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"title": "Hypothesis: Our Solar System Lacks 'Super-Earths' Because Jupiter Wrecked Them All",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_28497\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/Jupiter2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-28497 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/Jupiter2.jpg\" alt='With its leather jacket and earring, Jupiter may have been a very, very bad influence on \"super-Earths\" during freshman year of the solar system. (Image courtesy NASA)' width=\"1280\" height=\"721\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In the early days of the solar system, Jupiter may have compressed the orbits of any nascent “super-Earths,” triggering collisions and debris spiraling toward the sun. (NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I’ve always loathed Jupiter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For one thing, I am not stoked on toxic gases or crushing gravity. And the weather on Jupiter is abysmal, with wind speeds roughly twice those of hurricanes on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Were I in charge, I once told a theoretical physicist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, I would set about destroying Jupiter for the good of humanity. He reminded me that in 1994, a like-minded comet smashed into the gas giant, which is some 89,000 miles across. The result was like a bullet fired into a mountain of shaving cream, accomplishing nothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes when I am feeling crabby aboard an overly humid BART car with no vacant seats I think, “Well, of all the places in the universe that I could be right now, at least I’m not on Jupiter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I mention this to explain the vindication I feel upon learning that Jupiter may be the reason our solar system is, it’s turning out, something of a weirdo among its galactic peers. Scientists \u003ca href=\"http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/\">perusing\u003c/a> thousands of exoplanets (some potentially habitable) in other systems around the Milky Way are discovering that rocky “super-Earths” are commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are planets bigger than our own, albeit perhaps not better for our brand of life: they may have crushingly thick atmospheres, and their orbits are typically tighter than Mercury’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”PibCaA7lQnX51E91sjrQVszLByTzfGg6″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The standard-issue planetary system in our galaxy seems to be a set of super-Earths with alarmingly short orbital periods. Our solar system is looking increasingly like an oddball,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.astro.ucsc.edu/faculty/profiles/singleton.php?&singleton=true&cruz_id=glaughli\">Gregory Laughlin\u003c/a>, professor and chair of astronomy and astrophysics at University of California, Santa Cruz, and co-author of a \u003ca href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/03/18/1423252112.abstract?sid=95e1eea2-a537-4d0d-b947-4a058672f40c\">new paper\u003c/a> in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reason our humble solar system suffers this peculiar dearth of “super-Earths” and must instead make do with our vanilla “\u003cem>Earth\u003c/em>-Earth” can be summarized thusly: Jupiter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like Miley Cyrus, Jupiter came in like a wrecking ball.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2011, astronomers proposed the “Grand Tack” hypothesis, suggesting that during the early days of the solar system — the first few million years — Jupiter migrated inward toward the sun, stopping only when the formation of Saturn tugged it back out to its current orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laughlin and co-author \u003ca href=\"http://www.forbes.com/pictures/ggik45ekh/konstantin-batygin-28/\">Konstantin Batygin\u003c/a> think rocky planets could’ve been forming near our sun, until an encroaching Jupiter’s gravitational perturbations rudely started compressing their orbits, slinging them into each other in a chain reaction that took out any nascent super-Earths and sent a lot of debris spiraling into the sun to be vaporized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the same thing we worry about if satellites were to be destroyed in low-Earth orbit. Their fragments would start smashing into other satellites and you’d risk a chain reaction of collisions,” Laughlin says. “Our work indicates that Jupiter would have created just such a collisional cascade in the inner solar system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A second generation of inner planets including familiar old Earth, as well as Mercury, Venus and Mars, would’ve emerged from the aftermath only tens of millions of years later. This explains why the planets close to our sun are younger than the planets farther away. And again, this was possible only thanks to Saturn tugging Jupiter away, thereby allowing our humble planet some breathing room to, you know, exist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thank you, Saturn.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "It turns out our solar system is weird: it doesn't have any rocky \"super-Earths\" orbiting closer to the sun than Mercury. Here's one theory as to why: like Miley Cyrus, Jupiter came in like a wrecking ball and smashed any nascent terrestrial planets just as the solar system was forming.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_28497\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/Jupiter2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-28497 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/Jupiter2.jpg\" alt='With its leather jacket and earring, Jupiter may have been a very, very bad influence on \"super-Earths\" during freshman year of the solar system. (Image courtesy NASA)' width=\"1280\" height=\"721\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In the early days of the solar system, Jupiter may have compressed the orbits of any nascent “super-Earths,” triggering collisions and debris spiraling toward the sun. (NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I’ve always loathed Jupiter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For one thing, I am not stoked on toxic gases or crushing gravity. And the weather on Jupiter is abysmal, with wind speeds roughly twice those of hurricanes on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Were I in charge, I once told a theoretical physicist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, I would set about destroying Jupiter for the good of humanity. He reminded me that in 1994, a like-minded comet smashed into the gas giant, which is some 89,000 miles across. The result was like a bullet fired into a mountain of shaving cream, accomplishing nothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes when I am feeling crabby aboard an overly humid BART car with no vacant seats I think, “Well, of all the places in the universe that I could be right now, at least I’m not on Jupiter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I mention this to explain the vindication I feel upon learning that Jupiter may be the reason our solar system is, it’s turning out, something of a weirdo among its galactic peers. Scientists \u003ca href=\"http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/\">perusing\u003c/a> thousands of exoplanets (some potentially habitable) in other systems around the Milky Way are discovering that rocky “super-Earths” are commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are planets bigger than our own, albeit perhaps not better for our brand of life: they may have crushingly thick atmospheres, and their orbits are typically tighter than Mercury’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The standard-issue planetary system in our galaxy seems to be a set of super-Earths with alarmingly short orbital periods. Our solar system is looking increasingly like an oddball,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.astro.ucsc.edu/faculty/profiles/singleton.php?&singleton=true&cruz_id=glaughli\">Gregory Laughlin\u003c/a>, professor and chair of astronomy and astrophysics at University of California, Santa Cruz, and co-author of a \u003ca href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/03/18/1423252112.abstract?sid=95e1eea2-a537-4d0d-b947-4a058672f40c\">new paper\u003c/a> in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reason our humble solar system suffers this peculiar dearth of “super-Earths” and must instead make do with our vanilla “\u003cem>Earth\u003c/em>-Earth” can be summarized thusly: Jupiter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like Miley Cyrus, Jupiter came in like a wrecking ball.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2011, astronomers proposed the “Grand Tack” hypothesis, suggesting that during the early days of the solar system — the first few million years — Jupiter migrated inward toward the sun, stopping only when the formation of Saturn tugged it back out to its current orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Laughlin and co-author \u003ca href=\"http://www.forbes.com/pictures/ggik45ekh/konstantin-batygin-28/\">Konstantin Batygin\u003c/a> think rocky planets could’ve been forming near our sun, until an encroaching Jupiter’s gravitational perturbations rudely started compressing their orbits, slinging them into each other in a chain reaction that took out any nascent super-Earths and sent a lot of debris spiraling into the sun to be vaporized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the same thing we worry about if satellites were to be destroyed in low-Earth orbit. Their fragments would start smashing into other satellites and you’d risk a chain reaction of collisions,” Laughlin says. “Our work indicates that Jupiter would have created just such a collisional cascade in the inner solar system.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A second generation of inner planets including familiar old Earth, as well as Mercury, Venus and Mars, would’ve emerged from the aftermath only tens of millions of years later. This explains why the planets close to our sun are younger than the planets farther away. And again, this was possible only thanks to Saturn tugging Jupiter away, thereby allowing our humble planet some breathing room to, you know, exist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thank you, Saturn.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Cassini Detects Signs of Conditions Friendly to Life",
"headTitle": "Cassini Detects Signs of Conditions Friendly to Life | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_28260\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/PIA19058_hires-cr.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-28260\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/PIA19058_hires-cr.jpg\" alt=\"Cutaway illustration of Saturn's moon Enceladus, showing subsurface ocean and surface water vapor plumes (NASA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This cutaway illustration of Saturn’s moon Enceladus shows a subsurface ocean with hydrothermal activity, where water interacts with heat deep inside the moon, and erupts through the surface in plumes of vapor. (Cassini/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s an exciting time to be an astrobiologist looking for life beyond Earth, with signs of water spouting up all over the solar system. In the latest example, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has delivered clear evidence that, far beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s small moon Enceladus, hydrothermal activity may be at work, similar to what we find in some life-friendly environments on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That makes three leading contenders for bodies in our solar system that possess life-friendly conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jupiter’s moon Europa hides under its icy crust what may be the largest ocean in the solar system, and there has been a renewed interest in \u003ca title=\"NASA planning a mission to explore Europa's ocean\" href=\"http://www.demanjo.com/news/science/607662/nasa-plans-life-searching-mission-on-jupiter%E2%80%99s-satellite-europa.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mounting a mission\u003c/a> to explore it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And NASA’s Curiosity rover continues to quench our thirst for finding signs of liquid water in Mars’ distant past. Curiosity is currently \u003ca title=\"NASA/Curiosity drilling for signs of ancient water\" href=\"http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1782\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">prospecting the water-deposited sedimentary layers\u003c/a> on Mount Sharp, left behind by ancient surface seas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_28265\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 320px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/PIA17184_hires-sm.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-28265\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/PIA17184_hires-sm.jpg\" alt=\"Water vapor plumes erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus (Cassini/NASA)\" width=\"320\" height=\"186\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water vapor plumes erupting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. (Cassini/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It has been a decade since Cassini first captured images of plumes of material erupting from great fissures in the icy crust of Enceladus, material that it later identified as water mixed with smaller amounts of nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide. These plumes told us there was liquid water beneath the surface. We thought at the time that the water may be held in some kind of geyser chamber heated and pressurized by tidal energy supplied by Saturn’s gravity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over its decade of exploration Cassini’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) instrument has also repeatedly detected microscopic solid particles flying about the Saturn system. Researchers have identified the particles as silica grains — the same material found in sand and quartz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The very consistent sizes of the particles (the largest between 6 and 9 nanometers) has led scientists to conclude that they were produced by a very specific process: hot, alkaline liquid water super-saturated with minerals experiencing a sudden and drastic drop in temperature. Where, it was asked, might these conditions exist in the Saturn system, and by what mechanism would the silica grains be delivered into space, where Cassini detected them? Enceladus, with its liquid water ocean and water vapor plumes spraying into space, satisfies both of these questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Similar conditions exist here on Earth. On the floor of our ocean, usually at the boundaries of crustal plates, are found \u003ca title=\"Hydrothermal vents\" href=\"http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/vents.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hydrothermal vents\u003c/a>. These are underwater hot springs formed when seawater, percolating into the ocean floor, comes into contact with hot magma. Plumes of hot water erupt through vents in the ocean floor, carrying dissolved minerals. Some of those minerals solidify on contacting cold ocean water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_28267\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 350px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/whitesmokers_noaa.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-28267\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/whitesmokers_noaa.jpg\" alt='\"White smokers\"--hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor (NOAA)' width=\"350\" height=\"197\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">White smokers — hydrothermal vents on Earth’s ocean floor (NOAA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mineral structures that build up around the vents, along with the smoke-like plumes that spout from them, are called \u003ca title=\"Black smokers and white smokers\" href=\"http://hydrothermalventszcrenshaw.weebly.com/black--white-smokers.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“black smokers” and “white smokers.”\u003c/a> Black smokers form around hotter hydrothermal vents, and get their black color from iron monosulfide. The less common white smokers form around cooler vents, their white color coming from chemicals like barium, calcium, and silicon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These deep ocean smokers create environments that support life: communities of organisms sustained entirely by heat and chemical energy coming from Earth’s interior, no sunlight required! And though the life forms found around the vents probably originated from Earth’s sunlit surface, this does not rule out a genesis scenario where life might originate within such an environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s where \u003ca title=\"NASA/Cassini detects hydrothermal activity on Enceladus\" href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/march/spacecraft-data-suggest-saturn-moons-ocean-may-harbor-hydrothermal-activity/#.VQcQYtLF98F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cassini’s discovery\u003c/a> gets really exciting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Analysis of the silica grains detected by Cassini indicate that hydrothermal activity similar to that on Earth is taking place on the floor of Enceladus’ ocean, where water, under great pressure at depth, interacts with heat and minerals emerging from the moon’s interior. For the hydrothermal vents to produce these particular silica grains, the temperatures must be at least 194 degrees Fahrenheit. If not super-hot black smokers, might Enceladus have something like our own white smokers going on?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The possibilities are tantalizing. Finding even one microbe out there would, in an instant, resolve one of the most profound scientific, philosophical, and human questions of all time: are we alone? That question was once phrased, “Is there life out there?” These days, it’s starting to sound more like, “How many places will we find it?”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Far beneath the icy crust of Saturn's small moon Enceladus, hydrothermal activity may be at work, activity similar to what is found in some life-friendly environments on Earth.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_28260\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/PIA19058_hires-cr.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-28260\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/PIA19058_hires-cr.jpg\" alt=\"Cutaway illustration of Saturn's moon Enceladus, showing subsurface ocean and surface water vapor plumes (NASA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This cutaway illustration of Saturn’s moon Enceladus shows a subsurface ocean with hydrothermal activity, where water interacts with heat deep inside the moon, and erupts through the surface in plumes of vapor. (Cassini/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s an exciting time to be an astrobiologist looking for life beyond Earth, with signs of water spouting up all over the solar system. In the latest example, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has delivered clear evidence that, far beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s small moon Enceladus, hydrothermal activity may be at work, similar to what we find in some life-friendly environments on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That makes three leading contenders for bodies in our solar system that possess life-friendly conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jupiter’s moon Europa hides under its icy crust what may be the largest ocean in the solar system, and there has been a renewed interest in \u003ca title=\"NASA planning a mission to explore Europa's ocean\" href=\"http://www.demanjo.com/news/science/607662/nasa-plans-life-searching-mission-on-jupiter%E2%80%99s-satellite-europa.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mounting a mission\u003c/a> to explore it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And NASA’s Curiosity rover continues to quench our thirst for finding signs of liquid water in Mars’ distant past. Curiosity is currently \u003ca title=\"NASA/Curiosity drilling for signs of ancient water\" href=\"http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1782\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">prospecting the water-deposited sedimentary layers\u003c/a> on Mount Sharp, left behind by ancient surface seas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_28265\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 320px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/PIA17184_hires-sm.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-28265\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/PIA17184_hires-sm.jpg\" alt=\"Water vapor plumes erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus (Cassini/NASA)\" width=\"320\" height=\"186\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water vapor plumes erupting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. (Cassini/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It has been a decade since Cassini first captured images of plumes of material erupting from great fissures in the icy crust of Enceladus, material that it later identified as water mixed with smaller amounts of nitrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide. These plumes told us there was liquid water beneath the surface. We thought at the time that the water may be held in some kind of geyser chamber heated and pressurized by tidal energy supplied by Saturn’s gravity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over its decade of exploration Cassini’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) instrument has also repeatedly detected microscopic solid particles flying about the Saturn system. Researchers have identified the particles as silica grains — the same material found in sand and quartz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The very consistent sizes of the particles (the largest between 6 and 9 nanometers) has led scientists to conclude that they were produced by a very specific process: hot, alkaline liquid water super-saturated with minerals experiencing a sudden and drastic drop in temperature. Where, it was asked, might these conditions exist in the Saturn system, and by what mechanism would the silica grains be delivered into space, where Cassini detected them? Enceladus, with its liquid water ocean and water vapor plumes spraying into space, satisfies both of these questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Similar conditions exist here on Earth. On the floor of our ocean, usually at the boundaries of crustal plates, are found \u003ca title=\"Hydrothermal vents\" href=\"http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/vents.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hydrothermal vents\u003c/a>. These are underwater hot springs formed when seawater, percolating into the ocean floor, comes into contact with hot magma. Plumes of hot water erupt through vents in the ocean floor, carrying dissolved minerals. Some of those minerals solidify on contacting cold ocean water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_28267\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 350px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/whitesmokers_noaa.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-28267\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/whitesmokers_noaa.jpg\" alt='\"White smokers\"--hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor (NOAA)' width=\"350\" height=\"197\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">White smokers — hydrothermal vents on Earth’s ocean floor (NOAA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The mineral structures that build up around the vents, along with the smoke-like plumes that spout from them, are called \u003ca title=\"Black smokers and white smokers\" href=\"http://hydrothermalventszcrenshaw.weebly.com/black--white-smokers.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">“black smokers” and “white smokers.”\u003c/a> Black smokers form around hotter hydrothermal vents, and get their black color from iron monosulfide. The less common white smokers form around cooler vents, their white color coming from chemicals like barium, calcium, and silicon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These deep ocean smokers create environments that support life: communities of organisms sustained entirely by heat and chemical energy coming from Earth’s interior, no sunlight required! And though the life forms found around the vents probably originated from Earth’s sunlit surface, this does not rule out a genesis scenario where life might originate within such an environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s where \u003ca title=\"NASA/Cassini detects hydrothermal activity on Enceladus\" href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/march/spacecraft-data-suggest-saturn-moons-ocean-may-harbor-hydrothermal-activity/#.VQcQYtLF98F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cassini’s discovery\u003c/a> gets really exciting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Analysis of the silica grains detected by Cassini indicate that hydrothermal activity similar to that on Earth is taking place on the floor of Enceladus’ ocean, where water, under great pressure at depth, interacts with heat and minerals emerging from the moon’s interior. For the hydrothermal vents to produce these particular silica grains, the temperatures must be at least 194 degrees Fahrenheit. If not super-hot black smokers, might Enceladus have something like our own white smokers going on?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The possibilities are tantalizing. Finding even one microbe out there would, in an instant, resolve one of the most profound scientific, philosophical, and human questions of all time: are we alone? That question was once phrased, “Is there life out there?” These days, it’s starting to sound more like, “How many places will we find it?”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Dawn Arrives at Ceres, Makes History",
"headTitle": "Dawn Arrives at Ceres, Makes History | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_27827\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/dawn_arrives_at_ceres.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27827\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/dawn_arrives_at_ceres.jpg\" alt=\"Artist's concept of NASA's Dawn spacecraft arriving at Ceres. (Dawn/NASA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist’s concept of NASA’s Dawn spacecraft arriving at Ceres. (Dawn/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Early this morning, at about 4:39 AM Pacific Time, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft \u003ca title=\"Dawn Arrives at Ceres\" href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4503&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&utm_content=dawn150306\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">arrived at Ceres\u003c/a>, making history as it swung into orbit around the dwarf planet. Dawn left Earth eight years ago, headed for the Asteroid Belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft spent a year photographing the asteroid Vesta, and then two-and-a-half years on the journey to its final port-of-call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last several months, scientists and the public have been \u003ca title=\"At last, Ceres is a geological world\" href=\"http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/02251857-ceres-geology.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">growing steadily more excited\u003c/a> as Dawn sent back photos of an ever-closer Ceres. For the average space enthusiast, Dawn’s arrival feels like the discovery of a new world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve known Ceres existed since 1801, when it was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi. But for scientists, this encounter means far more than seeing a mysterious object up close for the first time.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘Ceres has the potential to turn some of our old ideas about how planets formed completely upside down.’\u003ccite>— Dr. Britney Schmidt, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Indeed, \u003ca title=\"NASA's Dawn Mission\" href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Dawn mission\u003c/a> is not merely a geology field trip. It is the closest thing we have to a time machine. Dawn’s exploration of Vesta and Ceres is like an archaeological dig or forensic investigation: the unearthing and reading of extant physical evidence to reconstruct what happened in our solar system’s infancy, when the planets were being formed in an environment radically different from what we know today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ceres has the potential to turn some of our old ideas about how planets formed completely upside down,” says Dr. Britney Schmidt, Assistant Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “If Ceres turns out to be icy in its interior, this would not only tell us that there were potentially lots of icy asteroids, but also that some of the ‘classical’ assumptions about the timing of planetary formation could be wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ceres is an example of a “protoplanet,” an object that formed early in the solar system’s history by accumulating smaller chunks of rock and ice and snowballing toward a planet-stature object—or at least a major building-block of another planet. But Ceres’ development was arrested, and it has remained more or less unchanged from three or four billion years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though [Ceres] is likely refrozen now,” Schmidt says, “with the gravity data from Dawn, we may be able to show that Ceres at one time had a subsurface ocean.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dawn’s leisurely approach over the past months has supplied us with a constant feed of images that have grown ever sharper and more detailed, peeling away layers of fuzzy mystery like the skin of an onion, and revealing new mysteries in the process. That’s something astronomers are happy about, like getting an unexpected dividend on your investment. Mystery, after all, inspires science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_27829\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/pia18920-rotating_lg.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-27829\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/pia18920-rotating_lg.gif\" alt=\"Image sequence of Ceres taken by the Dawn spacecraft. (Dawn/Nasa)\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image sequence of Ceres taken by the Dawn spacecraft. (Dawn/Nasa)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A week before Dawn’s arrival, NASA whetted our appetites for the adventure by publishing a picture that revealed \u003ca title=\"NASA/JPL\" href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4496&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&utm_content=daily20150302-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">two small white spots\u003c/a> nestled close together in a crater—and told us that the nature of the roughly Lake Tahoe-sized feature was as yet unknown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What are these spots? Kids visiting Chabot Space & Science Center had some truly bright ideas, including giant pieces of reflective metal, huge chunks of ice, volcanoes, and, yes, aliens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dawn’s previous subject of interest, Vesta, can also be classed as a protoplanet like Ceres, though Vesta was found to be composed mostly of rock. Ceres, on the other hand, may be as much as 25% water ice. In terms of the protoplanet accretion processes that formed the Earth, it is thought that dry Vesta-type objects may have built up Earth’s rocky core and mantle, while icy “wet” protoplanets like Ceres may have contributed to the formation of our oceans. Certainly, Dawn’s investigations in the Asteroid Belt have shown that the kitchen in which Earth was cooked up was stocked with both ingredients.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "March 6, eight years after launch and two and a half years since leaving its last port of call, the asteroid Vesta, NASA's Dawn spacecraft has arrived at the dwarf planet Ceres, making history!",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_27827\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/dawn_arrives_at_ceres.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27827\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/dawn_arrives_at_ceres.jpg\" alt=\"Artist's concept of NASA's Dawn spacecraft arriving at Ceres. (Dawn/NASA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist’s concept of NASA’s Dawn spacecraft arriving at Ceres. (Dawn/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Early this morning, at about 4:39 AM Pacific Time, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft \u003ca title=\"Dawn Arrives at Ceres\" href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4503&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&utm_content=dawn150306\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">arrived at Ceres\u003c/a>, making history as it swung into orbit around the dwarf planet. Dawn left Earth eight years ago, headed for the Asteroid Belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft spent a year photographing the asteroid Vesta, and then two-and-a-half years on the journey to its final port-of-call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last several months, scientists and the public have been \u003ca title=\"At last, Ceres is a geological world\" href=\"http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/02251857-ceres-geology.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">growing steadily more excited\u003c/a> as Dawn sent back photos of an ever-closer Ceres. For the average space enthusiast, Dawn’s arrival feels like the discovery of a new world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve known Ceres existed since 1801, when it was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi. But for scientists, this encounter means far more than seeing a mysterious object up close for the first time.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘Ceres has the potential to turn some of our old ideas about how planets formed completely upside down.’\u003ccite>— Dr. Britney Schmidt, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Indeed, \u003ca title=\"NASA's Dawn Mission\" href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Dawn mission\u003c/a> is not merely a geology field trip. It is the closest thing we have to a time machine. Dawn’s exploration of Vesta and Ceres is like an archaeological dig or forensic investigation: the unearthing and reading of extant physical evidence to reconstruct what happened in our solar system’s infancy, when the planets were being formed in an environment radically different from what we know today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ceres has the potential to turn some of our old ideas about how planets formed completely upside down,” says Dr. Britney Schmidt, Assistant Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “If Ceres turns out to be icy in its interior, this would not only tell us that there were potentially lots of icy asteroids, but also that some of the ‘classical’ assumptions about the timing of planetary formation could be wrong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ceres is an example of a “protoplanet,” an object that formed early in the solar system’s history by accumulating smaller chunks of rock and ice and snowballing toward a planet-stature object—or at least a major building-block of another planet. But Ceres’ development was arrested, and it has remained more or less unchanged from three or four billion years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though [Ceres] is likely refrozen now,” Schmidt says, “with the gravity data from Dawn, we may be able to show that Ceres at one time had a subsurface ocean.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dawn’s leisurely approach over the past months has supplied us with a constant feed of images that have grown ever sharper and more detailed, peeling away layers of fuzzy mystery like the skin of an onion, and revealing new mysteries in the process. That’s something astronomers are happy about, like getting an unexpected dividend on your investment. Mystery, after all, inspires science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_27829\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/pia18920-rotating_lg.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-27829\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/03/pia18920-rotating_lg.gif\" alt=\"Image sequence of Ceres taken by the Dawn spacecraft. (Dawn/Nasa)\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image sequence of Ceres taken by the Dawn spacecraft. (Dawn/Nasa)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A week before Dawn’s arrival, NASA whetted our appetites for the adventure by publishing a picture that revealed \u003ca title=\"NASA/JPL\" href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4496&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&utm_content=daily20150302-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">two small white spots\u003c/a> nestled close together in a crater—and told us that the nature of the roughly Lake Tahoe-sized feature was as yet unknown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What are these spots? Kids visiting Chabot Space & Science Center had some truly bright ideas, including giant pieces of reflective metal, huge chunks of ice, volcanoes, and, yes, aliens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dawn’s previous subject of interest, Vesta, can also be classed as a protoplanet like Ceres, though Vesta was found to be composed mostly of rock. Ceres, on the other hand, may be as much as 25% water ice. In terms of the protoplanet accretion processes that formed the Earth, it is thought that dry Vesta-type objects may have built up Earth’s rocky core and mantle, while icy “wet” protoplanets like Ceres may have contributed to the formation of our oceans. Certainly, Dawn’s investigations in the Asteroid Belt have shown that the kitchen in which Earth was cooked up was stocked with both ingredients.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "NASA's Kepler Mission Reincarnated",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_27323\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/02/kepler2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27323\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/02/kepler2.jpg\" alt=\"Artist illustration of the Kepler spacecraft. (Ames Research Center, JPL-Caltech, T. Pyle/NASA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist illustration of the Kepler spacecraft. (Ames Research Center, JPL-Caltech, T. Pyle/NASA) \u003ccite>(Ames Research Center, JPL-Caltech, T. Pyle/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Space exploration has suffered its share of setbacks and disappointments over the decades, but few of them stung as much as the 2013 mechanical failure of the Kepler spacecraft, a space telescope designed to accomplish one of the most exciting explorations of space ever: the search for potentially Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Kepler spacecraft is basically a giant, very sensitive telescopic camera designed to compete in an ultimate cosmic staring contest: to gaze continuously at a patch of about 150,000 stars near the constellation Cygnus, and wait for them to blink—that is, dim slightly—when planets they might possess pass briefly in front of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To find Earth-like extrasolar planets, Kepler had to do more than detect the very slight dimming of starlight caused by the transit of relatively small, Earth-sized worlds. It had to find the ones orbiting within their star’s “habitable zone,” or “Goldilocks zone:” the distance at which conditions on the planet are neither too hot nor too cold to support that commodity essential to all life on Earth, liquid water–the “porridge of life,” one might say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At that distance from its star, a planet only orbits every few months, or even years, so for Kepler to confirm their existence requires it to make continuous observations for several years, so as not to miss any transits. To win the contest, Kepler could not blink.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Kepler was truly the first mission of science to actually search for such worlds, an example of technology and scientific inquiry catching up to centuries of unrequited human desire\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>For so long people have dreamed of the existence of other planets in the cosmos, and naturally human fancy has drawn our imaginations to envision worlds whose environments would be habitable for human life. Kepler was truly the first mission of science to actually search for such worlds, an example of technology and scientific inquiry catching up to centuries of unrequited human desire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in 2013, Kepler lost one of the stabilizing reaction wheels that allowed it to point at its target star field in the constellation Cygnus. This malfunction ended its mission to look for Earth-sized planets among those stars. And though Kepler \u003ca title=\"Kepler's big milestone\" href=\"http://www.space.com/28105-nasa-kepler-spacecraft-1000-exoplanets.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">confirmed the existence of hundreds of exoplanets\u003c/a>—some of them of Earth-stature and orbiting within their habitable zones–during its nearly four-year primary mission, the curtailing of this exploration of extraterrestrial Earths was a soul-crushing event for scientists, if not all of us. How much more might we have learned about the worlds Kepler discovered? How many more might have been found?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But just when it seemed that the Kepler storybook had been slammed shut after only the first chapter or two, human imagination stepped in to envision \u003ca title=\"How Kepler 2 works\" href=\"http://astrobites.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/K2reduced.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">how the crippled spacecraft could be repurposed\u003c/a> for a new mission: \u003ca title=\"Kepler 2\" href=\"http://keplerscience.arc.nasa.gov/K2/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kepler 2\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With its two remaining functional reaction wheels and a strategic positioning of the spacecraft so that the tiny amount pressure exerted by sunlight itself is balanced, Kepler can stabilize and point to the ring of sky around the ecliptic—the plane that the planets of our solar system occupy—and last June began a new career of observation in this mode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To prevent the gradual intrusion of the sun into Kepler’s field of view, Kepler 2 will be able to observe a target patch of sky along the ecliptic for about 83 days before needing to point to another spot away from the sun. But during these 83 day “observing campaigns,” Kepler will bring the full force of its powerful instrumentation to bear on the objects it observes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, the staring game is back on, even if the rules have changed a bit and Kepler has to blink occasionally. But the \u003ca title=\"NASA/Kepler\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/#.VOPae-bF98E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">exoplanetary adventure\u003c/a> is far from over…\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Space exploration has suffered its share of setbacks and disappointments over the decades, but few of them stung as much as the 2013 mechanical failure of the Kepler spacecraft, a space telescope designed to accomplish one of the most exciting explorations of space ever: the search for potentially Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_27323\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/02/kepler2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27323\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/02/kepler2.jpg\" alt=\"Artist illustration of the Kepler spacecraft. (Ames Research Center, JPL-Caltech, T. Pyle/NASA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist illustration of the Kepler spacecraft. (Ames Research Center, JPL-Caltech, T. Pyle/NASA) \u003ccite>(Ames Research Center, JPL-Caltech, T. Pyle/NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Space exploration has suffered its share of setbacks and disappointments over the decades, but few of them stung as much as the 2013 mechanical failure of the Kepler spacecraft, a space telescope designed to accomplish one of the most exciting explorations of space ever: the search for potentially Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Kepler spacecraft is basically a giant, very sensitive telescopic camera designed to compete in an ultimate cosmic staring contest: to gaze continuously at a patch of about 150,000 stars near the constellation Cygnus, and wait for them to blink—that is, dim slightly—when planets they might possess pass briefly in front of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To find Earth-like extrasolar planets, Kepler had to do more than detect the very slight dimming of starlight caused by the transit of relatively small, Earth-sized worlds. It had to find the ones orbiting within their star’s “habitable zone,” or “Goldilocks zone:” the distance at which conditions on the planet are neither too hot nor too cold to support that commodity essential to all life on Earth, liquid water–the “porridge of life,” one might say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At that distance from its star, a planet only orbits every few months, or even years, so for Kepler to confirm their existence requires it to make continuous observations for several years, so as not to miss any transits. To win the contest, Kepler could not blink.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Kepler was truly the first mission of science to actually search for such worlds, an example of technology and scientific inquiry catching up to centuries of unrequited human desire\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>For so long people have dreamed of the existence of other planets in the cosmos, and naturally human fancy has drawn our imaginations to envision worlds whose environments would be habitable for human life. Kepler was truly the first mission of science to actually search for such worlds, an example of technology and scientific inquiry catching up to centuries of unrequited human desire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in 2013, Kepler lost one of the stabilizing reaction wheels that allowed it to point at its target star field in the constellation Cygnus. This malfunction ended its mission to look for Earth-sized planets among those stars. And though Kepler \u003ca title=\"Kepler's big milestone\" href=\"http://www.space.com/28105-nasa-kepler-spacecraft-1000-exoplanets.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">confirmed the existence of hundreds of exoplanets\u003c/a>—some of them of Earth-stature and orbiting within their habitable zones–during its nearly four-year primary mission, the curtailing of this exploration of extraterrestrial Earths was a soul-crushing event for scientists, if not all of us. How much more might we have learned about the worlds Kepler discovered? How many more might have been found?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But just when it seemed that the Kepler storybook had been slammed shut after only the first chapter or two, human imagination stepped in to envision \u003ca title=\"How Kepler 2 works\" href=\"http://astrobites.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/K2reduced.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">how the crippled spacecraft could be repurposed\u003c/a> for a new mission: \u003ca title=\"Kepler 2\" href=\"http://keplerscience.arc.nasa.gov/K2/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kepler 2\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With its two remaining functional reaction wheels and a strategic positioning of the spacecraft so that the tiny amount pressure exerted by sunlight itself is balanced, Kepler can stabilize and point to the ring of sky around the ecliptic—the plane that the planets of our solar system occupy—and last June began a new career of observation in this mode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To prevent the gradual intrusion of the sun into Kepler’s field of view, Kepler 2 will be able to observe a target patch of sky along the ecliptic for about 83 days before needing to point to another spot away from the sun. But during these 83 day “observing campaigns,” Kepler will bring the full force of its powerful instrumentation to bear on the objects it observes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, the staring game is back on, even if the rules have changed a bit and Kepler has to blink occasionally. But the \u003ca title=\"NASA/Kepler\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/#.VOPae-bF98E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">exoplanetary adventure\u003c/a> is far from over…\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "NASA's Dawn Spacecraft on Approach for a Historic Encounter",
"headTitle": "NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft on Approach for a Historic Encounter | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26929\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/02/artistconcept-dawn-at-ceres.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26929\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/02/artistconcept-dawn-at-ceres.jpg\" alt=\"Artist's concept of NASA's Dawn spacecraft at Ceres. (Dawn/NASA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist’s concept of NASA’s Dawn spacecraft at Ceres. (Dawn/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On March 6, \u003ca title=\"NASA/JPL Dawn\" href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Dawn\u003c/a> will become the first spacecraft to encounter a dwarf planet when it arrives at Ceres, the first (and largest) object discovered in the Main Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In January, NASA released \u003ca title=\"Dawn Blog\" href=\"http://dawnblog.jpl.nasa.gov/2015/01/29/dawn-journal-january-29/#table%20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> these images of Ceres\u003c/a>, pictures that clearly show its round and planet-like shape, and even some surface features. The pictures were taken from a distance of 147,000 miles, a little more than half the distance from the Earth to the Moon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On February 4, from a distance of 90,000 miles, Dawn took a series of images that were \u003ca title=\"Dawn animation of Ceres from 90,000 miles\" href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia19174\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">made into an animation\u003c/a> with the best resolution yet: 8.5 miles per pixel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ceres holds a lot of mysteries for us. For the better part of the two centuries since its discovery in 1801, we knew little more than its approximate size (590 miles in diameter), and only recently its generally spherical shape. Until recent observations by the \u003ca title=\"Space.com\" href=\"http://www.space.com/22891-ceres-dwarf-planet.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hubble Space Telescope\u003c/a>, Ceres appeared through telescopes as little more than a blurry smudge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These new clues are tantalizing. Ceres appears to be composed of a rocky core surrounded by an icy mantle, and has been observed to exude gases into space, not unlike comets do as they approach the sun. It has even been speculated that Ceres could possess a sub-surface ocean of liquid water. Far from being a sterile, dry mountain of rock, as most asteroids are envisioned, Ceres has already exhibited some planet-like, or at least dwarf-planet-like, characteristics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26938\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/02/Ceres_OpNav2_Anim_v2.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26938\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/02/Ceres_OpNav2_Anim_v2.gif\" alt=\"Best views of Ceres to date, January 2015. (Dawn/NASA)\" width=\"600\" height=\"600\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Best views of Ceres to date, January 2015. (Dawn/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What makes Ceres a dwarf planet and not just a very large asteroid, as it was classified for decades prior to the \u003ca title=\"IAU definitions of planet and dwarf planet\" href=\"https://www.iau.org/static/resolutions/Resolution_GA26-5-6.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2006 creation of the dwarf planet classification\u003c/a>?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Ceres is round–spherical. It has to be round to be considered a planet or a dwarf planet. This is one of the qualifying factors of planethood: to be large enough and have sufficiently strong gravity to be pulled into a spherical shape. Smaller objects—comets and asteroids—fail this mark because the strength of their rock and ice structures overpower their weak gravitational pull.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2. Ceres orbits the sun directly–you can’t be a planet or a dwarf planet if you don’t. There are moons in the solar system much larger than Ceres, and as round as any planet. In fact, if a moon like Ganymede or Callisto or Titan orbited the sun directly instead of orbiting a planet, it would probably be classified as a planet itself. Ganymede and Titan, in fact, are larger than the planet Mercury.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you meet these two criteria, you are eligible for dwarf planet status.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Ceres lacks only one quality required for admission to the planetary club…\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Ceres lacks only one quality required for admission to the planetary club: it does not “dominate” the region of space that it moves in. Ceres orbits the sun within the Main Asteroid Belt, along with millions of asteroids that share the space. And even though Ceres possesses a third of the total mass of the Main Asteroid Belt, its gravitational influence on the Belt is not sufficient to command the motions of the smaller asteroids, either by pulling them in and accreting their mass, or flinging them to other parts of the solar system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On March 6, when Dawn arrives, we may not see many images right away. Dawn will make its final approach from the side of Ceres opposite the sun, so will only be able to view its dark side. But after the spacecraft settles down, in mid-April, Dawn will begin to observe the dwarf planet’s illuminated side, and from a distance of 14,000 miles the resolution of the pictures it will send back will be fourteen times greater than those of the Hubble Space Telescope.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26929\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/02/artistconcept-dawn-at-ceres.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26929\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/02/artistconcept-dawn-at-ceres.jpg\" alt=\"Artist's concept of NASA's Dawn spacecraft at Ceres. (Dawn/NASA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist’s concept of NASA’s Dawn spacecraft at Ceres. (Dawn/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On March 6, \u003ca title=\"NASA/JPL Dawn\" href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Dawn\u003c/a> will become the first spacecraft to encounter a dwarf planet when it arrives at Ceres, the first (and largest) object discovered in the Main Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In January, NASA released \u003ca title=\"Dawn Blog\" href=\"http://dawnblog.jpl.nasa.gov/2015/01/29/dawn-journal-january-29/#table%20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> these images of Ceres\u003c/a>, pictures that clearly show its round and planet-like shape, and even some surface features. The pictures were taken from a distance of 147,000 miles, a little more than half the distance from the Earth to the Moon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On February 4, from a distance of 90,000 miles, Dawn took a series of images that were \u003ca title=\"Dawn animation of Ceres from 90,000 miles\" href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia19174\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">made into an animation\u003c/a> with the best resolution yet: 8.5 miles per pixel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ceres holds a lot of mysteries for us. For the better part of the two centuries since its discovery in 1801, we knew little more than its approximate size (590 miles in diameter), and only recently its generally spherical shape. Until recent observations by the \u003ca title=\"Space.com\" href=\"http://www.space.com/22891-ceres-dwarf-planet.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hubble Space Telescope\u003c/a>, Ceres appeared through telescopes as little more than a blurry smudge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These new clues are tantalizing. Ceres appears to be composed of a rocky core surrounded by an icy mantle, and has been observed to exude gases into space, not unlike comets do as they approach the sun. It has even been speculated that Ceres could possess a sub-surface ocean of liquid water. Far from being a sterile, dry mountain of rock, as most asteroids are envisioned, Ceres has already exhibited some planet-like, or at least dwarf-planet-like, characteristics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26938\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/02/Ceres_OpNav2_Anim_v2.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26938\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/02/Ceres_OpNav2_Anim_v2.gif\" alt=\"Best views of Ceres to date, January 2015. (Dawn/NASA)\" width=\"600\" height=\"600\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Best views of Ceres to date, January 2015. (Dawn/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What makes Ceres a dwarf planet and not just a very large asteroid, as it was classified for decades prior to the \u003ca title=\"IAU definitions of planet and dwarf planet\" href=\"https://www.iau.org/static/resolutions/Resolution_GA26-5-6.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2006 creation of the dwarf planet classification\u003c/a>?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Ceres is round–spherical. It has to be round to be considered a planet or a dwarf planet. This is one of the qualifying factors of planethood: to be large enough and have sufficiently strong gravity to be pulled into a spherical shape. Smaller objects—comets and asteroids—fail this mark because the strength of their rock and ice structures overpower their weak gravitational pull.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2. Ceres orbits the sun directly–you can’t be a planet or a dwarf planet if you don’t. There are moons in the solar system much larger than Ceres, and as round as any planet. In fact, if a moon like Ganymede or Callisto or Titan orbited the sun directly instead of orbiting a planet, it would probably be classified as a planet itself. Ganymede and Titan, in fact, are larger than the planet Mercury.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you meet these two criteria, you are eligible for dwarf planet status.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Ceres lacks only one quality required for admission to the planetary club…\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Ceres lacks only one quality required for admission to the planetary club: it does not “dominate” the region of space that it moves in. Ceres orbits the sun within the Main Asteroid Belt, along with millions of asteroids that share the space. And even though Ceres possesses a third of the total mass of the Main Asteroid Belt, its gravitational influence on the Belt is not sufficient to command the motions of the smaller asteroids, either by pulling them in and accreting their mass, or flinging them to other parts of the solar system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On March 6, when Dawn arrives, we may not see many images right away. Dawn will make its final approach from the side of Ceres opposite the sun, so will only be able to view its dark side. But after the spacecraft settles down, in mid-April, Dawn will begin to observe the dwarf planet’s illuminated side, and from a distance of 14,000 miles the resolution of the pictures it will send back will be fourteen times greater than those of the Hubble Space Telescope.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Supposedly Dry Little World of the Asteroid Vesta Reveals Signs of Water",
"headTitle": "The Supposedly Dry Little World of the Asteroid Vesta Reveals Signs of Water | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26691\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/cornelia-top.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26691\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/cornelia-top.jpg\" alt=\"Crater Cornelia on Vesta\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The crater Cornelia, on Vesta, is a prime example of gullies and deposits that could only have formed in the presence of liquid water. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Vesta is a large asteroid that would just fit between San Francisco and Los Angeles. It’s a small world, but a surprisingly grown-up one in ways that geologists appreciate. Now photos made during the year-long visit of the \u003ca href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dawn spacecraft\u003c/a> show strong evidence that Vesta contains water inside it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asteroids, common knowledge goes, are dry things made of rock and iron while comets are objects mostly made of ice and dust, and the two are completely unalike. But as our spacecraft have begun visiting comets and asteroids up close, the distinction between these objects has started to blur. In the case of the asteroids, we’ve been finding more and more evidence of water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of the dry asteroid is part of our old thinking. When astronomers discovered their first asteroids, starting in 1801, they thought of them as broken pieces of a former planet that once orbited between Mars and Jupiter. Any object left over from such a violent history would surely have lost everything delicate to the vacuum of space—water, gases, organic compounds, all the kinds of things we find in frozen comets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent decades, with growing knowledge of the asteroids, Vesta has become more and more special. Unlike the thousands of other asteroids on the books, Vesta is an ancient protoplanet. When the solar system was forming from a cloud of dust, around 4.5 billion years ago, there were many protoplanets—objects that grew big enough and hot enough to melt inside and develop an internal structure just like a real planet, with an iron core, a dense rocky mantle around it and a thin crust of lighter rock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The largest of these protoplanets gobbled up the others in collisions, and they grew into Earth and its sister planets Mercury, Venus and Mars. A few survived, but Vesta is the only protoplanet that wasn’t broken up during the 4 billion years since then (although it has taken a beating). The close visit by the Dawn spacecraft from 2011 to 2012 gave us a good look at the little world’s geology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When researcher Jennifer Scully, at UCLA, started looking at the Dawn photos, she found suggestive features in some of Vesta’s hundreds of impact craters. Her paper about them, with nine coauthors from five other institutions, \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X14007572\">appeared this week in the journal \u003ci>Earth and Planetary Science Letters\u003c/i>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most impact craters, on Vesta and elsewhere, have lots of pulverized stuff sliding straight down their steep walls. These look like the behavior of a bone-dry dirt pile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26692\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/vesta-dryslides.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26692\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/vesta-dryslides.jpg\" alt=\"Linear gullies on Vesta\" width=\"600\" height=\"416\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dry conditions result in linear gullies on this Vestan crater (\u003ca href=\"http://dawndata.igpp.ucla.edu/tw.jsp?section=data\">Dawn public data\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More interesting is places where the downward movement of stuff is organized in flows and curving gullies. On wet planets like Earth and Mars, gullies usually are a sign that water—or at least a fluid of some kind—once ran for long enough to create a channel. Scully’s paper shows a good example from Death Valley. There, water and dirt combine to build up lobe-shaped deposits of sediment cut by networks of curving gullies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26693\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/DVgullies.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26693\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/DVgullies.png\" alt=\"Gullies and fans in Death Valley\" width=\"600\" height=\"659\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Earth-style gullies and lobes in Death Valley alluvial fans. From Figure 1 of Scully et al., \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X14007572\">“Geomorphological evidence for transient water flow on Vesta,” \u003ci>EPSL\u003c/i> 411, 151-163\u003c/a> (Scully/EPSL)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Vesta, certain areas stand out in that they appear to resemble the familiar debris flows of Earth and Mars. But when we’re talking about a strange world, “appear” and “resemble” aren’t enough for a scientist. Scully’s team made a complete census of Vesta and went all analytical on it, tantalized by places like this spot near the crater Cornelia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26694\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/vesta-flows.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26694\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/vesta-flows.png\" alt=\"Interesting terrain on Vesta\" width=\"500\" height=\"400\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Interesting terrain on Vesta near Cornelia (\u003ca href=\"http://dawndata.igpp.ucla.edu/tw.jsp?section=data\">Dawn public data\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Among 170 likely places on Vesta, Scully’s team found gullies at 59 sites. Eight of them had the most interesting type, curvilinear gullies. Inside Cornelia, Scully’s team mapped this intricate network of gullies, like landslides and debris flows on Earth. Flowing water was the only explanation for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26695\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/cornelia-lines.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26695\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/cornelia-lines.jpg\" alt=\"Gully map of Cornelia\" width=\"600\" height=\"608\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The gullies of crater Cornelia (\u003ca href=\"http://dawndata.igpp.ucla.edu/tw.jsp?section=data\">Dawn public data\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Vesta is such a cold place, averaging about minus 130°C, that water can’t exist there. Nevertheless we have evidence of it. Meteorites blasted off Vesta by impacts (known as the howardite-eucrite-diogenite group) contain minerals that require liquid water to form—even quartz, which is almost unheard-of anywhere but Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scully’s team concluded that parts of Vesta must contain buried deposits of icy material, which melted briefly whenever an impact struck the right place. They calculated that the gullies could have formed in Earth-style debris flows, containing up to 30 percent water, within a few minutes during the first half-hour after such an impact. Vacuum experiments showed that liquid water could have lasted for at least that long before freezing and then evaporating away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strange, bubbly-looking terrain at the bottom of Cornelia is another sign of this scenario. Scully’s team interpreted this “pitted terrain,” by analogy with Mars and Earth, as a field of “degassing pipes.” On Vesta, it arose as a sort of baked Alaska when hot stuff swept down in a blanket on top of icy stuff. Unlike a well-behaved baked Alaska, the ice responded in a series of steam explosions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In sum, even though Vesta appears bone-dry today, emitting no water vapor into the interplanetary space around it, it appears to hold areas of deeply buried permafrost. It’s not the kind of asteroid we thought asteroids were.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where does that ice come from—was it delivered by hundreds of water-bearing impactors in Vesta’s early days, is it a remnant of Vesta’s original crust? The answer is important for understanding the solar system’s infancy, but there’s no way to tell yet. Although the Dawn spacecraft may give us more clues this spring as it arrives at the large asteroid Ceres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ceres differs from Vesta in that it seems never to have differentiated into core and mantle and crust. It’s not a mini-Earth. It emits water vapor into space. It may be more comet-like. Ceres, I’ll bet, has lots of gullies too.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The large asteroid Vesta has added flows of material rich in water to its bag of tricks. It's just one more way this small world acts like a proper planet.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26691\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/cornelia-top.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26691\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/cornelia-top.jpg\" alt=\"Crater Cornelia on Vesta\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The crater Cornelia, on Vesta, is a prime example of gullies and deposits that could only have formed in the presence of liquid water. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Vesta is a large asteroid that would just fit between San Francisco and Los Angeles. It’s a small world, but a surprisingly grown-up one in ways that geologists appreciate. Now photos made during the year-long visit of the \u003ca href=\"http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dawn spacecraft\u003c/a> show strong evidence that Vesta contains water inside it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asteroids, common knowledge goes, are dry things made of rock and iron while comets are objects mostly made of ice and dust, and the two are completely unalike. But as our spacecraft have begun visiting comets and asteroids up close, the distinction between these objects has started to blur. In the case of the asteroids, we’ve been finding more and more evidence of water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of the dry asteroid is part of our old thinking. When astronomers discovered their first asteroids, starting in 1801, they thought of them as broken pieces of a former planet that once orbited between Mars and Jupiter. Any object left over from such a violent history would surely have lost everything delicate to the vacuum of space—water, gases, organic compounds, all the kinds of things we find in frozen comets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent decades, with growing knowledge of the asteroids, Vesta has become more and more special. Unlike the thousands of other asteroids on the books, Vesta is an ancient protoplanet. When the solar system was forming from a cloud of dust, around 4.5 billion years ago, there were many protoplanets—objects that grew big enough and hot enough to melt inside and develop an internal structure just like a real planet, with an iron core, a dense rocky mantle around it and a thin crust of lighter rock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The largest of these protoplanets gobbled up the others in collisions, and they grew into Earth and its sister planets Mercury, Venus and Mars. A few survived, but Vesta is the only protoplanet that wasn’t broken up during the 4 billion years since then (although it has taken a beating). The close visit by the Dawn spacecraft from 2011 to 2012 gave us a good look at the little world’s geology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When researcher Jennifer Scully, at UCLA, started looking at the Dawn photos, she found suggestive features in some of Vesta’s hundreds of impact craters. Her paper about them, with nine coauthors from five other institutions, \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X14007572\">appeared this week in the journal \u003ci>Earth and Planetary Science Letters\u003c/i>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most impact craters, on Vesta and elsewhere, have lots of pulverized stuff sliding straight down their steep walls. These look like the behavior of a bone-dry dirt pile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26692\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/vesta-dryslides.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26692\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/vesta-dryslides.jpg\" alt=\"Linear gullies on Vesta\" width=\"600\" height=\"416\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dry conditions result in linear gullies on this Vestan crater (\u003ca href=\"http://dawndata.igpp.ucla.edu/tw.jsp?section=data\">Dawn public data\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>More interesting is places where the downward movement of stuff is organized in flows and curving gullies. On wet planets like Earth and Mars, gullies usually are a sign that water—or at least a fluid of some kind—once ran for long enough to create a channel. Scully’s paper shows a good example from Death Valley. There, water and dirt combine to build up lobe-shaped deposits of sediment cut by networks of curving gullies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26693\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/DVgullies.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26693\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/DVgullies.png\" alt=\"Gullies and fans in Death Valley\" width=\"600\" height=\"659\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Earth-style gullies and lobes in Death Valley alluvial fans. From Figure 1 of Scully et al., \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X14007572\">“Geomorphological evidence for transient water flow on Vesta,” \u003ci>EPSL\u003c/i> 411, 151-163\u003c/a> (Scully/EPSL)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Vesta, certain areas stand out in that they appear to resemble the familiar debris flows of Earth and Mars. But when we’re talking about a strange world, “appear” and “resemble” aren’t enough for a scientist. Scully’s team made a complete census of Vesta and went all analytical on it, tantalized by places like this spot near the crater Cornelia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26694\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/vesta-flows.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26694\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/vesta-flows.png\" alt=\"Interesting terrain on Vesta\" width=\"500\" height=\"400\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Interesting terrain on Vesta near Cornelia (\u003ca href=\"http://dawndata.igpp.ucla.edu/tw.jsp?section=data\">Dawn public data\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Among 170 likely places on Vesta, Scully’s team found gullies at 59 sites. Eight of them had the most interesting type, curvilinear gullies. Inside Cornelia, Scully’s team mapped this intricate network of gullies, like landslides and debris flows on Earth. Flowing water was the only explanation for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26695\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/cornelia-lines.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26695\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/cornelia-lines.jpg\" alt=\"Gully map of Cornelia\" width=\"600\" height=\"608\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The gullies of crater Cornelia (\u003ca href=\"http://dawndata.igpp.ucla.edu/tw.jsp?section=data\">Dawn public data\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Vesta is such a cold place, averaging about minus 130°C, that water can’t exist there. Nevertheless we have evidence of it. Meteorites blasted off Vesta by impacts (known as the howardite-eucrite-diogenite group) contain minerals that require liquid water to form—even quartz, which is almost unheard-of anywhere but Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scully’s team concluded that parts of Vesta must contain buried deposits of icy material, which melted briefly whenever an impact struck the right place. They calculated that the gullies could have formed in Earth-style debris flows, containing up to 30 percent water, within a few minutes during the first half-hour after such an impact. Vacuum experiments showed that liquid water could have lasted for at least that long before freezing and then evaporating away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strange, bubbly-looking terrain at the bottom of Cornelia is another sign of this scenario. Scully’s team interpreted this “pitted terrain,” by analogy with Mars and Earth, as a field of “degassing pipes.” On Vesta, it arose as a sort of baked Alaska when hot stuff swept down in a blanket on top of icy stuff. Unlike a well-behaved baked Alaska, the ice responded in a series of steam explosions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In sum, even though Vesta appears bone-dry today, emitting no water vapor into the interplanetary space around it, it appears to hold areas of deeply buried permafrost. It’s not the kind of asteroid we thought asteroids were.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where does that ice come from—was it delivered by hundreds of water-bearing impactors in Vesta’s early days, is it a remnant of Vesta’s original crust? The answer is important for understanding the solar system’s infancy, but there’s no way to tell yet. Although the Dawn spacecraft may give us more clues this spring as it arrives at the large asteroid Ceres.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ceres differs from Vesta in that it seems never to have differentiated into core and mantle and crust. It’s not a mini-Earth. It emits water vapor into space. It may be more comet-like. Ceres, I’ll bet, has lots of gullies too.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "New Horizons Spacecraft Wakes up for Its Historic Fly-by of Pluto",
"headTitle": "New Horizons Spacecraft Wakes up for Its Historic Fly-by of Pluto | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25811\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/newhorizons_at_pluto.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25811\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/newhorizons_at_pluto.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of New Horizons at the Pluto system. (NASA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of New Horizons at the Pluto system. (NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Only 84 years \u003ca title=\"Discovery of Pluto\" href=\"http://www.lowell.edu/about_history_pluto.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">after its discovery\u003c/a> in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, it is the eve of our first-ever close-up look at everyone’s favorite dwarf planet, Pluto. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will make a fly-by on July 14th, after a high-speed, nine-year voyage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Horizons was \u003ca title=\"New Horizons Awakens From Hibernation\" href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/07dec_plutosdoorstep/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently brought out of its cold-sleep\u003c/a> “cruise” mode in preparation for the historic encounter on July 14. Picture the opening scene of the movie “Alien” as the crew is brought out of hibernation; it’s something like that, but smaller and without actors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”W7kbawLcG7IATH56GTDTG5zT8ddJyr8a”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For anyone who has been following the New Horizons mission, this close encounter is a long anticipated event. For many of us, the wait has been much longer. For me, my curiosity dates back to childhood, when Pluto was my favorite planet, even though we knew very little about it. Maybe the mystery had something to do with the attraction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even now, the best images of Pluto, captured with the Hubble Space Telescope, show little more than areas of light and dark coloration. Perhaps they’re similar to squinty telescopic views of the planet Mars in the 19th century, or the first blurry close-ups of Jupiter’s Galilean moons by the Pioneer spacecraft, which arguably offered more to the imagination than the eye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the coming months, as New Horizons gets closer to the \u003ca title=\"What is Pluto?\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/what-is-pluto-k4.html#.VKcPudLF98E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pluto system\u003c/a>, NASA scientists will check out all of its instrumentation, to make sure it has suffered no ill effects from cold sleep. They’ll also start gathering data on Pluto, its large moon Charon, the smaller moons in the system and the environment of the space in Pluto’s region of the solar system–the frontier of the Kuiper Belt. In May, New Horizons will be close enough to Pluto to capture better images than what we have from the Hubble Space Telescope–and then, we’ll begin to see things, not just imagine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25812\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 336px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/hst_pluto1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25812\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/hst_pluto1.jpg\" alt=\"Most detailed picture of Pluto to date. (Hubble Space Telescope/NASA/ESA)\" width=\"336\" height=\"203\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Most detailed picture of Pluto to date. (Hubble Space Telescope/NASA/ESA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What will New Horizons tell us about distant Pluto? That’s the exciting part: we don’t know, yet. Scientists have some ideas of what to expect, but if the history of close-encounter exploration of other solar system objects is a guide, we could be in for some surprises. Before we saw them up close, we knew nothing of the active volcanoes on Io, the deep liquid water ocean on Europa, the surface lakes and seas of liquid methane on Titan or the water geysers of Enceladus. Every object we’ve sent spacecraft to, it seems, held surprises for us. Why would Pluto be any different?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pluto is what astronomers call a dwarf planet, one of presently five solar system objects that were given this classification back in 2006, shortly after New Horizons was launched. Pluto is small, with about one-sixth the mass of Earth’s Moon, and probably made of a mixture of rock and ice. Traces of a very thin atmosphere have been detected, composed of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. Pluto’s large moon Charon is fully half of Pluto’s diameter, making the pair more of a double object than a dwarf planet and its moon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond these physical characteristics, and the system’s orbital and rotational properties, we know very little—and doubtless a minuscule fraction of what we will know after the July encounter. There’s a whole new world just on the horizon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year promises a bumper crop of discoveries on dwarf planets. Not only does New Horizons reach Pluto in July, but another NASA spacecraft, \u003ca title=\"Dawn Approaches Dwarf Planet Ceres\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/dawn/dawn-spacecraft-begins-approach-to-dwarf-planet-ceres/#.VKcQhNLF98E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dawn\u003c/a>, will arrive at and enter orbit around Ceres in the Main Asteroid Belt in March. Ceres was once classified as the largest asteroid, but lost that status at the same time Pluto was demoted from planethood. In fact, this is Ceres’ second reclassification, as it was originally designated as a planet, just like Pluto–though in Ceres’ case one can argue that the change in status is a promotion. But when it was discovered that Ceres was one of many objects orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter, the term “asteroid” was coined and Ceres was reassigned as the largest of this new class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following New Horizon’s fly-by of Pluto, the probe will coast on into the Kuiper Belt, with possible future encounters with other poorly understood Kuiper Belt Objects on the more distant horizon.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Only 84 years after its discovery in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, it is the eve of our first-ever close-up look at everyone’s favorite dwarf planet, Pluto. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will make a fly-by on July 14th, after a high-speed, nine-year voyage.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25811\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/newhorizons_at_pluto.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25811\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/newhorizons_at_pluto.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of New Horizons at the Pluto system. (NASA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of New Horizons at the Pluto system. (NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Only 84 years \u003ca title=\"Discovery of Pluto\" href=\"http://www.lowell.edu/about_history_pluto.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">after its discovery\u003c/a> in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, it is the eve of our first-ever close-up look at everyone’s favorite dwarf planet, Pluto. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will make a fly-by on July 14th, after a high-speed, nine-year voyage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Horizons was \u003ca title=\"New Horizons Awakens From Hibernation\" href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/07dec_plutosdoorstep/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently brought out of its cold-sleep\u003c/a> “cruise” mode in preparation for the historic encounter on July 14. Picture the opening scene of the movie “Alien” as the crew is brought out of hibernation; it’s something like that, but smaller and without actors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For anyone who has been following the New Horizons mission, this close encounter is a long anticipated event. For many of us, the wait has been much longer. For me, my curiosity dates back to childhood, when Pluto was my favorite planet, even though we knew very little about it. Maybe the mystery had something to do with the attraction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even now, the best images of Pluto, captured with the Hubble Space Telescope, show little more than areas of light and dark coloration. Perhaps they’re similar to squinty telescopic views of the planet Mars in the 19th century, or the first blurry close-ups of Jupiter’s Galilean moons by the Pioneer spacecraft, which arguably offered more to the imagination than the eye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the coming months, as New Horizons gets closer to the \u003ca title=\"What is Pluto?\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/what-is-pluto-k4.html#.VKcPudLF98E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pluto system\u003c/a>, NASA scientists will check out all of its instrumentation, to make sure it has suffered no ill effects from cold sleep. They’ll also start gathering data on Pluto, its large moon Charon, the smaller moons in the system and the environment of the space in Pluto’s region of the solar system–the frontier of the Kuiper Belt. In May, New Horizons will be close enough to Pluto to capture better images than what we have from the Hubble Space Telescope–and then, we’ll begin to see things, not just imagine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25812\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 336px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/hst_pluto1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25812\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/hst_pluto1.jpg\" alt=\"Most detailed picture of Pluto to date. (Hubble Space Telescope/NASA/ESA)\" width=\"336\" height=\"203\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Most detailed picture of Pluto to date. (Hubble Space Telescope/NASA/ESA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What will New Horizons tell us about distant Pluto? That’s the exciting part: we don’t know, yet. Scientists have some ideas of what to expect, but if the history of close-encounter exploration of other solar system objects is a guide, we could be in for some surprises. Before we saw them up close, we knew nothing of the active volcanoes on Io, the deep liquid water ocean on Europa, the surface lakes and seas of liquid methane on Titan or the water geysers of Enceladus. Every object we’ve sent spacecraft to, it seems, held surprises for us. Why would Pluto be any different?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pluto is what astronomers call a dwarf planet, one of presently five solar system objects that were given this classification back in 2006, shortly after New Horizons was launched. Pluto is small, with about one-sixth the mass of Earth’s Moon, and probably made of a mixture of rock and ice. Traces of a very thin atmosphere have been detected, composed of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. Pluto’s large moon Charon is fully half of Pluto’s diameter, making the pair more of a double object than a dwarf planet and its moon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond these physical characteristics, and the system’s orbital and rotational properties, we know very little—and doubtless a minuscule fraction of what we will know after the July encounter. There’s a whole new world just on the horizon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year promises a bumper crop of discoveries on dwarf planets. Not only does New Horizons reach Pluto in July, but another NASA spacecraft, \u003ca title=\"Dawn Approaches Dwarf Planet Ceres\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/dawn/dawn-spacecraft-begins-approach-to-dwarf-planet-ceres/#.VKcQhNLF98E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dawn\u003c/a>, will arrive at and enter orbit around Ceres in the Main Asteroid Belt in March. Ceres was once classified as the largest asteroid, but lost that status at the same time Pluto was demoted from planethood. In fact, this is Ceres’ second reclassification, as it was originally designated as a planet, just like Pluto–though in Ceres’ case one can argue that the change in status is a promotion. But when it was discovered that Ceres was one of many objects orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter, the term “asteroid” was coined and Ceres was reassigned as the largest of this new class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following New Horizon’s fly-by of Pluto, the probe will coast on into the Kuiper Belt, with possible future encounters with other poorly understood Kuiper Belt Objects on the more distant horizon.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "New Data from Rosetta Spacecraft Sheds Light on Origins of Earth's Oceans",
"headTitle": "New Data from Rosetta Spacecraft Sheds Light on Origins of Earth’s Oceans | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25591\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/rosettas-selfie-with-comet.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25591\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/rosettas-selfie-with-comet.jpg\" alt=\"ESA's Rosetta spacecraft snapped this selfie with comet 67P/C-G. (Rosetta/ESA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft snapped this selfie with comet 67P/C-G. (Rosetta/ESA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After several months of analysis of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft has yielded some intriguing, and maybe unexpected, results. This data is refueling a long-running debate in the scientific community about a matter closer to home: the origin of Earth’s oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has long been debated exactly how Earth acquired its oceans. Were the waters of our oceans part of the Earth’s original stock of materials, or was it added later? Was it a combination of these? It is thought that any water present in the original formation of the Earth should have boiled away due to Earth’s hot, molten-rock temperatures–in which case some, if not most, of the ocean’s waters must have arrived after Earth cooled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After four and a half billion years, how could we possibly tell where the water came from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer is in chemistry—particularly the chemistry of the hydrogen contained in water molecules. Hydrogen comes in different forms, or isotopes, the simplest of which contains a single proton in its nucleus. The hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium each contain a proton, plus one and two neutrons, respectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proportion of water molecules containing deuterium atoms compared to “normal” water molecules possessing only hydrogen is a key ratio that can be used to match one sample to another—for example, matching the hydrogen-deuterium ratio in Earth’s ocean water to that sampled from a particular comet, sort of like matching the DNA found at a crime scene to an individual suspect. In this case, the “crime” being investigated is the appearance of Earth’s oceans—so we can probably be lenient on any suspects we match.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hydrogen-deuterium ratio in a sample of water is an indicator of the conditions that prevailed when the water formed, and so varies depending on where it originated.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">After sampling the water chemistry of 11 comets, only one is a match to Earth’s oceans\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>After sampling the water chemistry of 11 different comets, including the most recent measurements by Rosetta, some unexpected results have surfaced. Of the sampled comets, only one of them matched the chemistry of Earth’s ocean water: the \u003ca title=\"Comet Hartley 2\" href=\"http://www.space.com/20033-comet-hartley-2.html\">comet 103P/Hartley 2\u003c/a>, a \u003ca title=\"Jupiter-family Comet\" href=\"http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/J/Jupiter-family+comets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jupiter-family comet\u003c/a>. A Jupiter-family comet is found within the orbit of Jupiter, circling the sun in less than 20 years, a class of comet once believed to have originated in the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune. So, Hartley 2’s contribution to the debate, on its surface, suggested that Earth’s ocean water, at least in part, came from Kuiper Belt comets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rosetta, however, has \u003ca title=\"Rosetta Results\" href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_fuels_debate_on_origin_of_Earth_s_oceans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">measured the hydrogen-deuterium ratio\u003c/a> of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, also a Jupiter-family comet, as not only three times higher than that of Hartley 2 and Earth’s water, but higher also than samples obtained from comets that originated in the Oort Cloud, the vast shell of distant comets far beyond the Kuiper Belt. This suggests that Jupiter-family comets may have more diverse origins than originally thought, composed of members that came from different regions of the solar system. Yet, if the waters of Earth were delivered by a mixture of comets of different lineage, its chemistry should reflect that fact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new data from Rosetta has not only put into question the extent to which comet collisions may have contributed to our oceans, it has strengthened an idea that some, if not much, of Earth’s ocean water came not from comets, but from a source much closer to home. Measurements of the water hydrogen-deuterium ratio in samples of meteorites that originated in the Main Asteroid Belt have also shown a positive match to Earth water chemistry, fingering asteroid impacts as a potential major culprit in the watering of our planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the comet and spacecraft glide closer to the Sun in the months ahead, reaching a closest and warmest approach to the sun next August, Rosetta will continue to gather data as the comet heats up, spewing materials into space that have been frozen in it since the earliest times of our solar system’s formation.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "After several months of analysis of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft has yielded some intriguing, and maybe, unexpected results. The data is refueling a long-running debate in the scientific community about a matter closer to home: the origin of Earth's oceans.",
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"title": "New Data from Rosetta Spacecraft Sheds Light on Origins of Earth's Oceans | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25591\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/rosettas-selfie-with-comet.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25591\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/rosettas-selfie-with-comet.jpg\" alt=\"ESA's Rosetta spacecraft snapped this selfie with comet 67P/C-G. (Rosetta/ESA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft snapped this selfie with comet 67P/C-G. (Rosetta/ESA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After several months of analysis of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft has yielded some intriguing, and maybe unexpected, results. This data is refueling a long-running debate in the scientific community about a matter closer to home: the origin of Earth’s oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has long been debated exactly how Earth acquired its oceans. Were the waters of our oceans part of the Earth’s original stock of materials, or was it added later? Was it a combination of these? It is thought that any water present in the original formation of the Earth should have boiled away due to Earth’s hot, molten-rock temperatures–in which case some, if not most, of the ocean’s waters must have arrived after Earth cooled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After four and a half billion years, how could we possibly tell where the water came from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The answer is in chemistry—particularly the chemistry of the hydrogen contained in water molecules. Hydrogen comes in different forms, or isotopes, the simplest of which contains a single proton in its nucleus. The hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium each contain a proton, plus one and two neutrons, respectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proportion of water molecules containing deuterium atoms compared to “normal” water molecules possessing only hydrogen is a key ratio that can be used to match one sample to another—for example, matching the hydrogen-deuterium ratio in Earth’s ocean water to that sampled from a particular comet, sort of like matching the DNA found at a crime scene to an individual suspect. In this case, the “crime” being investigated is the appearance of Earth’s oceans—so we can probably be lenient on any suspects we match.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hydrogen-deuterium ratio in a sample of water is an indicator of the conditions that prevailed when the water formed, and so varies depending on where it originated.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">After sampling the water chemistry of 11 comets, only one is a match to Earth’s oceans\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>After sampling the water chemistry of 11 different comets, including the most recent measurements by Rosetta, some unexpected results have surfaced. Of the sampled comets, only one of them matched the chemistry of Earth’s ocean water: the \u003ca title=\"Comet Hartley 2\" href=\"http://www.space.com/20033-comet-hartley-2.html\">comet 103P/Hartley 2\u003c/a>, a \u003ca title=\"Jupiter-family Comet\" href=\"http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/J/Jupiter-family+comets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jupiter-family comet\u003c/a>. A Jupiter-family comet is found within the orbit of Jupiter, circling the sun in less than 20 years, a class of comet once believed to have originated in the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune. So, Hartley 2’s contribution to the debate, on its surface, suggested that Earth’s ocean water, at least in part, came from Kuiper Belt comets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rosetta, however, has \u003ca title=\"Rosetta Results\" href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_fuels_debate_on_origin_of_Earth_s_oceans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">measured the hydrogen-deuterium ratio\u003c/a> of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, also a Jupiter-family comet, as not only three times higher than that of Hartley 2 and Earth’s water, but higher also than samples obtained from comets that originated in the Oort Cloud, the vast shell of distant comets far beyond the Kuiper Belt. This suggests that Jupiter-family comets may have more diverse origins than originally thought, composed of members that came from different regions of the solar system. Yet, if the waters of Earth were delivered by a mixture of comets of different lineage, its chemistry should reflect that fact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new data from Rosetta has not only put into question the extent to which comet collisions may have contributed to our oceans, it has strengthened an idea that some, if not much, of Earth’s ocean water came not from comets, but from a source much closer to home. Measurements of the water hydrogen-deuterium ratio in samples of meteorites that originated in the Main Asteroid Belt have also shown a positive match to Earth water chemistry, fingering asteroid impacts as a potential major culprit in the watering of our planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the comet and spacecraft glide closer to the Sun in the months ahead, reaching a closest and warmest approach to the sun next August, Rosetta will continue to gather data as the comet heats up, spewing materials into space that have been frozen in it since the earliest times of our solar system’s formation.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Designing the Interstellar Doorbell (Or How to Talk to ET)",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2014/12/20141215science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25008\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 718px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/10-Lone-Signal-1024x682.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25008\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/10-Lone-Signal-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"Hands and moon\" width=\"718\" height=\"478\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Last month at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/\">SETI Institute\u003c/a> in Mountain View, an international group of scientists, linguists, philosophers and others \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/weeky-lecture/communicating-across-cosmos-summary-workshop-interstellar-message-design\">convened in a workshop\u003c/a> to discuss what might be the most challenging conversation in the history of humankind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If we could send a message to an intelligent extra-terrestrial on some distant planet, they asked, what would we say?This is not a new question. NASA’s \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque\">asked it\u003c/a>. The \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_Message_%281962%29\">Russians\u003c/a> and the Japanese have asked it. Doritos \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080612122817.htm\">asked it\u003c/a>. They seem to have asked it a lot in the 1970s. \u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">We aren’t just sending messages out into the aether anymore. We have addresses.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kepler’s Contribution\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a very good reason to be asking it again now, in 2014. Thanks to the \u003ca href=\"http://kepler.nasa.gov/\">Kepler Telescope\u003c/a>, we won’t just be sending messages out into the aether anymore. We have addresses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since its launch in 2009, Kepler has identified \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/space/keplers-tally-of-planets.html?_r=0\">hundreds of planets\u003c/a> outside our solar system. Some are rocky and Earth-like, orbiting distant stars. Maybe they have -– or, like Mars billions of years ago, they might once have had — mountains, clouds, \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/27950-mars-crater-lake-curiosity-rover.html\">lakes\u003c/a> and oceans, even life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We can direct powerful radio transmissions at these planets and hope some form of life knows how to receive them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If there’s life out there,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/users/douglas-vakoch\">Douglas Vakoch\u003c/a>, SETI’s Director of Interstellar Message Composition, “our chances of finding it have increased astronomically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So What Should We Say?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humanity’s attempts to answer this question (maybe \u003ca href=\"http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/unique-everybody-else/201210/dmt-aliens-and-reality-part-1\">not all\u003c/a> attempts) take two basic forms. There are physical objects (e.g., the \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque\">Pioneer Plaques\u003c/a>) that we’ve attached to unmanned spaceships on a one-way mission — like messages in a bottle that some space-faring alien might stumble upon. Then there are powerful radio signals such as the \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/arecibo-message\">Arecibo message\u003c/a>, which was broadcast from a radio telescope in Puerto Rico in 1974.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in terms of messages that try to sum up the subjective experience of being alive on Earth, the gold standard is a \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html\">pair of 12-inch copper discs\u003c/a> that were attached to the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts in 1977. The Voyagers were launched on missions to explore Saturn and Jupiter (plus Uranus and Neptune for Voyager 2) then drift into the universe, \u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/12sep_voyager1/\">indefinitely\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25026\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/7-Across-the-Universe.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25026\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/7-Across-the-Universe.jpg\" alt=\"NASA broadcast the Beatle’s hit “Across the Universe” toward the star Polaris on the 40th anniversary of the song’s recording in 2008. (NASA/JPL)\" width=\"800\" height=\"531\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA broadcast the Beatle’s hit “Across the Universe” toward the star Polaris on the 40th anniversary of the song’s recording in 2008. (NASA/JPL)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Golden Records were an afterthought. A team led by Carl Sagan saw the opportunity for an interstellar postcard and filled the discs with \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/scenes.html\">images\u003c/a>, with \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/greetings.html\">greetings in different languages\u003c/a> and with \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/music.html\">music\u003c/a> from Beethoven to Blind Willie Johnson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also the sound of a \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/audio/footsteps.wav\">heartbeat\u003c/a> and a \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/audio/volcanoes.wav\">volcano\u003c/a>. A mother \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/audio/kiss.wav\">comforting\u003c/a> her child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Have you eaten yet?” asks a speaker of Min Chinese. “Please contact us,” pleads a man speaking Gujarati.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One musical passage in particular captures a range of human experience, Vakoch says, moving from an orderly Bach piano piece into mournful bagpipes and then into a thunderous passage of Stravinsky’s Rites of Spring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Will an extra-terrestrial understand what it means?” he asks. “Certainly not in the way we do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That may be a moot point. Vakoch says at its current pace, the Voyager spacecraft — and the records inside it –- won’t come close to another star for another 75,000 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Radio messages could take “only” hundreds of years to reach their destination. But that’d still make for an awkward conversation. If ET got our message and responded, no one on Earth today would be alive to hear it. Would our great-great-great-grandchildren even remember what we’d said?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That quandary assumes an even greater feat: that the extra-terrestrials are able to decode our message in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How do you communicate with a life form you know absolutely nothing about? Will these extra-terrestrials have language? If we sent an image, could they see it? Even a simple series of numbers — say a Fibonacci sequence — may be as \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KveKjHIipgo\">anthropocentric\u003c/a> as a line of Shakespeare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Send Everything? Or Just One Thing?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Faced with all this uncertainty, participants at the SETI workshop last month fell into two rough camps: Send ET everything — as in the entire Internet — or send them one thing -– a kind of interstellar doorbell.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Do extra terrestrials have language? What if a simple series of numbers, say a Fibonacci sequence, is as anthropocentric as a line of Shakespeare?\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>I’ll explain the doorbell in a minute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The send-them-everything camp, Vakoch says, argues that a smarter, more technologically advanced alien civilization might search the Internet and find patterns. Eventually, they might crack the code of human language, even without an interstellar Rosetta Stone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These civilizations are likely much older than ours, says SETI’s \u003ca href=\"http://communicating.seti.org/?q=speakers/seth-shostak\">Seth Shostak\u003c/a>, since any message we receive would have been sent hundreds of years ago. And they’re likely more technologically advanced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These aren’t soft squishy guys who are interested in arts or music, at least our art and music,” he says. “They’re machines of some sort. Advanced societies will say that more bits are better. More information is better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This struck the other camp at the conference as a really bad idea, maybe even impolite, the equivalent of meeting someone at a party and just screaming at them for an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What if, they said, we sent them something drastically smaller: a simple signal, a kind of doorbell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea of a doorbell indicates a query, an openness,” Vakoch says. “It’s not a demand to be let in. It’s an indication of the desire to make contact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>An Olfactory Message\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles artist \u003ca href=\"http://sites.artsblock.ucr.edu/free-enterprise/carrie-paterson/\">Carrie Paterson\u003c/a> came to the conference to \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWQlop5Yedk\">present\u003c/a> a radical idea, even among a crowd of unconventional thinkers: that our message might consist of a “symphony of smells.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the whole point is to send a kind of poem that provokes some curiosity about us,” she says, “some desire to respond.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25032\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 399px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/6-Teen-Age-Message.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-25032\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/6-Teen-Age-Message.jpg\" alt=\"The content for the Teen-Age Message was decided by Russian adolescents. It included the “1st Theremin Concert for Aliens” and was sent toward six nearby stars in 2001. (Rumlin/Creative Commons)\" width=\"399\" height=\"280\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The content for the Teen-Age Message was decided by Russian adolescents. It included the “1st Theremin Concert for Aliens” and was sent toward six nearby stars in 2001. (Rumlin/Creative Commons)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Smells, Paterson points out, are chemical cues, the same language used by thousands of species on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hope, she says, is that we might “create something a tree would understand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How, exactly, do you transmit a smell 25 million light years? No one really knows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paterson’s point is that whatever we send should represent all of our planet. Not just humans. Not just scientists. Not just Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vakoch agrees. He’d love to see the United Nations involved, to make this a global question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If the Secretary-General calls us up,” Vakoch says, “and says, ‘We’d like to have a special session on this,’ I’d be delighted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, Vakoch has built a website to collect suggestions from all over the world: \u003ca href=\"http://earthspeaks.seti.org/\">Earth Speaks\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whenever some kind of consensus emerges, maybe it’s time to hit send, and hope someone out there is listening.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Humans have been sending messages into outer space for decades, hoping some intelligent extra-terrestrial might come upon them. Now, for the first time in history, we have addresses. So, what should we say? ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25008\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 718px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/10-Lone-Signal-1024x682.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25008\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/10-Lone-Signal-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"Hands and moon\" width=\"718\" height=\"478\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Last month at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/\">SETI Institute\u003c/a> in Mountain View, an international group of scientists, linguists, philosophers and others \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/weeky-lecture/communicating-across-cosmos-summary-workshop-interstellar-message-design\">convened in a workshop\u003c/a> to discuss what might be the most challenging conversation in the history of humankind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If we could send a message to an intelligent extra-terrestrial on some distant planet, they asked, what would we say?This is not a new question. NASA’s \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque\">asked it\u003c/a>. The \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_Message_%281962%29\">Russians\u003c/a> and the Japanese have asked it. Doritos \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080612122817.htm\">asked it\u003c/a>. They seem to have asked it a lot in the 1970s. \u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">We aren’t just sending messages out into the aether anymore. We have addresses.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kepler’s Contribution\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a very good reason to be asking it again now, in 2014. Thanks to the \u003ca href=\"http://kepler.nasa.gov/\">Kepler Telescope\u003c/a>, we won’t just be sending messages out into the aether anymore. We have addresses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since its launch in 2009, Kepler has identified \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/space/keplers-tally-of-planets.html?_r=0\">hundreds of planets\u003c/a> outside our solar system. Some are rocky and Earth-like, orbiting distant stars. Maybe they have -– or, like Mars billions of years ago, they might once have had — mountains, clouds, \u003ca href=\"http://www.space.com/27950-mars-crater-lake-curiosity-rover.html\">lakes\u003c/a> and oceans, even life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We can direct powerful radio transmissions at these planets and hope some form of life knows how to receive them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If there’s life out there,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/users/douglas-vakoch\">Douglas Vakoch\u003c/a>, SETI’s Director of Interstellar Message Composition, “our chances of finding it have increased astronomically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>So What Should We Say?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Humanity’s attempts to answer this question (maybe \u003ca href=\"http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/unique-everybody-else/201210/dmt-aliens-and-reality-part-1\">not all\u003c/a> attempts) take two basic forms. There are physical objects (e.g., the \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque\">Pioneer Plaques\u003c/a>) that we’ve attached to unmanned spaceships on a one-way mission — like messages in a bottle that some space-faring alien might stumble upon. Then there are powerful radio signals such as the \u003ca href=\"http://www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/arecibo-message\">Arecibo message\u003c/a>, which was broadcast from a radio telescope in Puerto Rico in 1974.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in terms of messages that try to sum up the subjective experience of being alive on Earth, the gold standard is a \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html\">pair of 12-inch copper discs\u003c/a> that were attached to the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts in 1977. The Voyagers were launched on missions to explore Saturn and Jupiter (plus Uranus and Neptune for Voyager 2) then drift into the universe, \u003ca href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/12sep_voyager1/\">indefinitely\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25026\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/7-Across-the-Universe.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25026\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/7-Across-the-Universe.jpg\" alt=\"NASA broadcast the Beatle’s hit “Across the Universe” toward the star Polaris on the 40th anniversary of the song’s recording in 2008. (NASA/JPL)\" width=\"800\" height=\"531\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA broadcast the Beatle’s hit “Across the Universe” toward the star Polaris on the 40th anniversary of the song’s recording in 2008. (NASA/JPL)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Golden Records were an afterthought. A team led by Carl Sagan saw the opportunity for an interstellar postcard and filled the discs with \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/scenes.html\">images\u003c/a>, with \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/greetings.html\">greetings in different languages\u003c/a> and with \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/music.html\">music\u003c/a> from Beethoven to Blind Willie Johnson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also the sound of a \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/audio/footsteps.wav\">heartbeat\u003c/a> and a \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/audio/volcanoes.wav\">volcano\u003c/a>. A mother \u003ca href=\"http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/audio/kiss.wav\">comforting\u003c/a> her child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Have you eaten yet?” asks a speaker of Min Chinese. “Please contact us,” pleads a man speaking Gujarati.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One musical passage in particular captures a range of human experience, Vakoch says, moving from an orderly Bach piano piece into mournful bagpipes and then into a thunderous passage of Stravinsky’s Rites of Spring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Will an extra-terrestrial understand what it means?” he asks. “Certainly not in the way we do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That may be a moot point. Vakoch says at its current pace, the Voyager spacecraft — and the records inside it –- won’t come close to another star for another 75,000 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Radio messages could take “only” hundreds of years to reach their destination. But that’d still make for an awkward conversation. If ET got our message and responded, no one on Earth today would be alive to hear it. Would our great-great-great-grandchildren even remember what we’d said?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That quandary assumes an even greater feat: that the extra-terrestrials are able to decode our message in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How do you communicate with a life form you know absolutely nothing about? Will these extra-terrestrials have language? If we sent an image, could they see it? Even a simple series of numbers — say a Fibonacci sequence — may be as \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KveKjHIipgo\">anthropocentric\u003c/a> as a line of Shakespeare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Send Everything? Or Just One Thing?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Faced with all this uncertainty, participants at the SETI workshop last month fell into two rough camps: Send ET everything — as in the entire Internet — or send them one thing -– a kind of interstellar doorbell.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Do extra terrestrials have language? What if a simple series of numbers, say a Fibonacci sequence, is as anthropocentric as a line of Shakespeare?\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>I’ll explain the doorbell in a minute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The send-them-everything camp, Vakoch says, argues that a smarter, more technologically advanced alien civilization might search the Internet and find patterns. Eventually, they might crack the code of human language, even without an interstellar Rosetta Stone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These civilizations are likely much older than ours, says SETI’s \u003ca href=\"http://communicating.seti.org/?q=speakers/seth-shostak\">Seth Shostak\u003c/a>, since any message we receive would have been sent hundreds of years ago. And they’re likely more technologically advanced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These aren’t soft squishy guys who are interested in arts or music, at least our art and music,” he says. “They’re machines of some sort. Advanced societies will say that more bits are better. More information is better.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This struck the other camp at the conference as a really bad idea, maybe even impolite, the equivalent of meeting someone at a party and just screaming at them for an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What if, they said, we sent them something drastically smaller: a simple signal, a kind of doorbell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea of a doorbell indicates a query, an openness,” Vakoch says. “It’s not a demand to be let in. It’s an indication of the desire to make contact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>An Olfactory Message\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Los Angeles artist \u003ca href=\"http://sites.artsblock.ucr.edu/free-enterprise/carrie-paterson/\">Carrie Paterson\u003c/a> came to the conference to \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWQlop5Yedk\">present\u003c/a> a radical idea, even among a crowd of unconventional thinkers: that our message might consist of a “symphony of smells.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the whole point is to send a kind of poem that provokes some curiosity about us,” she says, “some desire to respond.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25032\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 399px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/6-Teen-Age-Message.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-25032\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/6-Teen-Age-Message.jpg\" alt=\"The content for the Teen-Age Message was decided by Russian adolescents. It included the “1st Theremin Concert for Aliens” and was sent toward six nearby stars in 2001. (Rumlin/Creative Commons)\" width=\"399\" height=\"280\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The content for the Teen-Age Message was decided by Russian adolescents. It included the “1st Theremin Concert for Aliens” and was sent toward six nearby stars in 2001. (Rumlin/Creative Commons)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Smells, Paterson points out, are chemical cues, the same language used by thousands of species on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hope, she says, is that we might “create something a tree would understand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How, exactly, do you transmit a smell 25 million light years? No one really knows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paterson’s point is that whatever we send should represent all of our planet. Not just humans. Not just scientists. Not just Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vakoch agrees. He’d love to see the United Nations involved, to make this a global question.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If the Secretary-General calls us up,” Vakoch says, “and says, ‘We’d like to have a special session on this,’ I’d be delighted.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, Vakoch has built a website to collect suggestions from all over the world: \u003ca href=\"http://earthspeaks.seti.org/\">Earth Speaks\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whenever some kind of consensus emerges, maybe it’s time to hit send, and hope someone out there is listening.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "NASA's Curiosity Rover Finds Evidence of Possible Long-Term Water on Mars",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24832\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/murray_formation_gale_crater.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24832\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/murray_formation_gale_crater.jpg\" alt=\"An outcrop of lake bed deposits captured by Curiosity's MastCam in August, 2014\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An outcrop of lake bed deposits captured by Curiosity’s MastCam in August, 2014 (MSL/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Monday, NASA announced some surprising results from its exploration of Gale Crater on Mars by the Mars Science Laboratory rover \u003ca title=\"NASA/Curiosity\" href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Curiosity\u003c/a>. The crater was once the site of a vast lake—and not merely a fleeting puddle of moisture that came and went early in Mars’ history, but a lake that appears to have filled Gale Crater, dried up and filled it again, repeatedly over a much longer period than wet conditions were believed to have persisted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24834\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/gale_crater_mount_sharp.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24834\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/gale_crater_mount_sharp.jpg\" alt=\"Gale Crater and its central mound of sedimentary rock, Mount Sharp\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gale Crater and its central mound of sedimentary rock, Mount Sharp (MSL/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Not long after Curiosity began exploring the rubble-filled bottom-lands at the floor of Gale Crater, it began to find \u003ca title=\"Washington Post\" href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-curiosity-rover-discovers-evidence-of-fresh-water-mars-lake/2013/12/09/a1658518-60d9-11e3-bf45-61f69f54fc5f_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">clues that liquid water was present\u003c/a> there at some time in the distant past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most recently, Curiosity has investigated a 500-foot-high section of exposed sedimentary rock at the base of the mountain–called the Murray Formation–the rover’s first peak into the layered geologic history of the crater. The layers of sediment appear to have been laid down by alternating river, lake, and wind deposition, indicating a cycling between wet and dry conditions in at least the local climate that repeated many times over perhaps tens of millions of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If this interpretation of the geologic evidence is correct, during wet periods water entered the crater in rivers flowing down the crater walls, possibly supplied by thawing ice or snow accumulations in the surrounding higher ground. The inflow carried large amounts of silt and sand and deposited it on the crater floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, the climate changed and the lake waters dried up, leaving the lake bottom bare and dry and exposed to deposition of dust and sand by wind action, adding a layer on the water-deposited bed. Then, another wet period arrived, the lake filled again, and more water sediments were laid down. And so on, many times, over a long period.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Were the conditions at Gale Crater driven by cycles of global climate that formed similar environments elsewhere on the planet?\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>What this implies about other regions of Mars is not yet clear. Were the conditions at Gale Crater driven by cycles of global climate that formed similar environments elsewhere on the planet? Other missions have found evidence of past liquid water on Mars, but were not able to tell us how long it lasted or if it came and went cyclically, as Curiosity’s investigations have revealed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The prospect that liquid water was present and stable on Mars’ surface over long periods of time also enhances the conversation about the possibility that life could have appeared there at some point. We have not found evidence of life on Mars so far–but how cool would it be to find a fossil in one of those layers of rock?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Curiosity climbs up the slopes of Mount Sharp, it will encounter higher formations of sediment laid down at later times in Mars’ history, giving us a more comprehensive profile of the changing climate than those represented by the rocks at the rover’s current digs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ancient lake that once filled Gale Crater must have been a fantastic sight. If you’ve ever seen Crater Lake in Oregon and were impressed by its size—well, Crater Lake is only five miles wide. Gale Crater, as it is today, is 96 miles across!\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24832\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/murray_formation_gale_crater.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24832\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/murray_formation_gale_crater.jpg\" alt=\"An outcrop of lake bed deposits captured by Curiosity's MastCam in August, 2014\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An outcrop of lake bed deposits captured by Curiosity’s MastCam in August, 2014 (MSL/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Monday, NASA announced some surprising results from its exploration of Gale Crater on Mars by the Mars Science Laboratory rover \u003ca title=\"NASA/Curiosity\" href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Curiosity\u003c/a>. The crater was once the site of a vast lake—and not merely a fleeting puddle of moisture that came and went early in Mars’ history, but a lake that appears to have filled Gale Crater, dried up and filled it again, repeatedly over a much longer period than wet conditions were believed to have persisted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24834\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/gale_crater_mount_sharp.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24834\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/gale_crater_mount_sharp.jpg\" alt=\"Gale Crater and its central mound of sedimentary rock, Mount Sharp\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gale Crater and its central mound of sedimentary rock, Mount Sharp (MSL/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Not long after Curiosity began exploring the rubble-filled bottom-lands at the floor of Gale Crater, it began to find \u003ca title=\"Washington Post\" href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-curiosity-rover-discovers-evidence-of-fresh-water-mars-lake/2013/12/09/a1658518-60d9-11e3-bf45-61f69f54fc5f_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">clues that liquid water was present\u003c/a> there at some time in the distant past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most recently, Curiosity has investigated a 500-foot-high section of exposed sedimentary rock at the base of the mountain–called the Murray Formation–the rover’s first peak into the layered geologic history of the crater. The layers of sediment appear to have been laid down by alternating river, lake, and wind deposition, indicating a cycling between wet and dry conditions in at least the local climate that repeated many times over perhaps tens of millions of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If this interpretation of the geologic evidence is correct, during wet periods water entered the crater in rivers flowing down the crater walls, possibly supplied by thawing ice or snow accumulations in the surrounding higher ground. The inflow carried large amounts of silt and sand and deposited it on the crater floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, the climate changed and the lake waters dried up, leaving the lake bottom bare and dry and exposed to deposition of dust and sand by wind action, adding a layer on the water-deposited bed. Then, another wet period arrived, the lake filled again, and more water sediments were laid down. And so on, many times, over a long period.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Were the conditions at Gale Crater driven by cycles of global climate that formed similar environments elsewhere on the planet?\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>What this implies about other regions of Mars is not yet clear. Were the conditions at Gale Crater driven by cycles of global climate that formed similar environments elsewhere on the planet? Other missions have found evidence of past liquid water on Mars, but were not able to tell us how long it lasted or if it came and went cyclically, as Curiosity’s investigations have revealed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The prospect that liquid water was present and stable on Mars’ surface over long periods of time also enhances the conversation about the possibility that life could have appeared there at some point. We have not found evidence of life on Mars so far–but how cool would it be to find a fossil in one of those layers of rock?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Curiosity climbs up the slopes of Mount Sharp, it will encounter higher formations of sediment laid down at later times in Mars’ history, giving us a more comprehensive profile of the changing climate than those represented by the rocks at the rover’s current digs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ancient lake that once filled Gale Crater must have been a fantastic sight. If you’ve ever seen Crater Lake in Oregon and were impressed by its size—well, Crater Lake is only five miles wide. Gale Crater, as it is today, is 96 miles across!\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>NASA's unmanned Orion spacecraft has successfully splashed down about 250 miles west of La Paz, Mexico, in the Pacific Ocean after a liftoff, two orbits and re-entry that lasted just under 4½ hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Orion, which could one day take astronauts to Mars, made a \"bulls-eye splashdown\" at 8:29 a.m. PST, Mission Control said, after the spacecraft endured a searing 4,000-degree Fahrenheit re-entry and was carried to the ocean surface under four giant red-and-white parachutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mission Control called the first test of the capsule a \"picture perfect\" mission that had surmounted \"significant milestones\" for the program that could eventually pave the way for putting astronauts on the surface of the Red Planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we reported, NASA scrubbed yesterday's launch at Cape Canaveral, Florida, because it could not resolve a number of technical issues. Today's launch went off without a hitch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/12/04/368423592/nasas-orion-prepares-for-lift-off-at-cape-canaveral\">Here's some background\u003c/a>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\"As NPR's \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/12/02/366832916/nasa-prepares-to-test-new-spacecraft-that-youve-likely-never-heard-of\">Geoff Brumfiel reported earlier this week\u003c/a>, Orion is expected to make two orbits at a distance of 3,600 miles from the Earth's surface on its second lap, before conducting a re-entry burn and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The flight is meant to validate the vehicle's basic systems, including avionics, heat shielding and parachutes.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/NASA/status/540878439595900928\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\"According to Geoff: 'It's designed for deep space, but Orion's first mission will be back to the neighborhood of the moon. \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2013/04/12/176798246/in-nasas-budget-plans-to-shrink-wrap-an-asteroid\">The plan is to have a robot capture a small asteroid and drag it back to lunar orbit\u003c/a>. Then Orion will carry up to four astronauts to meet it. It's all supposed to happen in the 2020s, though some say the mission is too complicated and not much of an advance.' \"\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Orion+Spacecraft+Splashes+Down+After+High+Orbit+Test&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bay Area Engineers Prepped Orion for Test Flight\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Engineers at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View tested Orion's heat shield using specially developed sensors and the center's Arc Jet Facility -- which is designed to simulate the spacecraft's re-entry through Earth's atmosphere. They also tested Orion's systems in a wind tunnel and the Ames Horizontal Free Flight Facility, which \"can fire models through a 75-foot-long test chamber at speeds ranging from 500 to 18,000 mph.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F4eexfsN8w&w=560&h=315]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\"According to Geoff: 'It's designed for deep space, but Orion's first mission will be back to the neighborhood of the moon. \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2013/04/12/176798246/in-nasas-budget-plans-to-shrink-wrap-an-asteroid\">The plan is to have a robot capture a small asteroid and drag it back to lunar orbit\u003c/a>. Then Orion will carry up to four astronauts to meet it. It's all supposed to happen in the 2020s, though some say the mission is too complicated and not much of an advance.' \"\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Orion+Spacecraft+Splashes+Down+After+High+Orbit+Test&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Bay Area Engineers Prepped Orion for Test Flight\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24221\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/titansflashyseas.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24221\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/titansflashyseas.jpg\" alt=\"Sunlight reflecting from the liquid surface of Kraken Mare on Saturn's moon Titan. (Cassini/NASA)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sunlight reflecting from the liquid surface of Kraken Mare on Saturn’s moon Titan. (Cassini/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ten years after arriving at Saturn, \u003ca title=\"NASA/Cassini\" href=\"http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/science/index.cfm?SciencePageID=73\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NASA’s Cassini\u003c/a> spacecraft is still able to send us delightful surprises from a billion miles away. Most recently, it cruised by the large moon Titan and caught a flash of sunlight reflecting off the liquid surface of one of the moon’s hydrocarbon seas, Kraken Mare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kraken Mare is the largest sea on Titan, part of a complex of seas in Titan’s North Polar Region. The bright reflection, seen in the upper left side of the image, comes from the southern region of Kraken Mare, just north of an island archipelago that separates two sections of the sea. In the past, Cassini has captured separate images of the polar seas and of sunlight glinting off them, but the picture from the August flyby is the first to show us both at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”e7cYs86yIkQXgMDGEWqTxWvDH1qNQjnK”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On this occasion, the sun brought more to light than just the liquid surface of Kraken Mare. The southern rim of the sea was shown to have a “bathtub ring”—a coastal outline of bright material likely left behind by evaporating liquid and a declining sea level, indicating that Kraken Mare was once deeper. Similar evaporative deposits are left behind by receding lakes on Earth, such as in the case of desert salt pans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another indicator of Titan’s lively atmosphere can be found in the snapshot. The bright, arrow-like shape to the right is a cloud formation of liquid methane droplets. Methane may even be precipitating from these clouds onto the sea it stretches over in the picture, Ligeia Mare—something has to be filling those basins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past decade, Cassini has made the rounds to a number Saturn’s moons, the planet’s intricate ring system and the dynamic wind-sculpted cloud tops of Saturn itself, but Titan has been a crown jewel of the entire mission. Probably more than any other extraterrestrial body in the solar system, Titan bears a resemblance to our own world, though a small, cold and perhaps primordial version of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24229\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/titan20100603-browse.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24229\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/titan20100603-browse.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of the surface of Titan. (NASA)\" width=\"640\" height=\"350\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of the surface of Titan. (NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Like Earth, Titan has a thick atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen. Like Earth, Titan’s atmosphere is inundated by smog—that is, a naturally occurring haze of hydrocarbons, such as methane and ethane. Like Earth, Titan appears to have a liquid cycle, with cloud formations, precipitation, runoff and pooling. In the pictures and maps Cassini has sent us, we see coastline-like patterns lining dark flat spaces, river-like drainage networks winding and branching through mountainous terrain and plains of rippling, wind-blown dunes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike Earth, Titan is extremely cold (-179.5 degrees C), and its rain, rivers and waves lapping at the shores of its seas are not water, but liquid methane and ethane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine the view if you could stand on Titan: so familiar in some ways, so very alien in others. I, for one, can’t wait for the next landing mission!\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past decade, Cassini has made the rounds to a number Saturn’s moons, the planet’s intricate ring system and the dynamic wind-sculpted cloud tops of Saturn itself, but Titan has been a crown jewel of the entire mission. Probably more than any other extraterrestrial body in the solar system, Titan bears a resemblance to our own world, though a small, cold and perhaps primordial version of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24229\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/titan20100603-browse.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24229\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/titan20100603-browse.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of the surface of Titan. (NASA)\" width=\"640\" height=\"350\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of the surface of Titan. (NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Like Earth, Titan has a thick atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen. Like Earth, Titan’s atmosphere is inundated by smog—that is, a naturally occurring haze of hydrocarbons, such as methane and ethane. Like Earth, Titan appears to have a liquid cycle, with cloud formations, precipitation, runoff and pooling. In the pictures and maps Cassini has sent us, we see coastline-like patterns lining dark flat spaces, river-like drainage networks winding and branching through mountainous terrain and plains of rippling, wind-blown dunes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike Earth, Titan is extremely cold (-179.5 degrees C), and its rain, rivers and waves lapping at the shores of its seas are not water, but liquid methane and ethane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine the view if you could stand on Titan: so familiar in some ways, so very alien in others. I, for one, can’t wait for the next landing mission!\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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},
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},
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
},
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"order": 1
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"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"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"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",
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"order": 9
},
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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",
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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. ",
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"order": 18
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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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"source": "npr"
},
"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"
}
},
"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": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
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"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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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"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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"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
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