Lifeboat Foundation

All we can say about most of the 4,000+ known exoplanets is that they exist. Their physical characteristics are unknowable with current technology, but a few have given up some secrets. Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have identified a magnetic field around the exoplanet HAT-P-11b. Earth’s magnetic field is essential for our continued existence, and this is the first time we’ve confirmed one around an exoplanet.

Earth and several other objects in our solar system have magnetic fields, a consequence of the way planets and moons interact with the solar wind. On Earth, the magnetosphere deflects damaging radiation, which would otherwise render the surface inhospitable. Fields surrounding exoplanets could serve a similar purpose. There was every reason to think exoplanets could have magnetic fields like the ones we see locally, but this is the first time we’ve been able to confirm that.

Astronomers from the University of Arizona observed the exoplanet HAT-P-11 b across six transits — that’s when the exoplanet passes in front of its host star from our perspective. This is how the HATNet Project discovered HAT-P-11 b in 2009. It was confirmed and further characterized later using radial velocity measurements from the Keck Observatory, which is the other standard method for detecting distant planets. Although, HAT-P-11 b is relatively close in the grand scheme at just 123 light years away.

Juno just picked up some odd frequencies at Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, which hint at its structure below. This includes the possibility of water oceans.

Mars-sized object orbiting extremely closely to an M-dwarf star has been validated using the Penn State Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF). The planet, which was originally classified as a false positive in an automated search of data collected by the Kepler space telescope, is about half the size of Earth and is so close to its host star that it orbits in less than 10 hours. If it were orbiting a star the size of our sun it would be skimming the star’s corona—the aura of exceedingly hot plasma.

Plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter, along with solid, liquid, and gas. It is an ionized gas consisting of positive ions and free electrons. It was first described by chemist Irving Langmuir in the 1920s.

A team of researchers want to build robots out of ice and send them to space. The idea is that — lacking a local repair shop — the icy bots can use found materials to rebuild themselves.

Ice can be located all over the solar system, from the moon to the distant rings around Saturn. So researchers from the University of Pennsylvania are trying to figure out how to tap into that nearly unlimited resource for robotics.

NASA wants to send the robot dog, Spot, to space. The canine-bot can do many tricks — from herding sheep to helping the NYPD in a hostage situation — but it likely won’t be able to repair itself. Where could it find enough materials to do the job?

Astronomers have outlined their vision for what comes after the James Webb Space Telescope, and it’s a suite of tools to answer some of our biggest questions.

It’s really happening. After all the years of delays, reschedulings, budget shortfalls, and even more delays, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched on December 25 and is now successfully on its way to is destination at the second LaGrange point (L2), about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from Earth.

If you celebrate Christmas and are astronomically inclined, the launch feels like a true Christmas miracle.

The footage of JWST’s separation from the Ariane 5 rocket, as seen from a camera on the rocket’s second stage is just absolutely stunning.

Just two weeks after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, NASA

Established in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. It’s vision is “To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity.”

It was a big year. Fermilab discovered possible evidence of new physics with the muon G-2 experiment. Physicists created a time crystal, a new phase of matter that appears to violate one of nature’s most cherished laws. And we got a glimpse of an enormous pair of bubbles towering over the Milky Way. Read the articles in full at Quanta: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-physics-20211222/

Quanta Magazine is an editorially independent publication supported by the Simons Foundation.

Time to have another go at reanimation?

Interview with James Lovelock 101 years old-scientist inventor.

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