IdeaFestival

Hawking: unintelligent life likely

Participating in NASA's celebration of 50 years of space exploration, famed physicist Stephen Hawking suggested that life in the universe might be common. Intelligent life? Not so much. 

Given the organic stew brewing in places elsewhere in our own solar system, the possibility that bacteria and other primitive life forms have managed to gain a foothold in hostile environments doesn't seem at all far-fetched. The expoplanet count, now 200+ strong, continues to expand; there is no reason to believe that ongoing refinements in discovery techniques won't quickly send the number of new planets much, much higher.

Surely there is another rocky world orbiting a distant sun in the Goldilocks zone.

And we also know that so-called "extromophiles" with no access to sunlight have managed to make a home near very hot sulphuric vents in the deepest parts of the Atlantic. Opportunistic, life would appear to have both means and opportunity - on Earth and off.

Wayne

Wikipedia: extremophile, exoplanetololgy

Would we know life if we encountered it?

"Life" is hard to define according to NewScientist's space blog, which points out that there are more than 280 definitions on record. The subject was at the center of a lively discussion at a just-concluded SETI Institute astrobiology conference.

Wayne

Can you suggest a Pluto portrait?

[Cross-posted from KySat] The Planetary Society provides an update on New Horizons, including a description of some tough choices the mission managers will have to make as the craft heads toward an encounter with Pluto, Charon and the Kuiper Belt.

The mission team is also soliciting ideas from the public, hoping to increase its chances for "Kodak moments" - pictures prized for their artistic merit rather than their scientific value.

As Emily Lakdawalla notes at the Planetary Society, a similar effort lead to a couple of the most spectacular images taken of the Jupiter system as New Horizons passed by last year, one of which is reproduced above. It is among my favorite images from our solar system.

In the image, volcanic Io and more placid Europa can be seen in the same frame but they are in reality separated by a distance of nearly 800,000 kilometers. Easily visible in the picture, the spectacular Tvashtar plume on Io erupts about 300 kilometers into space.

Wayne

Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

New York City science festival to serenade public

Could the World Science Festival planned for the end of May in New York City (re)connect the public with the world around them?

From May 28 through June 1, festival organizers say, the canyons of the city will be alive with the sound of science. Biologists will discuss the perils and promises of humans’ knowing their own genetic codes. Quantum physicists will debate the nature of reality. Neuroscientists will ponder the mysteries of creativity. The Abyssinian Baptist Church Sanctuary Choir will serenade scientists to demonstrate the effects of music on the brain....

The festival will kick off with a closed one-day gathering at Columbia called the World Science Summit. Modeled after the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland, it will consist of about 100 scientists and thinkers, including Nobel laureates and business, academic, cultural and government leaders talking about the impact of cutting-edge science on the world.

Columbia University Physicist Brian Greene, one of the principles behind the event, says that science is often included on the Davos agenda "as a sort of entertainment." In contrast, the festival wants to combine the fun with a larger purpose.

There are so-called signature events, like a discussion of parallel universes and one on the investigation of genius and creativity, aimed at general audiences. Several others are geared toward audiences who may not know that they are interested in science but are hungry for art and culture.

People might "come for the art, but leave with the science," another organizer said.

Wayne

Enceladus spitting out organics

As the result of a daring dive through the icy geysers of the Saturn moon Enceladus, Cassini has detected organic chemicals. The doughty craft keeps making discovery after discovery. Click on the image to enlarge.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/SwRI

Wayne

Stars dim for Arthur C. Clarke

In an essay published today in the New York Times, science writer Dennis Overbye reflects on a life - his life - guided in part by the visionary science fiction of the late Arthur C. Clarke.

I’ve lived in Clarke’s universe ever since I was in eighth grade and a classmate slipped me a paperback edition of Clarke’s 'Reach for Tomorrow,' a collection of short stories. Until that point my biggest ambition was to play second base for the New York Yankees.

But here is the heart of the essay:

In his short story 'The Nine Billion Names of God,' published in 1953, Clarke wrote of a pair of computer programmers sent to a remote monastery in Tibet to help the monks there use a computer to compile a list of all the names of God. Once the list was complete, the monks believed, human and cosmic destiny would be fulfilled and the world would end.

The programmers are fleeing the mountain, hoping to escape the monks’ wrath when the program finishes and the world is still there, when one of them looks up.

'Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.'

That was a typical Clarke ending, and it seemed only natural upon his death that nature might want to reciprocate.

And as Overbye points out, it did. Having traveled a colossal distance, on the morning of his death the remnants a gamma-ray burst lit up an area of the night sky in the region of the constellation Boötes before dimming again. Fitting.

Wayne

Arthur C. Clarke

Titan chemistry, titanic idea

CICLOPS, the team that brings the fantastic Cassini images to the public, has just published this natural color panorama. The yellowish Titan is headed behind the planet, while Tethys has come into view.

Cassini is scheduled to fly by Titan at a mere 620 miles in altitude today to further examine the atmosphere of the moon.

In 2005, the doughty spacecraft also sent a probe to land on the surface of methane-shrouded Titan, which, recent evidence suggests, may also contain subsurface oceans.

And in an unexpected surprise, the craft has observed continuously erupting water-ice geysers at the southern pole of Enceladus.

So why is that important?

If these active organic and geological processes are occurring here, in a one solar system in single galaxy - and the one we just happen to occupy to boot - perhaps they are more common than previously believed. Thanks to Hubble, we now know, for example, that organic molecules are present in the atmosphere of another planet orbiting a distant sun. Perhaps, just perhaps, a history-changing discovery awaits.

NASA has made the science from Cassini freely available here if you're interested.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Wayne

Goldilocks and the Three Suns

If the closest neighboring stars have orbiting rocky worlds, we may soon know thanks to recent advances in astronomical techniques.

According to Frasier Cain, simulations developed by a University of California researcher suggests that rocky worlds "likely" formed - relatively speaking - close by:

[University of California Santa Cruz] graduate student Javiera Guedes used computer simulations of planet formation to show that terrestrial planets are likely to have formed around the star Alpha Centauri B and to be orbiting in the "habitable zone" where liquid water can exist on the planet's surface. The researchers then showed that such planets could be observed using a dedicated telescope

Alpha Centauri, which forms part of the Southern Cross, is actually a system of three stars.

Related, Paul Gilster has recently written about another potential boon for planet hunting efforts. By combining the radial velocity technique with infrared imaging, the TEDI Exoplanet instrument on the 200-inch Hale Telescope should be able to detect potential rocky worlds around the smaller, cooler, dimmer stars in the Milky Way. The radial velocity technique has been the most productive method for finding exoplanets thus far, but uses light in the optical range. Examining infrared wavelengths for the signature star wobbles that would indicate the presence of an orbiting mass will extend the technique's usefulness.

The catalog of exoplanets is nearing 300. Given what has been discovered with first generation tools, that count is almost certain to grow much, much larger, and perhaps include worlds nearby.

Wayne

exoplanetology

James McLurkin and Robot Swarms - IF Conversations

Working at MIT, James McLurkin is a leader in distributed robotics and developer of the world's largest robot swarm. His session, complete with a demonstration of tiny, blinking, music-playing robots cooperating on stage, was one of my favorites. Ethan Zuckerman, Evegeny Morozov and I live blogged the session.

IF Conversation is a continuing series of very brief video answers to questions posed at the 2007 IdeaFestival. They may also be found at IFTV and at IdeaFestival.com.

Wayne

Michio Kaku podcast available

Episode 19 of the continuing series of IF podcasts is now available. Featuring theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, this podcast direct from the 2007 IdeaFestival features the strange and fascinating world of parallel universes and time warps.

As always, you may take the RSS feed or download it from iTunes.   

Wayne