I’ve always wondered if there was life like humans in space, and thanks to the Drake equation, I’m now 99.9% sure there are multiple alien civilizations as advanced, if not more advanced, than us in our own galaxy. The Drake Equation hypothesizes that the number of alien civilizations that can communicate can be calculated with a variety of factors. Each factor is merely a guess, however we can make more educated guesses using the information we already have on our own solar system. It’s interesting to think about when we will be advanced enough to be able to detect extraterrestrial life, whether that could be in the distant or near future. We know for sure we’re going to send astronauts to Mars soon, and personally I think it’s only a matter of time before we are greeting aliens to Earth or visiting other alien civilizations.
This semester, I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to do undergraduate research in the realm of astronomy here at Vanderbilt.
My particular work’s main focus has been trying to find a correlation between the redshift and the luminosity of different stars observed in the universe. I created a code via Jupyter Notebook to create a graphic of a 3d graph comparing the redshift, luminosity, and the number of stars which fall into each particular point on this graph.
However, I soon learned that my work was not done yet. The data I had been analyzing was generated by a green-band filter. Basically, all of the light I was using to calculate the luminosity was only in a small section within the green area of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum.
Basically, as we’ve seen depicted in photos in class, a lot of the time astronomers will use filters when taking photos to only let in a certain type of light, as they can potentially provide different views of these celestial bodies.
In order to get the true luminosities of these stars, I need to consider the average energy flux they put out not just in the green region, but the EM spectrum as a whole. And similar to the blackbody curves we dealt with in class, these can be somewhat non-uniform.
I remember back in AP Biology in high school, my teacher briefly mentioned during the unit on autotrophs, that there are certain types of organisms who create their own energy but do it in the absence of the sun.
To me this was a complete conundrum. In every science related class, presentation or seminar that I had attended up until this point had preached that the sun was the absolute beginning of the energy supply of Earth’s ecosystems.
However, as I delved further into this topic, I learned that extremophiles are notorious for employing the process of chemosynthesis. And this made sense, considering that places like the ocean floor near hydrothermal vents are almost always devoid of sunlight. I just never had known any autotrophs existed at these depths and brutal of environments.
In short, the sulfur-oxidizing-bacteria which do this process take in water, carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean water and hydrogen sulfide from geothermal vents and fix all of them in such a way that it creates sugars like glucose as an energy source and sulfuric acid as a waste product.
They often aren’t the only ones who benefit from this energy production however. A lot of the time, they hold mutualistic or commensal relationships with other organisms such as plants on the ocean floor, who utilize some of the sugar that they produce. In the mutualistic cases, they often return the favor by giving these bacteria a place to live and colonize. Other organisms may also garner sugar from the bacterium when they die or by ingesting them.
I’ve learned so much about the formation of star systems, planets, the physics and chemistry that sustain life, the different space missions that have pushed technology and engineering, and more. I have a much greater appreciation for missions that collect data from other planets and star systems now that I understand the level of technology, funding, coordinating, and engineering necessary to collect this data. In the past, when I heard scientists discover certain chemicals or puddles on a distant planet, I used to not care but now, I appreciate the amount of dedication to find this useful data, as it will help build our understanding for the future. In the beginning of the course, we read an essay by Neil Degresse Tyson that was very interesting. It talked about how we are very small creatures relative to the scale of the universe and that we are merely star stuff. Looking at things from this perspective is really interesting because it means everything that’s happened until now is just a random set of events that happened to occur from the Big Bang. I’m excited to learn about more astronomical discoveries in the future.
Astrobiology is the scientific search of life in the universe. There are three major
areas of astrobiology: studying the origin and evolution of life on Earth, finding worlds suitable for life, and finding evidence for life on other worlds. The first area teaches us about the necessary conditions for certain life to develop. Many researchers have used fossils to track the origin and evolution of life on Earth. Researchers have concluded from these studies that life on Earth rose relatively quickly 4 billion years ago, implying that life on other planets could develop relatively easily. In addition to fossils, researchers have studied extremophiles, which are a broad group of organisms that enjoy extreme preferences that could be suitable on some planets we’ve discovered. So far, however, no life has been found on any other planets. The search for life on other planets continues, as missions have been deployed to collect samples, roam worlds, and fly in the universe.
As I reflect on my blog posts this semester as well as overall topics within the class, I appreciate the time aspect. By that I mean that we have examined the past, present, and future of astronomy. My blogs included everything from the Carrington Event, a result of a large solar flare in 1859, to the total solar eclipse sweeping across North America in 2024. I picked topics based on what we had discussed in class but ended up connecting each topic to my own interests.
I learned about important astronomers and their contributions. I learned about current information about other worlds and their characteristics. I learned about what scientists hope to explore next. I learned about the diversity of the field of astronomy and its importance to past, present, and future societies.
My final post is forward-facing as it concerns one of the most recent space events, and something that was briefly mentioned in class, the launch of the JUICE spacecraft. Less than a week ago, on April 14th, the European Space Agency spacecraft was launched. Its mission is to explore the moons of Jupiter, specifically Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede, and determine the habitability of these moons. The launch had to occur within a second of the planned time for a complex maneuver, a Lunar-Earth gravity assist, to work properly. The image below shows the launch of the spacecraft attached to an Ariane 5 rocket.
Image Credit: JODY AMIET/AFP via Getty Images, obtained here
While the launch is exciting, the spacecraft will not reach its intended destination until 2031. Once it arrives, it is expected to complete 35 flybys of the three moons. The spacecraft is certainly an impressive feat involving everything from its trip to its power supply to its instruments. You can learn more about each aspect here, which is where I learned about the mission.
This spacecraft reflects the exciting time in space travel. I am happy that I got to learn more about it through this class and hope that one day I will be involved in it.
Since there has not been another moon landing. Until now. In 2024, Artemis 2 will launch and send the first person of color and the first woman to the moon. This mission’s goal is to establish the first long-term occupancy on the moon. This mission is the first step to then sending our astronauts to Mars.
According to NASA, the exploration taking place in about a year will have many scientific, economic and inspirational benefits for our future on Earth and in space. The mission consists of building an Artemis base camp on the moon’s surface as well as having a gateway in the moon’s lunar orbit. This gateway will provide astronauts a place to live and work and support them, while allowing them to travel back and forth between the surface camp and the spaceship.
This is a very exiting mission because it has been many many years since we have visited the Moon, let alone physically visited another object in our solar system. This exploration will finally demolish all of the conspiracies about the moon landing being fake due to the fact that we have not been back; because now we are going back.
This video by NASA tells us why the moon! Make sure to keep updating yourself on the news and launch of this incredible mission when the time comes!
An extremophile is an organism which is able to survive in the harshest of conditions. Acidophiles thrive in very acidic conditions, thermophiles thrive in environments with extremely high temperatures, psychrophiles thrive in very very low temperatures. There are many other types of extremophiles, one for every type of harsh environment in which organisms thrive in. If there are so many different types, then what extremophile is the most extreme?
According to Artis Micropia, the most extreme extremophile discovered right now is the
Deinococcus Radiodurans. This extremophile is a psychrophile, a xerophile, an acidophile; or in other words: a polyextremophile which can survive extreme cold, droughts, thin air, acidic, and high radioactivity conditions.
This organism was discovered by accident during an experiment. In 1956, Arthur Anderson was conducting an experiment at the Oregon Agriculture Experiment Station in Oregon. This experiment consisted of sterilizing canned food with high doses of radiation in order to determine if this was a sustainable way of sterilizing food. Although all forms of bacteria and life were killed, the Deinococcus Radiodurans stayed standing.
Another interesting fact about this organism is that there is potential for this type of extremophile to survive on Mars, which would give us evidence for our ongoing research about life on Mars.
This Star Wars-esque image shows what it would be like to travel at light speed!
I have certainly learned so much by taking this course. It has really helped me grow my perspective of the universe and how much there is left to learn and explore. I might not be alone in this, but I felt like there was not a whole lot left to learn about our solar system once we reached the moon and gathered data on all the other planets. But this is absolutely not the case and this class taught me that. I have found it incredibly exciting that there is still so much to learn, and maybe as technology advances, we may be able to land on the “surfaces” of the gas giants or collect data on extremophiles on other worlds that prove life is out there.
I also look forward to the day when we figure out how to travel at lightspeed and traverse the galaxy much faster than we do now and collect data on not only our galaxies but also all the neighboring galaxies and someday the ever-expanding universe. I think it is really interesting to think of the idea that some day we could meet other advanced life in other galaxies throughout the vast expanse of space. I will be following closely along for all of the advances in astronomical science that will keep pushing us towards learning more about space.
Neptune, the eighth planet from the Sun, is one of the four gas giants in our solar system, along with Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. More specifically, it can be considered an ice giant since it is made up of ices and carbon compounds in addition to hydrogen and helium.
Neptune is about 17 times the mass of Earth and is located approximately 2.8 billion miles from the Sun. It has a diameter of around 30,599 miles, making it the fourth largest planet in our solar system. One of the most striking features of Neptune is its beautiful blue color, which is caused by the presence of methane gas in its atmosphere.
The planet’s atmosphere is also notable for its extreme weather conditions. Winds on Neptune can reach speeds of up to 1,200 miles per hour, making them the strongest in the solar system. In addition, the planet experiences frequent storms and has a massive storm system known as the Great Dark Spot, which is similar to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.
Neptune has 14 known moons, with the largest being Triton. Triton is notable for its retrograde orbit, which means it orbits Neptune in the opposite direction to the planet’s rotation. This has led scientists to believe that Triton was once a dwarf planet that was captured by Neptune’s gravity.
