Kepler telescope bags huge haul of planetsBy Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News
Four of the planets orbit their host suns in a "habitable zone" where water can keep a liquid state
The science team sifting data from the US space agency's (Nasa) Kepler telescope says it has identified 715 new planets beyond our Solar System.
This is a huge new haul.
In the nearly two decades since the first so-called exoplanet was discovered, researchers had claimed the detection of just over 1,000 new worlds.
Kepler's latest bounty are all in multi-planet systems; they orbit only 305 stars.
The vast majority, 95%, are smaller than our Neptune, which is four times the radius of the Earth.
Four of the new planets are less than 2.5 times the radius of Earth, and they orbit their host suns in the "habitable zone" - the region around a star where water can keep a liquid state.
Whether that is the case on these planets cannot be known for sure - Kepler's targets are hundreds of light-years in the distance, and this is too far away for very detailed investigation. The Kepler space telescope was launched in 2009 on a $600m (£360m) mission to assess the likely population of Earth-sized planets in our Milky Way Galaxy.
Faulty pointing mechanisms eventually blunted its abilities last year, but not before it had identified thousands of possible, or "candidate", worlds in a patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.
It did this by looking for transits - the periodic dips in light that occur when planets move across the faces of stars.
Continue reading the main story Kepler space telescope mission
Before Wednesday, the Kepler spacecraft had confirmed the existence of 246 exoplanets. It has now pushed this number up to 961. That is more than half of all the discoveries made in the field over the past 20 years.
"This is the largest windfall of planets that's ever been announced at one time," said Douglas Hudgins from Nasa's astrophysics division.
"Second, these results establish that planetary systems with multiple planets around one star, like our own Solar System, are in fact common.
"Third, we know that small planets - planets ranging from the size of Neptune down to the size of the Earth - make up the majority of planets in our galaxy." When Kepler first started its work, the number of confirmed planets came at a trickle.
Scientists had to be sure that the variations in brightness being observed were indeed caused by transiting planets and not by a couple of stars orbiting and eclipsing each other.
The follow-up work required to make this distinction - between candidate and confirmation - was laborious.
But the sudden dump of new planets announced on Wednesday has exploited a new statistical approach referred to as "verification by multiplicity".
This rests on the recognition that if a star displays multiple dips in light, it must be planets that are responsible because it is very difficult for several stars to orbit each other in a similar way and maintain a stable configuration.
"This technique that we've introduced for wholesale planet validation will be productive in the future. These results are based on the first two years of Kepler observations and with each additional year, we'll be able to bring in a few hundred more planets," explained Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist at Nasa's Ames Research Center.
Sara Seager is a professor of planetary science and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is not involved in the Kepler mission.
She commented: "With hundreds of new validated planets, Kepler reinforces its major finding that small planets are extremely common in our galaxy. And I'm super-excited about this, being one of the people working on the next generation of space telescopes - we hope to put up direct imaging missions, and we need to be reassured that small planets are common."
Detailed information on the latest discoveries has been posted in twopapers on the electronic pre-print arXiv repository.
The habitable zone is the region around a star where water can keep a liquid state
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26362433
This is ground control: Cadets wanted as space engineers
The space sector has a huge impact on everyday life
Apprentices are being invited to take one giant leap for mankind and sign up for elite space engineering training.
The first degree-level apprenticeship in the field is being launched by Skills Minister Matthew Hancock at the National Space Centre in Leicester.
The programme aims to encourage more scientists and engineers into the UK's space industry, expected to be worth £30bn in the next two decades.
The Royal Astronomical Society says this demand is not currently being met.
Loughborough College, the National Space Academy and the University of Leicester will provide the education for the programme and the space industry will employ the trainees.
Skills mix
Mr Hancock said: "Ahead of National Apprenticeship Week, I would like to encourage young people to think about a career in this stimulating and fast-moving sector. I'm sure there will be opportunities for apprentices working in this sector to be involved in some innovative and exciting projects."
He also said he wanted it to be the "new norm for young people" to choose between university and an apprenticeship.
Dr Martin Killeen, head of technology at Loughborough College, said: "Significant issues have been identified regarding graduates emerging from university without the skills mix required for space engineering. We have worked extensively with the space industry to develop our higher apprenticeship programme to ensure it combines both the work-based skills and the knowledge which meet employers' needs."
Anu Ojha, director of the National Space Academy education programmes, added: "The space sector is growing rapidly and needs highly skilled technicians in a number of engineering disciplines if it to sustain that growth.
"The higher apprenticeship in space engineering is a brilliant initiative. The National Space Academy looks forward to working with Loughborough College and helping provide space companies with highly employable, rounded people with an academically rigorous vocational qualification."
The space sector has a huge impact on everyday life, and is showing significant growth despite the economic downturn.
It is being driven by increasing demand from consumers for satellite TV and radio, mobile phone services, GPS navigation and from the government for emergency services and security, for air traffic management or to monitor climate change.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills says this demand will lead to continued and sustained growth between now and 2030.
The announcement comes ahead of a speech by Education Michael Gove on Monday, in which he is expected to encourage more businesses to take part in apprenticeship training programmes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26383528
Space shuttle Atlantis makes final landing
By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News
Space shuttle Atlantis has landed back on Earth, bringing to a close America's 30-year orbiter programme. The vehicle swept into the Kennedy Space Center, its wheels touching the runway just before local sunrise.
Nasa's shuttles were instrumental in building the space station, and were used to maintain the Hubble telescope.
"The space shuttle changed the way we view the world and it changed the way we view the Universe," said commander Chris Ferguson on landing.
"There's a lot of emotion today but one thing's indisputable: America's not going to stop exploring," he radioed to mission control.
Retirement of Nasa's iconic shuttle fleet was ordered by the US government, in part due to the high cost of maintaining the ships.
The decision leaves the country with no means of putting astronauts in orbit.
The US space agency's intention is to invite the private sector to provide it with space transport services, and a number of commercial ventures already have crew ships in development.
These are unlikely to be ready to fly for at least three or four years, however.
In the interim, Nasa will rely on the Russians to ferry its people to and from the International Space Station (ISS).
Despite the dark skies over Florida's Space Coast, large crowds came out to try to glimpse Atlantis as it made its historic return from orbit. Two thousand people were gathered at Kennedy's landing strip itself, but even in at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, where mission control is sited, they came in huge numbers.
The de-orbit track brought Atlantis across central Florida and the Titusville-Mims area before a hard bank to the left put the vehicle on a line to Runway 15 at Kennedy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14220423
India launches spacecraft to Mars
India has successfully launched a spacecraft to Mars (the red planet). The spacecraft took off at 09:38 GMT from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the east coast. The spacecraft is going to Mars orbit and carry out experiments. It is set to travel for 300 days, reaching Mars orbit in 2014. If the satellite orbits the red planet, India's space agency will become 4th in the world after the US, Russia and Europe to do a successful Mars mission. In order for the MOM (Mars Orbiter Mission) to travel its 780 million km journey, it must do its final orbital burn by the 30th of November.
Some observers are wqqatching the launch of the MOM, also known by the informal name of Mangalyaan (Mars-craft), as the latest salvo in a burgeoning space race between the asian powers of India, China, Japan, South Korea and others. The proffesser Andrew Coates from the university of London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, told the BBc news: " I think this mission really brings India to the table of international space exploration. Interplanetary exploration is certainly not trival to do, and India has found some interesting scientific niches to make some measurements in".
Those niche areas iclude searching for the signature of methane (CH4) in the Martian atmosphere, which has previously been detected from Martian orbit and telescopes on Earth. However NASA's curiousity rover recently failed to find the gas in its measurements of atmospheric gases. (CH4) has a short lifetimein the Martian atmosphere, meaning that some source on the Red planet must replenish it. Some 95% of atmospheric methane on Earth is produced by microbes, which has led some to propose the possibility of a biosphere deep beneath the Martian surface. But the gas can be produced by geological processes too, most by volcanism.
Those niche areas include searching for the signature of methane
(CH4) in the Martian atmosphere, which has previously been detected from Martian
orbit and telescopes on Earth. However, Nasa's Curiosity rover recently failed
to find the gas in its measurements of atmospheric
gases.CH4 has a short lifetime in the Martian atmosphere, meaning that
some source on the Red Planet must replenish it. Intriguingly, some 95% of
atmospheric methane on Earth is produced by microbes, which has led some to
propose the possibility of a biosphere deep beneath the Martian surface. But the
gas can be produced by geological processes too, most notably by
volcanism.
This is the link to the website we got the article from. It is from the BBC website.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24729073
Four of the planets orbit their host suns in a "habitable zone" where water can keep a liquid state
The science team sifting data from the US space agency's (Nasa) Kepler telescope says it has identified 715 new planets beyond our Solar System.
This is a huge new haul.
In the nearly two decades since the first so-called exoplanet was discovered, researchers had claimed the detection of just over 1,000 new worlds.
Kepler's latest bounty are all in multi-planet systems; they orbit only 305 stars.
The vast majority, 95%, are smaller than our Neptune, which is four times the radius of the Earth.
Four of the new planets are less than 2.5 times the radius of Earth, and they orbit their host suns in the "habitable zone" - the region around a star where water can keep a liquid state.
Whether that is the case on these planets cannot be known for sure - Kepler's targets are hundreds of light-years in the distance, and this is too far away for very detailed investigation. The Kepler space telescope was launched in 2009 on a $600m (£360m) mission to assess the likely population of Earth-sized planets in our Milky Way Galaxy.
Faulty pointing mechanisms eventually blunted its abilities last year, but not before it had identified thousands of possible, or "candidate", worlds in a patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.
It did this by looking for transits - the periodic dips in light that occur when planets move across the faces of stars.
Continue reading the main story Kepler space telescope mission
- Launched in 2009, the Kepler space telescope sought to find Earth-like worlds orbiting distant stars in the Constellation Lyra
- It used the so-called transit technique - looking for the periodic dips in light as exoplanets pass in front of their host stars
- Last year, astronomers used Kepler's data to estimate that one in five stars like the Sun hosts an Earth-sized world
Before Wednesday, the Kepler spacecraft had confirmed the existence of 246 exoplanets. It has now pushed this number up to 961. That is more than half of all the discoveries made in the field over the past 20 years.
"This is the largest windfall of planets that's ever been announced at one time," said Douglas Hudgins from Nasa's astrophysics division.
"Second, these results establish that planetary systems with multiple planets around one star, like our own Solar System, are in fact common.
"Third, we know that small planets - planets ranging from the size of Neptune down to the size of the Earth - make up the majority of planets in our galaxy." When Kepler first started its work, the number of confirmed planets came at a trickle.
Scientists had to be sure that the variations in brightness being observed were indeed caused by transiting planets and not by a couple of stars orbiting and eclipsing each other.
The follow-up work required to make this distinction - between candidate and confirmation - was laborious.
But the sudden dump of new planets announced on Wednesday has exploited a new statistical approach referred to as "verification by multiplicity".
This rests on the recognition that if a star displays multiple dips in light, it must be planets that are responsible because it is very difficult for several stars to orbit each other in a similar way and maintain a stable configuration.
"This technique that we've introduced for wholesale planet validation will be productive in the future. These results are based on the first two years of Kepler observations and with each additional year, we'll be able to bring in a few hundred more planets," explained Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist at Nasa's Ames Research Center.
Sara Seager is a professor of planetary science and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is not involved in the Kepler mission.
She commented: "With hundreds of new validated planets, Kepler reinforces its major finding that small planets are extremely common in our galaxy. And I'm super-excited about this, being one of the people working on the next generation of space telescopes - we hope to put up direct imaging missions, and we need to be reassured that small planets are common."
Detailed information on the latest discoveries has been posted in twopapers on the electronic pre-print arXiv repository.
The habitable zone is the region around a star where water can keep a liquid state
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26362433
This is ground control: Cadets wanted as space engineers
The space sector has a huge impact on everyday life
Apprentices are being invited to take one giant leap for mankind and sign up for elite space engineering training.
The first degree-level apprenticeship in the field is being launched by Skills Minister Matthew Hancock at the National Space Centre in Leicester.
The programme aims to encourage more scientists and engineers into the UK's space industry, expected to be worth £30bn in the next two decades.
The Royal Astronomical Society says this demand is not currently being met.
Loughborough College, the National Space Academy and the University of Leicester will provide the education for the programme and the space industry will employ the trainees.
Skills mix
Mr Hancock said: "Ahead of National Apprenticeship Week, I would like to encourage young people to think about a career in this stimulating and fast-moving sector. I'm sure there will be opportunities for apprentices working in this sector to be involved in some innovative and exciting projects."
He also said he wanted it to be the "new norm for young people" to choose between university and an apprenticeship.
Dr Martin Killeen, head of technology at Loughborough College, said: "Significant issues have been identified regarding graduates emerging from university without the skills mix required for space engineering. We have worked extensively with the space industry to develop our higher apprenticeship programme to ensure it combines both the work-based skills and the knowledge which meet employers' needs."
Anu Ojha, director of the National Space Academy education programmes, added: "The space sector is growing rapidly and needs highly skilled technicians in a number of engineering disciplines if it to sustain that growth.
"The higher apprenticeship in space engineering is a brilliant initiative. The National Space Academy looks forward to working with Loughborough College and helping provide space companies with highly employable, rounded people with an academically rigorous vocational qualification."
The space sector has a huge impact on everyday life, and is showing significant growth despite the economic downturn.
It is being driven by increasing demand from consumers for satellite TV and radio, mobile phone services, GPS navigation and from the government for emergency services and security, for air traffic management or to monitor climate change.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills says this demand will lead to continued and sustained growth between now and 2030.
The announcement comes ahead of a speech by Education Michael Gove on Monday, in which he is expected to encourage more businesses to take part in apprenticeship training programmes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26383528
Space shuttle Atlantis makes final landing
By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News
Space shuttle Atlantis has landed back on Earth, bringing to a close America's 30-year orbiter programme. The vehicle swept into the Kennedy Space Center, its wheels touching the runway just before local sunrise.
Nasa's shuttles were instrumental in building the space station, and were used to maintain the Hubble telescope.
"The space shuttle changed the way we view the world and it changed the way we view the Universe," said commander Chris Ferguson on landing.
"There's a lot of emotion today but one thing's indisputable: America's not going to stop exploring," he radioed to mission control.
Retirement of Nasa's iconic shuttle fleet was ordered by the US government, in part due to the high cost of maintaining the ships.
The decision leaves the country with no means of putting astronauts in orbit.
The US space agency's intention is to invite the private sector to provide it with space transport services, and a number of commercial ventures already have crew ships in development.
These are unlikely to be ready to fly for at least three or four years, however.
In the interim, Nasa will rely on the Russians to ferry its people to and from the International Space Station (ISS).
Despite the dark skies over Florida's Space Coast, large crowds came out to try to glimpse Atlantis as it made its historic return from orbit. Two thousand people were gathered at Kennedy's landing strip itself, but even in at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, where mission control is sited, they came in huge numbers.
The de-orbit track brought Atlantis across central Florida and the Titusville-Mims area before a hard bank to the left put the vehicle on a line to Runway 15 at Kennedy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14220423
India launches spacecraft to Mars
India has successfully launched a spacecraft to Mars (the red planet). The spacecraft took off at 09:38 GMT from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the east coast. The spacecraft is going to Mars orbit and carry out experiments. It is set to travel for 300 days, reaching Mars orbit in 2014. If the satellite orbits the red planet, India's space agency will become 4th in the world after the US, Russia and Europe to do a successful Mars mission. In order for the MOM (Mars Orbiter Mission) to travel its 780 million km journey, it must do its final orbital burn by the 30th of November.
Some observers are wqqatching the launch of the MOM, also known by the informal name of Mangalyaan (Mars-craft), as the latest salvo in a burgeoning space race between the asian powers of India, China, Japan, South Korea and others. The proffesser Andrew Coates from the university of London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, told the BBc news: " I think this mission really brings India to the table of international space exploration. Interplanetary exploration is certainly not trival to do, and India has found some interesting scientific niches to make some measurements in".
Those niche areas iclude searching for the signature of methane (CH4) in the Martian atmosphere, which has previously been detected from Martian orbit and telescopes on Earth. However NASA's curiousity rover recently failed to find the gas in its measurements of atmospheric gases. (CH4) has a short lifetimein the Martian atmosphere, meaning that some source on the Red planet must replenish it. Some 95% of atmospheric methane on Earth is produced by microbes, which has led some to propose the possibility of a biosphere deep beneath the Martian surface. But the gas can be produced by geological processes too, most by volcanism.
Those niche areas include searching for the signature of methane
(CH4) in the Martian atmosphere, which has previously been detected from Martian
orbit and telescopes on Earth. However, Nasa's Curiosity rover recently failed
to find the gas in its measurements of atmospheric
gases.CH4 has a short lifetime in the Martian atmosphere, meaning that
some source on the Red Planet must replenish it. Intriguingly, some 95% of
atmospheric methane on Earth is produced by microbes, which has led some to
propose the possibility of a biosphere deep beneath the Martian surface. But the
gas can be produced by geological processes too, most notably by
volcanism.
This is the link to the website we got the article from. It is from the BBC website.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24729073
An Olympic torch has been blasted into space as part of Russia's
preparations for the Winter Games in Sochi next year.
A Soyuz rocket is delivering the torch to the International Space
Station.
It blasted off at 04:14 GMT from the Baikonur cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan.
They'll be handing over the torch to fellow cosmonauts Oleg Kotov
and Sergei Ryazansky, who are already on the orbiting station, then they go on a
spacewalk on Saturday.
Historic spacewalk
The Olympic torch has been carried into space twice before - in
1996 and 2000 - but it has never left a spaceship, so the Olympic torch
spacewalk will be a first in the universe!
The torch won't be lit on board for safety
reasons.
It will then return to Earth to continue its relay before the
lighting of the Olympic cauldron in February.
Mr Kotov said: "Our goal here is to make it look
spectacular,"
"We'd like to showcase our Olympic torch in space. We will try to
do it in a beautiful manner. Millions of people will see it live on TV and they
will see the station and see how we work."
The Sochi torch will then be returned to earth and used to light
the Olympic cauldron in February next year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24847319
Tourist space ship a step closer to reality
Tourist trips to Space are a step closer as the world's first
commercial space rocket passes a milestone.
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has just flown faster and higher
than ever before during test flights.
The plan is to develop the spacecraft until it can take customers
70 miles above the earth.
They'll be able to see a thousand miles in each direction and
they'll be weightless for five minutes.
Virgin says the first passengers should be heading off in around a
year's time.
But save up that pocket money - the trip will cost you
£160,000!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24847319
Plans to 3D print space rocket parts!
Experts from across Europe have joined forces and already unveiled
a type of printed metal that can withstand temperatures over
3,000C.
David Jarvis, from the Space Agency, said:"Our ultimate aim is to
print a satellite in a single piece. One chunk of metal, that doesn't need to be
welded or bolted."
Reducing waste
Twenty-eight different institutions have come together to make up
what's known as the Amaze Project, which is looking for new ways to make metal
parts that are stronger than ever.
They say printing metal parts would also reduce the amount of waste
and help the space industry become greener.
Amaze have already started printing jet engine parts and aeroplane
wing sections up to two meters long.
It might be a while before you can print your own rocket however,
as the project is going to cost 20 million euros!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24543004
preparations for the Winter Games in Sochi next year.
A Soyuz rocket is delivering the torch to the International Space
Station.
It blasted off at 04:14 GMT from the Baikonur cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan.
They'll be handing over the torch to fellow cosmonauts Oleg Kotov
and Sergei Ryazansky, who are already on the orbiting station, then they go on a
spacewalk on Saturday.
Historic spacewalk
The Olympic torch has been carried into space twice before - in
1996 and 2000 - but it has never left a spaceship, so the Olympic torch
spacewalk will be a first in the universe!
The torch won't be lit on board for safety
reasons.
It will then return to Earth to continue its relay before the
lighting of the Olympic cauldron in February.
Mr Kotov said: "Our goal here is to make it look
spectacular,"
"We'd like to showcase our Olympic torch in space. We will try to
do it in a beautiful manner. Millions of people will see it live on TV and they
will see the station and see how we work."
The Sochi torch will then be returned to earth and used to light
the Olympic cauldron in February next year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24847319
Tourist space ship a step closer to reality
Tourist trips to Space are a step closer as the world's first
commercial space rocket passes a milestone.
Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has just flown faster and higher
than ever before during test flights.
The plan is to develop the spacecraft until it can take customers
70 miles above the earth.
They'll be able to see a thousand miles in each direction and
they'll be weightless for five minutes.
Virgin says the first passengers should be heading off in around a
year's time.
But save up that pocket money - the trip will cost you
£160,000!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24847319
Plans to 3D print space rocket parts!
Experts from across Europe have joined forces and already unveiled
a type of printed metal that can withstand temperatures over
3,000C.
David Jarvis, from the Space Agency, said:"Our ultimate aim is to
print a satellite in a single piece. One chunk of metal, that doesn't need to be
welded or bolted."
Reducing waste
Twenty-eight different institutions have come together to make up
what's known as the Amaze Project, which is looking for new ways to make metal
parts that are stronger than ever.
They say printing metal parts would also reduce the amount of waste
and help the space industry become greener.
Amaze have already started printing jet engine parts and aeroplane
wing sections up to two meters long.
It might be a while before you can print your own rocket however,
as the project is going to cost 20 million euros!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24543004