Ongoing important Science news thread

[polak]

Nasa has the best Instagram account!

[Vulcan]

Article on how we will get off Mars.

Instead, the vehicle would need to be pre-assembled and sent to the red planet—years before the astronauts arrive—where it would make its own propellant by squeezing it out of the thin Martian atmosphere.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2...m_rd=637522729

[sureLoss]

Have we found a possible alien Dyson Sphere?

http://www.popsci.com/alien-megastru...to-investigate

Skywatchers have noticed something "bizarre" in the data from the planet-hunting Kepler telescope. Located 1,480 light-years away, a star named KIC 8462852 has something big circling around it, and it's not a planet.
Usually when a planet passes in front of a star, it dims the star's light for a few hours or days, then disappears and returns again after completing its yearly revolution around its sun. But this particular star's light has dimmed for up to 80 days at a time, and at irregular intervals. That's no planet.
Nor is it likely to be a clot of dust and rocks. Those sorts of debris disks are only known to occur around young stars, and this star is not a young 'un. Plus, debris usually gives off extra infrared radiation, which is not the case here. The data has been validated by the Kepler team, and the telescope was functioning fine when it collected the data.
Perhaps the star's light is being blocked by huge pieces of alien architecture.
That leaves just a few possible explanations. One is that perhaps a wandering star pulled foreign comets into orbit around the star. Such a phenomenon is probably rare. "It's a bit of a stretch," says Andrew Siemion, a scientist with Berkeley's SETI center. The mysterious object(s) are blocking up to 20 percent of the star's light, which is much, much more than even a Jupiter-sized planet would block.

[Regulator75]

Some kinda newsbreaker? lol, stick to the Flames.

Scroll up.

[troutman]

http://uk.businessinsider.com/what-a...5-10?r=US&IR=T

As Penn State astronomer Kimberly Cartier told Business Insider about the coverage: "It's gotten a bit out of hand." What's more, she said that the probability of this exciting, yet wildly confusing, observation being aliens is "very low."

She also emphasized: "Just to clarify, neither [my colleague] Jason [Wright] or myself ... are advocating that it is an alien megastructure, but we also can't completely rule it out."

What Wright would like to do next is take what are called spectra of the star. Spectra are a critical tool in astronomy that allows researchers to essentially take a chemical fingerprint of an object that tells them what it's made of.

"I want to see spectra when its dim and spectra when its bright and compare the two," Wright said. "And the difference should tell us what the light is passing through and tell us whatever is blocking it, what that's made of. That will be very diagnostic."

[troutman]

Why haven't we found aliens?

Most Earth-Like Worlds Have Yet to be Born

http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press...yet-to-be-born

Earth came early to the party in the evolving universe. According to a new theoretical study published today (20 October) in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, when our Solar System was born 4.6 billion years ago only eight percent of the potentially habitable planets that will ever form in the universe existed. And, the party won't be over when the sun burns out in another 6 billion years. The bulk of those planets - 92 percent - have yet to be born.

This conclusion is based on an assessment of data collected by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the prolific planet-hunting Kepler space observatory.

[Thor]

Would make a lot of sense, which is great if true because we could be the forefathers of a dominant species which will rule the Universe!

[troutman]

There should still be billions of worlds as old as Earth.

[Thor]

Well we need to step up our game and become the dominant species by conquering those inferior to us and building alliances with other warlike species.

[photon]

An alternative answer to the Fermi Paradox.. someone has to be first.

[Regulator75]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-s...undy-1.3280246

A Nova Scotia landmark changed dramatically overnight Monday as the power of Mother Nature collapsed the sea arch on Long Island in the Minas Basin.

"I looked out the window this morning and I had to look twice," said Harold Nesbitt, who just moved to the area in July because of the view of Five Islands, which includes Long Island.

"I went, 'Where's the hole?"' he told CBC News.

Nesbitt, who with his wife, Wendy Nesbitt, writes the Motorcycle Tour Guide: Nova Scotia & Atlantic Canada, said the arch was unusual — "a tunnel through the island with the Bay of Fundy on the other side."

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by troutman

Why haven't we found aliens?

Most Earth-Like Worlds Have Yet to be Born

http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press...yet-to-be-born

Earth came early to the party in the evolving universe. According to a new theoretical study published today (20 October) in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, when our Solar System was born 4.6 billion years ago only eight percent of the potentially habitable planets that will ever form in the universe existed. And, the party won't be over when the sun burns out in another 6 billion years. The bulk of those planets - 92 percent - have yet to be born.

This conclusion is based on an assessment of data collected by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the prolific planet-hunting Kepler space observatory.

But this only applies to the observable universe. For obvious reasons, we cannot observe whether this is true of regions outside of the observable universe.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Article on how we will get off Mars.

I think a reach around would be best.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

In reference to Troutman's earlier post about world population density, my new word for supporting something stupid that will eventually lead to the destruction of all of humanity is, 'pulling a Galka'.

Living in densely packed cities simply is much more efficient.

[polak]

SETI has already started observing the earths favorite second star:

http://www.universetoday.com/122971/...r-kic-8462852/

Asking for amateur astronomers to do the same. Would could amateurs possibly find? Reading about it more it seems like our best shot is waiting for the James Webb Space Telescope to come on line and seeing if it can detect Infrared light from any hypothetical structure.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

But this only applies to the observable universe. For obvious reasons, we cannot observe whether this is true of regions outside of the observable universe.

Kepler's planet survey indicates that Earth-sized planets in a star's habitable zone, the perfect distance that could allow water to pool on the surface, are ubiquitous in our galaxy. Based on the survey, scientists predict that there should be 1 billion Earth-sized worlds in the Milky Way galaxy at present, a good portion of them presumed to be rocky. That estimate skyrockets when you include the other 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.

[Regulator75]

http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2...nuclear-fusion

If you’ve heard of fusion energy, you’ve probably heard of tokamaks. These doughnut-shaped devices are meant to cage ionized gases called plasmas in magnetic fields while heating them to the outlandish temperatures needed for hydrogen nuclei to fuse. Tokamaks are the workhorses of fusion—solid, symmetrical, and relatively straightforward to engineer—but progress with them has been plodding.

Now, tokamaks’ rebellious cousin is stepping out of the shadows. In a gleaming research lab in Germany’s northeastern corner, researchers are preparing to switch on a fusion device called a stellarator, the largest ever built. The €1 billion machine, known as Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), appears now as a 16-meter-wide ring of gleaming metal bristling with devices of all shapes and sizes, innumerable cables trailing off to unknown destinations, and technicians tinkering with it here and there. It looks a bit like Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon, towed in for repairs after a run-in with the Imperial fleet. Inside are 50 6-tonne magnet coils, strangely twisted as if trampled by an angry giant.

[FlamesAddiction]

Some scientists think that by the end of the century, parts of the Persian Gulf might be inhabitable sue to climate change, with temperatures in the humidex persisting in the 70s (Celsius) for several hours during the day time.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/pe...heat-1.3290285

[troutman]

http://www.techinsider.io/alien-mega...e-star-2015-10

Jim Galasyn, a writer for the blog Desdemona Despair, saw a 2013 research paper posted by commenter "Michael" on a story from Centauri Dreams. That paper explains how some stars don't have a uniform brightness level because they're irregularly shaped and "oblate" discs.

As the researchers write in that study:

When a star is oblate, it has a larger radius at its equator than it does at its poles. As a result, the poles have a higher surface gravity, and thus higher temperature and brightness. Thus, the poles are "gravity brightened", and the equator "gravity darkened."

The star becomes oblate (and hence gravity darkening occurs) because the centrifugal force resulting from rotation creates additional outward pressure on the star.

This creates patches of darker and lighter regions within these kinds of stars, so the light curves that make it back to Earth won't look completely uniform. What's more, planets often orbit "obliquely" from Earth's perspective and do not pass directly in front of a star.

So those especially weird light curves from KIC 8462852 could easily be caused by planets passing in front of darker and lighter regions — not alien artifacts floating around it.

[Coach]

F*** you, Jim.

It's aliens.