Today would have been Carl Sagan’s 82nd birthday, a man who was one of my primary inspirations (along with Albert Einstein, Robert A Heinlein, and Nikola Tesla). He brought an appreciation of astronomy and the cosmos to the masses, he co-founded the Planetary Society, and he wrote some amazing books and articles. Want to put the recent political news on Earth in perspective? Watch his famous presentation Pale Blue Dot:
The headline says it all, because the news is we really do have a Rocky Planet (as opposed to a Gas Giant) that is only a touch more than 4 light years away, according to the ESO who made the discovery, the ESA, and NASA. It is in the Goldilocks Zone of its star Proxima Centauri, and about 1.3 times the mass of Earth. The size and mass of the planet as well as the age of the star it orbits means it at least started out with the majority of the same elements that make up the Earth. The Goldilocks Zone orbit means water would be a liquid at most places on its surface, although the fact that Proxima Centauri is a Red Dwarf makes it likely that any near-Earth planet that close would be in tidal lock-down, with a single side always facing the star. That kind of thing tends to boil off an atmosphere on the hot side, and have it fall as snow on the cold side, not terribly conductive to life (or keeping your atmosphere). The good news is Proxima Centauri is the smallest and most distanced member of a triple star system known as Alpha Centauri; since the planet is not orbiting the central duo of the set, it runs a much smaller risk of being pulled apart into an asteroid belt over the next few eons.
So yes, this is one of those good news/bad news kind of things. The good news is that our nearest stellar neighbor has a planet which could evolve life, if all the other details work out. The bad news is that the odds are good it doesn’t have life more complex than viruses because of the orbital mechanics. The REALLY good news is the implication this discovery makes obvious; for us to find a planet in the Goldilocks Zone of our nearest stellar neighbor, such combinations must be a lot more likely than we ever thought possible. Just to keep me from jumping off the deep edge, let’s take a look at what SETI had to say about what we might find there just last November…
The Perseid Meteor Shower is already under way, with peak viewing on the 12th and 13th of August. During the peak you can see one or two a minute, although even this far outside of the peak there will be a handful per hour, with the frequency going up steadily the closer we get. Meteor showers are named after the constellation they appear to be coming from, but the Perseids appear to be coming from a large chunk of the sky. Generally speaking if you face the Big Dipper or Plow from late in the evening until just before dawn you should have an excellent show. For more detailed information and instructions see the Meteor Watch web site linked at the start of this article.
Gravity Waves have finally been observed, not once, but twice, and the era of Gravity Wave Astronomy is now here. So far our detectors can only pick up really powerful events in the form of black holes multiple times the mass of our sun colliding together, but as the science matures we should be able to detect less energetic events. Why did I say finally been observed? Because they were predicted by Albert Einstein right around 100 years ago as part of his General Relativity Theory, and it took us until last year to begin to detect them.
Yes, I am going to add an Orbital Report here, and this is my first attempt, embedding it in a page rather than inserting a widget into the sidebar. If I get this part working properly, I will go for the widget. Assuming I can compress it down enough to fit without losing the raw data or the readouts.
Track ISS, everything is default, except the NORAD id:
Track ISS, Hubble, NOAA, small widget (use the drop-down to select the satellite:
Track Funcube, large widget, don’t care if next pass is optically visible or
not:
10 Years of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter data gathered together: Magnificent Mars is a short but intense video highlighting the last decades worth of images brought back from the red planet. It’s next project may be selecting a landing area for the first manned flight.