Astronomy posts by a computer geek

About

Tue, 29 Oct 2019 21:38:52 +0800

Out of Universe is an astronomy blog created by a computer geek, Kasra Madadipouya. Here, mainly the interesting astronomy news is shared with short analysis, especially on topics related to exoplanets (extra-solar planets), earth-like planets, Mars Curiosity rover, and Kepler, Voyager 1, 2 missions. By no means what I write here is scientific. It is mainly driven based on my understanding of matters with some speculations and guesses.

Potential planets supporting life in solar system

Wed, 26 Feb 2020 08:37:46 +0100

Potential planets supporting life in the solar system

After a very long time, finally, I stopped procrastinating and start to write about astronomy again.

In this blog post, I go through the planets that potentially support life in our solar system. I’m doing it because scientists found new stuff recently and so many new news floating around.

Mars

We are familiar with Mars, especially after successful Curiosity Rover landing. And it is getting more and more attractive as scientists make discoveries. Recently, they found that water may still exist on Mars in the northern hemisphere in some seasons, source.

Mars

credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Besides that two rovers scheduled to launch toward Mars in 2020. Mars 2020 and [Rosalind Franklin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin_(rover). Hope they bring some positive news. More here.

Europa

Europa is the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter. It attracts many research and scientist speculating liquid water may run below the thick Europa surface. Besides that, Clipper probe will be launched in mid of this year to study the icy surface of the Europa.

Europa

credit: Galileo Project, JPL, NASA

Enceladus

Enceladus is one of the smallest Saturn’s moon with 505 km diameter. By contrast with Europa, not much attention is given to it. That could be because of its size but anyhow, it’s one of the candidates. Enceladus like Europa has an icy surface. More about Enceladus here.

Enceladus

credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Titan (less likely)

Before this news Titan, the biggest Saturn’s moon was on the top list along with Mars and Europa. But the recent study shows otherwise or at least it reduces the chances of Titan hosting life significantly.

Titan

credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Where Earth life originated?

Sun, 19 Jan 2020 08:37:46 +0100

Where Earth life originated?

First of all happy new year and wish all have a good year ahead.

It was during my holiday that I started to think where possibly Earth life originated. Was it there since the beginning of time? Or aliens introduced it? Or a meteorite hit the Earth at some point and brought some microbes survived all the way?

For that, I did some search on the net, as usual, and found an interesting article from Space.com. As strange as it may sound, there’s some supporting evidence that Earth’s life came from Mars.

Earth life

credit: Joel Filipe

Surprising, isn’t it? But how?

Some studies show Mars had some sort of life, microbial, at some point before it loses its atmosphere. How Mars has lost its atmosphere is the topic of another discussion. But what studies suggest is Mars rocks have come to Earth somehow and these brought life to the Earth. Given Earth had a better condition than Mars, life evolved here and after billions of years, here we are.

You may wonder how possibly Mars rocks came to Earth without the involvement of an intelligent species? The answer is simple, asteroid strike. An asteroid strike hits Mars and causes its rocks to spread and some lands on Earth. Sounds like a fantasy? But it’s not. It is real, so far of over 61,000 meteorites that have been found on Earth, 224 were identified as Martian as of January 2019, source. Even in 2012, a piece of Mars rock has landed on the Moroccan desert, source.

If you are keen to know more about Mars meteorite, read this Wikipedia article.

Why do I care?

You may wonder again why I do care where life on Earth came from? That backs to this wild idea that if scientists figure out how life has introduced to Earth, given good survival conditions for microbial life, the same thing can be emulated on other planets. Again, far from realistic, but let’s say on some exoplanets.

Or at least the possibility of the occurrence can be measured. As you may know, scientists almost every other day are finding exoplanets and it would be more interesting to know the possibilities of life there. Or even evaluate if the human can make something about it, means making planets habitable.

Phobos and Deimos, Mars moons

Fri, 20 Dec 2019 10:37:46 +0100

Introduction

Recently, I have stumbled upon an article about Mars moons. To be honest, I didn’t know that Mars has any moons at all until I read the article. Anyhow, after reading the article, I decided to write a short blog post to introduce Mars moons for those, like me, who don’t know about them.

Mars moons

Mars has two moons named Phobos and Deimos. Phobos is the bigger one and Deimos is the smaller. Both have irregular shapes and compare with the earth-moon are too small. The Phobos radius is 11.267 km, and Deimos one is 6.2 km. Whereas, the earth-moon has the radius of 1,737.1 km.

Phobos and Deimos orbiting schema

credit:ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Phobos

credit:Viking Project, JPL, NASA

Phobos rises from the west and sets in the east. This takes only eleven hours. Phobos has the average orbital period of 7 hours, moon is 27 days with the average orbital speed of 2.138 km/s, moon is 1.022 km/s.

Deimos

credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

On the other hand, Deimos rises from the east and sets in the west. This takes 131 hours with the average orbital period of 1.263 days and the average orbital speed of 1.3513 km/s.

Reference

Amazing alien worlds miniatures

Tue, 10 Dec 2019 10:37:46 +0100

Amazing alien worlds miniatures

I know I have not posted anything for sometimes. But believe me, I was keeping eyes on the astronomy news but nothing interesting (at least me), came up. Until now of course! I guess that’s why I am writing this post.

Well, this is mainly about art but since it is about alien worlds, my main interest, then I share it here. I have stumbled upon a post from Universetoday.com which was quite interesting to me. They have shared several of miniatures pictures of alien worlds and they are eye-catching. I highly recommend you to have a look at that post, here.

I share some of them here too.

Volcanic Moon

Gliese 876b

The artist who created these amazing miniatures is Adam Makarenko.

A place on Earth, water but no life

Sat, 30 Nov 2019 10:37:46 +0100

A place on Earth, water but no life

Scientists found a place in Ethiopia where there’s water but it has no living life, link.

Dallol, Ethiopia

credit:Puri Lopez-Garcia

What does it mean to us?

Well not very good news, I am afraid. That could indicate that even if there are places in and out of our solar system that have water, there might not be life there. In all of the previous articles, I have stated clearly that in my opinion where ever there’s water, there’s some sort of life. But this is not the case anymore. So I have to take back my words :-)

But that’s not all of it. Statistically speaking, still, there’s a higher chance of finding life, where the water exists.

Evidence of vapor water on Europa

Wed, 20 Nov 2019 10:37:46 +0100

Evidence of vapor water on Europa

This is the second good news from our solar system this week. Two days ago, Titan, and today Europa, the Jupiter moon. As mentioned before scientists speculate the existence of a liquid ocean underneath the Europa icy surface. And today, source, they have announced that they found evidence of vapor water.

What does it mean to us? It means more possibilities of supporting life on Europa. Who knows maybe some sort of life already exists in that liquid ocean.

So far there are three places in the solar system that have the potential of supporting life: Mars, Titan (Saturn moon), and Europa (Jupiter moon).

Possibilities of life in the solar system, Saturn's moon Titan

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 10:37:46 +0100

Possibilities of life in the solar system, Saturn’s moon Titan

Well, I have some exciting news about the possibilities of life in the solar system. But this time is not Mars or Europa, it’s about Titan, a Saturn’s moon. According to Reuters, data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft reveals the existence of carbon in Titan. This speculates scientists about the possibilities of life under the icy ocean in Titan. My analysis, if the liquid water runs under the Titan icy ocean, the chance of microbiological life is higher than Mars.

More possibilities of life on Mars, Oxygen discovery

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 10:37:46 +0100

More possibilities of life on Mars, Oxygen discovery

I read a great news today. Mars Curiosity has found Oxygen on Mars. This means higher chances of microorganism life on Mars. As we already knew Methane exists on Mars that raises during summer for unknown reasons. And now Oxygen discovery hypothetically speaking means the existence of some sort of life. Or the ability to supporting life on Mars. I am very excited about it and can’t wait for more detailed findings.

Sources

https://www.space.com/mars-oxygen-mystery-curiosity-rover.html

Gorgeous Mars Curiosity pictures

Sat, 09 Nov 2019 10:37:46 +0100

Gorgeous Mars Curiosity pictures

Well I am little bit late this time but anyhow it is an interesting news. On November first, Sol 2573, Curiosity rover has reached to a bleak mountain in mid of a crater. And from there it has sent some amazing pictures. The objective of going through this path is to understand how and when water was flowing on Mars.

Enjoy this gorgeous picture,

Sol 2573 Mars Curiosity Rover

credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

More pictures can be found at mars.nasa.gov and mission updates, here.

Possibilities of life out of the Earth

Sat, 09 Nov 2019 10:37:46 +0100

Possibilities of life out of the Earth

So NASA has confirmed hundreds of exoplanets, source. And seems more yet to come. But these planets are not so close to us. The closest ones are 50 light-years away. And available data about them are rather limited given the far distance.

This could be very disappointing. Even with the fast speed of technology advancement.

But wait, there are more viable options.

Mars

Yes, to me there’s some chance of life on Mars, even very slim. Historical data shows at some point Mars similar to Earth had an atmosphere and even some rivers were running, most probably water, which traces are visible. So even though Mars has lost most of its atmosphere, still there is some chance of life there. I mean humans can introduce. That seems more achievable and realistic.

Europa

Another close place is Jupiter’s moon Europa. Europa has a thick frozen ocean on surface and scientists speculating there could be liquid water running beneath the frozen ocean. This is very positive because where ever water exists, some sort of life exists.

A word on extraterrestrial life

Wed, 06 Nov 2019 08:37:46 +0100

A word on extraterrestrial life

I was reading an article by Space.com titled

Discovering Extraterrestrial Life Would Be Slow and Uncertain

Meghan Bartels Space.com

That made me think for a second about extraterrestrial life which could be interesting to share.

For a second, imagine that tomorrow scientists discovered a sort of life exists out of the earth. No need to be too odd like weird formed alien, just a microorganism life, very simple.

Then how much our vision to the world will be shifted?

I would say a massive shift. Because it invalidates many things including some scientific laws, rules, religions, etc. That gives me some sort of goosebumps. It is like suddenly a blind person begins to see the world. So fascinating.

So to me doesn’t matter how long it takes to find extraterrestrial life but what’s important is keep searching. To me, that’s the silver lining of humanity.

Astronomy books

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 08:00:00 +0100

Some astronomy books

I have been following astronomy news for quite sometimes but never read a single book about it. All my knoweldge comes from news and Wikipedia. Two days ago I saw Space.com tweeted a list of Astronomy and Sci-Fi books of 2019 which I believe worth sharing,

Best Space Books and Sci-Fi for 2019 https://t.co/U4Nf3UGiZR pic.twitter.com/O4FVuIFryy
— SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) October 30, 2019

Actual link, here. As a starter I’m gonna do some research and pick up one for my next reading.

How Voyagers computers are running since 1977

Wed, 30 Oct 2019 08:37:46 +0100

How Voyagers computers are running since 1977

I have always been passionate about Voyager 1, 2 missions. One thing that I have never paid attention to how their computers are working and still sending data to Earth for over 40 years ago. That means Voyager computers have the highest uptime of all the time, over 15K days.

So to learn more about the Voyager computers, I did a quick search on the internet and came across this awesome video explaining how Voyager computers are designed by Aaron Cummings.