Milky Way May Contain 60 Billion Life Supporting Planets?!

Scientists using the Kepler spacecraft have redoubled their estimates on planets in the Milky Way that could support life.

Estimates now put the number at an astounding 60 billion planets that could support life.   This mind numbing figure comes on the heels of  Kepler's findings.

Scientists base their estimates on the most common star in the Milky Way, red dwarfs.  Their rational being that each red dwarf's habitable zone contains a life supporting planet. 

The problem though is red dwarf stars are exceedingly miserly with it's energy.   Dorian Abbot, an assistant professor in geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago suggests that planets in the "Goldilocks" zone may well have thick cloud cover to trap infrared energy.  

There is an excellent film concerning discovering extra-solar planets at THIS link

BMU episode 372 Now Online

I open the program this week with a short tribute to one of the masters of science fiction / horror Richard Matheson who pass away recently. Some of my earliest memories in the field were Matheson creations. After an anime musical interlude and news on the Supreme Court ruling on patenting genes. The first story of the afternoon is part two of In The Mourning pt2 by Edward McKeown. From the BMU blog: Data from Voyager 1 is posed to truly enter interstellar space. Researchers question NASA’s spacecraft sterilization procedures. Researchers may have found a way to make a working deflector shield. And inventors have developed a flying bike…Really! The closing story David Scholes’ story Trath: Return of the Quellers.

Star Trek Style Radiation Deflector Shield Possible?

Right out of a Star Trek episode, UK scientists are working on a device that could protect astronauts from high levels of radiation and it would work very much like the Trek "deflector shield" or how Earth's radiation shield works.  

Recent NASA studies have shown that astronauts exposed to open space, as on an extended trip to Mars, are exposed to as much radiation as they would be allowed to be exposed to in two-thirds of their allowable lifetime exposure.

Effective shielding would be expensive, massive and for the most part impractical.  

But the researchers at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory seemed to have stumbled upon an elegant solution - a mini Earth-magnetosphere.   Researchers have found that if you set up an electric field around an object, electrons from a plasma will flow around the object.  However lighter ions will be deflected or continue past the shielded object.   In effect, a miniature Earth magneto-sphere.   Initial tests have shown proof of concept.  

Radiation shields using this concept will be light and self supporting once started.  

Read more in the IO9 article HERE

Photo shows a small model in an energetic plasma stream.  The model is being protected by an electric / magnetic field as described in the article. 

Mars Bound Craft Sterlization Unnecessary?

For the past several years, NASA's Office of Planetary Protection have taken  expensive efforts to keep Earth microorganisms off Mars.  

Now two astrobiologists from Cornell University - Alberto Fairén and Washington State University -  Dirk Schulze-Makuch say that NASA's efforts are expensive and unnecessary.

Fairén and Schulze-Makuch, posit that such efforts are probably in vain since life from Earth has had billions of years and untold meteorite impacts to spread Earth-life to Mars.  Plus Several Earth spacecraft have visited Mars without undergoing the sterilization procedures now in place.

The researchers have said that should be cleaned to avoid confusing results, however craft like orbiters and geology-oriented devices should be scaled way back on sterilization. 

For more:

Science Daily Article

Voyager 1 Closing in on Interstellar Space

The latest data from Voyager 1 seems to indicate that it is at this moment at the very edge of the space influenced by Sol and entrance into interstellar space is now eminent.  

At present, Voyager is over 11 billion miles from Earth and at this remote distance particles from the sun have all but dissipated.  Controllers have also noticed that particles coming  towards Voyager from interstellar space,  have jumped markedly in the past year.

This of course means that Voyager 1 is set, any time now, to become the first  man made object to exit the solar system. 

More about Voyager 1 at Wikipedia

Complete BBC article HERE