Possible Giant Alien Structures ~ Could This be Real?

Artist's concept shows NASA's planet-hunting Kepler

spacecraft operating in a new mission profile called K2

Now this is what I'm talking about!
This is the exiting stuff SF is made from. And guess what, it's getting close to reality. How cool is this. Read on:  


NASA's Kepler Space Telescope is tasked with finding small, rocky worlds orbiting distant stars. 

However, exoplanets aren’t the only thing Kepler can detect — stellar flares, star spots and dusty planetary rings can also pop up in the mission's observations.

But the space telescope may have the ability to detect more than natural phenomena. Kepler may also detect the signature of artificial structures orbiting other stars, if they're out there. Imagine an advanced civilization which has the ability to harness energy directly from its star. This alien civilization may want to construct vast mega-structures, like supersized solar arrays in orbit around their host star that could be so big that they blot out a sizable fraction of starlight as they pass in front.

When Kepler detects an exoplanet, it does so by sensing the very slight dip in starlight from a given star. Kepler detects the slight dimming of starlight and creates a "lightcurve" — basically a graph charting the dip over time. Much information can be gleaned from the lightcurve, such as the physical size of the transiting exoplanet. But it can also deduce the exoplanet’s shape.

For the most part, any dip in star brightness is some kind of natural phenomenon. But what if all possibilities are accounted for and only one scenario is left? What if that scenario is this object appears to be artificial? In other words, what if it’s alien?

A star, named KIC 8462852, has been found with a highly curious transit signal. In a paper submitted to the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomers report: "Over the duration of the Kepler mission, KIC 8462852 was observed to undergo irregularly shaped, aperiodic dips in flux down to below the 20 percent level."

The research paper is thorough, describing the phenomenon, pointing out tha846t this star is unique - they've seen nothing like it. Kepler has collected data steadily for four years. It's not instrumental error. Kepler isn't seeing things; the signal is real.

The Planet Hunters volunteers are depended on to seek out transits in Kepler's stars in the direction of the constellation Cygnus. The group described KIC 8462852 as "bizarre," "interesting" and a "giant transit." They're not wrong.

Follow-up studies focus on two interesting transit events at KIC 8462852, one that was detected between days 788 and 795 of the Kepler mission and between days 1510 to 1570. The first event appears to have been a single transit causing a star brightness drop-off of 15 percent, whereas the second was a burst of several transits, possibly indicating a clump of different objects, forcing a brightness dip of up to 22 percent. To cause such dips in brightness, these transiting objects must be huge.

The researchers also investigated the possibility of a huge planetary collision: could the debris from this smashup be creating this strange signal? The likelihood of us seeing a planetary collision is extremely low. The only natural explanation favored by the researchers seems to focus on an intervening clump of exocomets. "One way we imagine such a barrage of comets could be triggered is by the passage of a field star through the system," write the researchers.

A second paper is currently being written to investigate a completely different transit scenario that focuses around the possibility of a mega-engineering project created by an advanced alien civilization

This may sound like science fiction, but our galaxy has existed for over 13 billion years, it's not such a stretch of the imagination to think that an alien civilization may be out there and evolved to the point where they can build mega-structures around stars.

And hunting down huge structures that obscure the light from stars is no new thing. The Search for Extraterrestrial Technology (SETT) is one such project that does just this. 

But as KIC 8462852 is showing us, there may be something else out there — possibly an alien intelligence that is well on its way to becoming a civilization, which is setting up some kind of artificial structure around its star.

Of course, these mystery transit events are nowhere near "proof" of an alien civilization. In fact, it's barely evidence and a lot more work needs to be done.

The next step is to point a radio antenna at KIC 8462852, just to see whether the system is generating any artificial radio signals that could indicate the presence of something we'd define as "intelligent."

It might be a long shot, and the phenomenon is more likely a clump of comets or some other natural phenomenon that we haven't accounted for blocking star light from view, but it’s worth investigating, especially if there really is some kind of alien intelligence building structures, or perhaps, ancient structures of a civilization long-gone, around a star only 1,500 light-years away from Earth.

This kind of stuff makes me really miss all that research I use to do for SFR stories... Wow! It sure does take me back to my love of anything scientifically space oriented, SF for sure. The ideas kind of remind me of Stargate Universe. (SGU)

See you inside a new alien culture! 

Kaye

Celestial Lovemaking

If you’re looking to see a fantastic show this month, go outside at sunset and look west. Throughout June, Venus and Jupiter, two of the brightest objects in our sky, are converging They'll glide closer and closer to each other until they appear to form a single bright glow on the horizon.

Their slow dance started at the beginning of the month, with both planets visible low in the sky at dusk and early evening. On a clear night, you can’t miss them: after the Sun and the moon, Venus and Jupiter are the third and fourth brightest objects in the sky. Last night, June 20, the planets were just 6 degrees apart—and even more interesting, they were joined by the waxing crescent moon to form a celestial triangle. Looking at this apparent joining of celestial bodies with the naked eye was no doubt a thing of beauty.

Of course, in reality they’re nowhere near each other—Venus is 67 million miles from the sun and Jupiter is 484 million miles—but from our perspective, they will seem very close for a very short amount of time. On June 30 and July 1, the show culminates as Venus and Jupiter appear just one-third of a degree apart, which is less than the diameter of the moon when it’s full in the sky. They'll be so close, you'll be able to hold up your pinkie finger to the sky and cover both planets at once. This is the first occurrence since 2005.

NASA’s ScienceCast has a video about the phenomenon: The pair will go their separate ways after July 1 when the full moon rises. But keep your eyes on the sky, because July features a second full moon—known as a blue moon—on the 31st. Happy planet gazing!

Talk about a celestical lovemaking!

Thanks to Romance Author Linda Banche for discovering this first.

Read the new post on Soul-Love Connections blog: A SOULMATE KIND OF LOVE

Kaye

Shadow of the Dark Rift

 

Here we are in December and it's getting closer to the winter solstice...

Isn't this the year the world ends? According to several alignment theories,

and also the Mayan calendar, it is predicted to be so.

Thick dust clouds block our night-time view of the Milky Way, creating what is sometimes called the Dark Rift. The fact that -- from the viewpoint of Earth -- the sun aligns with these clouds, or the galactic center, near the winter solstice.  

Here is what Francis Reddy from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has to say on this world ending idea: 

One of the most bizarre theories about 2012 has built up with very little attention to facts. This idea holds that a cosmic alignment of the sun, Earth, the center of our galaxy -- or perhaps the galaxy's thick dust clouds -- on the winter solstice could for some unknown reason lead to destruction. Such alignments can occur but these are a regular occurrence and can cause no harm and, indeed, will not even be at its closest alignment during the 2012 solstice.

The details are as follows: Viewed far from city lights, a glowing path called the Milky Way can be seen arching across the starry sky. This path is formed from the light of millions of stars we cannot see individually. It coincides with the mid plane of our galaxy, which is why our galaxy is also named the Milky Way.

Thick dust clouds also populate the galaxy. And while infrared telescopes can see them clearly, our eyes detect these dark clouds only as irregular patches where they dim or block the Milky Way's faint glow. The most prominent dark lane stretches from the constellations Cygnus to Sagittarius and is often called the Great Rift, sometimes the Dark Rift.

Another impressive feature of our galaxy lies unseen in Sagittarius: the galactic center, about 28,000 light-years away, which hosts a black hole weighing some four million times the sun's mass.

The claim for 2012 links these two pieces of astronomical fact with a third -- the position of the sun near the galactic center on Dec. 21, the winter solstice for the Northern Hemisphere -- to produce something that makes no astronomical sense at all.

As Earth makes its way around the sun, the sun appears to move against the background stars, which is why the visible constellations slowly change with the seasons. On Dec. 21, 2012, the sun will pass about 6.6 degrees north of the galactic center -- that's a distance that looks to the eye to be about 13 times the full moon's apparent size -- and it's actually closer a couple of days earlier. There are different claims about why this bodes us ill, but they boil down to the coincidence of the solstice with the sun entering the Dark Rift somehow portending disaster or the mistaken notion that the sun and Earth becoming aligned with the black hole in the galactic center allows some kind of massive gravitational pull on Earth.

The first strike against this theory is that the solstice itself does not correlate to any movements of the stars or anything in the universe beyond Earth. It just happens to be the day that Earth's North Pole is tipped farthest from the sun.

Second, Earth is not within range of strong gravitational effects from the black hole at the center of the galaxy since gravitational effects decrease exponentially the farther away one gets. Earth is 93 million miles from the sun and 165 quadrillion miles from the Milky Way's black hole. The sun and the moon (a smaller mass, but much closer) are by far the most dominant gravitational forces on Earth. Throughout the course of the year, our distance from the Milky Way's black hole changes by about one part in 900 million – not nearly enough to cause a real change in gravity's pull. Moreover, we're actually nearest to the galactic center in the summer, not at the winter solstice.

Third, the sun appears to enter the part of the sky occupied by the Dark Rift every year at the same time, and its arrival there in Dec. 2012 portends precisely nothing.

Enjoy the solstice, by all means, and don't let the Dark Rift, alignments, solar flares, magnetic field reversals, potential impacts or alleged Maya end-of-the-world predictions get in the way.

And please let me know your thoughts on this!

Kaye

Alien Planets We Can Love

Wouldn't it be great if we could actually travel to other habitable planets? One of the reasons I like to read and also write science fiction is this amazing possibility. So as promised in my last post on rogue planets, here is the low down astronomers are finding out now. The Kepler space telescope actually hunts for planets and it has enabled scientists to see much farther than ever before. Here's the scoop:

The Top 5 Potentially Habitable Alien Planets

Astronomers have found more than 700 planets beyond our solar system, and thousands more await confirmation by follow-up observations. Many of these alien worlds are too hot or too cold to support life as we know it, but researchers have found a few that appear to be much more hospitable. Here's a brief rundown of the PHL's best candidates:

1. Gliese 581g, this rocky world has been controversial with some researchers casting doubt on its existence and its discoverers remaining firmly behind their find. This planet, which is located just 20 light-years away, is likely two to three times as massive as Earth and zips around its parent star every 30 days or so. This orbit places the planet squarely in its star's "habitable zone" — that just-right range of distances where liquid water, and perhaps life as we know it, could exist.

2. Gliese 667CcG, which orbits a red dwarf 22 light-years away, in the constellation Scorpius. The alien world is a so-called "super Earth" that's at least 4.5 times as massive as our planet, and it completes an orbit every 28 days. At least one other planet circles the star with Gliese 667C, which is part of a triple-star system.

3. Kepler-22b was spotted by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope in December 2011. It's a super Earth about 2.4 times as wide as our planet. If the greenhouse effect operates on Kepler-22b like it does on Earth, the alien world would have an average surface temperature of 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius), researchers have said. Kepler-22b is found about 600 light-years away, and it orbits a star very much like our own sun

4. HD 85512bHD 85512b is another super Earth, one that's thought to be 3.6 times as massive as our planet. The alien world is found about 35 light-years from us, in the direction of the constellation Vela (The Sail). Astronomers announced the discovery of HD 85512b in September 2011. The planet's estimated surface temperature is 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius

5. Gliese 581d, This world, which is about seven times as massive as Earth, orbits a bit farther out than its planetary sibling Gliese 581g. When 581d was first discovered, many scientists regarded it as too cold to be potentially habitable. In the years since, however, atmospheric-modeling studies have suggested that the planet may indeed be able to support life as we know it — provided 581d is warmed by a greenhouse effect.

So there you have it. It is exciting to me to know about all this discovery and space research that is taking place right now. What do you think? How do you feel about fining potential planets that could harbor life, even intelligent life, and maybe life as we know it.

Kaye

Solar Flares and Science Fiction

It is a belief among fans that reality follows ideas brought forth in Science Fiction. Judging from our Sun's latest solar flare activity this would certainly ring true. 

Researching our Sun’s Solar Flares

It’s interesting to note just how much is going on in the scientific community concerning solar flare activity. It’s true the increased activity from Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) could possibly pose a threat to Earth and what is happening now is not science fiction. 

The sun unleashed a cosmic double whammy Tuesday (March 6), erupting with two major flares to cap a busy day of powerful solar storms. One of the flares is the most powerful solar eruption of the year, so far.

Both of the huge flares ranked as X-class storms, the strongest type of solar flares the sun can have. They followed several weaker, but still powerful, sun storms on Tuesday and came just days after another major solar flare.

The first big solar storm ranked as an X5.4-class flare and the second event occurred just over an hour later, reaching a maximum strength of X1.3. The sun-watching observatories spotted huge clouds of charged particles — called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs — erupting from the solar flares.

When aimed directly at Earth, X-class solar flares can endanger astronauts and satellites in orbit, interfere with satellite communications and damage power grids on Earth. Charged particles from the solar storms interact with Earth's upper atmosphere, resulting in a glow that is typically visible to observers at high northern or southern latitudes.  

Astronomers rank solar flares by strength using five categories: A, B, C, M and X. The A-class flares are the weakest sun storms, while the X-class events are the most powerful solar flares.

 This image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sun as it unleashed an X5.4-class solar flare.

The image of the powerful Class X2 solar flare of Feb. 14, 2011, shows how it appeared to both the Solar Dynamics Observatory in extreme ultraviolet light and the SOHO's C2 coronagraph. This was the largest flare in more than four years.

Though I love following the research and wonder where this massive solar activity will lead, for a writer doing research on stories that have that disaster feel, the sun’s overactive solar flare activity can add a lot of fodder to the ‘what if’ imagination.     

What if…

A small orbiting science station whose main goal is to search the deep arenas of space for spatial anomalies and even alien life is suddenly faced with solar mass ejections (CME) of epic proportions directly from their own sun. This puts their little space station as well as their planet in extreme and disastrous danger, even to the point of an extinction level event.

That’s an interesting premise, but what if there is nothing these beings can do to save their world given their present stage of development? How about adding an alien intervention? Now we’ve got a SF, and yes, R story. (Science Fiction Romance)

What are your thoughts on sun's recent CME activity? 

Kaye

Related Post : Catastrophe Looming 
For more information and stunning views of our sun's solar flare activity, visit space.com

NASA Confirms Alien Planet in Habitable Zone

How Exciting!

Kepler-22b -- planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star!

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft telescope has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star's habitable zone, the just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist. It has also found more than 1,000 new exoplanet candidates, researchers announced December 5th.

The new finds bring the Kepler space telescope's total haul to 2,326 potential planets in its first 16 months of operation. These discoveries quadruple the current tally of worlds known to exist beyond our solar system, which recently topped 700.

The potentially habitable alien world, a first for Kepler  named Kepler-22b, orbits a star very like our own sun. The discovery brings scientists one step closer to finding a planet like our own — one which could conceivably harbor life.

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This is such exciting news! What do you think? Do you believe intelligent life exists on other worlds? How about aliens who are much the same as we are? 

Kaye

Curiosity -- Up Up And Away!

They did it! They launched Curiosity, the best NASA rover yet on its mission to Mars on November 26. I watched this launch and held my breath in awe. As always...

From NASA -- launched its newest, largest and most sophisticated rover yet to Mars on November 26, marking an important step toward the ambitious goal of one day landing humans on the surface of the Red Planet.

The Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity rover, lifted off early on Friday from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. After an 8 1/2-month journey, the rover is expected to arrive at the Red Planet in August 2012. Once on the surface, Curiosity will investigate whether the planet is or ever was habitable.

The rover,  equipped with 10 different instruments, which allow it to dig, drill, and shoot a laser into rocks and examine the chemical makeup of Martian soil and dust. The mission will help scientists understand the environment and atmosphere of Mars, which will be essential for planning a manned mission to the planet.

"The goal is to send humans to Mars and return them back again safely — in order to return them back safely, we really need to know about the surface properties," Doug Ming, a co-investigator for the Mars Science Laboratory, said in a news briefing Wednesday (Nov. 23) from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.

  Artist's concept of a future Mars mission shows astronauts near a lander on the Red Planet

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What do you think about future missions that will take humans to Mars?

See my previous post on this Mars Mission ~ Here ~ 


Kaye

Curiosity and The Red Planet

Mars at the boundary between dark and day with an area including Gale Crater as it catches morning light

Are we ready for a new Mars mission?

NASA's most advanced mobile robotic laboratory, which will examine one of the most intriguing areas on Mars, is in final preparations for a launch from Florida's Space Coast on Nov. 25. The Mars Science Laboratory mission will carry Curiosity, a rover with more scientific capability than any ever sent to another planet.

Scheduled to land on the Red Planet in August 2012, the one-ton rover will examine Gale Crater during a nearly two-year prime mission. Curiosity will land near the base of a layered mountain 3 miles (5 kilometers) high inside the crater. The rover will investigate whether environmental conditions ever have been favorable for development of microbial life and preserved evidence of those conditions.
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This is such a exciting event for us and for seekers of SF and R for sure. The future holds many possibilities to explore Mars.

What do you think about the idea of sending manned explorers to Mars in the not to distant future? Sounds very exciting to me!


Kaye

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

Asteroids. Near Misses...

This is very exciting and a little freaky too. 

How close is too close? Here is what NASA scientists have to say about the Asteroid 2005 YU55 that will fly very close to Earth -- slightly closer than our moon's orbit. And it all happens today November 8th.

From NASA: Scientists will be tracking asteroid 2005 YU55 with antennas of the agency's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, Calif., as the space rock safely flies past Earth slightly closer than the moon's orbit on Nov. 8. Scientists are treating the flyby of the 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter) asteroid as a science target of opportunity allowing instruments on "spacecraft Earth" to scan it during the close pass.

Arecibo radar observations of asteroid 2005 YU55 made in 2010 show it to be approximately spherical in shape. It is slowly spinning, with a rotation period of about 18 hours. The asteroid's surface is darker than charcoal at optical wavelengths.

NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

If you'd like more information about asteroids and near-Earth objects go Here

If you're interested in the Deep Space Network go Here

So, how close do you feel is too close?

Kaye

Challenger -- Do You Remember?

NASA recalls darkest moments...

The space shuttle Challenger STS-51L spaceflight ended in tragedy on Jan. 28, 1986, 73 seconds after liftoff. Seven astronauts died that day, when the Challenger space shuttle was destroyed.

It was NASA's first in-flight calamity, and it dealt an especially severe blow to the millions of teachers and students watching on TV to see Christa McAuliffe, a civilian high school teacher from New Hampshire, become NASA's first Teacher in Space.

Today is the 25 year anniversary of that fateful day.

The loss of Challenger was later attributed to a failed seal on one of the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. An investigation board concluded that cold weather prevented a rubber O-ring from maintaining its seal, allowing hot gas to leak and damage the shuttle's external fuel tank and the hardware attaching the booster to the vehicle. The right solid rocket booster separated from the shuttle, and the fuel tank broke apart, causing the orbiter to be torn apart by aerodynamic stresses.

"The problem was a design flaw, complicated by the weather situation which was unrecognized at the time by the appropriate managers," Hale said. "We wished that we had the foresight to stand up collectively and say, 'Look, it's too cold a day to launch, we just ought to wait for a warmer day.' In retrospect it seems so simple; at the time, it just didn't happen."

Veteran shuttle astronaut Ron Garan, who is slated to fly to the International Space Station in March aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, said the anniversaries of Challenger and the other accidents highlight the lessons learned from those events. "It's a time to reflect and it's a time to remember those people who have sacrificed to get us where we are," Garan told SPACE.com. "A lot of the lessons learned in this business are written in blood, and if we don't learn from them, those people died in vain."

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So where were you on that day? Were you watching from a classroom like many students?

Kaye

Keep Looking Up ~ Shuttle Watch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters)

Early risers across the United States may have an unusual opportunity to see the space shuttle on Monday as it glides through the atmosphere, heading toward a landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The shuttle Discovery is returning from a re-supply and servicing mission at the International Space Station, one of NASA's final shuttle flights before the fleet is retired later this year.

Its route back to Florida will take it over much of America's heartland with touchdown targeted for 8:48 a.m. EDT weather permitting.

The supersonic glide through the atmosphere will fly over dozens of cities and towns. The shuttle, scheduled to enter Earth's atmosphere over the central Pacific Ocean at 8:17 a.m. EDT, should be visible over the Northwest USA about a half hour before landing.

As the shuttle descends, observers in the West, where it will still be dark, should see a glowing plasma trail, like a meteorite. In the East, where it will be light, viewers may be able to see a glowing cloud.

Those who can't see the shuttle may at least be able to hear it. The ship's double sonic booms -- shock waves from the nose and the tail of the shuttle -- reach the ground about 90 seconds after the shuttle passes overhead.