Life in Space

Tropical Lakes on Saturn Moon Could Expand Options for Life

I found this current article that since Titan is the only solid body in our solar system that cycles a liquid, it may be a very likely candidate for life. Read the article to learn more:

TITAN'S OPTIONS FOR LIFE

Meteors

This is what you do if a meteor lands near you:

Our Solar System

We began last week by discussing our solar system. Our solar system is located in the Milky Way Galaxy. While we used to have nine planets, Pluto has be declassified and is not known as a dwarf planet. Our eight planets in order from the sun are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Their order can be remembered by the first letters of "my very educated mother just served us nachos. The first four planets are terrestrial and the last four are jovian. Terrestrial planets have a ground surface that could be landed on, while jovian planets are similar to Jupiter in that they are gas giants. The planet most similar to Earth is Mars, while the jovian planets are the most different from Earth. All of the jovian planets have rings, but Saturn's are the most well known.

Using the information from above, complete this short quiz.

1. What is the fifth planet from our sun?
2. What makes Mars a terrestrail planet?
3. How many planets are in our solar system?
4. What planet is closest to the sun?
5. Which planet is most similar to Earth?
6. How many planets have rings?
7. What is Pluto?
8. How can you remember the order of the planets?
9. Which planet's rings are most well known?
10. Where is our solar system located?

Shades of Bright and Dark on the Moon

I tried to observe the moon for several nights in the past two weeks but with the new moon and a few cloudy nights, this became arduous. I was however able to view the moon at 10pm both lastnight and on 6/25. There was slight cloudcover on the 25th and the moon was closer to the horizon but I was still able to see the detail on the lunar surface. Here is a picture of my observations.

The Sea of Fertility seemed very prominent in both. After that was the Sea of Tranquility. I noticed that the Sea of Serenity was visible on the 27th but not on the 25th. Overall, I felt that the moon on the 27th showed more detail.

The darkest part may have been the right side of the Sea of Serenity, while the highline of the Sea of Fertility may have been the brightest.

I didn't observe any maria on the bottom half of the moon. There, more delicate patches of shading were observed. There weren't bright or dark patches but a rough contour is visible.

Color of Planets

Because of the size, composition, and distance of planets, they all have unique color and brightness. This was a very difficult observation first because it was difficult to find the planets and second because it is hard to gauge how bright they are. I spent some time looking for Venus and Jupiter but later realized that they had set before I was observing. Here is the information I believe corresponds to Mercury, Mars, and Saturn:

This observation exercise was very similar to the earlier post on color of stars. In this case, Mars appeared brightest and Saturn appeared faintest. I would assume this is because Saturn is much farther away than Mars.


The colors of the planets were also difficult to detect. My response my be biased because I already have a mental image of how the planets should appear. Mars seemed to have the easiest color to detect since it is a faint orange-red but Saturn and Mercury just seemed like white stars.


If I did this same project three months later I think my answers would not be accurate anymore as one planet may be closer and another farther, due to their revolution around the sun.

Terraforming

Terraforming is "earth-shaping" a planet, moon, or other body by a hypothetical process of modifying the temperature, atmosphere, topography, or ecology to something that is similar to the biosphere of Earth.

Last week we talked about Mars in class. Mars is considered by many to be the most likely candidate for terraforming. Studies have been done concerning the possibility of heating the planet and altering its atmosphere.

This is how the atmosphere of Earth and Mars currently line up:

              MARS                                  EARTH

				95.32% carbon dioxide 2.7% nitrogen 1.6% argon 0.13% oxygen 0.08% carbon monoxide	78.08% nitrogen  20.95% oxygen   0.93% argon  0.038% carbon dioxide  About 1% water vapor

Therefore, in order for the planet to be hospitable, we'd have to change that carbon dioxide into oxygen by introducing water and plant species.

Colors of Stars

Stars have ranging colors from very blue, through the spectrum to very red. Placing a value from 0 (very blue) to 11 (very red) I've observed ten different stars. Those ten stars all come from either Ursa Major or Ursa Minor because I find that those constellations are easily located. Here is their assigned number:

 

 The brightest stars seemed to be Dubhe, Alioth, and Alkaid. These stars were light orange, white, and blue-white. I think that blue-white and white are easily seen because their wavelengths are stronger than that of yellows and reds.

The most difficult colors to detect were stars like Pherkad. This may be because orange is a less-powerful wavelength or simply because Pherkad is so far away.

Overall, I found orangeish stars to be the least brightest stars that I could detect a hint of color. To me, orange almost seems like a darker color than white or blue-white.