will be added to the station. NASA hopes this kind of expandable room in space could someday help astronauts get to Mars,” NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel reports for our Newscast Unit. “As the rocket’s second stage carried this cargo into orbit, the first stage did something unprecedented. It turned around, flew back to Earth and touched down vertically on a robotic barge floating off the coast of Florida.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As NPR’s Joe Palca \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/07/473089336/nasa-to-test-inflatable-room-for-astronauts-in-space\">reported\u003c/a> earlier this week, the idea for inflatable habitats in space dates back to the 1990s when “the space agency was trying to figure out how to get astronauts to Mars, without the crew going crazy living in a tiny capsule for months on end.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it’s folded up, the expandable room is about 6 feet by 6 feet, Joe says, but when inflated, “it’s about 12 feet by 10 feet, approximately the size of a small RV.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Scientists Set to Drill Into Extinction-Event Crater in Mexico",
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"content": "\u003cp>A research team is now working to put a massive drill into the the Gulf of Mexico’s seafloor, with the goal of peeling back 65 million years of history. Their goal: to secure a nearly mile-deep core sample from the Chicxulub crater that’s commonly linked to the end of the dinosaur era.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of questions about mass extinction events, including all the extinction or kill mechanisms out there,” says one of the research team’s leaders, Sean Gulick of the University of Texas, Austin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Gulick and his colleagues are successful, their work could bring insights into a range of topics, from prehistoric biology and planetary geology to Earth’s current era of climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The impact of a miles-wide asteroid and the end of the Cretaceous period were catastrophic to life on Earth, erasing more than 70 percent of the planet’s species, according to the most recent estimations. When it hit our planet, the impact must have looked something like an exclamation point, packing enough velocity and mass to make deep-seated rocks and other materials behave like water splashing in a pond after a stone is thrown into it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using core samples, the scientists will explore Chicxulub’s well-preserved peak ring — the rough circle of hills that’s commonly seen rising above flat impact craters on Earth and other planets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In that section,” Gulick says, “the big excitement is, ‘How did life come back at ground zero?’ Was it the specialists that came back first, the generalists? Is there any clue to what organisms repopulated first, as opposed to what the environmental consequences were for the ocean?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To drill into the seafloor, a 137-foot craft called the Liftboat Myrtle is now using its tripod of 6-foot-wide legs to position itself over an offshore site that’s about 25 kilometers from Progreso, Mexico. Workers on the Myrtle are preparing to “spud in” — start drilling — in earnest, with the first usable samples arriving next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_626286\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/yucatan-nasa.jpg\" alt=\"The Chicxulub crater from the impact that's widely believed to have caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction 65.5 million years ago is visible here in a shaded relief image of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-626286\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/yucatan-nasa.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/yucatan-nasa-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/yucatan-nasa-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Chicxulub crater from the impact that’s widely believed to have caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction 65.5 million years ago is visible here in a shaded relief image of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.\u003cbr> \u003ccite>(SRTM Team NASA/JPL/NIMA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The project will run for around six weeks, involving an international team of researchers led by the University of Texas and Imperial College London. The team is backed by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.eso.ecord.org/expeditions/364/364.php\">European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling\u003c/a>, part of the International Ocean Discovery Program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan is to drill down 1,500 meters, or nearly 5,000 feet, through the seafloor. To be more efficient — an important aspect of a research project costing around $10 million — the team won’t collect a core for the first 500 meters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opening a window that spans more than 10 million years of tumultuous changes on Earth, the project will begin by focusing on a more recent geologic period that shares some similarities with current conditions on Earth: the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the last time the planet had a sharp elevation in CO2 levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of what they hope to figure out, Gulick says, is why the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum didn’t trigger much of a mass extinction event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most things just didn’t worry about the high CO2 time, and kind of made it through,” he says. “However, if you look today, at our current increasing CO2 values, already it’s looking like we have a pretty big extinction event in the making. Is that something to do with vulnerability? Is that something to do with the specific kill mechanisms? We should understand this better, given that we’re kind of in the middle of an experiment, ourselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The samples will be analyzed for the potential presence of “extremophiles” — exotic organisms that might have thrived in the heat and chemical fluids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To find those, we look for their DNA,” Gulick says. “So we want to grab these samples as quickly as they come to the surface and freeze them at minus-80 degrees Celsius” to preserve them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time of the meteor strike, the area was covered by water. Today, about half of the resulting crater is on the northwest corner of the Yucatan, in an area about 100 miles west of Cancun. Millions of years after it was formed, the crater is still easily visible in a topographic image that NASA created back in 2000. Its diameter has been estimated at more than 110 miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This thing would have effectively punched a hole through the atmosphere,” Gulick says of the asteroid that smacked into Earth. “It would’ve blown so much material vertically up into the vapor plume that some of it reaches escape velocity and completely encircles the Earth and rains back down again. Some it probably stays in the atmosphere. So there’s quite a range of effects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It went everywhere on the entire planet,” Gulick adds, saying that today, “If you find the end of Cretaceous rocks, beginning of the Paleogene rocks, anywhere on the planet, you will find parts of the meteor and parts of the basement rocks from the Yucatan in that layer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those basement rocks — granite and other materials — are also believed to be what helps form the peak ring. The impact would have brought them up to the surface from a depth of as much as 10 or 15 kilometers, Gulick says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another element of the Chicxulub strike, he adds, is that the impact hit “a really bad place,” in terms of the debris it generated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It hit a spot where it was full of limestone and evaporites, including things that were rich in sulfur,” Gulick says. “That was a particularly bad spot to have hit in terms of chemical effects. You know, putting a bunch of sulfate aerosols into the upper atmosphere is an incredibly effective way to block sunlight — in addition to the dust. And putting sulfate aerosols in the lower atmosphere makes acid rain. So, if we’d hit a different place, it might not have been as bad. It’s really hard to say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the team drills into the peak ring, they expect to find everything from airfall materials to deposits from a tsunami triggered by the impact. They’ll explore what makes up the peak ring, which earlier seismic studies have shown to be fairly low-density.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By looking beneath Earth’s surface for signs of how a cataclysmic event reshaped life on our planet, the researchers are also hoping to learn more about how other planets have been shaped by projectile impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In addition to being interesting from an extinction element,” Gulick says, “it’s also interesting because it’s a well-preserved, very large crater that we can access without leaving the planet. It’s equivalent to studying the really big craters with peak rings, for instance, on the moon, on Mercury, on Mars — but obviously at a fraction of the cost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To some people — particularly fans of speculative fiction — the idea of drilling into a crater that brought about the end of days for 70 percent of the Earth’s species might sound like a risky proposition, one that raises specters of deadly alien material. I asked Gulick what he says to those folks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I guess I immediately wonder what in the world they think we would find that is of concern,” he says. “Time is on our side here. This is 65-and-a-half million years ago. That’s a long time. You know, it’s not still hot, for instance.” \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=Scientists+Set+To+Drill+Into+Extinction-Event+Crater+In+Mexico&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A research team is now working to put a massive drill into the the Gulf of Mexico’s seafloor, with the goal of peeling back 65 million years of history. Their goal: to secure a nearly mile-deep core sample from the Chicxulub crater that’s commonly linked to the end of the dinosaur era.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of questions about mass extinction events, including all the extinction or kill mechanisms out there,” says one of the research team’s leaders, Sean Gulick of the University of Texas, Austin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Gulick and his colleagues are successful, their work could bring insights into a range of topics, from prehistoric biology and planetary geology to Earth’s current era of climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The impact of a miles-wide asteroid and the end of the Cretaceous period were catastrophic to life on Earth, erasing more than 70 percent of the planet’s species, according to the most recent estimations. When it hit our planet, the impact must have looked something like an exclamation point, packing enough velocity and mass to make deep-seated rocks and other materials behave like water splashing in a pond after a stone is thrown into it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using core samples, the scientists will explore Chicxulub’s well-preserved peak ring — the rough circle of hills that’s commonly seen rising above flat impact craters on Earth and other planets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In that section,” Gulick says, “the big excitement is, ‘How did life come back at ground zero?’ Was it the specialists that came back first, the generalists? Is there any clue to what organisms repopulated first, as opposed to what the environmental consequences were for the ocean?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To drill into the seafloor, a 137-foot craft called the Liftboat Myrtle is now using its tripod of 6-foot-wide legs to position itself over an offshore site that’s about 25 kilometers from Progreso, Mexico. Workers on the Myrtle are preparing to “spud in” — start drilling — in earnest, with the first usable samples arriving next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_626286\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/yucatan-nasa.jpg\" alt=\"The Chicxulub crater from the impact that's widely believed to have caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction 65.5 million years ago is visible here in a shaded relief image of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-626286\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/yucatan-nasa.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/yucatan-nasa-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/yucatan-nasa-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Chicxulub crater from the impact that’s widely believed to have caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction 65.5 million years ago is visible here in a shaded relief image of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.\u003cbr> \u003ccite>(SRTM Team NASA/JPL/NIMA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The project will run for around six weeks, involving an international team of researchers led by the University of Texas and Imperial College London. The team is backed by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.eso.ecord.org/expeditions/364/364.php\">European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling\u003c/a>, part of the International Ocean Discovery Program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan is to drill down 1,500 meters, or nearly 5,000 feet, through the seafloor. To be more efficient — an important aspect of a research project costing around $10 million — the team won’t collect a core for the first 500 meters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opening a window that spans more than 10 million years of tumultuous changes on Earth, the project will begin by focusing on a more recent geologic period that shares some similarities with current conditions on Earth: the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the last time the planet had a sharp elevation in CO2 levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of what they hope to figure out, Gulick says, is why the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum didn’t trigger much of a mass extinction event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most things just didn’t worry about the high CO2 time, and kind of made it through,” he says. “However, if you look today, at our current increasing CO2 values, already it’s looking like we have a pretty big extinction event in the making. Is that something to do with vulnerability? Is that something to do with the specific kill mechanisms? We should understand this better, given that we’re kind of in the middle of an experiment, ourselves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The samples will be analyzed for the potential presence of “extremophiles” — exotic organisms that might have thrived in the heat and chemical fluids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To find those, we look for their DNA,” Gulick says. “So we want to grab these samples as quickly as they come to the surface and freeze them at minus-80 degrees Celsius” to preserve them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time of the meteor strike, the area was covered by water. Today, about half of the resulting crater is on the northwest corner of the Yucatan, in an area about 100 miles west of Cancun. Millions of years after it was formed, the crater is still easily visible in a topographic image that NASA created back in 2000. Its diameter has been estimated at more than 110 miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This thing would have effectively punched a hole through the atmosphere,” Gulick says of the asteroid that smacked into Earth. “It would’ve blown so much material vertically up into the vapor plume that some of it reaches escape velocity and completely encircles the Earth and rains back down again. Some it probably stays in the atmosphere. So there’s quite a range of effects.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It went everywhere on the entire planet,” Gulick adds, saying that today, “If you find the end of Cretaceous rocks, beginning of the Paleogene rocks, anywhere on the planet, you will find parts of the meteor and parts of the basement rocks from the Yucatan in that layer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those basement rocks — granite and other materials — are also believed to be what helps form the peak ring. The impact would have brought them up to the surface from a depth of as much as 10 or 15 kilometers, Gulick says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another element of the Chicxulub strike, he adds, is that the impact hit “a really bad place,” in terms of the debris it generated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It hit a spot where it was full of limestone and evaporites, including things that were rich in sulfur,” Gulick says. “That was a particularly bad spot to have hit in terms of chemical effects. You know, putting a bunch of sulfate aerosols into the upper atmosphere is an incredibly effective way to block sunlight — in addition to the dust. And putting sulfate aerosols in the lower atmosphere makes acid rain. So, if we’d hit a different place, it might not have been as bad. It’s really hard to say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the team drills into the peak ring, they expect to find everything from airfall materials to deposits from a tsunami triggered by the impact. They’ll explore what makes up the peak ring, which earlier seismic studies have shown to be fairly low-density.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By looking beneath Earth’s surface for signs of how a cataclysmic event reshaped life on our planet, the researchers are also hoping to learn more about how other planets have been shaped by projectile impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In addition to being interesting from an extinction element,” Gulick says, “it’s also interesting because it’s a well-preserved, very large crater that we can access without leaving the planet. It’s equivalent to studying the really big craters with peak rings, for instance, on the moon, on Mercury, on Mars — but obviously at a fraction of the cost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To some people — particularly fans of speculative fiction — the idea of drilling into a crater that brought about the end of days for 70 percent of the Earth’s species might sound like a risky proposition, one that raises specters of deadly alien material. I asked Gulick what he says to those folks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I guess I immediately wonder what in the world they think we would find that is of concern,” he says. “Time is on our side here. This is 65-and-a-half million years ago. That’s a long time. You know, it’s not still hot, for instance.” \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=Scientists+Set+To+Drill+Into+Extinction-Event+Crater+In+Mexico&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>A new era for living in space may be about to start.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A prototype habitat is headed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html\">International Space Station\u003c/a> for a two-year trial. What makes the module unique is it’s launched folded up, and it’s inflated to its full size once in orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea for inflatables began at NASA’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/home/index.html\">Johnson Space Center\u003c/a> in the 1990s. The space agency was trying to figure out how to get astronauts to Mars, without the crew going crazy living in a tiny capsule for months on end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kriss Kennedy was a NASA engineer working on the problem. It essentially boiled down to this: How do you pack a large living structure into a small rocket cargo space? The solution: inflatables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well, there are several advantages for inflatable habitats; one is you can package it in a smaller volume,” says Kennedy, and then expand it once you get into space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The inflatable is not like a balloon. Folded up, it just looks like a cylinder. Expanded, it grows upward and outward so it looks more like a watermelon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-624796\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/Bigelow-Aerospace_superlarge.gif\" alt=\"Bigelow-Aerospace_superlarge\" width=\"954\" height=\"500\">\u003cbr>\nIt’s made of multiple layers of Kevlar and other materials resistant to micrometeorites. And even though it’s inflated, Kennedy says you shouldn’t think of it as squishy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very rigid,” he says. “Once you get even a partial pressure it’s extremely hard, as hard as aluminum.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as enthusiastic as some at NASA were for this new approach to building space habitats, Congress wasn’t sufficiently impressed, and in 2000 legislators \u003ca href=\"http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c106:1:./temp/~c106PROjVo:e30153:\">told\u003c/a> NASA to kill the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Enter billionaire \u003ca href=\"http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0627/features-robert-bigelow-aerospace-real-estate-cosmic-landlord.html\">Robert Bigelow\u003c/a>, a man who made his fortune in budget hotels. He saw a future for inflatable space habitats, maybe even space hotels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He got the rights to NASA’s inflatable technology and created \u003ca href=\"http://bigelowaerospace.com/\">Bigelow Aerospace\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After more than a decade of development, the company has produced BEAM, \u003ca href=\"http://bigelowaerospace.com/beam/\">Bigelow Expandable Activity Module\u003c/a>, and NASA has agreed to attach it to the International Space Station and see how it performs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Folded up, BEAM is about 6 feet by 6 feet. Inflated, it’s about 12 feet by 10 feet, approximately the size of a small RV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_624798\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-624798\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/bigelow_NASA.jpg\" alt=\"NASA wanted extra room that could be transported to space in compact form and expanded upon arrival. \" width=\"400\" height=\"600\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA wanted extra room that could be transported to space in compact form and expanded upon arrival. \u003ccite>(Bigelow Aerospace)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/aes/jason-crusan\">Jason Crusan\u003c/a> is in charge of BEAM for NASA. He says when it arrives at the station, astronauts will remove it from the cargo rocket with the station’s robotic arm and plug into a node on the station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once it’s securely attached, the astronauts will start to inflate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It could be done as fast as four minutes,” says Crusan. “We’re not going to do it that fast. We’ll do it over the course of several hours.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not that expanding it too fast might make it pop. BEAM’s layered design won’t let that happen. He says you could poke a big hole in an outer layer “and it will leak, obviously. but it’s not going to puncture like a balloon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s attached to the space station, the plan is for the crew to go inside the habitat from time to time to see how it’s performing. Crusan says there are no plans at the moment for the crew to have a sleepover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BEAM will be attached to the space station for two years. After that it will be detached and allowed to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crusan says NASA now sees a future for inflatables, and it’s the same future as in the 1990s: getting humans to Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do want to look at the use of expandables in what we call our Mars transit architecture,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What goes around comes around.\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+To+Test+Inflatable+Room+For+Astronauts+In+Space&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A new era for living in space may be about to start.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A prototype habitat is headed to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html\">International Space Station\u003c/a> for a two-year trial. What makes the module unique is it’s launched folded up, and it’s inflated to its full size once in orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea for inflatables began at NASA’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/home/index.html\">Johnson Space Center\u003c/a> in the 1990s. The space agency was trying to figure out how to get astronauts to Mars, without the crew going crazy living in a tiny capsule for months on end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kriss Kennedy was a NASA engineer working on the problem. It essentially boiled down to this: How do you pack a large living structure into a small rocket cargo space? The solution: inflatables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well, there are several advantages for inflatable habitats; one is you can package it in a smaller volume,” says Kennedy, and then expand it once you get into space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The inflatable is not like a balloon. Folded up, it just looks like a cylinder. Expanded, it grows upward and outward so it looks more like a watermelon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-624796\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/Bigelow-Aerospace_superlarge.gif\" alt=\"Bigelow-Aerospace_superlarge\" width=\"954\" height=\"500\">\u003cbr>\nIt’s made of multiple layers of Kevlar and other materials resistant to micrometeorites. And even though it’s inflated, Kennedy says you shouldn’t think of it as squishy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very rigid,” he says. “Once you get even a partial pressure it’s extremely hard, as hard as aluminum.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as enthusiastic as some at NASA were for this new approach to building space habitats, Congress wasn’t sufficiently impressed, and in 2000 legislators \u003ca href=\"http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c106:1:./temp/~c106PROjVo:e30153:\">told\u003c/a> NASA to kill the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Enter billionaire \u003ca href=\"http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0627/features-robert-bigelow-aerospace-real-estate-cosmic-landlord.html\">Robert Bigelow\u003c/a>, a man who made his fortune in budget hotels. He saw a future for inflatable space habitats, maybe even space hotels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He got the rights to NASA’s inflatable technology and created \u003ca href=\"http://bigelowaerospace.com/\">Bigelow Aerospace\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After more than a decade of development, the company has produced BEAM, \u003ca href=\"http://bigelowaerospace.com/beam/\">Bigelow Expandable Activity Module\u003c/a>, and NASA has agreed to attach it to the International Space Station and see how it performs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Folded up, BEAM is about 6 feet by 6 feet. Inflated, it’s about 12 feet by 10 feet, approximately the size of a small RV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_624798\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-624798\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/04/bigelow_NASA.jpg\" alt=\"NASA wanted extra room that could be transported to space in compact form and expanded upon arrival. \" width=\"400\" height=\"600\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA wanted extra room that could be transported to space in compact form and expanded upon arrival. \u003ccite>(Bigelow Aerospace)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/aes/jason-crusan\">Jason Crusan\u003c/a> is in charge of BEAM for NASA. He says when it arrives at the station, astronauts will remove it from the cargo rocket with the station’s robotic arm and plug into a node on the station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once it’s securely attached, the astronauts will start to inflate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It could be done as fast as four minutes,” says Crusan. “We’re not going to do it that fast. We’ll do it over the course of several hours.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not that expanding it too fast might make it pop. BEAM’s layered design won’t let that happen. He says you could poke a big hole in an outer layer “and it will leak, obviously. but it’s not going to puncture like a balloon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s attached to the space station, the plan is for the crew to go inside the habitat from time to time to see how it’s performing. Crusan says there are no plans at the moment for the crew to have a sleepover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BEAM will be attached to the space station for two years. After that it will be detached and allowed to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Crusan says NASA now sees a future for inflatables, and it’s the same future as in the 1990s: getting humans to Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do want to look at the use of expandables in what we call our Mars transit architecture,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What goes around comes around.\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+To+Test+Inflatable+Room+For+Astronauts+In+Space&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "What Mysterious Forces Are Creating Mountains on Titan?",
"headTitle": "What Mysterious Forces Are Creating Mountains on Titan? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>In the winding-down period of its more than 12-year mission exploring the Saturn system, \u003ca href=\"http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Cassini\u003c/a> spacecraft has spotted the tallest mountain of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, a peak in the Mithrim Montes range near the equator that rises over two miles above the moon’s surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Cassini spacecraft measured the peaks of Mithrim Montes using its radar instrument to penetrate the layers of thick, smoggy haze in Titan’s atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The highest of the peaks is 10,948 feet high, and most of Titan’s highest peaks, which are found near the equator, are close to 10,000 feet tall. Comparably high mountains on Earth include Cathedral Peak in Yosemite, Mount Lassen, and Telescope Peak in Death Valley National Park (whose entire height, from sea level to summit, can be viewed in \u003ca href=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Telescope_Peak_from_Badwater_2.jpg/1280px-Telescope_Peak_from_Badwater_2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">one stunning vista from the valley floor\u003c/a>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Extreme Mountaineering\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The discovery of nature’s geological extremes—extreme heights, extreme depths, extreme scales—is something that may excite the adventurous spirit in us all. However, scientists have a more practical purpose for taking such measurements, in this case probing the origins and understanding the forces that form the \u003ca href=\"https://penningtonplanetarium.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/the-9-tallest-mountains-in-the-solar-system/comment-page-1/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">solar system’s highest mountain ranges\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_605409\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 301px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-605409\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Continental-continental_convergence_Fig21contcont.gif\" alt=\"Example of a mountain range uplifted by the collision of two continental tectonic plates, as with Earth's Himalaya Mountain Range. \" width=\"301\" height=\"173\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Example of a mountain range uplifted by the collision of two continental tectonic plates, as with Earth’s Himalaya Mountain Range. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Though one might climb a mountain “because it’s there,” the mountains themselves are there for a more concrete reason. Mountains are structures formed by dynamic forces that actively push them upward—for example, the collision of tectonic plates, which is the driving force uplifting Earth’s tallest mountain ranges. Volcanism is another process that builds mountains. And, on some worlds, like the planet Mercury, uplifted features may be formed when the planet or moon cools and contracts, and wrinkles form on its surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mountains, Young and Old\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On planets and moons with atmospheres—in particular, those with active surface weathering processes—mountains gradually wear down as erosion scours their surfaces. On Earth, the towering Himalayas, Andes, and Rocky Mountains are examples of relatively young mountain ranges pushed upward by the collisions of crustal tectonic plates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_605410\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-605410\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The Appalachian Mountains, once as high and mighty as the Alps or the Rockies, have eroded over hundreds of millions of years to low, gentle ridges and peaks.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Appalachian Mountains, once as high and mighty as the Alps or the Rockies, have eroded over hundreds of millions of years to low, gentle ridges and peaks. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Appalachian Mountains along the east coast of North America, today a gentle range whose highest points are less than 7,000 feet above sea level, have been weathered down since their formation 480 million years ago. In its heyday, however, the Appalachians were a mighty range comparable to the Alps and the Rockies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Is at Work Under Titan’s Surface?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The presence of \u003ca href=\"http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/cassinifeatures/feature20160324/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Titan’s tall mountains\u003c/a> is intriguing, particularly in light of the fact that Titan’s thick atmosphere and erosive weather cycle of liquid-methane precipitation and runoff are at work wearing them down. This suggests that some active process may have raised the mountains relatively recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Candidates for the mountain-building forces responsible for Titan’s ranges include tectonic activity driven by a deep subsurface ocean of water that Titan’s crust floats on, tidal effects from Saturn’s gravity, or the contracting of the moon’s surface as it cools. By studying their size, location, and distribution, scientists hope to learn which of these processes might be the culprit, and how it may still be shaping Titan’s surface today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ranging Across the Solar System\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_605407\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-605407\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/PIA20023-16-640x350.jpg\" alt=\"Radar image made by NASA's Cassini spacecraft of the Mithrim Montes range, where Titan's tallest peak is located.\" width=\"640\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/PIA20023-16-640x350.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/PIA20023-16-640x350-400x219.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Radar image made by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft of the Mithrim Montes range, where Titan’s tallest peak is located. \u003ccite>(NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Throughout the solar system we explore the tallest mountains and mountain ranges of many planets and moons in order to reveal unseen processes masked by their surfaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pluto’s \u003ca href=\"http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150718.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Norgay Montes\u003c/a> tower 11,000 feet high, while Mercury’s \u003ca href=\"http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?image_id=503\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Caloris Montes\u003c/a> reaches a similar 10,032 feet. On Venus, \u003ca href=\"http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/html/object_page/mgn_c260n033_2.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Maxwell Montes\u003c/a>, whose origin is still under debate, climbs to 35,904 feet. On Mars, the vast shield volcano \u003ca href=\"http://www.windows2universe.org/mars/places/olympus_mons.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Olympus Mons\u003c/a>—the highest mountain in the solar system—rises a breathtaking 69,650 feet above the Martian surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earth’s own Mount Everest, at 29,029 feet above sea level, along with the entire Himalayan mountain range, was uplifted by the collision of the Indo-Australian and the Eurasian crustal plates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Cassini mission is coming to a close. In September 2017, the spacecraft will be deliberately de-orbited and burn up in the atmosphere of Saturn, ending a 13-year expedition of remarkable discovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between now and then, Cassini will make about dozen close flybys of Titan, so there’s still time for a few more long-distance extreme-mountaineering runs….\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In the winding-down period of its more than 12-year mission exploring the Saturn system, \u003ca href=\"http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Cassini\u003c/a> spacecraft has spotted the tallest mountain of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, a peak in the Mithrim Montes range near the equator that rises over two miles above the moon’s surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Cassini spacecraft measured the peaks of Mithrim Montes using its radar instrument to penetrate the layers of thick, smoggy haze in Titan’s atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The highest of the peaks is 10,948 feet high, and most of Titan’s highest peaks, which are found near the equator, are close to 10,000 feet tall. Comparably high mountains on Earth include Cathedral Peak in Yosemite, Mount Lassen, and Telescope Peak in Death Valley National Park (whose entire height, from sea level to summit, can be viewed in \u003ca href=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Telescope_Peak_from_Badwater_2.jpg/1280px-Telescope_Peak_from_Badwater_2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">one stunning vista from the valley floor\u003c/a>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Extreme Mountaineering\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The discovery of nature’s geological extremes—extreme heights, extreme depths, extreme scales—is something that may excite the adventurous spirit in us all. However, scientists have a more practical purpose for taking such measurements, in this case probing the origins and understanding the forces that form the \u003ca href=\"https://penningtonplanetarium.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/the-9-tallest-mountains-in-the-solar-system/comment-page-1/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">solar system’s highest mountain ranges\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_605409\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 301px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-605409\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Continental-continental_convergence_Fig21contcont.gif\" alt=\"Example of a mountain range uplifted by the collision of two continental tectonic plates, as with Earth's Himalaya Mountain Range. \" width=\"301\" height=\"173\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Example of a mountain range uplifted by the collision of two continental tectonic plates, as with Earth’s Himalaya Mountain Range. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Though one might climb a mountain “because it’s there,” the mountains themselves are there for a more concrete reason. Mountains are structures formed by dynamic forces that actively push them upward—for example, the collision of tectonic plates, which is the driving force uplifting Earth’s tallest mountain ranges. Volcanism is another process that builds mountains. And, on some worlds, like the planet Mercury, uplifted features may be formed when the planet or moon cools and contracts, and wrinkles form on its surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mountains, Young and Old\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On planets and moons with atmospheres—in particular, those with active surface weathering processes—mountains gradually wear down as erosion scours their surfaces. On Earth, the towering Himalayas, Andes, and Rocky Mountains are examples of relatively young mountain ranges pushed upward by the collisions of crustal tectonic plates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_605410\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-605410\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The Appalachian Mountains, once as high and mighty as the Alps or the Rockies, have eroded over hundreds of millions of years to low, gentle ridges and peaks.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/Appalachian_Mountains-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Appalachian Mountains, once as high and mighty as the Alps or the Rockies, have eroded over hundreds of millions of years to low, gentle ridges and peaks. \u003ccite>(Public Domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Appalachian Mountains along the east coast of North America, today a gentle range whose highest points are less than 7,000 feet above sea level, have been weathered down since their formation 480 million years ago. In its heyday, however, the Appalachians were a mighty range comparable to the Alps and the Rockies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Is at Work Under Titan’s Surface?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The presence of \u003ca href=\"http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/cassinifeatures/feature20160324/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Titan’s tall mountains\u003c/a> is intriguing, particularly in light of the fact that Titan’s thick atmosphere and erosive weather cycle of liquid-methane precipitation and runoff are at work wearing them down. This suggests that some active process may have raised the mountains relatively recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Candidates for the mountain-building forces responsible for Titan’s ranges include tectonic activity driven by a deep subsurface ocean of water that Titan’s crust floats on, tidal effects from Saturn’s gravity, or the contracting of the moon’s surface as it cools. By studying their size, location, and distribution, scientists hope to learn which of these processes might be the culprit, and how it may still be shaping Titan’s surface today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ranging Across the Solar System\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_605407\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-605407\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/PIA20023-16-640x350.jpg\" alt=\"Radar image made by NASA's Cassini spacecraft of the Mithrim Montes range, where Titan's tallest peak is located.\" width=\"640\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/PIA20023-16-640x350.jpg 640w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/PIA20023-16-640x350-400x219.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Radar image made by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft of the Mithrim Montes range, where Titan’s tallest peak is located. \u003ccite>(NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Throughout the solar system we explore the tallest mountains and mountain ranges of many planets and moons in order to reveal unseen processes masked by their surfaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pluto’s \u003ca href=\"http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150718.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Norgay Montes\u003c/a> tower 11,000 feet high, while Mercury’s \u003ca href=\"http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?image_id=503\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Caloris Montes\u003c/a> reaches a similar 10,032 feet. On Venus, \u003ca href=\"http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/html/object_page/mgn_c260n033_2.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Maxwell Montes\u003c/a>, whose origin is still under debate, climbs to 35,904 feet. On Mars, the vast shield volcano \u003ca href=\"http://www.windows2universe.org/mars/places/olympus_mons.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Olympus Mons\u003c/a>—the highest mountain in the solar system—rises a breathtaking 69,650 feet above the Martian surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earth’s own Mount Everest, at 29,029 feet above sea level, along with the entire Himalayan mountain range, was uplifted by the collision of the Indo-Australian and the Eurasian crustal plates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Cassini mission is coming to a close. In September 2017, the spacecraft will be deliberately de-orbited and burn up in the atmosphere of Saturn, ending a 13-year expedition of remarkable discovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between now and then, Cassini will make about dozen close flybys of Titan, so there’s still time for a few more long-distance extreme-mountaineering runs….\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "NASA's InSight Mission Will Put Stethoscope to Mars' Heartbeat",
"headTitle": "NASA’s InSight Mission Will Put Stethoscope to Mars’ Heartbeat | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>NASA’s \u003ca href=\"http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/home.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">InSight\u003c/a> mission to Mars is well worth waiting two more years for. InSight will be the first lander equipped to probe beneath the Martian surface, conducting experiments aimed at finding out what goes on inside the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The space agency postponed the launch of InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) earlier this month, after finding a leak that would have endangered one of the lander’s principal instruments, a seismometer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With a practical \u003ca href=\"http://athena.cornell.edu/mars_facts/sb_launch_window.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">launch window\u003c/a> for sending the spacecraft to Mars opening and closing this month, NASA decided the leak couldn’t be repaired and tested in time. And since Martian launch windows open only once every two years when Earth and Mars move into favorable positions, NASA will now set its sights on the next one, in May of 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581973\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-581973\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/insight-in-workshop-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"NASA's INSIGHT spacecraft in a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/insight-in-workshop.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/insight-in-workshop-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/insight-in-workshop-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA’s InSight spacecraft in a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver. \u003ccite>(JPL/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The seismometer (Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, or \u003ca href=\"http://seis.ipgp.fr/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SEIS) \u003c/a>will monitor internal activity through acoustical waves, not unlike how a doctor listens to a patient’s breathing and heartbeat with a stethoscope. How much activity there is, and where, are clues to Mars’ internal structure and activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>InSight’s other main instruments are \u003ca href=\"http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/rise.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RISE \u003c/a>(Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment) and \u003ca href=\"http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/hp3.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HP3\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RISE will make precision measurements of Mars’ rotation rate, as well as how it wobbles over time, to help us understand the nature of Mars’ core. The physical state of a planet’s core has a strong effect on perturbations in its rotation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HP3 is a ground-penetrating probe that will measure the temperature at different depths of the Martian topsoil. The data will allow scientists to calculate how fast heat is escaping from Mars. These measurements, combined with data from the other instruments, will help determine the thermal conditions of the core and mantle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581974\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-581974\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated-800x863.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of NASA's INSIGHT spacecraft on Mars.\" width=\"800\" height=\"863\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated-800x863.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated-400x431.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated-768x828.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated-1180x1272.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated-960x1035.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated.jpg 1201w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of NASA’s InSight spacecraft on Mars. \u003ccite>(JPL/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>All of InSight’s instruments are designed to probe the interior geophysical conditions of Mars, but the purpose of its mission goes well beyond that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>InSight’s goals are a broader investigation of the very early formation of all the terrestrial planets of the inner solar system—Earth, Venus, Mercury, and Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of these rocky worlds are believed to have originally formed through a process called accretion, in which primordial materials in the young solar system were pulled together by gravity into larger and larger objects, snowballing to become the planets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some point in the process, the planets underwent a process called differentiation, in which heavier materials sunk toward their centers, light materials floated toward the surface, and the structure of core-mantle-crust that we see today took shape. However, scientists’ understanding of how this process unfolded is vague.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581975\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-581975\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/mars-bkg-300-dpi-final-800x864.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of the interior structure and thermal state of Mars.\" width=\"800\" height=\"864\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/mars-bkg-300-dpi-final-800x864.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/mars-bkg-300-dpi-final-400x432.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/mars-bkg-300-dpi-final-768x829.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/mars-bkg-300-dpi-final-960x1037.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/mars-bkg-300-dpi-final.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of the interior structure and thermal state of Mars. \u003ccite>(JPL/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Because Mars is far less geologically active than Earth, it preserves in its structure and in the thermal state of its interior a record of its ancient physical state. Much of the evidence of Earth’s early formation has been more or less erased over eons of tectonic churning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While InSight gets repaired, there are still two operational rovers up there—\u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/home/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Opportunity \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Curiosity\u003c/a>—and four orbital spacecraft, \u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/missions/maven/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MAVEN\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter-mro/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey/mission/overview/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mars Odyssey\u003c/a>, and the European \u003ca href=\"http://sci.esa.int/mars-express/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mars Express\u003c/a>. So, the disappointment of the two-year delay in putting the stethoscope to Mars’ heartbeat is softened by all the other incredible data coming to us.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "NASA recently made the decision to postpone the launch of a new mission to Mars, which was originally scheduled for this month, and set its sights on a launch in 2018.",
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"description": "NASA recently made the decision to postpone the launch of a new mission to Mars, which was originally scheduled for this month, and set its sights on a launch in 2018.",
"title": "NASA's InSight Mission Will Put Stethoscope to Mars' Heartbeat | KQED",
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"headline": "NASA's InSight Mission Will Put Stethoscope to Mars' Heartbeat",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>NASA’s \u003ca href=\"http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/home.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">InSight\u003c/a> mission to Mars is well worth waiting two more years for. InSight will be the first lander equipped to probe beneath the Martian surface, conducting experiments aimed at finding out what goes on inside the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The space agency postponed the launch of InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) earlier this month, after finding a leak that would have endangered one of the lander’s principal instruments, a seismometer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With a practical \u003ca href=\"http://athena.cornell.edu/mars_facts/sb_launch_window.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">launch window\u003c/a> for sending the spacecraft to Mars opening and closing this month, NASA decided the leak couldn’t be repaired and tested in time. And since Martian launch windows open only once every two years when Earth and Mars move into favorable positions, NASA will now set its sights on the next one, in May of 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581973\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-581973\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/insight-in-workshop-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"NASA's INSIGHT spacecraft in a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/insight-in-workshop.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/insight-in-workshop-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/insight-in-workshop-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA’s InSight spacecraft in a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver. \u003ccite>(JPL/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The seismometer (Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, or \u003ca href=\"http://seis.ipgp.fr/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SEIS) \u003c/a>will monitor internal activity through acoustical waves, not unlike how a doctor listens to a patient’s breathing and heartbeat with a stethoscope. How much activity there is, and where, are clues to Mars’ internal structure and activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>InSight’s other main instruments are \u003ca href=\"http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/rise.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RISE \u003c/a>(Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment) and \u003ca href=\"http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/hp3.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HP3\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RISE will make precision measurements of Mars’ rotation rate, as well as how it wobbles over time, to help us understand the nature of Mars’ core. The physical state of a planet’s core has a strong effect on perturbations in its rotation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HP3 is a ground-penetrating probe that will measure the temperature at different depths of the Martian topsoil. The data will allow scientists to calculate how fast heat is escaping from Mars. These measurements, combined with data from the other instruments, will help determine the thermal conditions of the core and mantle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581974\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-581974\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated-800x863.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of NASA's INSIGHT spacecraft on Mars.\" width=\"800\" height=\"863\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated-800x863.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated-400x431.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated-768x828.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated-1180x1272.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated-960x1035.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/InSight-instruments-artist-concept-PIA17358-annotated.jpg 1201w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of NASA’s InSight spacecraft on Mars. \u003ccite>(JPL/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>All of InSight’s instruments are designed to probe the interior geophysical conditions of Mars, but the purpose of its mission goes well beyond that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>InSight’s goals are a broader investigation of the very early formation of all the terrestrial planets of the inner solar system—Earth, Venus, Mercury, and Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of these rocky worlds are believed to have originally formed through a process called accretion, in which primordial materials in the young solar system were pulled together by gravity into larger and larger objects, snowballing to become the planets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some point in the process, the planets underwent a process called differentiation, in which heavier materials sunk toward their centers, light materials floated toward the surface, and the structure of core-mantle-crust that we see today took shape. However, scientists’ understanding of how this process unfolded is vague.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581975\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-581975\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/mars-bkg-300-dpi-final-800x864.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of the interior structure and thermal state of Mars.\" width=\"800\" height=\"864\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/mars-bkg-300-dpi-final-800x864.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/mars-bkg-300-dpi-final-400x432.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/mars-bkg-300-dpi-final-768x829.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/mars-bkg-300-dpi-final-960x1037.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/mars-bkg-300-dpi-final.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of the interior structure and thermal state of Mars. \u003ccite>(JPL/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Because Mars is far less geologically active than Earth, it preserves in its structure and in the thermal state of its interior a record of its ancient physical state. Much of the evidence of Earth’s early formation has been more or less erased over eons of tectonic churning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While InSight gets repaired, there are still two operational rovers up there—\u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/home/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Opportunity \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Curiosity\u003c/a>—and four orbital spacecraft, \u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/missions/maven/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MAVEN\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter-mro/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey/mission/overview/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mars Odyssey\u003c/a>, and the European \u003ca href=\"http://sci.esa.int/mars-express/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mars Express\u003c/a>. So, the disappointment of the two-year delay in putting the stethoscope to Mars’ heartbeat is softened by all the other incredible data coming to us.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Pluto's Geology: A New World Shimmers Into View",
"headTitle": "Pluto’s Geology: A New World Shimmers Into View | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Last summer, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html\">New Horizons\u003c/a> spacecraft had everyone talking as it swept past Pluto, sending back tantalizing images of its surface. Now the mission’s scientists have published a lot of material from their research. Five papers in the journal \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/\">Science\u003c/a> answer questions we’ve been holding onto about Pluto and its large satellite Charon (the name rhymes with “Sharon”) since then. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Questions like: What are they like? What are they made of?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pluto’s neighborhood is pretty strange. First of all, conditions are extremely cold. The sun is so far away, it looks like an ordinary bright star. Temperatures are minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit in full sunlight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everything out there is frozen solid, even things that are gases on Earth. Instead of Earth-type rocks made of silicon compounds, the rocks we see on Pluto and Charon are made of ices — frozen water, nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. Yet in important ways, rocks and ices on Pluto act like rocks and ice on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581815\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 448px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-581815\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe.jpg\" alt=\"Pluto image\" width=\"448\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe.jpg 448w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pluto’s true colors are exaggerated in this false-color rendition, especially the deep reds of Cthulhu Regio. \u003ccite>(ASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Take water ice. On Earth, water ice is soft enough to flow in the form of glaciers, but at Pluto’s temperatures it’s as rigid and brittle as stone. Pluto’s other three ices, together referred to as volatile ices, are softer, like glacier ice on Earth. The three volatile ices mix easily with each other, but they also can be naturally separated since they evaporate and condense at slightly different temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the long seasons as Pluto-Charon circles the Sun once in 248 years, these volatile ices evaporate during summer. That thin breath of vapor makes up the atmospheres of Pluto and Charon. The vapors circulate and then condense as frost during winter. Over billions of years, this slow cycle has gently sculpted the icy landscapes into a great variety of forms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581816\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-581816\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutobladedterrain-800x600.png\" alt=\"Bladed terrain on Pluto\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutobladedterrain.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutobladedterrain-400x300.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutobladedterrain-768x576.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Bladed terrain” in the Tartarus Dorsa region of Pluto appears to have formed in methane ice by some long-continued etching process. Similar erosional features in Earth rocks may give us clues about this terrain — or vice versa. \u003ccite>(ASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The big bright heart-shaped feature on Pluto, informally named Sputnik Planum, turns out to be a low-lying basin full of volatile ices. The ices slowly stir and circulate, erasing impact craters there within a few million years — about as fast as craters are wiped out on Earth’s rocky crust. In that respect, Pluto is one of the most active places we know. Yet other areas on Pluto are heavily cratered and appear to have surfaces as old as the solar system itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581817\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-581817\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/pluto-sputnikplanum-800x600.gif\" alt=\"Surface of Sputnik Planum\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/pluto-sputnikplanum-800x600.gif 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/pluto-sputnikplanum-400x300.gif 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/pluto-sputnikplanum-768x576.gif 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This detailed image of the glaciers in Pluto’s Sputnik Planum, about 50 miles in width, shows thousands of pits in its surface of nitrogen ice as well as larger circulation patterns. “Islands” are interpreted as floating bergs of water ice, or perhaps the tips of ice mountains. \u003ccite>(ASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Both Pluto and Charon also have evidence of deeper activity. Pluto has some canyons that appear to have formed by stretching from below. Charon is far more dramatic, with a ring of great cracks around its equator. The working theory is that when Charon was younger and warmer, it had an original interior of liquid water that slowly froze. Because water, uniquely among common substances, expands as it freezes, the results might look like what we see today on Charon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pluto and Charon are also colorful, ranging from the blue of nitrogen ice to the reds and browns found in Charon’s great north-polar basin, Mordor Macula, and Pluto’s ancient Cthulhu Regio. The reddish material appears to be a thin crust of organic crud, chemicals called tholins that are made from methane ice by space radiation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581818\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 448px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-581818\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe.jpg\" alt=\"Charon\" width=\"448\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe.jpg 448w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heavily cratered Charon is marked by Mordor Macula, a deep polar basin paved with red tholins, and an equatorial belt of immense cracks possibly caused by freezing of its deep mantle of water ice. \u003ccite>(ASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As we all know, Pluto is no longer officially called a \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet\">planet\u003c/a>. Speaking as a geologist, I don’t like this, because Pluto exhibits the basic \u003ca href=\"http://geology.about.com/od/planets/a/planetnuts.htm\">geologic behavior of a proper planet\u003c/a> — it’s round, it’s differentiated inside, and it’s active. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, the astronomers decided 10 years ago that Pluto is not planetary enough. It’s too small for its gravity to have cleared all the cosmic debris from around it, and it has neighbors in that part of space that are the same size and even larger. So Pluto is a dwarf planet. But the authors of the Science papers have done better by calling Pluto and Charon “worlds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studying a world like Pluto takes the wide-ranging skills of a large team of scientists. They may find analogies for something on Pluto existing on Earth’s glaciers, in various parts of Mars, or on any number of the icy moons of the outer planets. The pitted terrain on Sputnik Planum’s glaciers, for instance, looks a lot like the “Swiss cheese features” seen on the carbon-dioxide ice caps of Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The promise of exploring these analogies is that what we learn on Pluto may shed new light on other worlds, even our own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The work uncovers holes in our knowledge — for instance, we know very little about the mechanical behavior of solid nitrogen or methane ice. But now that we know this knowledge matters, we can do some decent experiments. Thus a project like New Horizons not only challenges researchers to find new ideas, but also sends them back to obscure basics that are suddenly world-changing matters.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "A set of papers in the journal Science reveal a variety of strange and splendid things about the outer worlds Pluto and Charon.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Last summer, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html\">New Horizons\u003c/a> spacecraft had everyone talking as it swept past Pluto, sending back tantalizing images of its surface. Now the mission’s scientists have published a lot of material from their research. Five papers in the journal \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/\">Science\u003c/a> answer questions we’ve been holding onto about Pluto and its large satellite Charon (the name rhymes with “Sharon”) since then. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Questions like: What are they like? What are they made of?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pluto’s neighborhood is pretty strange. First of all, conditions are extremely cold. The sun is so far away, it looks like an ordinary bright star. Temperatures are minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit in full sunlight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everything out there is frozen solid, even things that are gases on Earth. Instead of Earth-type rocks made of silicon compounds, the rocks we see on Pluto and Charon are made of ices — frozen water, nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. Yet in important ways, rocks and ices on Pluto act like rocks and ice on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581815\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 448px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-581815\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe.jpg\" alt=\"Pluto image\" width=\"448\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe.jpg 448w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutoglobe-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pluto’s true colors are exaggerated in this false-color rendition, especially the deep reds of Cthulhu Regio. \u003ccite>(ASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Take water ice. On Earth, water ice is soft enough to flow in the form of glaciers, but at Pluto’s temperatures it’s as rigid and brittle as stone. Pluto’s other three ices, together referred to as volatile ices, are softer, like glacier ice on Earth. The three volatile ices mix easily with each other, but they also can be naturally separated since they evaporate and condense at slightly different temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the long seasons as Pluto-Charon circles the Sun once in 248 years, these volatile ices evaporate during summer. That thin breath of vapor makes up the atmospheres of Pluto and Charon. The vapors circulate and then condense as frost during winter. Over billions of years, this slow cycle has gently sculpted the icy landscapes into a great variety of forms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581816\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-581816\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutobladedterrain-800x600.png\" alt=\"Bladed terrain on Pluto\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutobladedterrain.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutobladedterrain-400x300.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/plutobladedterrain-768x576.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Bladed terrain” in the Tartarus Dorsa region of Pluto appears to have formed in methane ice by some long-continued etching process. Similar erosional features in Earth rocks may give us clues about this terrain — or vice versa. \u003ccite>(ASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The big bright heart-shaped feature on Pluto, informally named Sputnik Planum, turns out to be a low-lying basin full of volatile ices. The ices slowly stir and circulate, erasing impact craters there within a few million years — about as fast as craters are wiped out on Earth’s rocky crust. In that respect, Pluto is one of the most active places we know. Yet other areas on Pluto are heavily cratered and appear to have surfaces as old as the solar system itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581817\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-581817\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/pluto-sputnikplanum-800x600.gif\" alt=\"Surface of Sputnik Planum\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/pluto-sputnikplanum-800x600.gif 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/pluto-sputnikplanum-400x300.gif 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/pluto-sputnikplanum-768x576.gif 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This detailed image of the glaciers in Pluto’s Sputnik Planum, about 50 miles in width, shows thousands of pits in its surface of nitrogen ice as well as larger circulation patterns. “Islands” are interpreted as floating bergs of water ice, or perhaps the tips of ice mountains. \u003ccite>(ASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Both Pluto and Charon also have evidence of deeper activity. Pluto has some canyons that appear to have formed by stretching from below. Charon is far more dramatic, with a ring of great cracks around its equator. The working theory is that when Charon was younger and warmer, it had an original interior of liquid water that slowly froze. Because water, uniquely among common substances, expands as it freezes, the results might look like what we see today on Charon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pluto and Charon are also colorful, ranging from the blue of nitrogen ice to the reds and browns found in Charon’s great north-polar basin, Mordor Macula, and Pluto’s ancient Cthulhu Regio. The reddish material appears to be a thin crust of organic crud, chemicals called tholins that are made from methane ice by space radiation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_581818\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 448px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-581818\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe.jpg\" alt=\"Charon\" width=\"448\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe.jpg 448w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/03/charonglobe-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Heavily cratered Charon is marked by Mordor Macula, a deep polar basin paved with red tholins, and an equatorial belt of immense cracks possibly caused by freezing of its deep mantle of water ice. \u003ccite>(ASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As we all know, Pluto is no longer officially called a \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet\">planet\u003c/a>. Speaking as a geologist, I don’t like this, because Pluto exhibits the basic \u003ca href=\"http://geology.about.com/od/planets/a/planetnuts.htm\">geologic behavior of a proper planet\u003c/a> — it’s round, it’s differentiated inside, and it’s active. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevertheless, the astronomers decided 10 years ago that Pluto is not planetary enough. It’s too small for its gravity to have cleared all the cosmic debris from around it, and it has neighbors in that part of space that are the same size and even larger. So Pluto is a dwarf planet. But the authors of the Science papers have done better by calling Pluto and Charon “worlds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studying a world like Pluto takes the wide-ranging skills of a large team of scientists. They may find analogies for something on Pluto existing on Earth’s glaciers, in various parts of Mars, or on any number of the icy moons of the outer planets. The pitted terrain on Sputnik Planum’s glaciers, for instance, looks a lot like the “Swiss cheese features” seen on the carbon-dioxide ice caps of Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The promise of exploring these analogies is that what we learn on Pluto may shed new light on other worlds, even our own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The work uncovers holes in our knowledge — for instance, we know very little about the mechanical behavior of solid nitrogen or methane ice. But now that we know this knowledge matters, we can do some decent experiments. Thus a project like New Horizons not only challenges researchers to find new ideas, but also sends them back to obscure basics that are suddenly world-changing matters.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
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"order": 1
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"order": 9
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"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. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"order": 15
},
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"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"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. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"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",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"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>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"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.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"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?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"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",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
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},
"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"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",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
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