Cosmography, 3-D Map of the Local Universe

New Science of Cosmography Reveals 3-D Map of the Local Universe | MIT Technology Review: "Today, Helene Courtois at the University of Lyon in France and a few buddies show off this newfound knowledge in a movie (and accompanying paper) that they’ve created to explore the rich structure of our galactic neighbourhood."

You can view the movie here.

One of the key questions that this data can help to answer is whether the distribution of visible mass in the universe is an accurate reflection of the distribution of dark matter. Courtois and co say the data shows that this is indeed the case.

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Newest planets, Earth-like, NASA astronomers

Newest planets most Earth-like yet, NASA astronomers say - SiliconValley.com: "To learn more about planets closer to home, NASA will use its newly completed "Automated Planet Finder" telescope at Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton. It will seek out Earth-like planets around the nearest stars, within 20 light years of us. Scientists hope to begin using it this summer. "These habitable zone planets indicate that worlds with lakes and oceans number in the billions within our home Milky Way Galaxy," said Marcy. "Such planets can certainly spawn biology as we know it."" "The next great scientific question is even more daunting: How often does simple, single-cell life spring up on these habitable worlds?" he asked. "How common are intelligent critters who look up at their night sky asking the same questions about their uniqueness in the universe?" NASA's "Exoplanet Archive" lists extrasolar planets and their host stars. The latest tally: -- 30 solar systems with multiple planets -- 2,712 planets (candidates and confirmed) For more information about the Archive: http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/index.html For more information about the Kepler mission: www.nasa.gov/kepler.

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1967 Contact Incident, SETI, pulsars

The story of the SETI discussions during the discovery of pulsars --

The True Story of a 1967 “Contact” Incident | MIT Technology Review: " . . . . Soon afterwards, she found a second source of signals and by mid-January, a third and fourth source. By this time, the team discounted the possibility that an artificial source could be responsible and eventually settled on neutron stars as the explanation. In February, the paper announcing the discovery was accepted and published in Nature following a public announcement on 24 February 1968. Penny says that what’s interesting about this process is that during the discovery process, the team discussed the implications should the signal turn out to be an artificial source, how to verify such a conclusion and how to announce it. They also discussed whether such a discovery might be dangerous. This process closely follows the Detection Protocol agreed by the international community in 1990. There’s an interesting corollary to this. The team also discussed the possibility that if it were an artificial source, somebody would want to reply. Penny points out that the international community has yet to agree on a Reply Protocol because there are widely differing views on whether such a course of action would be beneficial or dangerous for humanity. This is a situation that needs to be rectified. “The 1967 episode indicates how difficult it would be to construct a policy in the fervid atmosphere of a ‘Contact’,” says Penny. With SETI searches now focusing on habitable exoplants around other stars, it seems prudent to come to some agreement sooner rather than later. Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1302.0641: The SETI Episode in the 1967 Discovery of Pulsars (read more at links above)

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NASA searches for habitable planets near Earth

NASA ramps up search for habitable planets near Earth - SlashGear: " . . . . Called the Transisting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, TESS for short, this space-based telescope will be launched by NASA in 2017. Once in space, TESS will pick through the relatively nearby areas around the sun in search of other exo-planets that are potentially habitable, with the bonus being their distance, allowing researchers to study in more details any exo-planets found. According to Universe Today, NASA TESS’s Principle Investigator George Ricker said: “TESS will carry out the first space-borne all-sky transit survey, covering 400 times as much sky as any previous mission. It will identify thousands of new planets in the solar neighborhood, with a special focus on planets comparable in size to the Earth.” Following the launch of TESS will be another telescope, the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope), slated for orbit in 2018. Unlike TESS, JWST will search for planets via infrared light, providing an extra layer of search for bodies that lie beyond the reach of visible light. Once both satellites are launched, their combined information could help determine whether any planets discovered are capable of sustaining life. The catch is that the exo-planets – assuming any are found – will have to be located within a relatively small distance: 50 or so light years away from Earth. Anything found behind a certain threshold will be difficult for researchers to analyze sufficiently enough to determine whether aspects of it, such as the atmosphere, are sufficient for sustaining life."

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Fireballs in the Sky

Fireballs reported in skies above Cuba and California - Telegraph: " . . . The 55 foot wide rock, said by Nasa to have a mass of 10,000 tonnes, lit up the sky above the Urals region on Friday morning, causing shockwaves that injured 1,200 people and damaged thousands of homes in an event unprecedented in modern times. Nasa estimated that the energy released as the meteor's disintigrated in the atmosphere was 500 kilotons, around 30 times the size of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. It entered the atmosphere at 44,000 miles per hour, taking 32.5 seconds to break up at an altitude of around 15 miles above the earth's surface. The resulting explosion created a shockwave that blew out windows and set of car alarms in Chelyabinsk two and a half minutes later. The drama in Russia developed just hours before an asteroid - a space object similar to a tiny planet orbiting the sun - whizzed safely past Earth at the unprecedented distance of 17,200 miles...." 

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