Kepler mission and the hunt for habitable exoplanets

Human curiosity plays a major role in all of our discoveries. One thing humans are very curious about is if there are other worlds out there like our own. That is where the Kepler mission comes in. In March of 2009, NASA sent off a spacecraft that would be capable of detecting such planets if they do indeed exist. The craft beams back data from 150,000 different stars in our galaxy. The way we know if there is a planet is based on the changes in light beaming towards the craft from the star. If there is a periodic change in light, we know that it is a planet traversing in front of that star. To date, there have been 1,039 confirmed exoplanets. 12 of these planets have been confirmed to be less than twice Earth-size and within the habitable zone. The habitable zone is the section in a solar system where liquid water could potentially exist. Basically, it's in the location where it's not too hot and not too cold in its orbit of the parent star. We cannot view these planets directly, but the light traversing method has been proven to be accurate. It also allows us to understand the atmospheric makeup of the planet which can help determine if the planet is suitable for life. NASA scientists hope to one day develop telescopes powerful enough to view these planets directly.

Sources: https://www.nasa.gov/kepler/discoveries

http://kepler.nasa.gov/Mission/QuickGuide/

Blog 2: The Fermi Paradox

The Fermi paradox is a concept that comes up often in astronomy and astrobiology. The reason for this is because of how massive the observable universe truly is. The Fermi paradox is basically a contradiction to the potential for life in the universe. With billions of observable galaxies and each galaxy containing billions of stars like our sun, and each potentially having a solar system with habitable planets, why haven't we been able to detect life anywhere but Earth? Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) questioned this that with such a high probability of there being life out there in the universe, we should have detected it by now or been visited by extraterrestrials, yet there is no evidence that either have occurred. One of the new leading theories of why this is the case is that since life is so fragile early on, the chances of it surviving and creating a stable environment on the planet is very, very slim. The example the authors of this concept use is that four billion years ago, Mars, Venus, and Earth all were potentially habitable. But within a billion years, Mars froze and Venus turned into a hotbox where the environments seem too unstable for life. They believe that this is most likely the case all over the universe and that is what makes our planet so unique.


Source article for new theory:http://www.kurzweilai.net/fermi-paradox-resolved-near-universal-early-extinction

Astronomy blog

Welcome!

My blog will consist of different aspects of astronomy including recent discoveries and hopefully I can build your interest in space and our role in the universe.

1/17/16 First blog- Understanding the Astronomical Unit

The astronomical unit is the measurement of the approximate distance between the Earth and the Sun. This distance is equivalent to about 93 million miles. The reason why this is an approximation is because the Earth's orbit around the Sun is not a perfect circle so the distance varies slightly. 1 AU is used as a standard measurement to approximate our location (Earth) to other planets and stars. 1 AU is about eight light minutes, which in laymen terms is how far light travels in eight minutes. One amazing bit of information to close the blog for this week is the Voyager I spacecraft, launched in 1977, is currently the farthest any spacecraft has traveled in mankind's history. As I am writing this, it is currently 134.42 AU from the Earth. That is approximately 12.5 billion miles from us!

Source: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/