New Studies Propose Two New Planets Beyond Pluto

New calculations from an international team of researchers suggest that there could be two unknown planets beyond Pluto.

In two new studies, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, scientists from the University of Madrid and the University of Cambridge posit that two, or more, unknown planets are responsible for unusual behaviour beyond Neptune.

Objects, in that far-flung part of the Solar System, don’t act like we believe they should: the paths they move along do not have the orbital inclinations and axes that astronomers would expect to see, based on current theory of what researchers call "trans-Neptunian objects."

Unless, the astrophysicists posit, there’s something else out there, and, after considering the effects of the “Kozai mechanism,” the effect an object orbiting further out from a gravitational source can have one orbiting futher in, they now believe there are at least two mysterious planets at play.

“Our results may be truly revolutionary for astronomy,” says co-author Carlos de la Fuente Marcos in a news release, but the team says this is still a hypothesis.

To prove it, scientists will have to overcome two hurdles. Not only does the new theory challenge astrophysicists' current thinking about how the solar system came to be, but the sample size used in the study’s calculations contains only 13 objects.

However, the team promises that with a larger sample size, coming soon, and new research (a recently-discovered planet-in-process is much further away from a star than scientists suspected to be possible), they’ll soon have even more evidence that our solar system may be even bigger than thought.

More Information
'Flipping minor bodies: what comet 96P/Machholz 1 can tell us about the orbital evolution of extreme trans-Neptunian objects and the production of near-Earth objects on retrograde orbits' published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society - 10.1093/mnras/stu2230

Arecibo observatory: Two New Programs Launching to Listen for Aliens

The 305-meter telescope at Arecibo Observatory is just one of a collection that SETI will use to search nearby stars for electronic signals that could indicate intelligent life. 

If such a civilization was utilizing a similar dish to image exoplanets, SETI's team should be able to detect it.

Credit: Arecibo Observatory

SETI is stepping up its search for alien lifeforms on far off worlds.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program recently announced two new methods to search for signals that could come from life on other planets.

In the Panchromatic SETI project, multiple telescopes will scan a variety of wavelengths from 30 stars near the sun; the project will look for powerful signals beamed into space, potentially by intelligent extraterrestrials.

SETI is also launching an interplanetary eavesdropping program that is expected to search for messages beamed between planets in a single system.

"If we are polluting space, perhaps other extraterrestrials are leaking signals," Dan Werthimer, director of the Berkley SETI Research Center, told an audience during the Smithsonian Magazine's "The Future is Here" Festival in May. "Maybe they're sending something our way."

'Everything we've got'
Since humans made their first FM radio and television transmissions, signals from Earth have been spilling out into space, announcing the presence of intelligent life to any group that might be searching for it.

According to Werthimer, signals from the 1950s television show "I Love Lucy" have reached thousands of stars, while the nearest suns have already enjoyed the "The Simpsons."

If Earth has unintentionally leaked signs of its presence, other alien civilizations may have done the same thing.

SETI's new Panchromatic project will utilize a variety of telescopes covering a range of frequencies to scour the nearest stars.

"We're going to throw everything we've got at it," Werthimer added.

The panchromatic project will examine a sample of the 30 stars that lie within 5 parsecs (16 light-years) from the sun. The list includes 13 single stars, seven binary systems and one triple system.

Most of the stars are smaller than the sun, but the project will also examine two white dwarfs and one moderately evolved F star. No confirmed exoplanets have been found around any of the stars.

By setting distance as the criteria, the SETI team hopes to alleviate any bias that might otherwise result from focusing on systems similar to that of Earth. The team selected stars for study based only on how far they lie from the sun.

According to SETI-Berkeley's Andrew Siemion, chief scientist of the eavesdropping project, the search will also probe a diverse stellar population already well studied at many wavelengths.

"In the event of a non-detection, these attributes of the sample will allow us to place strong and broadly applicable limits on the presence of technology," Siemion told Space.com via email.

Observations from the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope in Europe and the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia will begin over the summer and fall of 2014.

Instrument development and commissioning is still in progress for the Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI) at Mount Wilson Observatory and the Nickel Telescope at Lick Observatory, both in California.

But according to Siemion, the pair should be ready at about the same time. The Nickel Telescope will conduct the first-ever SETI observations done in the near-infrared.

BRITE-Constellation: Two low-cost Canadian nanosatellites launched

Nanosatellites will form a unique "constellation" aimed at understanding the ecology of the Universe. 

Together, the satellites are known as the BRITE-Constellation, standing for BRIght Target Explorer.

Credit: UTIAS - Space Flight Laboratory.

Two nanosatellites were launched from Yasny, Russia, at 15:11:11 Eastern Daylight Time today by Anthony Moffat, of the University of Montreal and the Centre for Research in Astrophysics of Quebec (CRAQ), and UTIAS, the Canadian research and technology team he leads.

Costing a fraction of conventional space telescopes and similar in size and weight to a car battery, the satellites are two of six that will work together to shed light on the structures and life stories of some of the brightest stars in the sky, uncovering unique clues as to the origins of our own Sun and Earth.

Together, the satellites are known as the BRITE-Constellation, standing for BRIght Target Explorer.

"BRITE-Constellation will monitor for long stretches of time the brightness and colour variations of most of the brightest stars visible to the eye in the night sky. These stars include some of the most massive and luminous stars in the Galaxy, many of which are precursors to supernova explosions."

"This project will contribute to unprecedented advances in our understanding of such stars and the life cycles of the current and future generations of stars," said Professor Moffat, who is the scientific mission lead for the Canadian contribution to BRITE and current chair of the international executive science team.

Luminous stars dominate the ecology of the Universe. "During their relatively brief lives, massive luminous stars gradually eject enriched gas into the interstellar medium, adding heavy elements critical to the formation of future stars, terrestrial planets and organics."

"In their spectacular deaths as supernova explosions, massive stars violently inject even more crucial ingredients into the mix."

"The first generation of massive stars in the history of the Universe may have laid the imprint for all future stellar history," Moffat explained.

"Yet, massive stars, rapidly spinning and with radiation fields whose pressure resists gravity itself - are arguably the least understood, despite being the brightest members of the familiar constellations of the night sky."

Other less-massive stars, including stars similar to our own Sun, also contribute to the ecology of the Universe, but only at the end of their lives, when they brighten by factors of a thousand and shed off their tenuous outer layers.

Nanosatellites will form a unique "constellation" aimed at understanding the ecology of the Universe. 

Together, the satellites are known as the BRITE-Constellation, standing for BRIght Target Explorer. 

Credit: UTIAS - Space Flight Laboratory

BRITE-Constellation is in fact a multinational effort that relies on pioneering Canadian space technology and a partnership with Austrian and Polish space researchers – the three countries act as equal partners.

Canada's participation was made possible thanks to an investment of $4.07 million by the Canadian Space Agency.

The two new Canadian satellites are joining two Austrian satellites and a Polish satellite already in orbit; the final Polish satellite will be launched in August.

All six satellites were designed by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies - Space Flight Laboratory, who also built the Canadian pair.

The satellites are were in fact named "BRITE Toronto" and "BRITE Montreal" after the University of Toronto and the University of Montreal, who play a major role in the mission.

"BRITE-Constellation will exploit and enhance recent Canadian advances in precise attitude control that have opened up for space science the domain of very low cost, miniature spacecraft, allowing a scientific return that otherwise would have had price tags 10 to 100 times higher," Moffat said.

"This will actually be the first network of satellites devoted to a fundamental problem in astrophysics."

The nanosatellites will be able to explore a wide range of astrophysical questions. "The constellation could detect exoplanetary transits around other stars, putting our own planetary system in context, or the pulsations of red giants, which will enable us to test and refine our models regarding the eventual fate of our Sun," Moffatt explained.

Two Indonesian volcanoes erupt, flights disrupted

Local residents watch as a giant plume of steam and ash rise and hot lava rolls from the crater of Mount Sinabung volcano, during an eruption seen from Karo district on Indonesia's Sumatra island, on November 5, 2013

Two volcanoes erupted in Indonesia on Monday, with one forcing flights to be rerouted and stopping thousands of people who had already been evacuated from returning home.

Mount Sinabung on western Sumatra island, which has been erupting on and off since mid-September, shot volcanic ash around 8,000 metres (26,000 feet) into the air, the Geological Disaster Mitigation and Volcanology Centre said.

"The transport ministry is redirecting flights away from a certain path because of Mount Sinabung's latest eruption," ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan said in a statement.

It also meant that more than 5,000 people who had recently been evacuated from the area around Sinabung due to its eruptions were unable to return home.

On the main island of Java, Indonesia's most active volcano, Mount Merapi, spewed a column of ash and smoke some 2,000 metres (6,500 feet) in the morning, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, chief of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency.

He said the eruption, which was triggered by small earthquakes, prompted around 600 families to rush to evacuation posts but they were returning home as there was no imminent threat.

This file photo shows the mount Merapi volcano in Sleman, Yogyakarta, during an eruption on January 30, 2011

Mount Merapi killed more than 350 people in a series of violent eruptions in late 2010 when it also destroyed entire villages.

Indonesia has dozens of active volcanoes and straddles major tectonic fault lines known as the "Ring of Fire" between the Pacific and Indian oceans.

In August five people were killed and hundreds evacuated when a volcano on a tiny island in East Nusa Tenggara province erupted.

ESO VLT: Two different gas clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud

ESO's Very Large Telescope has captured a detailed view of a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud -- one of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies.

This sharp image reveals two glowing clouds of gas. NGC 2014 (right) is irregularly shaped and red and its neighbour, NGC 2020, is round and blue.

These odd and very different forms were both sculpted by powerful stellar winds from extremely hot newborn stars that also radiate into the gas, causing it to glow brightly. Credit: ESO

ESO's Very Large Telescope has captured an intriguing star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud—one of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies.

This sharp image reveals two distinctive glowing clouds of gas: Red-hued NGC 2014, and its blue neighbour NGC 2020.

While they are very different, they were both sculpted by powerful stellar winds from extremely hot newborn stars that also radiate into the gas, causing it to glow brightly.

This image was taken by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile—the best place in the southern hemisphere for astronomical observing.

But even without the help of telescopes like the VLT, a glance towards the southern constellation of Dorado (The Swordfish or Dolphinfish) on a clear, dark night reveals a blurry patch which, at first sight, appears to be just like a cloud in the Earth's atmosphere.

At least, this may have been explorer Ferdinand Magellan's first impression during his famous voyage to the southern hemisphere in 1519.

Although Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines before his return, his surviving crew announced the presence of this cloud and its smaller sibling when they returned to Europe, and these two small galaxies were later named in Magellan's honour.

However, they were undoubtedly seen by both earlier European explorers and observers in the southern hemisphere, although they were never reported.

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is actively producing new stars. Some of its star-forming regions can even be seen with the naked eye, for example, the famous Tarantula Nebula.

However, there are other smaller—but no less intriguing—regions that telescopes can reveal in intricate detail. This new VLT image explores an oddly mismatched pair: NGC 2014 and NGC 2020.

The pink-tinged cloud on the right, NGC 2014, is a glowing cloud of mostly hydrogen gas.

It contains a cluster of hot young stars. The energetic radiation from these new stars strips electrons from the atoms within the surrounding hydrogen gas, ionising it and producing a characteristic red glow.

This zoom video starts with a wide view of the Milky Way and ends with a close-up look at a pair of mysterious glowing gas clouds in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud — NGC 2014, and NGC 2020, both in the southern constellation of Dorado (The Swordfish).

The final view of these clouds was captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. 

Credit: ESO/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Music: John Dyson

In addition to this strong radiation, massive young stars also produce powerful stellar winds that eventually cause the gas around them to disperse and stream away.

To the left of the main cluster, a single brilliant and very hot star seems to have started this process, creating a cavity that appears encircled by a bubble-like structure called NGC 2020.

The distinctive blueish colour of this rather mysterious object is again created by radiation from the hot star—this time by ionising oxygen instead of hydrogen.

NASA Orion Space Capsule Lands With Two of Three Parachutes

The Orion capsule falls to Earth with parachutes deployed at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, on July 24, 2013.

Credit: NASA TV

NASA's Orion capsule, planned to be the space agency's next manned spaceship, safely landed during a flight test today (July 24) using just two of its three parachutes.

The test was the 10th in a series of maneuvers to check out Orion's parachute system, which will slow the vehicle down as it plummets through Earth's atmosphere on return trips from space.

Orion is designed to carry astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit to nearby asteroids, the moon, and eventually Mars.

The spacecraft is due to make its first test flight to space in 2014 in a mission called the Exploration Flight Test-1, and its initial crewed flight around 2021.

During today's flight test, an Orion prototype was dropped from a plane 35,000 feet (10,700 meters) over the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in southwestern Arizona.

It was the highest elevation that the capsule has been dropped from; previous tests saw mock Orion capsules released from a maximum of 25,000 feet (7,600 meters).

"The closer we can get to actual flight conditions, the more confidence we gain in the system," Chris Johnson, project manager for the Orion capsule parachute assembly system at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement.

"What we saw today — other than the failures we put in on purpose — is very similar to what Orion will look like coming back during Exploration Flight Test-1's Earth entry next year."

Orion is equipped with three parachutes to slow its fall, but is designed to need only two of them.

During today's test, engineers simulated the failure of one chute to confirm that the other two were adequate.

The team caused one parachute to fail during the descent to understand the effects of a chute pulling away in mid-flight.

"We wanted to know what would happen if a cable got hooked around a sharp edge and snapped off when the parachutes deployed," Stu McClung, Orion's landing and recovery system manager at Johnson, said in a statement.

"We don't think that would ever happen, but if it did, would it cause other failures? We want to know everything that could possibly go wrong, so that we can fix it before it does."