Mass Effect 2 Review

If there's any video game that has all the fictional planets with the coolest names ever, then it's Mass Effect 2 (ME2). It's probably the only game that made me read the short stories about its fictional planetary settings. I admired all the beautiful exoplanetary landscapes and terrains, and the views of cities that set my minds on worlds beyond. ME2 made me pay attention to the dialogues between the characters because it matters; getting to know each of the characters that make up your team is crucial to the success of the final mission.

What’s great about Mass Effect 2 is that the storyline is not exactly the same for each player. Meaning, no two players can experience the exact same events that unfolded during their game play. For example, here’s how my own storyline went: Legion, my favorite Geth sustained a fatal headshot in the final mission. I felt really bad losing him because I loved talking to him. Legion was the only casualty in my team. But other players did not lose a single team member. Or some lost two or more.

Another example is that Miranda was totally pissed at me. Thus, I ended up with ‘Jack’ on a rough scene below the deck of Normandy, not with Miranda in the engine room that some players brag about with a wide grin.

Another thing I love about Mass Effect 2 is that it touches upon so many human aspects. Here’s some of them; Emotion: Miranda shed a tear after seeing her twin sister, and Kazumi keeps a memory of a loved one. Romance: Go figure. Humor: Mordin sang (he's my least favorite because he resembles Jar Jar Binks). Philosophy: My conversations with Legion the Geth was very interesting as it dealt with existentialism. Aggression: Grunt just wants to crush every body. Psychology: Thanes was pretty deep with his Zen quips. Politics and Ethics: Tali, keeps a secret, Zaeed wasn’t too happy with me for foiling his revenge in exchange for saving lives. Morality: The “Renegade” (bad cop) and “Paragon” (good cop) feature has a bearing on the outcome of the game. Apparently, ME2 has something for the evil within you, and it will show up in your face.

As you can see, the scope of the game reaches deep into the humanity of the player while managing to touch upon larger topics such as: Exploration: the quick bits of story and context behind the in-game planets were very good. It was fun reading through the narratives behind each planet. Science: Loads of astrophysics were integrated into the stories behind each exoplanet. It made me think that an astrophysicist and astrobiologist were consulted in this game.

The writers really did a great job of appealing to the different dimensions of the human psyche, and the narratives were well written. All in all, I consider Mass Effect 2 as a masterpiece.


Notes:

This mini-review is long overdue. I actually dug this from my google.docs and hurriedly posted it, hoping that some items from my wish-list could get to the game developers in time to get implemented in the upcoming Mass Effect 3, which is due this year 2011. Also, since I am now getting immersed in a new high-adrenaline game, I needed to get this out prior to posting my review of Dead Space 2. So, hey Bioware, please take a look at my wish list below:

Wish list:
1) Mass Effect should work with Kinect!
2) “Game-within-a-game” (unlocking and hacking) should be more diverse and varied than just pattern matching and memory game.
3) Multi-player mode
4) Should have more references to Astronomical objects. I already love the inclusion of Eagle Nebula and Crescent Nebula, and so on. I wish there were more. Perhaps add Orion Nebula...
5) Mining the planets made me fall asleep several times (so i let my son mine minerals for me) Not sure if mining could be made more exciting

Glitches:
1) Lack of Mass in planetary properties
2) Text is too small and unreadable. I had to get HDMI cable to read the short stories about the planets
3) Some bugs: (I was unable to move in some spots. This happened around 4 times)
4) Mordin eerily reminds me of Jar Jar Binks. Could you please change his face or change the way he talks?

The Search for Exoplanets and ExoLife

This is a great presentation about the search for exoplanets. Featuring the techniques (transit and radial velocity), instruments (Kepler and Keck), and the ongoing challenges involved in finding these diverse far-away worlds. Aside from noting the race to find the first earth-sized exoplanet, it also touches upon the prospect of finding life on exoworlds--one of the main goals of the Science of Exoplanets. It also includes some great quotes from leading astronomers and scientists. Watch it in its entirety. Highly recommended!

"We're gonna have an existential shock, looking at the night sky. Realizing that there--there-there are earth-like twins in outer space. And then we're gonna wonder: Is there anyone looking back?" ~ Michio Kaku

"The 64 million dollar question is whether or not there are other intelligent life in the universe. The answer is definitely yes!" ~ Geoff Marcy

"I think it's inevitable that we're gonna find another intelligent life in outer space. Get used to it." ~ Michio Kaku

Links:
Planet Data to Hunt for Life

Exodyssey

By not posting my review of Exodyssey last year, I have done great injustice to this excellent work of art entitled Exodyssey by Steambot Studio. Exodyssey is actually the first art book ever that used the word “exoplanet” for the very first time. As such, credit is due to them. But even moreso, they deserve the utmost kudos for producing the most amazing concept art book ever.

I’ve been posting pictures from my micro-reviews of the book
since last year (and the year before that). And here is a page
from my own copy of the book which is about
the exoplanet called Samhuinn.

The book is truly inspiring as it gives room for your own imagination to run wild and free. The “awe-mazing” artworks simply gives ‘prompts’ as a starting point for your mind to build upon. This book has that feel of a graphic novel, a comic book, a concept illustration book, and an artist’s scrapbook/portfolio--while managing to be *not* any of those in itself--which makes this book truly unique. It’s like five books in one!

Also, the storyline is great. Check out my summary of their script:

Exodyssey is the name given to the long and war-filled period of time during which humans departed for exo-planets in order to survive their own destruction. The book chronicles the journey of Harry, a highly gifted engineer...a descendant of the first wave of colonists who decided to leave earth. Harry is the key to discovering the origins of an extraterrestrial invasion and is provided the means to travel to a planet called Samhuinn.

I would end my mini-review of Exodyssey by telling you how I useful this book is to me: Whenever i need visual or conceptual inspiration, every now and then, I pull this gem from out of my bookshelf and browse through its pages to take me to a futuristic otherworldly journey which I can describe as an amazing exodyssey!

Links:
Exodyssey

Exoplanetary Dreamscapes

As a follow-up to my installments about artsy exoplanetary sceneries, i bring you Exoplanetary Dreamscapes from Kahn & Selesnick. This time, i dare not use the word “surreal” as it will not suffice to describe these otherworldly works of art that send my mind to the wild exo-yonder.
Let my words be few. The links below points you to more of their work which can be accessible via their tumblr and their book, Mars Adrift on the Hourglass Sea.

Links:
Kahn & Selesnick (Tumblr)
Exoplanetary Dreamscapes
Mars Adrift on the Hourglass Sea (book)

Surreal Exoplanet Landscapes

One of Joan Fontcuberta's recycled landscape.

For a while now, I’ve been quite lapse on featuring some exoplanet art on this blog. Allow me to make up for it with this post featuring an unlikely source of imaginary digital realms that give a glimpse of exoplanet landscapes.

In Joan Fontcuberta’s Landscapes without Memory, the method in how these landscapes were produced is as interesting as how they were generated. Instead of inputting maps into the scenery-rendering Terragen software, Fontcuberta entered masterpieces by Paul Cezanne, Andre Derain, Gustave LeGray, Jackson Pollock, Edward Weston, and others to make 3D landscapes from the two-dimensional artworks. "The contours and tones of these painted and photographic landscapes were transformed into three-dimensional mountains, rivers, valleys, and clouds. The result gives the user the illusion of navigating in three dimensions which had previously been visualized only as a flat image".

To me, Fontcuberta’s work offers a glimpse of otherworldly landscapes, and it mirrors the unexpected surprises that exoplanets provide as we continue to discover these worlds that could prove to be more surreal than we could ever imagine.

Links:
Joan Fontcuberta’s Recycled Landscapes (From FlavorWire)
Landscapes Without Memory (Book)

Our Holy Grail

There’s always that Quest, that insatiable quest to find the most important thing of all. In the field of Exoplanet Science, planet-hunters are actively pursuing to discover the first earth-like planet, or the first inhabited exoworld. Is that the holy grail in exoplanet science? Perhaps.

But in stories where the holy grail is mentioned within the plot, they often contain twists that leave the audience in awe of the unexpected. Such a twist is worth re-telling in this post because it is a monumental event in the history of Exoplanetology.

One night, after his talk on exoplanets at the American Museum of Natural History, the astrophysicist Ben Oppenheimer poignantly answered this question, "What is the Holy Grail in Exoplanet Science?"

“For me, the Holy Grail in Exoplanet Science is simply being part of it. It’s not making the best exoplanet discovery, or being in the news and all that; It’s simply being part of the collective efforts of the people around the Science of Exoplanets.”

I still remember that idea so clearly, despite the slight tipsiness from the booze of red wine and olives served at the SciCafe event. As I headed home that night, I couldn’t fathom how the common folk would ever be able to find planets at all. And I wondered how simple citizens could help well-trained planet-hunters.

For many months thereafter, I looked into different Citizen Science projects that show potential. I even wrote about the need to enable the common folk to contribute to the hunt for exoplanets, 'subtly' urging astronomy-oriented organizations to embark on such a project.

Then one day, I became excited about Zooniverse’s Milky Way Project, wishing that they make one for exoplanets, too. I asked the hive mind...almost pleading: When will Zooniverse make one for Exoplanets?

I was shocked a few days later. Along came Planet Hunters, the latest project by Zooniverse that enables citizens to find exoplanets!

Hear ye! Hear ye! The Holy Grail of Exoplanet Science is not an object. It’s not even a special exoplanet. Rather, it is the swarm of people--the community--embarking on a mission to find exoplanets. Ultimately, such undertaking will lead us to answer some of man’s greatest questions: Are there worlds like ours out there? Is there life on other worlds?

Planet Hunters is a Citizen Science project that allows volunteers to sieve through data taken by the NASA Kepler space mission. Participants search for possible transit events by looking at light curves and identifying dips in brightness that occurs when a planet passes in front of the star - with the goal of discovering a planet (hence the name "Planet Hunters").

The response to Planet Hunters was enormous. So much that in only a few weeks, there’s already a couple of exoplanet candidates flagged by several Citizen Planet Hunters (CPH). So far, I’ve not been so lucky of being among these sharp-eyed exoplanet hunters, but I am just happy contributing in the search for planets, no matter how small it is. I’ve tagged a few stars, and identified some dips from several light curves, and so far the experience is awesome. Perhaps it's a subjective experience, that the holy grail in exoplanet science could mean many things to different people. But one thing i know, is that this is my holy grail--our holy grail--for all those who take part in it, and drink from its cup.

Links:
The Holy Grail in Exoplanet Science
Data Mining Age in Exoplanet Science
Planet Hunters by Zooniverse

Exobiology, Astrobiology and Exoplanets

So I tried Google's Ngram viewer on Exobiology, Astrobiology and Exoplanet, and came up with the chart shown above. As an added perk, I overlayed the yearly count of exoplanet discoveries on the graph.

As you can see, the term Exobiology was more popular than Astrobiology back then. And the word "Exoplanet" never occurred in any books prior to the 80's. But it all changed when the first confirmed exoplanet was announced in 1992. It was then that the trend of the exoplanet began, and propelled a sudden surge of interest in Astrobiology.

As new exoplanet discoveries continued to pile up, so did the field of Astrobiology continue to grow, evident in the increasing usage of the term in published books. By 1997, a few years after the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the word astrobiology overtook exobiology.

Suddenly, Astrobiology was hip. It became increasingly more popular overnight, as if riding on the wave of exoplanets.

But what happened with the word Exobiology? Why didn't it pick up as much as Astrobiology did? It's a curious historical note, and the answer could be anyone's guess. And I'll give it a try.

The term Exobiology was coined by a Nobel Prize-winning scientist named Joshua Lederberg. I do not know exactly when the word Astrobiology was adopted to replace Exobiology but all we know is that it specifically means the "study of life beyond the Earth". But since there's no known life beyond the Earth (yet!), people said it's a field with no subject matter. That may well be a plausible reason why the term didn't catch on, no matter how cool the prefix "exo" is.

And since the term Astrobiology already picked up the momentum, it also locked on as the bastion to the science of "Life elsewhere in the universe"--a phrase that makes it seem a wider field than by just saying "Life outside earth".

Now here are questions to entice the next generation. Will exobiology make a comeback? Do you think the word exoplanet will skyrocket in the next decade? And what about...ahem...Exoplanetology?

Only time will tell.

Exogasm

I woke up one day wondering what kind of "gasm" I would describe for that ecstatic feeling about exoplanets. I toyed around with "exogasm". And I liked the fun suggestions from the twitters. But never did I realize that on that same day (December 1) my mind would be blown by a kind of cerebral experience brought about by the prospect of new worlds. Lots of them!

Several "foreplay" news items came into view through my twitter stream. First was that news of the first time a super-earth's atmosphere was ever examined.

But nothing would prepare me for a gasm that is truly mind-blowing: The number of stars in universe were more numerous than previously thought--so much more that the total number of stars in the universe is likely three times bigger than realized!

The tidbits below says it all in one word: Exogasm!

"There are about 20 times more red dwarfs in elliptical galaxies than in the Milky Way. In addition to boosting the total number of stars in the universe, the discovery also increases the number of planets orbiting those stars, which in turn elevates the number of planets that might harbor life."

"There are possibly trillions of Earths orbiting these stars."

Links:
Latest Star Census Increases Number of Exoplanets
Atmosphere Around Super-earth analysed for the first time

Exoplanet is the new Planet

I try to stay away from the debate about Pluto. My issue is not about Pluto. It's about the Planet. One can mock Pluto a thousand times over, and the best (or worst) it could do is annoy people. Sometimes it does get to me, so i have to remind myself that I am more concerned about the concept of the planet, and the idea it represents, and the ideal it imparts to the human psyche.

Let me begin by saying that I think I am falling in love with planets. I don’t know how, but during the course of following the saga of exoplanets it must have been inevitable (after all, the ‘exoplanet’ bears the name of ‘planet’).

With new discoveries that pour in almost daily about planets in other star systems, Exoplanets are a constant source of amazement. They continue to remind me that I can never know enough, that this fascinating universe is an endless source of wonder.

But...something keeps getting in the way. Something mind-numbing creeps in when I read something about what a ‘planet’ is defined to be. It has bothered me so much that I had to use “worlds” as an alternative keyword to hook me back in wonder about these spherical objects in space.

Why? What happened with the term “planet”? What happened with the magical and mythical concept that the Greeks once started with, saying that these mysterious points of light are ‘wanderers’?

The problem began when mankind started to *define* the Planet. We relentlessly squished the concept of a planet with words so that it could fit within our tiny skulls.

I looked into the two sides of the debate, learning as much as I can to understand, but the mandated definition of the Planet really does not appeal to me. In the spirit of freethinking, I humbly decline to subscribe in the 'official' definition of the planet.

Why? What have humans done to the concept of the planet?

There is nothing inherently wrong with classifying things, and certainly nothing wrong with identifying the boundaries in order to characterize objects, but I think we had the wrong attitude when we made up the criteria for planets.

And that is the sad thing about it. Instead of trying to widen the concept of the Planet, we tried to limit it. The kind of thinking that is promoted by the current definition of the planet is a divisive mode of mentality. You see, in our world, much strife is borne out of a discriminating mindset--a way of thinking that focuses on the differences and not on the similarites.

"The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think." ~Gregory Bateson

Today, dwarf planets are not considered planets at all, despite calling them 'dwarf planets'. Is it a matter of linguistic fallacy that makes it all nonsensical? (Dwarf galaxies are galaxies, and dwarf stars are stars, but dwarf planets are not planets?)

Or is it just the mode of thinking? Why deny dwarf planets of being planets? Such judgement mirrors a way of thinking that is alienating and divisive.

It is certainly valid if you consider dwarf planets as a subset or variation of the wide scope of planets. This alternative method of classification exemplifies a way of thinking that respects differences and yet aims to see things as One.

You can choose a mindset that seeks to see all kinds of planets in a wholistic fashion, and delight in their diversity. Or you could choose a discriminating mentality, segregating a class of planet-worlds that don’t fit in your limited notion based on one star system alone--yours.

The Pluto debate is a clash of mentalities. And it has marred the concept of the planet. I hope that the next generation never inherits the discriminating mentality that is present in that conflict.

I rest my case in the lessons that exoplanets are teaching us. They continue to challenge our pre-defined notions of what a planet truly is. They continue to be a source of wonder, in the same way that the Ancient Greeks felt about their ‘wanderers’. In our modern era, only the Exoplanet can conjure that feeling of mystery and discovery ascribed to such mysterious objects.

For me, Exoplanet is the new Planet.

I wish we never end up defining the Exoplanet in the same way we did for the Planet, for I wish to keep the concept of the Exoplanet with awesomeness and wonder.

Exoplanetary Bow Shocks

Exoplanetary Bow Shock

We've heard of stellar bow shocks before. But I bet no one has heard of bow shocks of planets just yet! Exoplanetary Bow Shocks would be an amazing sight to see. I am surprised by the lack of pictures that I can find on the web on how it would look like. So I made one of my own.

Now here's an unusual trivia about exoplanetary bow shocks which caught my attention: Exoplanetary Bow Shocks can also appear from behind the planet! Astrophysicists call them "behind-shocks".

“Another case, is when the shock trails the planet. In the “behind-shock” case, the planet orbits the star beyond the Keplerian co-rotation radius, so that the coronal plasma lags behind the planetary motion. In order to develop a behind-shock, the planet must be in a prograde orbit.”

Now, of course I wanted to imagine how a bow shock would look like when viewed from the surface of the planet. A question brewed in my mind: Would an exoplanetary bow shock look like the Aurora? Yes. But you would not be around long enough to see much of it, for the bow shocks described in the paper are stellar plasma emanating from the star that interacts with the magnetic fields of both the planet and star itself. Imagine yourself being burnt to a crisp while watching a beautiful 'Aurora' show.

“The planetary magnetic field is believed to be responsible for shielding the planet against the erosion of the planetary atmosphere by the host star’s wind or the impact of energetic cosmic particles. Such effects could harm creation and development of life in the planet.
Furthermore, the presence of a planetary magnetic field may induce star-planet interactions, e.g., through reconnection between stellar and planetary magnetic field lines.”

But of course, planets farther away from the star would have a more gentler bow shock, and a milder shower of stellar material. I would assume different kinds of beauty and variety that one would see if one were to look up from the surface of an exoplanet with a faint bow shock. And it hit me! We have those here on earth! We know them as Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis!

And that whole visual imagining is the whole reason why the arxiv paper inspired me to write a story, entitled “Worlds Hopper”. The ArXiV paper is rich with information. It contains lists and data tables of exoplanets which may possibly have bow shocks. Some of them are WASP-12b, OGLE-TR-56b, WASP-19b, SWEEPS-11,WASP-4b,WASP-18b, CoRoT-7b, CoRoT-14b, HAT-P-7b, OGLE-TR-132b, CoRoT-1b, TrES-3, and WASP-5b.

Well, these bow shocked exoplanets are quite a handful, eh? Go check out the paper and tell me what you think.

Links:
Prospects for Detection of Exoplanet Magnetic Fields Through Bow-Shock Observations During Transits
Transit Variability in Bow Shock-Hosting Exoplanets (PDF)
Short Story: Worlds Hopper

Other Platforms of Life

Mono Lake, where the arsenic-loving GFAJ-1 was found.

Life as we know it appears to have a common base. All of us, from the smallest amoeba, to the largest whale, share the same platform of life: Carbon.

And we think that life can only occur in one way, in one place and at one time in the history of the earth.

Today, all that is about to change.

NASA scientists have found a bacteria whose biochemical make-up is quite different from the carbon-based life that we know of.

A bacteria called GFAJ-1 has been found in Mono Lake that eats arsenic, and also incorporates arsenic in its DNA as replacement for phosphorus--one of the usual set of components of "CHNOPS" (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur) that form the basis of all life on earth.

I’ve always believed that our form of life is the only possible configuration. And now there is direct scientific evidence that it is possible for life to occur in other platforms.

This finding is mindblowing. It gives a preview of a "shadow biosphere" that could exist on our planet, and may strengthen the idea that life may be rampant elsewhere in the universe. All the more that this fascinating discovery was announced a day after astronomers revealed that the number of stars is 3 times more numerous than previously known--which means that there are gazillions more of exoplanets exist!

If we just found a hint of “shadow life” on our very own planet, then one can imagine the richness of life originating on other conditions and other chemicals on other planets.

Links:
Arsenic-eating microbe may redefine chemistry of life
Arsenic-Eating Bacteria Opens New Possibilities

The Exoplanet Generation

Image credit: ESO

I asked my seven-year-old daughter, "What do you call a planet outside our solar sys..." I didn't even finish my question when she excitedly exclaimed, "EXOPLANET!!!"

I laughed. She smiled. And then I realized: I am talking to a child of the "Exoplanet Generation", the young ones that were born from 1992 and onwards. It's the year when the first discovered exoplanet (orbiting a pulsar called PSR B1257+12) was announced. From then onwards, the accelerating rate of discovery defined the pulse of the Exoplanet Generation.

These "ExoGen" kids will grow up in a world very different from our own. When I was seven, i had no idea about other worlds. But the children of the exoplanet generation will bask in the weekly or daily news about the new exoplanet discoveries. They will wake up hearing new discoveries about how other lifeforms in platforms other than carbon may be able to thrive, or how life is possible on planets and moons outside our solar system.

Perhaps, in their lifetime they will witness the discovery of exolife, or be the ones to make the discovery itself, of life on other worlds!

And so, ExoGen kids...Welcome to brave New Worlds!