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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_20743\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/08/comet-churyumov-gerasimenko.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-20743\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/08/comet-churyumov-gerasimenko.jpg\" alt=\"Comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (Rosetta/ESA)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (Rosetta/ESA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The European Space Agency’s (ESA) \u003ca title=\"ESA - Rosetta\" href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_arrives_at_comet_destination\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rosetta has reached its target\u003c/a> — the Comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko — becoming the first spacecraft in history to rendezvous with a comet. And in November, it will accomplish another first when it drops a small probe, Philae, to a soft landing on the comet’s surface!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Churyumov-Gerasimenko, along with its new tagalong companion Rosetta, is presently moving toward the inner solar system and will reach perihelion (closest approach to the sun) in August 2015. Rosetta’s mission is to make a detailed study of the comet’s structure, composition and the effects of increasing solar heating as it warms up. A comprehensive campaign of observation with its array of instruments will offer us unprecedented insights into the conditions in which the comet formed in the earliest annals of the young solar system, as well as the evolutionary path it has taken since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”5LrNwVyccbKOfzp9GMHuCH8LIdgDWN3i”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even as Rosetta made its gradual approach to the comet during the summer, it began to detect some unusual — and in some cases unexpected — characteristics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For one, \u003ca title=\"Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko\" href=\"http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/08150814-finding-my-way-around-cg.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the comet’s shape\u003c/a>; generic preconceptions for the comet’s structure and surface appearance were “typical”: a roughly round, mountain-sized blob of ice with some bumps, a jagged edge here and there and maybe some surface cratering. We haven’t seen many comets up close, so expectations must be based on a handful of examples.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Churyumov-Gerasimenko, like its name, has a double-lobed structure, looking a lot like two comets that have been fused together and connected by a bridge-like neck (perhaps each lobe can be named for one of the co-discoverers.) Whether this comet is a “contact binary” (two comets that joined together) or was a single comet whose shape has been sculpted by the vaporizing chisel of sunlight over eons is yet to be determined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The comet is also warmer than expected: a balmy negative 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Sounds pretty cold, but calculations based on the comet’s distance from the sun and the reflectivity of water ice predicted that it would be colder. A likely explanation is that the comet’s surface is coated with dust, making it darker and more able to absorb the heat in sunlight — not unlike how a dark t-shirt warms you up more than a light-colored one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The average density of this comet is only one-tenth that of water ice, so a sample of its material would be light, airy and as feather-weight as powder snow. In other words, an ice cube tray amount of material from the comet would weigh as much as a single solid ice cube.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attempting this first-of-its-kind mission to orbit a comet required a first-of-its-kind maneuvering tactic. Only about two miles across and weighing a mere three billion tons, the comet’s gravity is incredibly feeble. If you were standing on its surface, it would take little more than a light hop to break free of the comet’s gravity and propel yourself into space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the ESA operators of Rosetta have been maneuvering the spacecraft through a series of thrust impulses designed to drive it around and ever closer to the comet in calculated bursts. This “powered orbit” maneuver — a lurching, rocket-driven zig-zag in the space surrounding the comet — reminds me of the one (and only) time I went bungee jumping. After I had stopped bouncing at the end of the bungee, they sent a powerboat out to grab me with a long, hand-operated hook. As I swung about over the river, the boat driver had to gun the engine, turn the boat in bursts and fight with the river’s current while trying to get close enough to hook me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Rosetta circles and closes in on the comet, it is also mapping the entire surface from every direction looking for the best landing site for its drop-probe: Philae. The preferred landing sites are flat areas that offer the best chance for Philae to land upright, but investigators also want to send it to the most scientifically interesting place — for instance, at the site where one of the comet’s gas plumes might emerge from as it heats up and becomes more active.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, Rosetta will move to within about twenty miles — and possibly closer — where the comet’s gravity is strong enough (or more accurately, not too feeble) to tether it into a true orbit. Even then the spacecraft’s orbital velocity will be only a few inches per second — literally an insect’s crawl. Any faster than that, Rosetta would fly off into space again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Past comet encounters by spacecraft — \u003ca title=\"NASA Deep Impact\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main/#.U_T658VdV8E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Deep Impact\u003c/a>/EPOXI, Giotto, \u003ca title=\"NASA - Stardust\" href=\"http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stardust\u003c/a> and a handful of others — have been fly-bys with only brief hours in which to examine their targets before flying off into space again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rosetta will fly along with Churyumov-Gerasimenko for the next year, studying the effects of solar heating as it swings through its closest approach to the sun, between the orbits of Earth and Mars and the aftermath as the comet cruises back toward Jupiter’s orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stay tuned. Rosetta only just arrived at its destination, and after the 10-year journey it took to get it there, only now does the adventure really begin.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Churyumov-Gerasimenko, like its name, has a double-lobed structure, looking a lot like two comets that have been fused together and connected by a bridge-like neck (perhaps each lobe can be named for one of the co-discoverers.) Whether this comet is a “contact binary” (two comets that joined together) or was a single comet whose shape has been sculpted by the vaporizing chisel of sunlight over eons is yet to be determined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The comet is also warmer than expected: a balmy negative 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Sounds pretty cold, but calculations based on the comet’s distance from the sun and the reflectivity of water ice predicted that it would be colder. A likely explanation is that the comet’s surface is coated with dust, making it darker and more able to absorb the heat in sunlight — not unlike how a dark t-shirt warms you up more than a light-colored one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The average density of this comet is only one-tenth that of water ice, so a sample of its material would be light, airy and as feather-weight as powder snow. In other words, an ice cube tray amount of material from the comet would weigh as much as a single solid ice cube.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attempting this first-of-its-kind mission to orbit a comet required a first-of-its-kind maneuvering tactic. Only about two miles across and weighing a mere three billion tons, the comet’s gravity is incredibly feeble. If you were standing on its surface, it would take little more than a light hop to break free of the comet’s gravity and propel yourself into space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the ESA operators of Rosetta have been maneuvering the spacecraft through a series of thrust impulses designed to drive it around and ever closer to the comet in calculated bursts. This “powered orbit” maneuver — a lurching, rocket-driven zig-zag in the space surrounding the comet — reminds me of the one (and only) time I went bungee jumping. After I had stopped bouncing at the end of the bungee, they sent a powerboat out to grab me with a long, hand-operated hook. As I swung about over the river, the boat driver had to gun the engine, turn the boat in bursts and fight with the river’s current while trying to get close enough to hook me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Rosetta circles and closes in on the comet, it is also mapping the entire surface from every direction looking for the best landing site for its drop-probe: Philae. The preferred landing sites are flat areas that offer the best chance for Philae to land upright, but investigators also want to send it to the most scientifically interesting place — for instance, at the site where one of the comet’s gas plumes might emerge from as it heats up and becomes more active.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, Rosetta will move to within about twenty miles — and possibly closer — where the comet’s gravity is strong enough (or more accurately, not too feeble) to tether it into a true orbit. Even then the spacecraft’s orbital velocity will be only a few inches per second — literally an insect’s crawl. Any faster than that, Rosetta would fly off into space again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Past comet encounters by spacecraft — \u003ca title=\"NASA Deep Impact\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main/#.U_T658VdV8E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Deep Impact\u003c/a>/EPOXI, Giotto, \u003ca title=\"NASA - Stardust\" href=\"http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stardust\u003c/a> and a handful of others — have been fly-bys with only brief hours in which to examine their targets before flying off into space again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rosetta will fly along with Churyumov-Gerasimenko for the next year, studying the effects of solar heating as it swings through its closest approach to the sun, between the orbits of Earth and Mars and the aftermath as the comet cruises back toward Jupiter’s orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stay tuned. Rosetta only just arrived at its destination, and after the 10-year journey it took to get it there, only now does the adventure really begin.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "NASA's Opportunity Rolls a Record Distance on Mars",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_20154\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/opportunity-25mile-mark.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-20154\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/opportunity-25mile-mark.jpg\" alt=\"Opportunity's record breaking milestone marker: Lunokhod 2 Crater. (NASA/JPL)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Opportunity’s record breaking milestone marker: Lunokhod 2 Crater. (NASA/JPL)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One of NASA’s most senior and still-operational spacecraft reached a milestone: the rover Opportunity completed its first 25 miles traveling across the surface of Mars!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”PpS4ZQ3AmcRjfvxnkCyNOLxsUakTXcQN”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not only a nice round milestone, it’s a new off-Earth roving record that breaks the long-standing 24.2-mile mark of the previous champion, the Soviet lunar rover Lunokhod 2. The \u003ca title=\"The Great Rover Race Line-up\" href=\"http://www.space.com/79-distances-driven-on-other-worlds.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">other contenders\u003c/a> in this low-speed race don’t even come close: Lunokhod 1 at 6.5 miles, the newest entry Curiosity Mars rover at 5.3 miles (but expected to give Opportunity a run for its money), the Spirit Mars rover at 4.8 miles, Mars Pathfinder/\u003ca title=\"NASA Sojourner Rover\" href=\"http://spacepioneers.msu.edu/robot_rovers/sojourner.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sojourner\u003c/a> at 330 feet, and China’s lunar rover Yutu clicking in 317 feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Earth twenty-five mile trips are humdrum half-hour hops to your Aunt’s house. But for a semi-autonomous, remotely controlled robot exploring a planet millions of miles away, it’s simply awesome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its 10-year trek, Opportunity made a good living crater crawling, trading up with each new hole in the ground it explored. In fact, Opportunity was a craterteer from the moment it landed and rolled into a small pit called Eagle Crater in 2004 –which caused NASA engineers and scientists to hold their collective breath for fear that it might not be able to get out of the hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But get out it did and Opportunity began its drive across Meridiani Planum, the vast plain it had come to investigate for geologic signs of past water on Mars. Along the way Opportunity traded up to Endurance Crater, a 426-foot impact feature that would be its first intentional crater crawl, and later \u003ca title=\"Victoria Crater\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/pia08813.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Victoria Crater\u003c/a>, a half-mile impact basin with exposed rock strata along its edge that were prime targets for seeking sedimentary layers that might have been water-laid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opportunity found ample signs of ancient, extinct waters: gray hematite “\u003ca title=\"Blueberries: Hematite spherules\" href=\"http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/newsroom/pressreleases/20040318a.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">blueberry\u003c/a>” spherules it found along the way, intricate patterns in sedimentary features it scrutinized with its microscope, and other dry but suggestive clues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After spending almost two years exploring around and below the rim of Victoria Crater, mission directors decided to risk a much longer drive of discovery toward a much larger crater, the 14-mile wide Endeavour. They were not certain that the aging rover would survive the journey, but the potential payoff was considered worth the risk — plus it was the only way for the rover to trade up to a crater larger than Victoria. It was also during this long march to the horizon that Opportunity’s Mars-roving buddy around the planet in Gusev Crater, Spirit, ceased functioning, leaving Opportunity the sole functioning robot on the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three years after leaving Victoria, in 2011, \u003ca title=\"Opportunity Arrives at Endeavour Crater\" href=\"http://www.space.com/12594-nasa-mars-rover-opportunity-arrives-huge-crater.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Opportunity arrived\u003c/a> at the rim of Endeavour where it has been exploring ever since. In its time at Endeavour, the rover has found even more clues pointing to the younger Mars’ wetness, including additional detections of hematite, as well as a \u003ca title=\"Vein of Gypsum at Endeavour Crater\" href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/08dec_slamdunk/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">vein of material\u003c/a> containing calcium, sulfur and water that most closely resembles gypsum. The presence of gypsum may indicate past water of more neutral pH, which could indicate an environment that was suitable to nurture life—life as we know it, at least.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opportunity has been joined by the larger, next-generation rover \u003ca title=\"NASA Curiosity Rover\" href=\"http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Curiosity\u003c/a>, the nuclear-powered traveling laboratory currently exploring the lower layered slopes of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater. And though Curiosity has traveled little more than five miles to date, if it shows even half the pluckiness of its elder Opportunity, we should expect to see another off-world roving record broken sometime in the next few years. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Craters, if you haven’t guessed, are preferred targets for remote explorations of Mars, and for good reason: impact craters expose Mars’ past to our scientific curiosity. The walls of craters are literally stacks of sedimentary geologic history, sheared through and unearthed by the force of the impacts that create them. In the case of Gale Crater, the depression also served as a collection basin for sediment that layered up over hundreds of millions of years and was subsequently exposed by erosion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One day, maybe not far off, distance records like those of Lunokhod 2 and Opportunity and perhaps Curiosity will be dashed the rocks by more sophisticated robotic explorers and even human-driven vehicles. But today the prize and pride belong to Opportunity.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_20154\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/opportunity-25mile-mark.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-20154\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/opportunity-25mile-mark.jpg\" alt=\"Opportunity's record breaking milestone marker: Lunokhod 2 Crater. (NASA/JPL)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Opportunity’s record breaking milestone marker: Lunokhod 2 Crater. (NASA/JPL)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One of NASA’s most senior and still-operational spacecraft reached a milestone: the rover Opportunity completed its first 25 miles traveling across the surface of Mars!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not only a nice round milestone, it’s a new off-Earth roving record that breaks the long-standing 24.2-mile mark of the previous champion, the Soviet lunar rover Lunokhod 2. The \u003ca title=\"The Great Rover Race Line-up\" href=\"http://www.space.com/79-distances-driven-on-other-worlds.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">other contenders\u003c/a> in this low-speed race don’t even come close: Lunokhod 1 at 6.5 miles, the newest entry Curiosity Mars rover at 5.3 miles (but expected to give Opportunity a run for its money), the Spirit Mars rover at 4.8 miles, Mars Pathfinder/\u003ca title=\"NASA Sojourner Rover\" href=\"http://spacepioneers.msu.edu/robot_rovers/sojourner.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sojourner\u003c/a> at 330 feet, and China’s lunar rover Yutu clicking in 317 feet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Earth twenty-five mile trips are humdrum half-hour hops to your Aunt’s house. But for a semi-autonomous, remotely controlled robot exploring a planet millions of miles away, it’s simply awesome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its 10-year trek, Opportunity made a good living crater crawling, trading up with each new hole in the ground it explored. In fact, Opportunity was a craterteer from the moment it landed and rolled into a small pit called Eagle Crater in 2004 –which caused NASA engineers and scientists to hold their collective breath for fear that it might not be able to get out of the hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But get out it did and Opportunity began its drive across Meridiani Planum, the vast plain it had come to investigate for geologic signs of past water on Mars. Along the way Opportunity traded up to Endurance Crater, a 426-foot impact feature that would be its first intentional crater crawl, and later \u003ca title=\"Victoria Crater\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/pia08813.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Victoria Crater\u003c/a>, a half-mile impact basin with exposed rock strata along its edge that were prime targets for seeking sedimentary layers that might have been water-laid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opportunity found ample signs of ancient, extinct waters: gray hematite “\u003ca title=\"Blueberries: Hematite spherules\" href=\"http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/newsroom/pressreleases/20040318a.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">blueberry\u003c/a>” spherules it found along the way, intricate patterns in sedimentary features it scrutinized with its microscope, and other dry but suggestive clues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After spending almost two years exploring around and below the rim of Victoria Crater, mission directors decided to risk a much longer drive of discovery toward a much larger crater, the 14-mile wide Endeavour. They were not certain that the aging rover would survive the journey, but the potential payoff was considered worth the risk — plus it was the only way for the rover to trade up to a crater larger than Victoria. It was also during this long march to the horizon that Opportunity’s Mars-roving buddy around the planet in Gusev Crater, Spirit, ceased functioning, leaving Opportunity the sole functioning robot on the planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three years after leaving Victoria, in 2011, \u003ca title=\"Opportunity Arrives at Endeavour Crater\" href=\"http://www.space.com/12594-nasa-mars-rover-opportunity-arrives-huge-crater.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Opportunity arrived\u003c/a> at the rim of Endeavour where it has been exploring ever since. In its time at Endeavour, the rover has found even more clues pointing to the younger Mars’ wetness, including additional detections of hematite, as well as a \u003ca title=\"Vein of Gypsum at Endeavour Crater\" href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/08dec_slamdunk/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">vein of material\u003c/a> containing calcium, sulfur and water that most closely resembles gypsum. The presence of gypsum may indicate past water of more neutral pH, which could indicate an environment that was suitable to nurture life—life as we know it, at least.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opportunity has been joined by the larger, next-generation rover \u003ca title=\"NASA Curiosity Rover\" href=\"http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Curiosity\u003c/a>, the nuclear-powered traveling laboratory currently exploring the lower layered slopes of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater. And though Curiosity has traveled little more than five miles to date, if it shows even half the pluckiness of its elder Opportunity, we should expect to see another off-world roving record broken sometime in the next few years. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Craters, if you haven’t guessed, are preferred targets for remote explorations of Mars, and for good reason: impact craters expose Mars’ past to our scientific curiosity. The walls of craters are literally stacks of sedimentary geologic history, sheared through and unearthed by the force of the impacts that create them. In the case of Gale Crater, the depression also served as a collection basin for sediment that layered up over hundreds of millions of years and was subsequently exposed by erosion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One day, maybe not far off, distance records like those of Lunokhod 2 and Opportunity and perhaps Curiosity will be dashed the rocks by more sophisticated robotic explorers and even human-driven vehicles. But today the prize and pride belong to Opportunity.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Europe's Rosetta Spacecraft Will Soon Ride a Comet",
"headTitle": "Europe’s Rosetta Spacecraft Will Soon Ride a Comet | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19593\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/rosetta-and-comet.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19593\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/rosetta-and-comet.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of ESA's Rosetta encounter with comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (ESA)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of ESA’s Rosetta encounter with comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (ESA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One of the rarest and most exciting events in space exploration is when we land on another celestial body and achieve a boots-on-the-ground view of an alien world. Europe’s \u003ca title=\"ESA's Rosetta Mission\" href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rosetta mission\u003c/a> is now poised to add another extraterrestrial landfall to that very short list, and top a new list as it becomes the first mission to land a probe on a comet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since we began traveling space in 1957 we’ve only landed on a handful of celestial bodies: Earth’s Moon, Mars and Venus, Saturn’s moon Titan, and the asteroid Eros (which was less a true landing than a low-speed crash while taking pictures on the way down).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”UxrdPWQGqQ80iq87O6yvBgMwwNu8COD2″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft, launched in 2004, is now on a final approach to the comet \u003ca title=\"Comet 67p Churyumov-Gerasimenko\" href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/20/comet-67p-rosetta-probe-close-encounter-origins-of-life-churyumov-gerasimenko\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko\u003c/a> for an \u003ca title=\"Rosetta's August 6th Rendezvous\" href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Call_for_Media_Rosetta_s_comet_rendezvous\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">August 6th rendezvous\u003c/a>, and already the preliminary pictures it has taken are revealing that this comet may be a greater treasure trove of information than expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pictures show what appears to be a double-lobed nucleus, a possible “contact binary,” a configuration we’ve seen in a few other comets and some asteroids. The events that shape this style of comet nucleus are not known—because we’ve never seen it happen, and so far have not examined such an object up close and in detail…something that may be about to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One possibility for the origin of a contact binary is a low-velocity impact between two different comets at some time in the past, such as when the solar system was young and full of comets, asteroids and \u003ca title=\"Planetesimals\" href=\"http://www.universetoday.com/35974/planetesimals/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">planetesimals\u003c/a>. The formation of the planets is believed to have occurred in a process of \u003ca title=\"Accretion of solar system bodies\" href=\"http://m.teachastronomy.com/astropedia/article/Accretion-and-Solar-System-Bodies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">accretion\u003c/a>, where small pieces of material join gravitationally with others and gradually “snowball” into larger and larger objects—comets and asteroids into planetesimals, planetesimals into planets. Since comets represent “leftovers” from the accretion of the planets, it stands to reason that we might find some in a state of partial assembly that did not snowball any further, and so should expect to find objects composed of two or more smaller building blocks: contact binaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November, things will get truly exciting when Rosetta launches a landing probe, Philae, to a historic, first-ever-of-its-kind landing on the surface of a comet. That should be as exciting as when we received the first pictures from the surface of the Moon, or Mars, or Titan. (I can’t wait!)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But obtaining landscape pictures of alien locales isn’t the main reason for going sending a probe to land on a comet. Everything we know about our solar system’s past and how the Earth, planets, and other bodies originated we have learned from remaining physical evidence. Just like forensic investigators piecing together the sequence of events, suspects, and actions at a crime scene from only trace evidence left behind, the physical state of planets, moons, asteroids, and comets and the details of their shape, composition, surface markings, locations and trajectories are all the information we have to reconstruct events and environments that took place millions or even billions of years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On planets like the Earth, whose surface has been shaped, erased, and reshaped untold times by weathering, sea level rise and decline, continental drift, tectonic action and volcanic activity, reconstructing the past becomes increasingly difficult the farther back in time we peer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But objects not subject to these forces, such as comets, asteroids and some of the airless planets and moons of the solar system, preserve physical evidence untampered-with by the mayhem of change. By studying not only the composition of a comet, but also its detailed physical structure, shape, and surface markings, we consider all of the trace evidence present, just as a good forensic scientist does not overlook even the smallest strand of hair, trace of chemical residue, or speck of exotic dust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Someday events like landings on comets and asteroids, dwarf planets and moons, may become commonplace and humdrum — but not today! Feast your eyes on the first pictures from a comet while they’re fresh!\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19593\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/rosetta-and-comet.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19593\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/rosetta-and-comet.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of ESA's Rosetta encounter with comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (ESA)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of ESA’s Rosetta encounter with comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (ESA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One of the rarest and most exciting events in space exploration is when we land on another celestial body and achieve a boots-on-the-ground view of an alien world. Europe’s \u003ca title=\"ESA's Rosetta Mission\" href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rosetta mission\u003c/a> is now poised to add another extraterrestrial landfall to that very short list, and top a new list as it becomes the first mission to land a probe on a comet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since we began traveling space in 1957 we’ve only landed on a handful of celestial bodies: Earth’s Moon, Mars and Venus, Saturn’s moon Titan, and the asteroid Eros (which was less a true landing than a low-speed crash while taking pictures on the way down).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft, launched in 2004, is now on a final approach to the comet \u003ca title=\"Comet 67p Churyumov-Gerasimenko\" href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/20/comet-67p-rosetta-probe-close-encounter-origins-of-life-churyumov-gerasimenko\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko\u003c/a> for an \u003ca title=\"Rosetta's August 6th Rendezvous\" href=\"http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Call_for_Media_Rosetta_s_comet_rendezvous\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">August 6th rendezvous\u003c/a>, and already the preliminary pictures it has taken are revealing that this comet may be a greater treasure trove of information than expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pictures show what appears to be a double-lobed nucleus, a possible “contact binary,” a configuration we’ve seen in a few other comets and some asteroids. The events that shape this style of comet nucleus are not known—because we’ve never seen it happen, and so far have not examined such an object up close and in detail…something that may be about to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One possibility for the origin of a contact binary is a low-velocity impact between two different comets at some time in the past, such as when the solar system was young and full of comets, asteroids and \u003ca title=\"Planetesimals\" href=\"http://www.universetoday.com/35974/planetesimals/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">planetesimals\u003c/a>. The formation of the planets is believed to have occurred in a process of \u003ca title=\"Accretion of solar system bodies\" href=\"http://m.teachastronomy.com/astropedia/article/Accretion-and-Solar-System-Bodies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">accretion\u003c/a>, where small pieces of material join gravitationally with others and gradually “snowball” into larger and larger objects—comets and asteroids into planetesimals, planetesimals into planets. Since comets represent “leftovers” from the accretion of the planets, it stands to reason that we might find some in a state of partial assembly that did not snowball any further, and so should expect to find objects composed of two or more smaller building blocks: contact binaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November, things will get truly exciting when Rosetta launches a landing probe, Philae, to a historic, first-ever-of-its-kind landing on the surface of a comet. That should be as exciting as when we received the first pictures from the surface of the Moon, or Mars, or Titan. (I can’t wait!)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But obtaining landscape pictures of alien locales isn’t the main reason for going sending a probe to land on a comet. Everything we know about our solar system’s past and how the Earth, planets, and other bodies originated we have learned from remaining physical evidence. Just like forensic investigators piecing together the sequence of events, suspects, and actions at a crime scene from only trace evidence left behind, the physical state of planets, moons, asteroids, and comets and the details of their shape, composition, surface markings, locations and trajectories are all the information we have to reconstruct events and environments that took place millions or even billions of years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On planets like the Earth, whose surface has been shaped, erased, and reshaped untold times by weathering, sea level rise and decline, continental drift, tectonic action and volcanic activity, reconstructing the past becomes increasingly difficult the farther back in time we peer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But objects not subject to these forces, such as comets, asteroids and some of the airless planets and moons of the solar system, preserve physical evidence untampered-with by the mayhem of change. By studying not only the composition of a comet, but also its detailed physical structure, shape, and surface markings, we consider all of the trace evidence present, just as a good forensic scientist does not overlook even the smallest strand of hair, trace of chemical residue, or speck of exotic dust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Someday events like landings on comets and asteroids, dwarf planets and moons, may become commonplace and humdrum — but not today! Feast your eyes on the first pictures from a comet while they’re fresh!\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "NASA's Cassini Spacecraft: A Decade of Discovery at Saturn",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19251\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/cassini-saturn.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19251\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/cassini-saturn.jpg\" alt=\"Cassini-Huygens spacecraft on arrival at Saturn. (NASA)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cassini-Huygens spacecraft on arrival at Saturn. (NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A decade ago, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, the largest and most complex robotic probe yet built, arrived in the Saturn system to begin a marathon exploration of the gas giant, its famous and awe-inspiring rings and what has turned out to be a collection of some of the most eye-opening moons in the solar system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca title=\"NASA/Cassini\" href=\"http://cassini-2.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cassini’s status\u003c/a> as a permanent orbiting resident of the ringed giant, as well as its deployment of the \u003ca title=\"ESA Huygens Probe\" href=\"http://sci.esa.int/cassini-huygens/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ESA’s Huygens\u003c/a> probe to the surface of the giant moon Titan, has afforded us an up-close-and-personal inspection of much of the Saturn system, yielding orders of magnitude more data and details than the three brief flyby missions, Pioneer 11 and Voyagers 1 and 2, that preceded it 25 years earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what has Cassini taught us in its decadal odyssey a billion miles from the sun?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”b5a6f415d6b1ce44ec7811a954ab0cfc”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most recent news is that the large moon Titan may be older, in a manner of speaking, than Saturn itself. That is to say, the original building blocks that made Titan may have originated not in the Saturn system, but elsewhere in the primordial nebula from which the solar system formed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA and ESA Cassini scientists announced that they had analyzed the chemistry of Titan’s largely nitrogen atmosphere and measured a telltale ratio of two forms (isotopes) of that gas, nitrogen-14 and nitrogen-15. The research team finds that this ratio, established by the conditions in which a planet or moon forms, is a stable and largely unchanging value, even over billions of years. Titan’s nitrogen isotope ratio suggests that its constituent materials formed in the distant Oort Cloud, the cold realm where many comets originated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The finding also has an implication about the origin of Earth’s atmospheric nitrogen, which some had assumed was delivered in the form of ammonia by early comet impacts. But Earth’s nitrogen-14/nitrogen-15 ratio is different from Titan’s, suggesting a different source than the Oort Cloud comets Titan’s nitrogen appears to have come from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cassini had already revealed Titan as a world in its own right, in many ways a cold analog to Earth, with a thick nitrogen atmosphere, weather systems, and a liquid cycle of methane and ethane complete with cloud formation, precipitation, runoff through river systems and pooling in huge lakes. Titan may also possess a \u003ca title=\"Titan's subsurface ocean\" href=\"http://www.voanews.com/content/titans-ocean-as-salty-as-dead-sea/1953251.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">deep ocean of liquid water\u003c/a> far beneath its frigid surface, where temperature and pressure conditions are suitable for water to exist in its liquid state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Titan is not the only Saturnian moon to raise scientists’ eyebrows. Enceladus was in one specific way even more surprising. Even before Cassini, Titan was known to have a thick atmosphere and clouds, and long suspected of having possible weather systems and liquid on its surface. But Enceladus, a tiny moon only 300 miles in diameter, was not expected to be more than a frigid lump of rock and ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the contrary, Enceladus squirts \u003ca title=\"Enceladus' cryovolcanoes\" href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/solar_system_highlights/cryovolcano\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">plumes of water and ammonia\u003c/a> into space from geyser-like crevasses, indicating the presence of sub-surface liquid water. At first the geysers were hypothesized to erupt from subsurface chambers similar to geysers on Earth, pressurized by tidally generated heat. More recently measurements by Cassini indicate the likely presence of a sizeable ocean of liquid water deep beneath the ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Possible budget cuts at NASA have cast some doubt on Cassini’s longevity going forward, but even if the program were shut down tomorrow the decade Cassini has spent exploring the Saturn system has delivered a wealth of knowledge, not only about Saturn and its moons, but more broadly on the origins of our solar system.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_19251\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/cassini-saturn.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19251\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/07/cassini-saturn.jpg\" alt=\"Cassini-Huygens spacecraft on arrival at Saturn. (NASA)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cassini-Huygens spacecraft on arrival at Saturn. (NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A decade ago, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, the largest and most complex robotic probe yet built, arrived in the Saturn system to begin a marathon exploration of the gas giant, its famous and awe-inspiring rings and what has turned out to be a collection of some of the most eye-opening moons in the solar system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca title=\"NASA/Cassini\" href=\"http://cassini-2.jpl.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cassini’s status\u003c/a> as a permanent orbiting resident of the ringed giant, as well as its deployment of the \u003ca title=\"ESA Huygens Probe\" href=\"http://sci.esa.int/cassini-huygens/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ESA’s Huygens\u003c/a> probe to the surface of the giant moon Titan, has afforded us an up-close-and-personal inspection of much of the Saturn system, yielding orders of magnitude more data and details than the three brief flyby missions, Pioneer 11 and Voyagers 1 and 2, that preceded it 25 years earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what has Cassini taught us in its decadal odyssey a billion miles from the sun?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most recent news is that the large moon Titan may be older, in a manner of speaking, than Saturn itself. That is to say, the original building blocks that made Titan may have originated not in the Saturn system, but elsewhere in the primordial nebula from which the solar system formed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA and ESA Cassini scientists announced that they had analyzed the chemistry of Titan’s largely nitrogen atmosphere and measured a telltale ratio of two forms (isotopes) of that gas, nitrogen-14 and nitrogen-15. The research team finds that this ratio, established by the conditions in which a planet or moon forms, is a stable and largely unchanging value, even over billions of years. Titan’s nitrogen isotope ratio suggests that its constituent materials formed in the distant Oort Cloud, the cold realm where many comets originated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The finding also has an implication about the origin of Earth’s atmospheric nitrogen, which some had assumed was delivered in the form of ammonia by early comet impacts. But Earth’s nitrogen-14/nitrogen-15 ratio is different from Titan’s, suggesting a different source than the Oort Cloud comets Titan’s nitrogen appears to have come from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cassini had already revealed Titan as a world in its own right, in many ways a cold analog to Earth, with a thick nitrogen atmosphere, weather systems, and a liquid cycle of methane and ethane complete with cloud formation, precipitation, runoff through river systems and pooling in huge lakes. Titan may also possess a \u003ca title=\"Titan's subsurface ocean\" href=\"http://www.voanews.com/content/titans-ocean-as-salty-as-dead-sea/1953251.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">deep ocean of liquid water\u003c/a> far beneath its frigid surface, where temperature and pressure conditions are suitable for water to exist in its liquid state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Titan is not the only Saturnian moon to raise scientists’ eyebrows. Enceladus was in one specific way even more surprising. Even before Cassini, Titan was known to have a thick atmosphere and clouds, and long suspected of having possible weather systems and liquid on its surface. But Enceladus, a tiny moon only 300 miles in diameter, was not expected to be more than a frigid lump of rock and ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the contrary, Enceladus squirts \u003ca title=\"Enceladus' cryovolcanoes\" href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/solar_system_highlights/cryovolcano\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">plumes of water and ammonia\u003c/a> into space from geyser-like crevasses, indicating the presence of sub-surface liquid water. At first the geysers were hypothesized to erupt from subsurface chambers similar to geysers on Earth, pressurized by tidally generated heat. More recently measurements by Cassini indicate the likely presence of a sizeable ocean of liquid water deep beneath the ice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Possible budget cuts at NASA have cast some doubt on Cassini’s longevity going forward, but even if the program were shut down tomorrow the decade Cassini has spent exploring the Saturn system has delivered a wealth of knowledge, not only about Saturn and its moons, but more broadly on the origins of our solar system.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Carbon-Tracking Satellite Will Monitor Earth's 'Breathing'",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18811\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/OCO-2_PIA18374_ip.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18811\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/OCO-2_PIA18374_ip.jpeg\" alt=\"Artist's conception of the OCO-2 satellite in orbit. Scientists hope it will yield the most precise picture yet of Earth's carbon cycle. (NASA-JPL)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist’s conception of the OCO-2 satellite in orbit. Scientists hope it will yield the most precise picture yet of Earth’s carbon cycle. (NASA-JPL)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It took five years, two launch vehicles and more than a half-billion dollars, but NASA scientists have at last attained their goal of putting a satellite in orbit that will help track carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, oceans and forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the first attempt five years ago, the first Orbiting Carbon Observatory \u003ca title=\"Spaceflight Now - post\" href=\"http://www.spaceflightnow.com/taurus/oco/failure.html\">never made it into orbit\u003c/a>. A piece of the nose cone designed to protect the satellite during launch never separated. Burdened with the extra weight, the satellite crashed into the ocean somewhere near Antarctica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday morning, NASA tried another launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s Central Coast. This one, \u003ca title=\"NASA - OCO-2 overview\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/oco2/overview/#.U7GW2C92elI\">dubbed OCO-2\u003c/a>, is riding a different launch vehicle and has a few tricks that the original OCO lacked. But with less than a minute to go, the scheduled 2:56 a.m. launch was scrubbed by a disruption in the water supply to the launch pad. NASA and contractor United Launch Alliance made another attempt on Wednesday morning that was successful. “Initial telemetry shows the spacecraft is in excellent condition,” NASA said in a post-launch release. They had only a 30-second launch window each day, in order to place the satellite exactly where it needs to be in orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18898\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/IMG_4655.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18898\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/IMG_4655.jpg\" alt=\"The service tower rolls back from the Delta II rocket that will carry the Oribiting Carbon Observatory into space. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The service tower at Vandenberg Air Force Base rolls back from the Delta II rocket that will carry the Orbiting Carbon Observatory into space. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Like the original, OCO-2 is designed to circle the Earth from pole to pole, mapping CO2 behavior on a grid similar to the globe’s lines of longitude. CO2 molecules absorb light according to their own unique pattern, so \u003ca title=\"NASA - OCO-2 instuments\" href=\"https://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/observatory/instrument/#\">onboard instruments\u003c/a> will break down reflected sunlight into spectral colors to measure atmospheric carbon with unprecedented precision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond that, the $465 million satellite is designed to track the way CO2 is absorbed by earthbound carbon sinks such as plant life and how it’s released by man-made and natural sources. Scientists say this will yield an accurate mosaic of the planet’s “breathing,” which will allow better forecasts of the buildup of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming and climate disruption.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The science is absolutely important,” said Mike Freilich, from a spot overlooking the launch pad on Monday. Freilich heads the Earth Science Division at NASA. “Understanding the naturally distributed sources and sinks of carbon — what the processes are in the ocean, what the processes are on land, is critical for us to be able to understand how the Earth will be able to evolve going in to the future with the 36 gigatons of carbon per year that we put in.” Then he added, “I think it’s a testament to the percieved importance of this mission that we got a second chance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OCO-2 will even be able to detect the tiny amount of heat and light emitted by plants during photosynthesis, which mission scientists say is another useful measure of carbon dioxide uptake. It could lead to much improved forecasts for crop yields, they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s amazing what you can see from 438 miles up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uP_fqEfYWg\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18811\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/OCO-2_PIA18374_ip.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18811\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/OCO-2_PIA18374_ip.jpeg\" alt=\"Artist's conception of the OCO-2 satellite in orbit. Scientists hope it will yield the most precise picture yet of Earth's carbon cycle. (NASA-JPL)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist’s conception of the OCO-2 satellite in orbit. Scientists hope it will yield the most precise picture yet of Earth’s carbon cycle. (NASA-JPL)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It took five years, two launch vehicles and more than a half-billion dollars, but NASA scientists have at last attained their goal of putting a satellite in orbit that will help track carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, oceans and forests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the first attempt five years ago, the first Orbiting Carbon Observatory \u003ca title=\"Spaceflight Now - post\" href=\"http://www.spaceflightnow.com/taurus/oco/failure.html\">never made it into orbit\u003c/a>. A piece of the nose cone designed to protect the satellite during launch never separated. Burdened with the extra weight, the satellite crashed into the ocean somewhere near Antarctica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday morning, NASA tried another launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s Central Coast. This one, \u003ca title=\"NASA - OCO-2 overview\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/oco2/overview/#.U7GW2C92elI\">dubbed OCO-2\u003c/a>, is riding a different launch vehicle and has a few tricks that the original OCO lacked. But with less than a minute to go, the scheduled 2:56 a.m. launch was scrubbed by a disruption in the water supply to the launch pad. NASA and contractor United Launch Alliance made another attempt on Wednesday morning that was successful. “Initial telemetry shows the spacecraft is in excellent condition,” NASA said in a post-launch release. They had only a 30-second launch window each day, in order to place the satellite exactly where it needs to be in orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18898\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/IMG_4655.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18898\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/IMG_4655.jpg\" alt=\"The service tower rolls back from the Delta II rocket that will carry the Oribiting Carbon Observatory into space. (Craig Miller/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The service tower at Vandenberg Air Force Base rolls back from the Delta II rocket that will carry the Orbiting Carbon Observatory into space. (Craig Miller/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Like the original, OCO-2 is designed to circle the Earth from pole to pole, mapping CO2 behavior on a grid similar to the globe’s lines of longitude. CO2 molecules absorb light according to their own unique pattern, so \u003ca title=\"NASA - OCO-2 instuments\" href=\"https://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/observatory/instrument/#\">onboard instruments\u003c/a> will break down reflected sunlight into spectral colors to measure atmospheric carbon with unprecedented precision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond that, the $465 million satellite is designed to track the way CO2 is absorbed by earthbound carbon sinks such as plant life and how it’s released by man-made and natural sources. Scientists say this will yield an accurate mosaic of the planet’s “breathing,” which will allow better forecasts of the buildup of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming and climate disruption.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The science is absolutely important,” said Mike Freilich, from a spot overlooking the launch pad on Monday. Freilich heads the Earth Science Division at NASA. “Understanding the naturally distributed sources and sinks of carbon — what the processes are in the ocean, what the processes are on land, is critical for us to be able to understand how the Earth will be able to evolve going in to the future with the 36 gigatons of carbon per year that we put in.” Then he added, “I think it’s a testament to the percieved importance of this mission that we got a second chance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OCO-2 will even be able to detect the tiny amount of heat and light emitted by plants during photosynthesis, which mission scientists say is another useful measure of carbon dioxide uptake. It could lead to much improved forecasts for crop yields, they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s amazing what you can see from 438 miles up.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/-uP_fqEfYWg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/-uP_fqEfYWg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18682\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/2012vp113.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18682\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/2012vp113.jpg\" alt=\"Discovery images of 2012 VP113. (Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Discovery images of 2012 VP113-red, green and blue show its position at times two hours apart. (Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some of us come from the generation who were taught that there were nine planets. Today, every eight-year-old can tell you there are only eight (as there have been their entire lives, ever since Pluto was conscripted into the troop of dwarf planets). But will the generation that is coming into the world today know more than eight, more than nine, solar planets? Some recent observations make this prospect sound like a strong possibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, the discovery of an object called \u003ca title=\"2012 VP113\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-supported-research-helps-redefine-solar-systems-edge/#.U6sv1JRdV8E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2012 VP113\u003c/a>, which may eventually fall under the classification of dwarf planet, was \u003ca title=\"2012 VP113 Youtube\" href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4pKnQxggLk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced \u003c/a>and joined a small group of other distant rocky bodies that have unusually aligned orbital paths. These objects are too small to have come to this alignment through mutual gravitational attraction, suggesting that a stronger gravitational source is orchestrating their motions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More recently, a research team in Spain has reexamined the orbital characteristics of this fleet and dug up more unusual patterns of behavior that suggests not one, but two distant massive solar planets may be at play. Not only did the researchers confirm the strangely aligned orbits of the small rocky objects, they found that some of them travel in very similar and greatly elongated paths — suggesting a pattern of orbital “resonance” with the unseen planets. An example of orbital resonance can be seen in a relationship between Neptune and Pluto, where Pluto has been tugged into a cadence of two orbits for every three of Neptune’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca title=\"Unseen massive planets beyond pluto\" href=\"http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25711-two-giant-planets-may-cruise-unseen-beyond-pluto.html#.U6rufpRdV8E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The two planetary players\u003c/a> in this vast game of night tennis would circle the sun at around 200 and 250 astronomical units (AU, where 1 AU equals 93 million miles, the sun-Earth distance) in nearly circular orbits, and each be considerably more massive than the Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">A solar system-sized game of night tennis?\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>We have not seen these planets directly; we have only inferred their existence and properties through observations of the smaller objects they influence, and only when those objects were close enough to Earth to be themselves detected. (Imagine watching that game of night tennis with the court lights turned off and with a glow-in-the-dark tennis ball. It’s something like that, maybe…). Though the players are indicated to be sizeable planets, they are over six times farther from us than Neptune and beyond the sight of today’s telescopes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phantom planets in our solar system have haunted us for years, and while some are truly ghosts of fiction or myth, such as the Earth-destroyer Nibiru, others have been unseen specters of science: Percival Lowell’s “Planet X” and the alleged comet-deflecting rabble rouser dubbed “Nemesis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Explorer (WISE) mission swept the entire sky with its infrared-sensitive gaze, looking for any large solar system objects orbiting in the distant reaches beyond Neptune. After WISE’s intensive search for heat sources, it was concluded that there should be no planets the size of Saturn within 10,000 astronomical units and no Jupiter-sized worlds within 26,000 AU of our sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t rule out smaller planets within that range, which is what the analysis by the team in Spain has placed back on the table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like travelers from distant and uncharted continents, the small and eccentric objects we observe as they pass by our shores bring us news of these previously unknown but imagined worlds. What’ll it be, nine planets, ten planets, more? I don’t know, but I’m thinking we might start just accepting that the number of planets in our solar system may be “X”.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18682\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/2012vp113.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18682\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/2012vp113.jpg\" alt=\"Discovery images of 2012 VP113. (Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Discovery images of 2012 VP113-red, green and blue show its position at times two hours apart. (Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some of us come from the generation who were taught that there were nine planets. Today, every eight-year-old can tell you there are only eight (as there have been their entire lives, ever since Pluto was conscripted into the troop of dwarf planets). But will the generation that is coming into the world today know more than eight, more than nine, solar planets? Some recent observations make this prospect sound like a strong possibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, the discovery of an object called \u003ca title=\"2012 VP113\" href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-supported-research-helps-redefine-solar-systems-edge/#.U6sv1JRdV8E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2012 VP113\u003c/a>, which may eventually fall under the classification of dwarf planet, was \u003ca title=\"2012 VP113 Youtube\" href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4pKnQxggLk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced \u003c/a>and joined a small group of other distant rocky bodies that have unusually aligned orbital paths. These objects are too small to have come to this alignment through mutual gravitational attraction, suggesting that a stronger gravitational source is orchestrating their motions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More recently, a research team in Spain has reexamined the orbital characteristics of this fleet and dug up more unusual patterns of behavior that suggests not one, but two distant massive solar planets may be at play. Not only did the researchers confirm the strangely aligned orbits of the small rocky objects, they found that some of them travel in very similar and greatly elongated paths — suggesting a pattern of orbital “resonance” with the unseen planets. An example of orbital resonance can be seen in a relationship between Neptune and Pluto, where Pluto has been tugged into a cadence of two orbits for every three of Neptune’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca title=\"Unseen massive planets beyond pluto\" href=\"http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25711-two-giant-planets-may-cruise-unseen-beyond-pluto.html#.U6rufpRdV8E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The two planetary players\u003c/a> in this vast game of night tennis would circle the sun at around 200 and 250 astronomical units (AU, where 1 AU equals 93 million miles, the sun-Earth distance) in nearly circular orbits, and each be considerably more massive than the Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">A solar system-sized game of night tennis?\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>We have not seen these planets directly; we have only inferred their existence and properties through observations of the smaller objects they influence, and only when those objects were close enough to Earth to be themselves detected. (Imagine watching that game of night tennis with the court lights turned off and with a glow-in-the-dark tennis ball. It’s something like that, maybe…). Though the players are indicated to be sizeable planets, they are over six times farther from us than Neptune and beyond the sight of today’s telescopes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phantom planets in our solar system have haunted us for years, and while some are truly ghosts of fiction or myth, such as the Earth-destroyer Nibiru, others have been unseen specters of science: Percival Lowell’s “Planet X” and the alleged comet-deflecting rabble rouser dubbed “Nemesis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Explorer (WISE) mission swept the entire sky with its infrared-sensitive gaze, looking for any large solar system objects orbiting in the distant reaches beyond Neptune. After WISE’s intensive search for heat sources, it was concluded that there should be no planets the size of Saturn within 10,000 astronomical units and no Jupiter-sized worlds within 26,000 AU of our sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t rule out smaller planets within that range, which is what the analysis by the team in Spain has placed back on the table.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like travelers from distant and uncharted continents, the small and eccentric objects we observe as they pass by our shores bring us news of these previously unknown but imagined worlds. What’ll it be, nine planets, ten planets, more? I don’t know, but I’m thinking we might start just accepting that the number of planets in our solar system may be “X”.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Studying Exoplanets: What A Thousand Points of Light Might Reveal About Earth",
"headTitle": "Studying Exoplanets: What A Thousand Points of Light Might Reveal About Earth | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18743\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/extrasolar-planets.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/extrasolar-planets.png\" alt=\"Exoplanet orbit\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18743\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The orbit of an exoplanet around its star affects the light emitted by the combined system, and the resulting patterns can be detected even in the stream of data from a single pixel. After Nicolas Cowan, “\u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EO250001/abstract\">The exoplanet opportunity: Top-down planetary science\u003c/a>,” \u003ci>Eos\u003c/i>, 24 June 2014. (Cowan/AGU)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since the century began, astronomers have been discovering new planets around other stars—exoplanets. This harvest of information has become a flood—NASA’s \u003ca href=\"http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/\">PlanetQuest site\u003c/a> now lists more than 5000 exoplanets. Almost all of them are represented by “impurities” in a stream of starlight, no more than a single pixel in extent, registered by a telescope in outer space. Planetary scientist \u003ca href=\"http://nickcowan.com/\">Nicolas Cowan\u003c/a> explains in a new paper that we can learn a lot from those thousand points of light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cowan, a researcher at Northwestern University, \u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EO250001/abstract\">writes in the June 24 issue of \u003ci>Eos\u003c/i>\u003c/a> that the thin trickle of light from an exoplanet can be analyzed in surprising detail given what we know about planets in general.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A big obstacle in studying exoplanets is dealing with the stars they orbit—suns like our own whose light may be a billion times brighter than the light from the exoplanet. There are mechanical ways to screen out the star that work in a few cases. Outside that ideal situation, we can still use numerical methods to isolate the stream of photons of exoplanetary light from the flood of stellar photons. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Think of the problem as a torrent of M&M candies, representing photons, pouring through a chute onto a table. Almost all of them are brown—that represents the star’s light—and a few are other colors representing light from the exoplanet. Those colors are different because an exoplanet can change the starlight falling upon it. For example, Earth directly reflects more sunlight in blue than it does in red, and its outer atmosphere absorbs incoming light and re-emits it at other wavelengths (ultraviolet during the day and thermal infrared at night). \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The diagram above shows some of the possibilities raised by the orbit of an exoplanet. When it goes behind the star (in eclipse) its light is lost entirely, and when it goes in front (in transit) it partially blocks the star. This data is very handy for helping separate the two streams of light when they’re mixed. As the exoplanet moves around its orbit, the mix of light it displays changes with time. In the gibbous phase, it reflects more light; in the crescent phase it displays more re-emitted light from the nightside. Over the course of the exoplanet’s orbit, all of these differences show up in that single pixel of light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The single pixel can even be cracked open a bit. As the exoplanet enters and leaves eclipse, it becomes possible to derive crude maps, as shown below in \u003ca href=\"http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1883v2\">another of Cowan’s recent papers\u003c/a>. And an exoplanet’s rotation also offers a way into the pixel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18744\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/exoplanetmap.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/exoplanetmap.png\" alt=\"exoplanet map\" width=\"600\" height=\"306\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18744\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two-dimensional map of exoplanet HD 189733b in infrared light, based on eclipses. The top part of the figure shows the geometry and math behind the method, combining ingress and egress light curves as the exoplanet moves from right to left behind its star. (\u003ca href=\"http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1883v2\">Cowan/Arxiv\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The late Carl Sagan famously called Earth a “pale blue dot” after a picture taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft from the edge of the solar system. In that image, Earth was barely a pixel across. What could we deduce about Earth from that single pixel? \u003ca href=\"http://m.iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/765/1/L17/article\">In a 2013 paper in \u003ci>The Astrophysical Journal Letters\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, Cowan and Talia Strait analyzed a set of one-pixel snapshots of Earth taken during the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main/\">Deep Impact space mission\u003c/a>. The snapshots, taken once an hour for 24 hours, represent a complete Earth day. Using well-known techniques (principal-component analysis) and no foreknowledge, the authors were able to tell the rough proportions of land, water and clouds visible as the Earth turned. This proof-of-concept exercise can be refined for use on any object, not just exoplanets but small bodies in our own solar system or, I suppose, enemy satellites. Given enough observations, it could tell a rotating planet from a nonrotating one, even if the planet had weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Techniques like these are already being used on exoplanets, although only a few dozen are represented so far. As the flood of new exoplanets continues, and as more of the smaller, Earth-sized bodies are documented, we will be able to pick out exoplanets like our own and bring the statistics of large numbers to bear on the question “How unusual is Earth?” As the answer to that emerges, we will make progress on another question: How unusual is life?\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18743\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/extrasolar-planets.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/extrasolar-planets.png\" alt=\"Exoplanet orbit\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18743\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The orbit of an exoplanet around its star affects the light emitted by the combined system, and the resulting patterns can be detected even in the stream of data from a single pixel. After Nicolas Cowan, “\u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EO250001/abstract\">The exoplanet opportunity: Top-down planetary science\u003c/a>,” \u003ci>Eos\u003c/i>, 24 June 2014. (Cowan/AGU)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Since the century began, astronomers have been discovering new planets around other stars—exoplanets. This harvest of information has become a flood—NASA’s \u003ca href=\"http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/\">PlanetQuest site\u003c/a> now lists more than 5000 exoplanets. Almost all of them are represented by “impurities” in a stream of starlight, no more than a single pixel in extent, registered by a telescope in outer space. Planetary scientist \u003ca href=\"http://nickcowan.com/\">Nicolas Cowan\u003c/a> explains in a new paper that we can learn a lot from those thousand points of light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cowan, a researcher at Northwestern University, \u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EO250001/abstract\">writes in the June 24 issue of \u003ci>Eos\u003c/i>\u003c/a> that the thin trickle of light from an exoplanet can be analyzed in surprising detail given what we know about planets in general.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A big obstacle in studying exoplanets is dealing with the stars they orbit—suns like our own whose light may be a billion times brighter than the light from the exoplanet. There are mechanical ways to screen out the star that work in a few cases. Outside that ideal situation, we can still use numerical methods to isolate the stream of photons of exoplanetary light from the flood of stellar photons. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Think of the problem as a torrent of M&M candies, representing photons, pouring through a chute onto a table. Almost all of them are brown—that represents the star’s light—and a few are other colors representing light from the exoplanet. Those colors are different because an exoplanet can change the starlight falling upon it. For example, Earth directly reflects more sunlight in blue than it does in red, and its outer atmosphere absorbs incoming light and re-emits it at other wavelengths (ultraviolet during the day and thermal infrared at night). \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The diagram above shows some of the possibilities raised by the orbit of an exoplanet. When it goes behind the star (in eclipse) its light is lost entirely, and when it goes in front (in transit) it partially blocks the star. This data is very handy for helping separate the two streams of light when they’re mixed. As the exoplanet moves around its orbit, the mix of light it displays changes with time. In the gibbous phase, it reflects more light; in the crescent phase it displays more re-emitted light from the nightside. Over the course of the exoplanet’s orbit, all of these differences show up in that single pixel of light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The single pixel can even be cracked open a bit. As the exoplanet enters and leaves eclipse, it becomes possible to derive crude maps, as shown below in \u003ca href=\"http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1883v2\">another of Cowan’s recent papers\u003c/a>. And an exoplanet’s rotation also offers a way into the pixel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18744\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/exoplanetmap.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/exoplanetmap.png\" alt=\"exoplanet map\" width=\"600\" height=\"306\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18744\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two-dimensional map of exoplanet HD 189733b in infrared light, based on eclipses. The top part of the figure shows the geometry and math behind the method, combining ingress and egress light curves as the exoplanet moves from right to left behind its star. (\u003ca href=\"http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1883v2\">Cowan/Arxiv\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The late Carl Sagan famously called Earth a “pale blue dot” after a picture taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 spacecraft from the edge of the solar system. In that image, Earth was barely a pixel across. What could we deduce about Earth from that single pixel? \u003ca href=\"http://m.iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/765/1/L17/article\">In a 2013 paper in \u003ci>The Astrophysical Journal Letters\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, Cowan and Talia Strait analyzed a set of one-pixel snapshots of Earth taken during the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main/\">Deep Impact space mission\u003c/a>. The snapshots, taken once an hour for 24 hours, represent a complete Earth day. Using well-known techniques (principal-component analysis) and no foreknowledge, the authors were able to tell the rough proportions of land, water and clouds visible as the Earth turned. This proof-of-concept exercise can be refined for use on any object, not just exoplanets but small bodies in our own solar system or, I suppose, enemy satellites. Given enough observations, it could tell a rotating planet from a nonrotating one, even if the planet had weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Techniques like these are already being used on exoplanets, although only a few dozen are represented so far. As the flood of new exoplanets continues, and as more of the smaller, Earth-sized bodies are documented, we will be able to pick out exoplanets like our own and bring the statistics of large numbers to bear on the question “How unusual is Earth?” As the answer to that emerges, we will make progress on another question: How unusual is life?\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Kepler 10c: An Unexpected Heavyweight Earth",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18114\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/kepler10c.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18114\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/kepler10c.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of exoplanet Kepler 10c (David Aguilar/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of exoplanet Kepler 10c (David Aguilar/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>How big can an Earth-like planet be? Astronomers thought they had a pretty good handle on this question but have just been given a fresh example for how nature never ceases to outpace our imaginations and show us something unexpected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That example is \u003ca title=\"NASA/JPL Kepler 10c\" href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-171&1&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&utm_content=daily20140602\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kepler 10c\u003c/a>, an \u003ca title=\"NASA Exoplanets\" href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/exoplanet-exploration/%20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">extrasolar planet\u003c/a> astronomers didn’t think could exist: a heavyweight “Earth” two-and-a-half times larger and 17 times more massive than our own welterweight home world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler 10c was originally spotted in the data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, the most productive extrasolar planet hunter to date. Its diameter was measured to be 2.3 times that of Earth’s, but at the time its mass was unknown. Common wisdom in the planetary formation community was confounded when later observations with the HARPS-North instrument at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo on the Canary Islands’ La Palma discovered that Kepler 10c weighs in at \u003cem>17 times\u003c/em> the Earth’s mass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before this discovery, planets with diameters between 1.7 and 3.9 that of Earth were classified as “\u003ca title=\"Gas Dwarf\" href=\"http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-gas-dwarfs-new-type-extrasolar-planets-01963.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">gas dwarfs\u003c/a>“: planets expected to have a heavy rocky core surrounded by an accumulated thick atmospheric envelope, more like a mini-Neptune than a maxi-Earth. But Kepler 10c’s calculated density pegs it as a rocky world like Earth: mostly solid, perhaps with a thin coating of atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was believed that such a massive solid planetary body would have developed a very thick sheath of gases during its formation, gravitationally snowballing to become a Neptune or even Jupiter-sized gas giant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the commotion of the upset of conventional planetary formation theory, this heavyweight Earth opens up a lot of possibilities to the imagination. Science fiction stories have mused about the idea of high-gravity planets where its characters strain under their own weight just to move around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A quick high school physics calculation shows that the surface gravity of Kepler 10c would be about 3.2 times what we’re used to. Imagine the exercise you would get just walking around: myself, I would be lugging around almost 700 pounds!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler 10c also has over five times the real estate of Earth, even when counting Earth’s solid surface and oceans–a lot more room for people to spread out in. Land might be a lot cheaper. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a hitch to anyone thinking of opening a gym or flipping real estate: Kepler 10c is very close to its star, making a complete orbit in only 45 days. This means it is a hot, giant heavyweight world: almost 1400 degrees Farenheit! (Might be a good place to open a health spa.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, Kepler 10c is definitely a horse of a different color. To date, \u003ca title=\"Confirmed and candidate exoplanets\" href=\"http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1,794 exoplanets have been confirmed\u003c/a> to exist, most of which fall into the larger “ice giant” (like Uranus and Neptune) or “gas giant” (Jupiter, Saturn) categories. With more recent discoveries of smaller planets that fall into categories like gas dwarf, super-Earth, Earth and sub-Earth sized, we may find that the possible characteristics of planets is even more diverse than what Kepler 10c has pushed us to imagine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now the scientific puzzle astronomers have to solve is how Kepler 10c developed into what it is today: new heavyweight record-breaking rocky planet champion of all time — for now….\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18114\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/kepler10c.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18114\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/06/kepler10c.jpg\" alt=\"Artist concept of exoplanet Kepler 10c (David Aguilar/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist concept of exoplanet Kepler 10c (David Aguilar/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>How big can an Earth-like planet be? Astronomers thought they had a pretty good handle on this question but have just been given a fresh example for how nature never ceases to outpace our imaginations and show us something unexpected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That example is \u003ca title=\"NASA/JPL Kepler 10c\" href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-171&1&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&utm_content=daily20140602\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kepler 10c\u003c/a>, an \u003ca title=\"NASA Exoplanets\" href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/exoplanet-exploration/%20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">extrasolar planet\u003c/a> astronomers didn’t think could exist: a heavyweight “Earth” two-and-a-half times larger and 17 times more massive than our own welterweight home world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler 10c was originally spotted in the data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, the most productive extrasolar planet hunter to date. Its diameter was measured to be 2.3 times that of Earth’s, but at the time its mass was unknown. Common wisdom in the planetary formation community was confounded when later observations with the HARPS-North instrument at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo on the Canary Islands’ La Palma discovered that Kepler 10c weighs in at \u003cem>17 times\u003c/em> the Earth’s mass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before this discovery, planets with diameters between 1.7 and 3.9 that of Earth were classified as “\u003ca title=\"Gas Dwarf\" href=\"http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-gas-dwarfs-new-type-extrasolar-planets-01963.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">gas dwarfs\u003c/a>“: planets expected to have a heavy rocky core surrounded by an accumulated thick atmospheric envelope, more like a mini-Neptune than a maxi-Earth. But Kepler 10c’s calculated density pegs it as a rocky world like Earth: mostly solid, perhaps with a thin coating of atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was believed that such a massive solid planetary body would have developed a very thick sheath of gases during its formation, gravitationally snowballing to become a Neptune or even Jupiter-sized gas giant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the commotion of the upset of conventional planetary formation theory, this heavyweight Earth opens up a lot of possibilities to the imagination. Science fiction stories have mused about the idea of high-gravity planets where its characters strain under their own weight just to move around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A quick high school physics calculation shows that the surface gravity of Kepler 10c would be about 3.2 times what we’re used to. Imagine the exercise you would get just walking around: myself, I would be lugging around almost 700 pounds!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kepler 10c also has over five times the real estate of Earth, even when counting Earth’s solid surface and oceans–a lot more room for people to spread out in. Land might be a lot cheaper. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a hitch to anyone thinking of opening a gym or flipping real estate: Kepler 10c is very close to its star, making a complete orbit in only 45 days. This means it is a hot, giant heavyweight world: almost 1400 degrees Farenheit! (Might be a good place to open a health spa.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, Kepler 10c is definitely a horse of a different color. To date, \u003ca title=\"Confirmed and candidate exoplanets\" href=\"http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1,794 exoplanets have been confirmed\u003c/a> to exist, most of which fall into the larger “ice giant” (like Uranus and Neptune) or “gas giant” (Jupiter, Saturn) categories. With more recent discoveries of smaller planets that fall into categories like gas dwarf, super-Earth, Earth and sub-Earth sized, we may find that the possible characteristics of planets is even more diverse than what Kepler 10c has pushed us to imagine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now the scientific puzzle astronomers have to solve is how Kepler 10c developed into what it is today: new heavyweight record-breaking rocky planet champion of all time — for now….\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "From 63 Light Years Away, An Exoplanet is Ready for Its Closeup",
"headTitle": "From 63 Light Years Away, An Exoplanet is Ready for Its Closeup | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_17823\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/betapictorisb.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17823\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17823\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/betapictorisb.jpg\" alt=\"GPI image of exoplanet Beta Pictoris b. (Processing by Christian Marois/NRC Canada)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">GPI image of exoplanet Beta Pictoris b. (Processing by Christian Marois/NRC Canada)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Recently, a major milestone in space exploration was reached: a planet was captured in a picture! That may not sound like a big deal; after all we’ve been enjoying beautiful, highly detailed color photography of planets—Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the rest—for a long time. The big deal is that the planet captured in this shot, a gas giant planet named \u003ca title=\"Beta Pictoris b\" href=\"http://www.solstation.com/stars2/beta-pic.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Beta Pictoris b\u003c/a>, is 63 light years away–over 100,000 times farther away than even Pluto.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Picture a planet 100,000 times farther away than Pluto\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The bigger deal, maybe, is that the instrument that captured Beta Pictoris b, the new \u003ca title=\"Gemini Planet Imager\" href=\"http://www.planetimager.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gemini Planet Imager\u003c/a> (GPI), did so without working up a sweat. Not only was it the first picture that GPI ever took, as a practice shot, it snapped it in only a minute—a feat that would have taken previous instruments over an hour to accomplish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GPI took this \u003ca title=\"GPI First Light\" href=\"http://www.gemini.edu/node/12113\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">maiden-voyage picture\u003c/a> (coined “first light” in the world of observational astronomy, when a new instrument is first exposed to photons from an object in space) last November. And though the planet Beta Pictoris b appears as a dot only a few pixels across, this is the best direct image of an exoplanet to date—and GPI’s capabilities go well beyond the production of images.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GPI is designed to reveal characteristics of its target planets like mass, composition, and even the material environment surrounding it. It is capable of detecting planets around Jupiter’s size orbiting their stars at distances between 5 and 40 Astronomical Units—a range that in our solar system spans the orbits of Jupiter to beyond Neptune. And of the over 1000 \u003ca title=\"Exoplanet Catalog\" href=\"http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">exoplanets currently known to exist\u003c/a>, most of these are gas giants—exactly the type of planet GPI is designed to observe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GPI is a currently operating at the Gemini South Observatory in Chile. It uses the technology of adaptive optics to remove the distortions created by Earth’s turbulent atmosphere, the age-old impediment to conventional ground-based telescopic observation. The heart of an \u003ca title=\"Adaptive Optics\" href=\"http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/technology/adaptive_optics/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">adaptive optics\u003c/a> system is a deformable, computer controlled mirror that adapts the shape of its surface to match waves of atmospheric turbulence, thus canceling them out—somewhat analogous to how noise-canceling headphones use samples of audio noise to cancel them out of what we are listening to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GPI also employs a “coronographic” mask to block off the intense brightness of a star in favor of seeing a planet as much as 10 million times fainter—just as you would use the sunshade in your car to block the sun’s disk in order to see the road and driving obstacles without being blinded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The adaptive optics allow astronomers to make observations with the clarity of a space-based telescope, like the Hubble, but with the comparatively much larger telescopes that can be built on the ground. In comparison, the Hubble’s primary mirror used to collect and focus light is only 2.4 meters in diameter, while the telescope the GPI instrument is currently using has a mirror 8 meters across and with over 10 times the light-collecting surface area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve come a long way in our ability to perceive planets orbiting other stars. From the first exoplanet detection in the early 1990s and for years after we could only infer the existence of other worlds in the universe indirectly, by a couple of techniques.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one method, as a planet orbits its star its gravity causes the star to wobble off center ever so slightly—but enough for us to measure minute shifts in the wavelengths of light emitted by the star. Using a spectroscope, which measures the different wavelengths of light in the star’s spectrum, we can detect the variation in the star’s motion toward and away from us as it wobbles. This is made possible by the Doppler Effect, the same phenomenon that the highway patrol uses to measure the speed of cars with a radar gun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another technique, the “transit” method, takes advantage of the fact that when a planet passes in front of its star it blocks out a small portion of the star’s light, which we can measure as a slight dimming of the star’s brightness. Though only a small fraction of extrasolar planetary systems can be detected by the transit method—those whose orbital planes are aligned with our line of sight to the star—a survey of the stars observed for transits by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft suggest that planetary systems are quite common in our galaxy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We won’t be seeing pictures of exoplanets that show details like cloud patterns, atmospheric storms, and polar vortexes anytime soon, but the richness of details that we can know about these distant worlds is improving all the time—and has taken a long stride forward with GPI. As we assess and refine our understanding of planets’ mass, atmospheric composition, temperature and other characteristics, our imaginative visions of alien worlds can only become better informed.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Recently, a major milestone in space exploration was reached: a planet was captured in a picture! The big deal is that the planet captured in this shot, a gas giant planet named Beta Pictoris b, is 63 light years away--over 100,000 times farther away than even Pluto.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_17823\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/betapictorisb.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17823\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17823\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/betapictorisb.jpg\" alt=\"GPI image of exoplanet Beta Pictoris b. (Processing by Christian Marois/NRC Canada)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">GPI image of exoplanet Beta Pictoris b. (Processing by Christian Marois/NRC Canada)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Recently, a major milestone in space exploration was reached: a planet was captured in a picture! That may not sound like a big deal; after all we’ve been enjoying beautiful, highly detailed color photography of planets—Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the rest—for a long time. The big deal is that the planet captured in this shot, a gas giant planet named \u003ca title=\"Beta Pictoris b\" href=\"http://www.solstation.com/stars2/beta-pic.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Beta Pictoris b\u003c/a>, is 63 light years away–over 100,000 times farther away than even Pluto.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Picture a planet 100,000 times farther away than Pluto\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The bigger deal, maybe, is that the instrument that captured Beta Pictoris b, the new \u003ca title=\"Gemini Planet Imager\" href=\"http://www.planetimager.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gemini Planet Imager\u003c/a> (GPI), did so without working up a sweat. Not only was it the first picture that GPI ever took, as a practice shot, it snapped it in only a minute—a feat that would have taken previous instruments over an hour to accomplish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GPI took this \u003ca title=\"GPI First Light\" href=\"http://www.gemini.edu/node/12113\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">maiden-voyage picture\u003c/a> (coined “first light” in the world of observational astronomy, when a new instrument is first exposed to photons from an object in space) last November. And though the planet Beta Pictoris b appears as a dot only a few pixels across, this is the best direct image of an exoplanet to date—and GPI’s capabilities go well beyond the production of images.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GPI is designed to reveal characteristics of its target planets like mass, composition, and even the material environment surrounding it. It is capable of detecting planets around Jupiter’s size orbiting their stars at distances between 5 and 40 Astronomical Units—a range that in our solar system spans the orbits of Jupiter to beyond Neptune. And of the over 1000 \u003ca title=\"Exoplanet Catalog\" href=\"http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">exoplanets currently known to exist\u003c/a>, most of these are gas giants—exactly the type of planet GPI is designed to observe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GPI is a currently operating at the Gemini South Observatory in Chile. It uses the technology of adaptive optics to remove the distortions created by Earth’s turbulent atmosphere, the age-old impediment to conventional ground-based telescopic observation. The heart of an \u003ca title=\"Adaptive Optics\" href=\"http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/technology/adaptive_optics/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">adaptive optics\u003c/a> system is a deformable, computer controlled mirror that adapts the shape of its surface to match waves of atmospheric turbulence, thus canceling them out—somewhat analogous to how noise-canceling headphones use samples of audio noise to cancel them out of what we are listening to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GPI also employs a “coronographic” mask to block off the intense brightness of a star in favor of seeing a planet as much as 10 million times fainter—just as you would use the sunshade in your car to block the sun’s disk in order to see the road and driving obstacles without being blinded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The adaptive optics allow astronomers to make observations with the clarity of a space-based telescope, like the Hubble, but with the comparatively much larger telescopes that can be built on the ground. In comparison, the Hubble’s primary mirror used to collect and focus light is only 2.4 meters in diameter, while the telescope the GPI instrument is currently using has a mirror 8 meters across and with over 10 times the light-collecting surface area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve come a long way in our ability to perceive planets orbiting other stars. From the first exoplanet detection in the early 1990s and for years after we could only infer the existence of other worlds in the universe indirectly, by a couple of techniques.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one method, as a planet orbits its star its gravity causes the star to wobble off center ever so slightly—but enough for us to measure minute shifts in the wavelengths of light emitted by the star. Using a spectroscope, which measures the different wavelengths of light in the star’s spectrum, we can detect the variation in the star’s motion toward and away from us as it wobbles. This is made possible by the Doppler Effect, the same phenomenon that the highway patrol uses to measure the speed of cars with a radar gun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another technique, the “transit” method, takes advantage of the fact that when a planet passes in front of its star it blocks out a small portion of the star’s light, which we can measure as a slight dimming of the star’s brightness. Though only a small fraction of extrasolar planetary systems can be detected by the transit method—those whose orbital planes are aligned with our line of sight to the star—a survey of the stars observed for transits by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft suggest that planetary systems are quite common in our galaxy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We won’t be seeing pictures of exoplanets that show details like cloud patterns, atmospheric storms, and polar vortexes anytime soon, but the richness of details that we can know about these distant worlds is improving all the time—and has taken a long stride forward with GPI. As we assess and refine our understanding of planets’ mass, atmospheric composition, temperature and other characteristics, our imaginative visions of alien worlds can only become better informed.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "May Camelopardalids, We Hardly Saw You",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_137213\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/05/ISSCamelopardalidsLMalcolmPark.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-137213\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/05/ISSCamelopardalidsLMalcolmPark-640x425.jpg\" alt=\"Proof that the Camelopardalids were real: a composite time-lapse taken near Lake Erie, with the International Space Station accounting for the bright streak at the image's center. (Malcolm Park/North York Astronomical Association)\" width=\"640\" height=\"425\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Proof that the Camelopardalids were real: a composite time-lapse taken near Lake Erie, with the International Space Station accounting for the bright streak at the image's center. (Malcolm Park/North York Astronomical Association)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It's a shame about the May Camelopardalids. This year's \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/05/23/tonights-meteor-shower-never-before-seen-and-maybe-up-to-200-an-hour/\" target=\"_blank\">most-hyped potential meteor shower\u003c/a> didn't pan out, to the chagrin and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23meteorshower&src=typd\" target=\"_blanks\">oft-tweeted plaints\u003c/a> of the multitudes who stayed up late Friday and early Saturday to scan the heavens for possible fireworks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reason so many were watching was the mere suggestion that the Camelopardalids — \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/watchtheskies/how-to-say-camelopardalids.html#.U4TqbvldV8H\" target=\"_blank\">here's how to say that\u003c/a> — could be an event on par with \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Brand-New-Meteor-Shower.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">the unforgettable 2001 Leonids\u003c/a>. With the vision of that meteor storm in my memory, I stayed up in a Berkeley backyard to see exactly zero meteors over a 90-minute period. I know a few people who say they saw one or two meteors, possible Camelopardalids, but nothing more than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I did get something out of it. First off, a reacquaintance with the summer constellations as the climbed into the midnight sky. \u003ca href=\"http://www.topastronomer.com/StarCharts/Constellations/Hercules.php\" target=\"_blank\">Hercules\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.topastronomer.com/StarCharts/Constellations/Bootes.php\" target=\"_blank\">Bootes\u003c/a>, how ya doin'?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Second, I've come across some beautiful technology-assisted images of the Camelopardalids sky show. We're partial to the picture above, shot by Toronto photographer Malcolm Park. Click on that image for a larger version, which shows three short meteor trails emerging pretty closely from the shower's radiant point in the contellation Camelopardalis. Also featured: a nice bright pass of the International Space Station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Third and last: A reminder of how much we don't know about our cosmic neighborhood. One of the reasons astronomers were excited by the May Camelopardalids was the fact they simply didn't know what to expect. As NASA said last week, astronomers don't know much about the relatively recently discovered Comet 209P/LINEAR or the debris trail it has left behind — the potential source of the Camelopardalids shower. So, the very fact the meteors were a no-show provided valuable information to those studying the solar system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_137213\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/05/ISSCamelopardalidsLMalcolmPark.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-137213\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/05/ISSCamelopardalidsLMalcolmPark-640x425.jpg\" alt=\"Proof that the Camelopardalids were real: a composite time-lapse taken near Lake Erie, with the International Space Station accounting for the bright streak at the image's center. (Malcolm Park/North York Astronomical Association)\" width=\"640\" height=\"425\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Proof that the Camelopardalids were real: a composite time-lapse taken near Lake Erie, with the International Space Station accounting for the bright streak at the image's center. (Malcolm Park/North York Astronomical Association)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It's a shame about the May Camelopardalids. This year's \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/05/23/tonights-meteor-shower-never-before-seen-and-maybe-up-to-200-an-hour/\" target=\"_blank\">most-hyped potential meteor shower\u003c/a> didn't pan out, to the chagrin and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23meteorshower&src=typd\" target=\"_blanks\">oft-tweeted plaints\u003c/a> of the multitudes who stayed up late Friday and early Saturday to scan the heavens for possible fireworks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reason so many were watching was the mere suggestion that the Camelopardalids — \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/watchtheskies/how-to-say-camelopardalids.html#.U4TqbvldV8H\" target=\"_blank\">here's how to say that\u003c/a> — could be an event on par with \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Brand-New-Meteor-Shower.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">the unforgettable 2001 Leonids\u003c/a>. With the vision of that meteor storm in my memory, I stayed up in a Berkeley backyard to see exactly zero meteors over a 90-minute period. I know a few people who say they saw one or two meteors, possible Camelopardalids, but nothing more than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I did get something out of it. First off, a reacquaintance with the summer constellations as the climbed into the midnight sky. \u003ca href=\"http://www.topastronomer.com/StarCharts/Constellations/Hercules.php\" target=\"_blank\">Hercules\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.topastronomer.com/StarCharts/Constellations/Bootes.php\" target=\"_blank\">Bootes\u003c/a>, how ya doin'?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Second, I've come across some beautiful technology-assisted images of the Camelopardalids sky show. We're partial to the picture above, shot by Toronto photographer Malcolm Park. Click on that image for a larger version, which shows three short meteor trails emerging pretty closely from the shower's radiant point in the contellation Camelopardalis. Also featured: a nice bright pass of the International Space Station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Third and last: A reminder of how much we don't know about our cosmic neighborhood. One of the reasons astronomers were excited by the May Camelopardalids was the fact they simply didn't know what to expect. As NASA said last week, astronomers don't know much about the relatively recently discovered Comet 209P/LINEAR or the debris trail it has left behind — the potential source of the Camelopardalids shower. So, the very fact the meteors were a no-show provided valuable information to those studying the solar system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Tonight's Meteor Shower: Never Before Seen and Maybe Up to 200 an Hour ",
"title": "Tonight's Meteor Shower: Never Before Seen and Maybe Up to 200 an Hour ",
"headTitle": "News Fix | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_137014\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/05/176451971.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-137014\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/05/176451971-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"This long-exposure photograph of the Perseid meteor shower, taken on Aug. 12, 2013, shows the Milky Way in the clear night sky near Yangon, Burma. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This long-exposure photograph of the Perseid meteor shower, taken on Aug. 12, 2013, shows the Milky Way in the clear night sky near Yangon, Burma. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It could be spectacular or it could be a total washout. But if tonight's meteor shower is in top form, it will be a thrilling and unprecedented experience, with perhaps an average of 200 shooting stars an hour hurtling across the sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If all goes well, it will exceed the Perseids and the Leonids,\" Ben Burress, an astronomer at Chabot Space & Science Center, told KQED. \"If this is a real gold strike and we get 1,000 an hour, it's like something people probably haven't seen in their lifetimes.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Friday afternoon, Burress said he was \"cautiously optimistic\" about the May Camelopardalids, which are as unpredictable as they are unpronounceable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Since this is brand-new, it's like an unwrapped present,\" Burress said. \"You don't know what's in the box.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.chabotspace.org/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Chabot\u003c/a> will open its gates for a star party tonight from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. The fee is $5. Burress said good spots to watch for free include the slopes of Mount Diablo, Sunol, Henry Coe State Park, the Santa Cruz Mountains and up and down the Peninsula near Skyline Boulevard. There is also a list put out by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfaa-astronomy.org/star_parties/dark_sky/\" target=\"_blank\">San Francisco Amateur Astronomers,\u003c/a> which rates the best dark-sky sites in the Bay Area. It says 1 is lame and 10 is awesome. In the Bay Area, Del Valle Reservoir near Livermore gets nine stars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, given that the meteor shower could be, as Burress put it, a \"complete dud,\" he suggested driving no more than a half-hour to check it out. As a rule of thumb, he said, people should look for dark skies with a clear view of the northern horizon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The meteor shower is tentatively named after the constellation it will be flying out of, which is close to the North Star and translates into \"camel leopard\" or \"giraffe-like creature.\" So far, according to NASA's website, there isn't even agreement on how to pronounce the shower. Is the accent on the PAR or the MEL or the DAL? Depends on whom you ask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As NASA explains it, Earth will travel through debris that was ejected from a comet in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. A meteor shower will be the byproduct, provided that this comet, named 209P/LINEAR, was actively producing lots of dust. It will be slow, in terms of meteor speed, but will still be moving at 36,000 mph.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It goes around the sun every five years,\" Burress said, who added that astronomers are interested in keeping an eye on this comet because it crosses Earth's orbit. A fairly recent shift in the comet's orbit has moved the dust stream into Earth's path.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In the past we never passed through it, even though it was there in space,\" Burress said. \"Since we've never seen this shower before, we really don't know what's going to happen. There have been a lot of predictions about meteor storms, where you see 200 or 300 meteors per hour.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others have said it could flame out as badly as a Philadelphia sports team. \"But the consensus is that people are hopeful this could be a nice, showy shower,\" Burress said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/2DMap_full.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">map\u003c/a> from NASA might be helpful. The forecast is for clear skies. But if the weather is crummy or you're paralyzed by sloth and inertia, you can watch NASA's \u003ca href=\"http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc\" target=\"_blank\">live stream\u003c/a>, which is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. There will also be a live chat on the NASA website 8-11 p.m. PDT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA, not surprisingly, has posted \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Brand-New-Meteor-Shower.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">a lot of information\u003c/a> about the showers, and says that \"North America has a pretty good seat for this cosmic event.\" It also noted that, \"Any data we collect about the May Camelopardalids this year will shed some light (no pun intended) on how much dust 209P produced in the past. So even no data is good data, as they say.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The point-of-origin constellation is not well known, NASA said, but it's roughly between Ursa Major and Cassiopeia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here's one of the questions in the FAQ put out by NASA:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Q: My skies are dark and cloud-free but I’m still not seeing any meteors! Why not?!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A: There are a couple of possibilities. (1) The comet wasn’t very active 200+ years ago, and therefore didn’t produce many meteoroids. So the meteor shower is much weaker than predicted. (2) You need to have patience. You also need to make sure your eyes are adapted to the dark – this takes about 45 minutes. Make sure you don’t keep looking at your phone or other sources of light, else your eyes will have to start the dark adaptation process all over again.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>If tonight's meteor shower doesn't wimp out, it could join the ranks of the Gemenids, Leonids and Perseids, Burress said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The Old Faithfuls are pretty predictable,\" Burress said. \"And hopefully this will become an Old Faithful in the future.\"\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_137014\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/05/176451971.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-137014\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/05/176451971-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"This long-exposure photograph of the Perseid meteor shower, taken on Aug. 12, 2013, shows the Milky Way in the clear night sky near Yangon, Burma. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This long-exposure photograph of the Perseid meteor shower, taken on Aug. 12, 2013, shows the Milky Way in the clear night sky near Yangon, Burma. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It could be spectacular or it could be a total washout. But if tonight's meteor shower is in top form, it will be a thrilling and unprecedented experience, with perhaps an average of 200 shooting stars an hour hurtling across the sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If all goes well, it will exceed the Perseids and the Leonids,\" Ben Burress, an astronomer at Chabot Space & Science Center, told KQED. \"If this is a real gold strike and we get 1,000 an hour, it's like something people probably haven't seen in their lifetimes.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Friday afternoon, Burress said he was \"cautiously optimistic\" about the May Camelopardalids, which are as unpredictable as they are unpronounceable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Since this is brand-new, it's like an unwrapped present,\" Burress said. \"You don't know what's in the box.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.chabotspace.org/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Chabot\u003c/a> will open its gates for a star party tonight from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. The fee is $5. Burress said good spots to watch for free include the slopes of Mount Diablo, Sunol, Henry Coe State Park, the Santa Cruz Mountains and up and down the Peninsula near Skyline Boulevard. There is also a list put out by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfaa-astronomy.org/star_parties/dark_sky/\" target=\"_blank\">San Francisco Amateur Astronomers,\u003c/a> which rates the best dark-sky sites in the Bay Area. It says 1 is lame and 10 is awesome. In the Bay Area, Del Valle Reservoir near Livermore gets nine stars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, given that the meteor shower could be, as Burress put it, a \"complete dud,\" he suggested driving no more than a half-hour to check it out. As a rule of thumb, he said, people should look for dark skies with a clear view of the northern horizon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The meteor shower is tentatively named after the constellation it will be flying out of, which is close to the North Star and translates into \"camel leopard\" or \"giraffe-like creature.\" So far, according to NASA's website, there isn't even agreement on how to pronounce the shower. Is the accent on the PAR or the MEL or the DAL? Depends on whom you ask.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As NASA explains it, Earth will travel through debris that was ejected from a comet in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. A meteor shower will be the byproduct, provided that this comet, named 209P/LINEAR, was actively producing lots of dust. It will be slow, in terms of meteor speed, but will still be moving at 36,000 mph.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It goes around the sun every five years,\" Burress said, who added that astronomers are interested in keeping an eye on this comet because it crosses Earth's orbit. A fairly recent shift in the comet's orbit has moved the dust stream into Earth's path.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In the past we never passed through it, even though it was there in space,\" Burress said. \"Since we've never seen this shower before, we really don't know what's going to happen. There have been a lot of predictions about meteor storms, where you see 200 or 300 meteors per hour.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others have said it could flame out as badly as a Philadelphia sports team. \"But the consensus is that people are hopeful this could be a nice, showy shower,\" Burress said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/2DMap_full.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">map\u003c/a> from NASA might be helpful. The forecast is for clear skies. But if the weather is crummy or you're paralyzed by sloth and inertia, you can watch NASA's \u003ca href=\"http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc\" target=\"_blank\">live stream\u003c/a>, which is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. There will also be a live chat on the NASA website 8-11 p.m. PDT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA, not surprisingly, has posted \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Brand-New-Meteor-Shower.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">a lot of information\u003c/a> about the showers, and says that \"North America has a pretty good seat for this cosmic event.\" It also noted that, \"Any data we collect about the May Camelopardalids this year will shed some light (no pun intended) on how much dust 209P produced in the past. So even no data is good data, as they say.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The point-of-origin constellation is not well known, NASA said, but it's roughly between Ursa Major and Cassiopeia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here's one of the questions in the FAQ put out by NASA:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Q: My skies are dark and cloud-free but I’m still not seeing any meteors! Why not?!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A: There are a couple of possibilities. (1) The comet wasn’t very active 200+ years ago, and therefore didn’t produce many meteoroids. So the meteor shower is much weaker than predicted. (2) You need to have patience. You also need to make sure your eyes are adapted to the dark – this takes about 45 minutes. Make sure you don’t keep looking at your phone or other sources of light, else your eyes will have to start the dark adaptation process all over again.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>If tonight's meteor shower doesn't wimp out, it could join the ranks of the Gemenids, Leonids and Perseids, Burress said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The Old Faithfuls are pretty predictable,\" Burress said. \"And hopefully this will become an Old Faithful in the future.\"\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Major Solar Storm Narrowly Misses Earth",
"headTitle": "Major Solar Storm Narrowly Misses Earth | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_17537\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/cme2012-stereo.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17537\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17537\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/cme2012-stereo.jpg\" alt=\"Super CME of July 22 2012. The sun, hidden behind the black disk, is located at the white circle. (STEREO/NASA)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Super CME of July 22 2012. The sun, hidden behind the black disk, is located at the white circle. (STEREO/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On July 22, 2012, a solar Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) of possibly the greatest recorded strength in history blasted by Earth’s orbit at a speed of 3000 kilometers per second, four times faster than a typical CME. Had it impacted Earth’s protective magnetic field, we could have experienced major disruptions in communication, brilliant \u003ca title=\"Auroras\" href=\"http://www.exploratorium.edu/auroras/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">aurora\u003c/a> displays at tropical latitudes, damage to orbital satellites and possibly even major power blackouts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fortunately, the shot only crossed our bow and flew harmlessly into space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>July 2012 may sound like ancient history, but we can take this story as a reminder that today the sun is still riding the same high of solar activity that fueled this super-storm, and that it serves us well to keep our eye on that big orb in the sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The eruption was detected and tracked by NASA’s twin \u003ca title=\"NASA/STEREO\" href=\"http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/perfectstorm.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">STEREO\u003c/a> spacecraft and the European Space Agency’s \u003ca title=\"SOHO\" href=\"http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SOHO\u003c/a> satellite. By observing the high-speed mega-bubble of ionized gas from three different vantage points, STEREO and SOHO scientists were able to very accurately triangulate its speed and direction and also formulate an explanation for why this CME was so much faster than ordinary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It appears that the path of this super-CME was cleared out by another CME that preceded it only 10 to 15 minutes earlier. This had the effect of clearing the plasma and straightening the magnetic field of the normal ubiquitous solar wind, allowing the second CME to travel more freely—maybe similar to how a bicyclist following in the wake of a truck encounters less wind resistance and can move faster than normal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca title=\"Solar Flares and CMEs\" href=\"http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/cme.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Solar flares and CMEs\u003c/a> usually pass unnoticed by those not using high-tech telescopes and sensors on space-based observatories. Even when a CME impacts the Earth, its effects are mostly invisible in our daily experience. But occasionally we get a reminder that the sun is not merely a quietly glowing ball that warmly imparts the energy that sustains life on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Energy generated by nuclear fusion in the sun’s core constantly flows outward through the sun’s layers and into space, most benignly as sunlight. But some of that energy generates powerful magnetic fields that build up in locations on the sun’s surface and atmosphere. Just as when a rubber band breaks when twisted too tightly, the wound-up magnetic fields can reach a breaking point and snap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When that happens, we see solar flares that superheat the sun’s atmosphere to millions of degrees and send out intense bursts of high-energy X-rays, and CMEs that belch out billions of tons of hydrogen plasma at typical speeds of a million miles an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Solar magnetic activity rises and falls over an 11-year period: one \u003ca title=\"Solar Cycle\" href=\"http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">solar cycle\u003c/a>. At periods of minimal activity the sun is relatively quiet and the telltale markers of magnetic concentrations that we call sunspots are rarely seen for months at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We are presently near the peak of activity of a cycle at “solar maximum.” The present cycle, number 24, has been less intense than cycles in recent history, with fewer and smaller sunspots and less flare and CME activity. But the epic CME in July 2012 shows us that even a lesser solar maximum can pack a punch on occasion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, it was during another similarly lethargic solar maximum in the 19th Century, that of solar cycle 10, when a major CME did impact the Earth and gave us our first insights into the connection between activity on the sun and its effects on Earth. Named the \u003ca title=\"Carrington Event\" href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Carrington Event\u003c/a> for the British amateur astronomer, Richard Carrington, who observed and recorded its effects in 1859, it was powerful enough to make its presence known even at a time before the existence of high-tech space telescopes and high energy electromagnetic detectors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carrington and another observer, Richard Hodgson, independently observed a brilliant solar flare that triggered a high-velocity CME. Eighteen hours later the CME arrived at Earth, firing up the auroras. They are normally only visible at extreme Arctic and Antarctic latitudes, but during this event became visible over much of the Earth — as far into the tropics as Tahiti and Cuba. The disturbance to Earth’s magnetic field induced electrical currents that caused telegraph lines to spark and even set fire to some telegraph offices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Should a super-CME like the Carrington Event or the solar storm of July 2012 strike the Earth today, the results would likely be far more damaging than a few telegraph offices going up in smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today we live in a world far more vulnerable to solar activity; our electronic, wireless, and computerized technologies are sensitive to electrical surges and electromagnetic blasts. We rely on orbital satellites for communication and surveillance, satellites that are at the front lines of any onslaught by a solar storm. Some have estimated the damage that would be caused by a direct impact might total a couple of trillion dollars, 20 times the amount caused by Hurricane Katrina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The good news? We observe the sun and its activity constantly with spacecraft like STEREO that can track CMEs and predict impacts with Earth. So at least we’d have a few hours’ warning.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Two years ago, a solar coronal mass ejection of possibly the greatest recorded strength in history blasted by Earth's orbit. Had it impacted Earth's protective magnetic field, we could have experienced major disruptions in communication, brilliant aurora displays at tropical latitudes, damage to orbital satellites and possibly even major power blackouts.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_17537\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 630px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/cme2012-stereo.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-17537\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17537\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/05/cme2012-stereo.jpg\" alt=\"Super CME of July 22 2012. The sun, hidden behind the black disk, is located at the white circle. (STEREO/NASA)\" width=\"630\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Super CME of July 22 2012. The sun, hidden behind the black disk, is located at the white circle. (STEREO/NASA)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On July 22, 2012, a solar Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) of possibly the greatest recorded strength in history blasted by Earth’s orbit at a speed of 3000 kilometers per second, four times faster than a typical CME. Had it impacted Earth’s protective magnetic field, we could have experienced major disruptions in communication, brilliant \u003ca title=\"Auroras\" href=\"http://www.exploratorium.edu/auroras/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">aurora\u003c/a> displays at tropical latitudes, damage to orbital satellites and possibly even major power blackouts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fortunately, the shot only crossed our bow and flew harmlessly into space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>July 2012 may sound like ancient history, but we can take this story as a reminder that today the sun is still riding the same high of solar activity that fueled this super-storm, and that it serves us well to keep our eye on that big orb in the sky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The eruption was detected and tracked by NASA’s twin \u003ca title=\"NASA/STEREO\" href=\"http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/perfectstorm.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">STEREO\u003c/a> spacecraft and the European Space Agency’s \u003ca title=\"SOHO\" href=\"http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SOHO\u003c/a> satellite. By observing the high-speed mega-bubble of ionized gas from three different vantage points, STEREO and SOHO scientists were able to very accurately triangulate its speed and direction and also formulate an explanation for why this CME was so much faster than ordinary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It appears that the path of this super-CME was cleared out by another CME that preceded it only 10 to 15 minutes earlier. This had the effect of clearing the plasma and straightening the magnetic field of the normal ubiquitous solar wind, allowing the second CME to travel more freely—maybe similar to how a bicyclist following in the wake of a truck encounters less wind resistance and can move faster than normal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca title=\"Solar Flares and CMEs\" href=\"http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/cme.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Solar flares and CMEs\u003c/a> usually pass unnoticed by those not using high-tech telescopes and sensors on space-based observatories. Even when a CME impacts the Earth, its effects are mostly invisible in our daily experience. But occasionally we get a reminder that the sun is not merely a quietly glowing ball that warmly imparts the energy that sustains life on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Energy generated by nuclear fusion in the sun’s core constantly flows outward through the sun’s layers and into space, most benignly as sunlight. But some of that energy generates powerful magnetic fields that build up in locations on the sun’s surface and atmosphere. Just as when a rubber band breaks when twisted too tightly, the wound-up magnetic fields can reach a breaking point and snap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When that happens, we see solar flares that superheat the sun’s atmosphere to millions of degrees and send out intense bursts of high-energy X-rays, and CMEs that belch out billions of tons of hydrogen plasma at typical speeds of a million miles an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Solar magnetic activity rises and falls over an 11-year period: one \u003ca title=\"Solar Cycle\" href=\"http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">solar cycle\u003c/a>. At periods of minimal activity the sun is relatively quiet and the telltale markers of magnetic concentrations that we call sunspots are rarely seen for months at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We are presently near the peak of activity of a cycle at “solar maximum.” The present cycle, number 24, has been less intense than cycles in recent history, with fewer and smaller sunspots and less flare and CME activity. But the epic CME in July 2012 shows us that even a lesser solar maximum can pack a punch on occasion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, it was during another similarly lethargic solar maximum in the 19th Century, that of solar cycle 10, when a major CME did impact the Earth and gave us our first insights into the connection between activity on the sun and its effects on Earth. Named the \u003ca title=\"Carrington Event\" href=\"http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Carrington Event\u003c/a> for the British amateur astronomer, Richard Carrington, who observed and recorded its effects in 1859, it was powerful enough to make its presence known even at a time before the existence of high-tech space telescopes and high energy electromagnetic detectors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carrington and another observer, Richard Hodgson, independently observed a brilliant solar flare that triggered a high-velocity CME. Eighteen hours later the CME arrived at Earth, firing up the auroras. They are normally only visible at extreme Arctic and Antarctic latitudes, but during this event became visible over much of the Earth — as far into the tropics as Tahiti and Cuba. The disturbance to Earth’s magnetic field induced electrical currents that caused telegraph lines to spark and even set fire to some telegraph offices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Should a super-CME like the Carrington Event or the solar storm of July 2012 strike the Earth today, the results would likely be far more damaging than a few telegraph offices going up in smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today we live in a world far more vulnerable to solar activity; our electronic, wireless, and computerized technologies are sensitive to electrical surges and electromagnetic blasts. We rely on orbital satellites for communication and surveillance, satellites that are at the front lines of any onslaught by a solar storm. Some have estimated the damage that would be caused by a direct impact might total a couple of trillion dollars, 20 times the amount caused by Hurricane Katrina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The good news? We observe the sun and its activity constantly with spacecraft like STEREO that can track CMEs and predict impacts with Earth. So at least we’d have a few hours’ warning.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"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.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Bay-Curious-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/news/series/baycurious",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 3
},
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}
},
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"id": "bbc-world-service",
"title": "BBC World Service",
"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9pm-10pm, TUE-FRI 1am-2am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_world_service",
"meta": {
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"source": "BBC World Service"
},
"link": "/radio/program/bbc-world-service",
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"rss": "https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0gn.rss"
}
},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
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}
},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 1
},
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"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/code-switch-life-kit",
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},
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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.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/commonwealth-club-of-california-podcast/id976334034?mt=2",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
"link": "/forum",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"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.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"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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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"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"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"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",
"subscribe": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"
}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
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