Category Archives: Exoplanets

Exoplanets, SETI

Videos: The Search for Another Earth + If ET Builds it, will be notice? + Imaging a habitable planet at Alpha Centauri

* The Search for Another Earth – a new video from NASA JPL :

Twenty years ago, the first exoplanet discovered around a sun-like star, 51 Pegasi b, made us question what we knew about our universe and launched the search for new worlds. This is the story of the pioneers in planet-hunting and how those who have followed are closer to answering one of humanity’s most ancient questions: Is there life elsewhere in the universe?

* If ET Builds It, Will We Notice? – The SETI Institute posted this brief video about whether there might be way to detect a distant super high tech civilization could be detected via the light of its star:

Could an alien civilization build unusual super-structures to attract the attention other worlds? Could we detect such an anomaly using the Kepler telescope?

This excerpt is from a 2013 SETI talk by Jason Wright of Penn. State suggests an alternate way for ET to “send a signal.”

Wright’s complete seminar video is available here.

* Imaging a habitable planet at Alpha Centauri – Ruslan Belikov & Eduardo Bendek (SETI Talks)

From the caption:

In 1990, at the request of Carl Sagan, Voyager 1 turned and took a picture of Earth from a distance of 6 billion kilometers. This produced the famous “pale blue dot” image of our planet. Several mission concepts are being studied to obtain similar images of Earth-like exoplanets (exo-Earths) around other stars. It is commonly thought that directly imaging a potentially habitable exoplanet requires telescopes with apertures of at least 1 meter, costing at least $1B, and launching no earlier than the 2020s. A notable exception to this is Alpha Centauri (A and B), which is unusually close for a Sun-like star. A ~30-45cm visible light space telescope equipped with a modern high performance coronagraph is sufficient to resolve the habitable zone at high contrast and directly image any potentially habitable planet that may exist in the system.

Dr. Belikov will describe the challenges involved with direct imaging of Alpha Centauri planetary systems with a small telescope and how new technologies currently being developed can solve them. He will also show examples of small coronagraphic mission concepts currently being developed to take advantage of this opportunity, and in particular a mission concept called “ACESat: Alpha Centauri Exoplanet Sattellite” submitted to NASA’s small Explorer (SMEX) program in December of 2014.

Exoplanets, Science and Technology, SETI

Video- “Astrochemistry: Putting the Astro in Astrobiology”

Alexander Tielens of the University of Leiden talks in this SETI Institute seminar about Astrochemistry: putting the astro in astrobiology.

The first half or so of the talk, which is suitable for a general audience, Tielens gives a overview of exoplanet discoveries, how planets are formed, and the basics of how life could have arisen on earth. In the rest of the talk, he goes into the details of the research into how the  chemical building blocks of early life could have been formed.

From the caption:

Astrobiology, the study of emergence of life and the its distribution in the Universe, addresses the most fundamental questions in science: “How does life begin ?” and “Are we alone ?” Over the last 20 years, we have discovered that planets are bountiful in the galaxy and that one in every five solar-type stars has a planet in the habitable zone. We have learned that extremophiles have spread to essential every niche – even the seemingly most inhospitable ones – on our planet. And we have learned that life started essentially as soon as conditions permitted, within some 200 million of the late heavy bombardment, or perhaps even earlier.

This has resulted in a paradigm shift from “Life on Earth is unique” to the premise “life is widespread”. As a result, searching for biosignatures in space has taken on a life by itself. In this talk, Dr. Tielens will summarize this shift in our thinking and the global processes that may have influenced the first steps towards life.

The focus in this talk will be on astrochemistry – the starting point of astrobiology – the chemical evolution that takes place in space where simple molecules are transformed into complex molecules and complex molecules are broken down to simple ones. This chemical dance of the elements produces a wide variety of organic compounds. I will review the processes that drive this chemical evolution in space, particularly in regions of star and planet formation.

The focus will be on understanding the raw materials that are delivered to newly formed planets and their relationship to the building blocks from which prebiotic material was formed and biological systems evolve.

Astronomy, Education, Exoplanets

Video: Detecting exoplanet systems with microlensing

Here is a SETI Institute seminar on a lesser known way to detect and measure exoplanets: Detecting Exoplanetary Systems with Micolensing – Scott Gaudi (SETI Talks)

From the caption:

Measurements of the demographics of exoplanets over a range of planet and host star properties provide fundamental empirical constraints on theories of planet formation and evolution. Because of its unique sensitivity to low-mass, long-period, and free-floating planets, microlensing is an essential complement to our arsenal of planet detection methods.

Dr. Gaudi will review the microlensing method, and discuss results to date from ground-based microlensing surveys. Also, Dr. Gaudi will motivate a space-based microlensing survey with WFIRST-AFTA, which when combined with the results from Kepler, will yield a nearly complete picture of the demographics of planetary systems throughout the Galaxy.

Exoplanets, Rockets, SpaceCasts

Videos: TMRO Space Pod short reports – Exoplanets, Next-gen rockets, and more

Here is a collection of recent TMRO.tv Space Pod short video reports:

* Galactic Exoplanet Party – Space Pod 08/14/15

TMRO Chief Astronomer Jared Head gives us a basic review of exoplanets and some of the techniques used to find them.

* The Next Generation of Space Access – Space Pod 09/01/15

This week Space Mike discusses several new rockets being developed all over the world, from China, Russia, India, Europe, and the United States.

* Meet the Starliner & New Space Station Crew Members – Space Pod 09/09/15

This week Space Mike discusses Boeing’s new name name for the CST-100, as well as their construction progress at Kennedy Space Center. Also some new astronauts have traveled to the Space Station for a Crew Replacement.

* Possible SLS Payloads Part 1 – SpacePod 09/15/15

This week, Space Mike talks about some of the possible payloads for the Space Launch system. Including Orion, Asteroid Redirect, and the Exploration Augmentation Module.

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Astronomy, Exoplanets, SETI

Video: Direct imaging of extrasolar planets and the discovery of a young Jupiter

In this SETI Institute seminar, Bruce Macintosh of Stanford talks about the Direct imaging of extrasolar planets and the discovery of a young Jupiter –

From the caption:

Learn about an exciting new exoplanet discovery—a Jupiter-like planet called “51 Eri b” that orbits a star a 100 light years away in the constellation of Eridanus.

Using a powerful new imaging device, astronomers have spied a Jupiter-like exoplanet 100 light-years distant in the constellation of Eridanus. Unlike most planets found around other stars, 51 Eri b has been seen directly. The instrument employed to make the discovery has also made a spectroscopic analysis of the light reflected from the planet, and has detected gases similar to those in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

Because GPI not only images exoplanets but also spreads their light for chemical analysis, astronomers can search for such common gases as water and methane in their atmospheres. Researchers had expected to see methane in directly-imaged exoplanets based on the temperature and chemistry of these worlds, but had failed to detect these molecules in large quantities using earlier instruments. However, the observations of 51 Eri b made with GPI have clearly revealed a methane-dominated atmosphere similar to that of Jupiter.

An extraordinarily complex instrument the size of a small car, GPI is attached to one of the world’s biggest telescopes – the 8-meter Gemini South instrument in Chile. It began its survey of stars last year.

The host star, 51 Eri, is very young, a mere 20 million years old, and is slightly hotter than the Sun. The exoplanet 51 Eri b, whose mass is estimated to be roughly twice that of Jupiter, appears to orbit its host star at a distance 13 times greater than the Earth-Sun distance. If placed in our own solar system, 51 Eri b’s orbit would lie between those of Saturn and Neptune.