1. Monday, Nov. 6, 2017:,2-3:30 pm PST (4-5:30 pm CST, 5-6:30 pm EST) : We welcome back Dr. Doug Plata for new lunar development ideas. Check out his website, http://developspace.info/.
2. Tuesday, Nov. 7 2017: 7-8:30 pm PST, 10-11:30 pm EST, 9-10:30 pm CST: We welcome Dr. Greg Autry to the show regarding space policy in the Trump Administration.
3. Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017: Hotel Mars. See Upcoming Show Menu and the website newsletter for details. Hotel Mars is pre-recorded by John Batchelor. It is archived on The Space Show site after John posts it on his website.
4. Friday, Nov. 10, 2017; 9:30 am-11 am PST, (12:30 -2 pm EST; 11:30 am-1 pm CST): No show due to the Veterans Day National Holiday.
5. Sunday, Nov. 12, 2017: 12-1:30 pm PST; 2-4:30 pm EST; 2-3:30 pm CST. We welcome Robb Kunz to the show for NewSpace venture capital investing and related topics.
Diana Alsindy, Jocelyn Clancy, William Pomerantz and Becca Thoss join us in-studio to talk about the first year of the Brooke Owens Fellowship.
Created to honor the legacy of a beloved space industry pioneer and accomplished pilot, Dawn Brooke Owens (1980 – 2016), the Brooke Owens Fellowship Program is designed to serve both as an inspiration and as a career boost to capable young women who, like Brooke, aspire to explore our sky and stars, to shake up the aerospace industry, and to help their fellow men and women here on planet Earth.
Recent launches and news stories:
Launches: SpaceX – Koreasat-5A Orbital ATK – Minotaur-C
News: Hubble Finds Exoplanet Where It “Snows” Sunscreen SpaceX updates (Falcon Heavy and CRS-13 and pad 40)
TMRO is viewer supported:
TMRO:Space is a crowd funded show. If you like this episode consider contributing to help us to continue to improve. Head over to http://www.patreon.com/tmrofor information plus our all new goals and reward levels
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A couple of recent TMRO short video reports:
** SpacePod: An Interstellar Asteroid? HUH???
A bizarre, truly one of a kind object has been spotted by the PANSTARRS telescope. PANSTARRS, standing for Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, this telescope specifically looks for near-Earth objects. The data from observations of this object, initially known as C/2017 U1, made no sense!
** SpacePod: Possibly Innovative Clustering Satellites to be tested at ISS
Last week, astronauts on board the International Space Station linked NovaWurks’ spacecraft building blocks in the first on-orbit test of a radically new approach to satellite design and manufacturing.
Here is the latest episode of Space to Ground from NASA about activities related to the International Space Station:
Here is a video of Expedition 53 Commander Randy Bresnik and Flight Engineers Joe Acaba and Mark Vande Hei of NASA talking “with KARE-TV in Minneapolis and the “Fox and Friends” morning talk program on the Fox Network”:
And here they talk with students in California:
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 53 Commander Randy Bresnik and Flight Engineer Joe Acaba of NASA discussed life and research on the outpost during an in-flight educational event Oct. 30 with students at the Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, California. Acaba, who is a native of southern California, and Bresnik are in various stages of their respective five-and-a half-month missions on the orbital laboratory.
This artist’s impression shows how the newly discovered belts of dust around the closest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri, may look. ALMA observations revealed the glow coming from cold dust in a region between one to four times as far from Proxima Centauri as the Earth is from the Sun. The data also hint at the presence of an even cooler outer dust belt and indicate the presence of an elaborate planetary system. These structures are similar to the much larger belts in the Solar System and are also expected to be made from particles of rock and ice that failed to form planets. Note that this sketch is not to scale — to make Proxima b clearly visible it has been shown further from the star and larger than it is in reality. [ Larger images]ALMA Observatory in Chile has detected dust around the closest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri. These new observations reveal the glow coming from cold dust in a region between one to four times as far from Proxima Centauri as the Earth is from the Sun. The data also hint at the presence of an even cooler outer dust belt and may indicate the presence of an elaborate planetary system. These structures are similar to the much larger belts in the Solar System and are also expected to be made from particles of rock and ice that failed to form planets.
Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun. It is a faint red dwarf lying just four light-years away in the southern constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur). It is orbited by the Earth-sized temperate world Proxima b, discovered in 2016 and the closest planet to the Solar System. But there is more to this system than just a single planet. The new ALMA observations reveal emission from clouds of cold cosmic dust surrounding the star.
The lead author of the new study, Guillem Anglada [1], from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC), Granada, Spain, explains the significance of this find:
“The dust around Proxima is important because, following the discovery of the terrestrial planet Proxima b, it’s the first indication of the presence of an elaborate planetary system, and not just a single planet, around the star closest to our Sun.”
Dust belts are the remains of material that did not form into larger bodies such as planets. The particles of rock and ice in these belts vary in size from the tiniest dust grain, smaller than a millimetre across, up to asteroid-like bodies many kilometres in diameter [2].
Dust appears to lie in a belt that extends a few hundred million kilometres from Proxima Centauri and has a total mass of about one hundredth of the Earth’s mass. This belt is estimated to have a temperature of about –230 degrees Celsius, as cold as that of the Kuiper Belt in the outer Solar System.
There are also hints in the ALMA data of another belt of even colder dust about ten times further out. If confirmed, the nature of an outer belt is intriguing, given its very cold environment far from a star that is cooler and fainter than the Sun. Both belts are much further from Proxima Centauri than the planet Proxima b, which orbits at just four million kilometres from its parent star [3].
This picture combines a view of the southern skies over the ESO 3.6-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile with images of the stars Proxima Centauri (lower-right) and the double star Alpha Centauri AB (lower-left) from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Solar System and is orbited by the planet Proxima b, which was discovered using the HARPS instrument on the ESO 3.6-metre telescope. [Larger images]Guillem Anglada explains the implications of the discovery:
“This result suggests that Proxima Centauri may have a multiple planet system with a rich history of interactions that resulted in the formation of a dust belt. Further study may also provide information that might point to the locations of as yet unidentified additional planets.”
Proxima Centauri’s planetary system is also particularly interesting because there are plans — the Starshot project — for future direct exploration of the system with microprobes attached to laser-driven sails. A knowledge of the dust environment around the star is essential for planning such a mission.
This image of the sky around the bright star Alpha Centauri AB also shows the much fainter red dwarf star, Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. The picture was created from pictures forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The blue halo around Alpha Centauri AB is an artifact of the photographic process, the star is really pale yellow in colour like the Sun. [Larger images]Co-author Pedro Amado, also from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, explains that this observation is just the start:
“These first results show that ALMA can detect dust structures orbiting around Proxima. Further observations will give us a more detailed picture of Proxima’s planetary system. In combination with the study of protoplanetary discs around young stars, many of the details of the processes that led to the formation of the Earth and the Solar System about 4600 million years ago will be unveiled. What we are seeing now is just the appetiser compared to what is coming!”
Notes
[1] In a cosmic coincidence, the lead author of the study, Guillem Anglada shares his name with the astronomer who led the team that discovered Proxima Centauri b, Guillem Anglada-Escudé, himself a co-author of the paper in which this research is published, although the two are not related.
[2] Proxima Centauri is quite an old star, of similar age to the Solar System. The dusty belts around it are probably similar to the residual dust in the Kuiper Belt and the asteroid belt in the Solar System and the dust that creates the Zodiacal Light. The spectacular discs that ALMA has imaged around much younger stars, such as HL Tauri, contain much more material that is in the process of forming planets.
[3] The apparent shape of the very faint outer belt, if confirmed, would give astronomers a way to estimate the inclination of the Proxima Centauri planetary system. It would appear elliptical due to the tilt of what is assumed to be in reality a circular ring. This would in turn allow a better determination of the mass of the Proxima b planet, which is currently known only as a lower limit.
This chart shows the large southern constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur) and shows most of the stars visible with the naked eye on a clear dark night. The location of the closest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri, is marked with a red circle. Proxima is too faint to see with the unaided eye but can be found using a small telescope. [Larger images.]
A preview from NASA JPL of night sky highlights for November:
Catch planet pairs and watch the moon pass stellar superstars! See Jupiter and Venus at dawn, the Moon shine near star clusters, and meteor activity all month long. For more astronomy events near you, check out https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/ .
