Monster from the Deep

Posted on May 4, 2021 by zhengjs1

Extremophiles are definitely some of the most persistent living beings. These microorganisms are able to survive in conditions regarding temperature, acidity, and/or chemical concentration beyond extreme that would prove fatal to almost all carbon-based life on Earth. While many extremophiles prove to look nightmarish, one type of extremophiles might give the others a run for their money: Pompeii worms.

Image of a Pompeii Worm (Source)

Alvinella pompejana, more commonly known as Pompeii worms, are deep-sea polychaetes that can reach up to five inches in length and survive in tubes located near hydrothermal vents along the Pacific seafloor. The areas around these hydrothermal vents are beyond hot, with water from the deep inside the vent spewing out at temperatures as high as 350°C (662°F). With the ability to withstand these scorching hot temperatures, Pompeii worms are given the title of being the most heat-tolerant complex animal on Earth! Through research and experimentation, scientists discovered that the tails of these worms can rest in temperatures as high as 80°C while the head comes outside the tube to breathe in more comfortable temperatures of around 22°C. However, these worms have additional adaptations that help them to endure such harsh temperatures like their symbiotic relationship with chemosynthetic bacteria. These colonies of bacteria live on back of Pompeii worms, forming a hair-like covering up to one centimeter thick. While the worms secrete mucus from tiny back glands to feed the bacteria, the bacteria provide protection in the form of insulation. Even though scientists have researched a great deal on Pompeii worms to understand their evolutionary history, there is still a lot more left to uncover about these creatures and their functioning.

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The Fermi Paradox

Posted on May 4, 2021 by hunterspiveyastr
Video from Kurzgesagt on YouTube

If you were to ask different people what one of their biggest questions about our universe is, it’s pretty believable to think that one of the most common questions would be “Do aliens exist?”. This question is especially important in that it’s a question that no one really knows the answer to; whether or not life exists out in other solar systems on other planets has yet to be seen. Because of this, humanity has taken to thought exercises and estimates to try and figure out the probability that other intelligent life may exist. Equations like the Drake Equation have been used for these purposes and, depending on how optimistic you are, can predict anywhere from dozens to hundreds of thousands of intelligent alien civilizations just within our galaxy alone. These really can be some of the best estimates we have, but almost all of them predict a non-zero number. Given this, an interesting paradox arises. Given that there are likely other intelligent civilizations out there, and seeing as they would have had ample time to colonize the entire galaxy by now, where are all the aliens at? This paradox, the Fermi Paradox, is yet another issue we don’t know the answer to yet. However, many solutions have been proposed. Some think that there must be some Great Filter, which wipes out all intelligent life before they can reach a point in which they colonize the galaxy. Others believe that there could be a “no contact” protocol among intelligent civilizations, stating that humans shouldn’t be contacted before we’ve reached a certain stage of development. Whatever the case, it seems that we may not know for sure until we either meet this “Great Filter” or are directly contacted by another civilization.

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Junk in space: how do we deal with it?

Posted on May 4, 2021 by allyworthington

Junk floating through space, affectionately known as space junk, is dangerous to spacecraft and satellites, for obvious reasons. A team in Australia wants to use laser technology to track and destroy it.

Adaptive optics is the technology that helps telescopes see stars without a twinkle, attributed to the Earth’s atmosphere. Adaptive optics sharpens images of objects in space that may otherwise appear like an oval of light. It does this by projecting an image of the star using a laser, and then calculating how exactly the Earth’s atmosphere is distorting the light—finally, correcting itself and showing the correct image to the viewer.

Adaptive Optics, via Scientific American

A version of this technology is being used to track space junk, and it’s currently mounted on an Australian telescope. Eventually, we will be able to use lasers to maneuver space jump and blow it out of orbit—probably a relief for those with vesting interests in spacecraft!

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Extraterrestrial Existence

Posted on May 4, 2021 by allyworthington

Shouldn’t Earth have been visited by extraterrestrials already?

Enrico Fermi, a physicist from Italy, asked the same question in 1950 and sparked a wonderful conversation in the field of astronomy and astrobiology. In 1975, Michael Hart published “An Explanation for the Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth,” noting that the lack of intelligent life from the outer galaxies on Earth may indicate that there are no other intelligent civilizations in the galaxy. Perhaps more notable, Hart created four arguments to comment on the Fermi Paradox:

  1. A physical difficulty is preventing extraterrestrials from visiting us
  2. Extraterrestrials consciously avoided us
  3. Our advanced civilizations are too young for extraterrestrials to have visited us
  4. Extraterrestrials have visited us in the past
Enrico Fermi, via Wikipedia

The debate on the existence of extraterrestrial life in our galaxy is ongoing, especially with the discovery of various exoplanets. I would imagine the debate will continue forever, until we are inevitably (in my opinion) contacted by extraterrestrials.

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Life on Europa?

Posted on May 4, 2021 by connorrobbwilcox
Europa

There is life in all forms throughout the world. Even in the most remote places with the most extreme conditions we have seen life not only survive but thrive. This makes us wonder, could there be life on possible habitable worlds? NASA put this to the test by conducting an infrared (IR) signature of one of these worlds, Europa. They found some pretty interesting results.

There’s life on Europa! Well not exactly, as we don’t know for sure, and it’s not the life in terms of what we normally think. We haven’t visited its surface, so we have no real idea of what’s down there, but NASA has done testing and compared it to the IR signatures of microorganisms living in hot water vents. They found them to be remarkably similar. These extremophiles would live in the possible ocean underneath the icy surface, in hydrothermal vents just like the ones on Earth. By subjecting them to the same conditions as on Europa, they found two extremophiles, Deinococcus radiodurans and Sulfolobus shibatae, have the possibility to not only live but thrive on Europa. This is really interesting for us to think about. Could that mean that life on Europa could evolve into something more? We may never know until we try and get there. For more on the surface and life of Europa, check out this video from NASA: Hubble’s Images of Possible Plumes on Europa

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Life on Earth

Posted on May 4, 2021 by lauryn28
Image Source

In my last blog post I would like to discuss some of the things I’ve found most interesting in the course of the semester. As this class has come to an end, I’ve found myself more and more astounded by how our Solar System formed than ever before, specifically the ability of Earth to sustain life. It seems that so many things had so go right for life to flourish on Earth including our moon, size, magnetic field, geology, and the presence of the gas giants. It seems that Earth has the perfect combination of events that make life a possibility. This has made me wonder more if other life forms really do exist as they too would have to have a similar set up. However, the sheer size of the universe and immense number of stars on the other hand hints that there are millions of possibly Earth-like planets that would inhabit life. I find this contrast extremely interesting and it makes me very excited to read about future research that is done to find life in our galaxy and beyond.

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The Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter

Posted on May 4, 2021 by lauryn28

According to Kardashev scale, proposed by astronomer Nikolai Kardashev, there are three types of civilizations. Type I has the ability to use the energy of their planet, Type II can use the energy of their host star and Type III can access an amount of power comparable to an entire galaxy. Based on the extremely large number of Earth-like stars in the universe it is estimated that there should be at least 1000 Type III civilizations. However if that is the case, why have humans on Earth had no known interaction with alien life forms? This is what can be defined as the Fermi Paradox.

There are many interesting theories that attempt to explain this paradox, one of the most popular being The Great Filter. This theory states that some cataclysmic event will always stop life from developing further. It moreover sates that Earth is behind the Great Filter instead of in front and such an event is inventible in Earth’s future. Scientists who support this theory claim that “no news is good news” as finding life in our galaxy would imply that the great filter is ahead of us.

Image source

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Tardigrades!

Posted on May 4, 2021 by bellagoodnight

Tardigrades, moss piglets, water bears – these adorably ugly extremophiles go by many names. These little creatures are fascinating beyond just their strange appearance and many nicknames. Tardigrades are extremophiles because they have shown to survive both extreme temperature and extreme pressure, most notably in space! They are found on Earth in various environments including rainforests, Antarctica, and deep in the ocean, so as you can tell, they have quite the range to survive these diverse places. Tardigrades are tiny animals only measuring 0.5 mm long.

As I mentioned before, one of the most interesting parts about them is that they can actually survive exposure to space and are the first known creature to be able to do this! Not only did they survive on a satellite that was launched into space, but some of them even laid eggs while there. Part of the reason they can survive this is their unique ability to survive for long periods of time without water. Even tardigrades that have been dried can be rehydrated and brought back to life after 8 years according to a study done in 1995. Overall, because these creatures can survive extreme cold, extreme heat, without water for long periods of time, and in space, tardigrades are some of the most interesting animals on Earth!

Picture of tardigrade on moss

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The End of an Era

Posted on May 4, 2021 by 20harriganc

source of photo

Sadly, this will be the last post of the solarblogdotcom. Through out theses posts we have explored many of the amazingly interesting topics of the solar system. Although the picture above shows the Galaxy, It is still a great photo to end on, because you never truly know whats out there until you look for it. I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t really see earth in the photo. That is the beauty of it all though, because we still have so much more to learn.

I think in the future when I read astronomy articles, they won’t seem so foreign of a concept to me. With the knowledge I gained in this class it will be exciting to be able to keep up with the nearest explorations. I think also, it gives me a greater sense of the magnitude of what NASA and other scientist do. I will definitely apprectiate more scientific works, because I understand how difficult it is to search for something, that you are not even sure is there. it’s amazing to see the persistence of all of those great people. Hopefully we find aliens really soon, I wonder what we’ll do after we figure that out!

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May the 4th be with you: the Twin Suns of Tatooine

Posted on May 4, 2021 by brandonlipper
Luke Skywalker on Tatooine

One of my recent blogs crushed the dreams of many Star Wars fans by debunking the close proximity of asteroids within an asteroid field in The Empire Strikes Back. That is why, in the spirit of Star Wars Day, I will be sharing an aspect of the films that Star Wars ended up getting correct: binary star systems. Although Star Wars came out in 1977, a circumbinary planet was not actually discovered until 2005. Since then, multiple circumbinary planets have been discovered by the Kepler telescope including Kepler-34, -35, -38, -64 and -413 which all reside in their respective system’s habitable zone. Thus, liquid water could be found there and it could be accompanied by life. Researcher Nikolaos Georgakarakos has stated that Kepler-38 may be the best candidate and could even be key in the search for another planet that can sustain human life So far, the planets being found are much larger than Earth and more closely resemble our solar system’s giants in size. However, it is likely that this is due to the increased difficulty in finding smaller extrasolar planets. In addition, it may be more difficult to detect extrasolar planets in binary systems and there may simply be fewer planets in binary systems. There are current estimates that over half of all solar systems have binary stars.

Could George Lucas have predicted our next home? How would you like to live on Tatooine? With the infinite universe around us, do you think it is a question of if life exists in a binary star system or when we will find it?

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