Mergerburst

I love words that come from Astrophysics. A new one I learned today is "mergerburst". For that cinematic feel, make sure you pronounce it with an evil tone and a malevolent face, because a mergerburst is a highly-destructive event on a planetary scale.

This post is specifically about a BD-Planet mergerburst, the destruction of a planet by a brown dwarf (BD). When a massive planet approaches a brown dwarf, the poor planet will be tidally destroyed or shredded as it "merges" with a much-denser brown dwarf. The mayhem will form a luminous accretion disk around the brown dwarf that will stay for around a few days, which should be observable, distinct, and identifiable from other mergerbursts such as Star−Planet Mergerbursts, and Planet−Planet Mergerbursts.

Factoid: The existence of Brown dwarfs (BD) were predicted in 1963, and was termed as "black dwarfs" back then.

Links:
MERGERBURST TRANSIENTS OF BROWN DWARFS WITH EXOPLANETS (PDF)

The Earth was an Exoplanet

Did you know that the earth can be considered as an exoplanet? Well, that is if you look back in time (and space), in the distant past of the early earth, billions of years ago. During that time, our planet would not resemble anything close to our present day earth.

However, imagining how the earth was a few hundred millions of years ago may give us good insights in studying the habitability of exoplanets as well. And that is exactly what the Planetary Habitability Lab at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo has done with their latest visualization, the Visible Paleo-Earth project.

Headed by Prof. Abel Méndez, the Visible Paleo-Earth project is a true-color visualization of the evolution of the Earth’s surface from paleo-climates to the present day. Using paleogeography and paleoclimate reconstructions combined with NASA satellite imagery, the team generated a global visual appearance of Earth in the last 750 million years, around the late Cambrian Period.

Now sit back and take a trip to the distant past by visiting The Planetary Habitability Lab as they present this project on Earth Day, April 22, 2011.

From Planets To Consciousness: Other Kinds of Minds

Alien Brain?

How does a planet influence the characteristics of its inhabiting lifeforms? Have you ever wondered how birds manage to navigate and reach their destination across thousands of miles? There's growing evidence that birds can "see" Earth's magnetic field and utilize it to find their way around. And bats do it too. In addition to their echolocation abilities, bats also use earth's magnetic field for orientation.

I am convinced that for each planetary property, there is a corresponding animal adaptation that utilizes that feature for survival. The planet's characteristics have a direct bearing on the evolution of the lifeforms inhabiting it.

And since we mentioned bats, the philosophical question "What's it like to be a bat?" is inescapable. How does it feel like to sense "magnetism'? Surely, additional sensations would affect the animal's perception of it's world. How would other additional sensations affect your thoughts? Can you imagine how it would be like if you could see in other wavelengths of light such as UV? Can you imagine how bees see the world?

If the dominant species with extra senses on another planet were to evolve a higher level of consciousness, what kind of mind will it have? What kinds of brains are possible on specific exoplanets? Could some animals here on Earth give us a glimpse of other "kinds of minds"?

Aside from magnetism, what other planetary properties (gravity, atmospheric density and pressure, temperature, etc) can lifeforms link their adaptations in order to survive? The amazing variety of extremophiles gives us ample room to speculate on this subject. If given a chance to evolve, what kinds of consciousness will extremophiles develop? Is a "hive mind" just one archetype among many types of consciousness?

This post can serve as a introductory teaser to the relationship between planets and consciousness. In addition to exploring speculations on what kinds of life are possible elsewhere, I would also explore what "kinds of minds" are possible on exoplanets. And I would tag it "Exonoology" (The Study of Alien Minds) perhaps as a branch of philosophy in the context of other worlds, or Exophilosophy.

Links:
Birds can see Earth's Magnetic Fields
Bats respond to Magnetic Fields
Magnetic fields influence the sleep–wake cycle of animals

Miracle

Just before we head out to the night, let's look a bit into the unknown, for that's where the incredible lurks. Yes, I am paraphrasing a famous quote of Carl Sagan that somewhere, something incredible is waiting...well, you know the rest.

More often than not, the things incredible are unseen--as is the case with more than five hundred exoplanets we have catalogued so far. We infer their existence by detecting their gravitational effects upon their host stars, and by sensing the minute dips of starlight reaching our telescopes.

Exoplanet discoveries are a daily dose of the incredible. These fascinating worlds were unknown just a mere fifteen years ago. But now we live in an incredible moment in history where we can point at the stars and say there’s a planet there, and there.

Yet all these discoveries can shake us to the core, and render us gasping for meaning even more. How do we make sense of all of it? So what?! So what, if there are billions of other worlds out there? So what, if other planets are teeming with life? Worlds and the prospect of exolife can blow our minds, but only up to a certain extent. Only for while, we bask in the knowledge that took humanity thousands of years to uncover, and then at the end of the day, life goes on as usual. We have a busy life to live. And life goes on...

...but sadly, life ends, in different ways, in different places. We are ephemeral partakers in the great churning of the earth.

For a few moments in our lives, we all get a taste of the awe and wonder of what has been revealed during our time, and afterwards we get that feeling of insignificance over our brief stay on this planet. Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, a 16th century writer who wrote about the plurality of worlds, echoes that sentiment, "Behold a universe so immense that I'm lost in it. I no longer know where I am. I am just nothing at all."

Tonight, as you bask in the full torrent of human life, reflect on the Moment. And then give a hug to someone when you can, while you can.

I’d like to set a tone with pages from a soulful graphic novel, Daytripper. And i'll end this post with this thought: The Miracle is Everything, with you, here and now altogether.

The Exoscope

We are visual creatures. We want to understand things from the context of a larger view. And that is true with all the exoplanets we have known so far. How can you relate with these amazing orbs in a more direct way? When you look up in the night sky, where are the exoplanets?

{Drum roll}...The Exoscope.

The Exoscope is a web-based tool to enable you to see the locations of exoplanets in the sky. It's a tool for Exogazing, the activity of spotting stars with known exoplanets.

Exoscope is actually a spin of the awesome Chromoscope. The ability to change and blend the background to different wavelengths gives that dramatic feeling, and that is why I love Chromoscope so much!

The excellent developer, Stuart Lowe (@astronomyblog) and others did all the work to bring you that awesome goodness of chromoscope. I simply imported an exoplanet KML file, and the chromoscope engine did all the rest of putting the markers for the locations of the stars with known exoplanets.

Really, I didn’t do much. I just downloaded the chromoscope application (which is freely available) and added two lines of code to import the exoplanet KML and show the constellations by default. And that was it!

The hard work is actually up ahead. And that is how to always keep the exoplanet KML file updated.

I need help and ideas on how to generate the exoplanet KML file from the most updated source of exoplanet data, The Exoplanet Encyclopaedia. Also, I need some script to generate KML files from a CouchDB couchapp. So, if anyone can give leads on that regard, please ping me. For now, some info i can provide for whoever wants to take up the challenge is this: The developer of the most excellent exoplanet app for the iPhone/iPad (@exoplanetapp) has provided a digestible format of Jean Schneider’s exoplanet data, via The Open Exoplanet Catalogue. So, all I need is for someone to generate JSON data in addition to the XML files. I seriously need JSON so I can import them into my CouchDB exoplanet database app (which is also another work in progress).

Other tasks on the pipeline for this mini-project are:
1) How to center the field of view (FOV) on the exoplanet via a link from other sources (such as The Exoplanet Seeker). I like how WikiSky does it so i hope to implement the same thing.
2) How to host the image files into my own Amazon S3 account to ease the burden from Chromoscope.
3) How to add other stunning backgrounds
4) Cosmetic styling, and UX improvement for each exoplanet popup window (and how to pipe in data dynamically)

That’s it for now. I Hope that even while it’s still in progress, you’ll enjoy the stunning exoplanet landscape from The Exoscope!

Links:
Chromoscope
The Exoscope
Exogazing
The Open Exoplanet Catalogue
Exoplanet Encyclopedia

What To Do on an Interstellar Voyage: Subluminal Science

No doubt about it. Exoplanets have boosted humanity’s interest in interstellar travel. New discoveries got everyone thinking which exoplanets are good targets for the maiden voyage of the first exonauts.

Recently, DARPA and NASA set up a 100-Year Starship study. And the Tau Zero Foundation has renewed their efforts to carry us to the stars.

These initiatives are great. But now we need something to augment with these lofty plans. Even this early, we need to outline projects that future spacefarers must do during their maiden voyage. Let’s write up a ‘to do’ list to keep them busy. Because nobody wants to be nagged with “Are we there, yet?” especially on an interstellar journey.

That list would be huge, but it's narrowed down because of the unique characteristic of that starship--it’s traveling at a fraction of the speed of light! And that is how I got into thinking what science research I would do if I were on that starship.

I dub it “Subluminal Science”, a field of study which simply deals with the effects of relativistic speeds, whose experiments can only be done aboard an interstellar vessel traveling at some fraction of the speed of light. Subluminal, pertains to that step below Superluminal, or faster-than-light (FTL). Since matter cannot reach the speed of light, we’ll just explore subluminal for now. (if we upgraded to an Alcubierre drive instead, then we’d be doing Superluminal research. But that’s for another story)

The universe will ‘seem’ different from the vantage point of a moving or accelerating observer. And that makes it worthy of some curious thought. What do things look like when you're moving at even a small fraction, 0.1c of the speed of light? Can you imagine if we brought a portable version of the LHC on our subluminal starship? What manner of atom-smashing is possible with that scenario?

I know. Asking these questions is very silly. Such is the sacrifice i must bear to urge all of us to do some Gendanken experiments. What research are you going to do if you were given a chance to ride on that starship?

Here are some more prompts to give you an idea. Let me count the ways...

Let Theoretical physicists start thinking about physics at subluminal velocities. Would it be easier to detect gravitational waves if you were moving subluminally?

Let Neuroscientists start making predictions about the effects of subluminal speeds on cognition. I mean, really, what is the speed of thought?

Let Information Engineers start designing protocols for communicating with starships traveling at some fraction of the speed of light. What is the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of WiFi aboard that ship, anyways?

Let Cosmologists gauge the expansion of the universe. Would riding on the 100-Year Starship allow a more accurate measurement of the expansion of the universe? Would you be able to finally detect Dark Matter from that ship?

Let Quantum Physicists theorize how Quantum Computers would behave at subluminal speeds. Does entanglement still hold true when one of the pair is travelling at subluminal speeds?

Let Astronomers start dreaming up techniques that can be accomplished only when your telescope is moving so fast. Yes, you can still do planet-hunting from a moving platform, but how? Parallax methods? One thing is for sure: You’ll find new planets (and refine data on those previously known) from a different vantage point which would not have been possible solely from earth.

Oh the possibilities are endless! But you get the point, right? Those are just starter ideas behind the idea of Subluminal Science research. It can and must be applied to an unmanned probe too, for starters.

Don’t wait for DARPA or NASA. Don’t wait for Tau Zero or BIS to finish building that interstellar ship. Don’t wait for that day when your great great grandchildren zooms to Gliese and then realizes, “Hey, this trip is boring! What are we supposed to do now?”

Go ahead and write up that idea now. What experiments would you like your great grandkids to do on that starship? Let’s plan ahead to make that interstellar journey an exciting trip for our exoplanetary descendants!

Tunnels Between the Stars

In an issue of Green Lantern Corps, entitled "Recharge" from way back in 2006, a nemesis called "The Spider Guild" sneaked to the home planet of the Green Lantern Corps by passing through a wormhole connecting the stars. These tunnels between the stars are called "The Subspace Web". By entering another star (or blackhole) from a different sector of the universe, the 'spiders' traversed through subspace web and then emerged directly from within Oa's sun and attacked the Green Lantern's base "from out of the light".



It's all Science Fiction, so far. Right?

Now for the Science part.

A recent study suggests that wormholes might exist between distant stars. However, it's not easy to detect if a star could harbor some passageway hidden deep within its center. But the scientists are saying that they could be distinguishable from normal stars (or even from normal neutron stars). And it's because these wormholes are not empty tunnels, rather they contain a perfect fluid that flows back and forth between the two stars, giving them a detectable signature via their pulsations.

Wait. It's still Science Fiction!

Nope. Actually, real scientists and astrophysicists are saying this. See for yourself on their ArXiv paper. And take note: Kepler has detected a lot of pulsating stars in their Asteroseismological studies. Yes, Kepler also deals with Asteroseismology--the science that involves probing the interiors of stars and quantifying their global properties, such as radius and age, through observations of normal modes of oscillation. So, ya never know! Our good ol' Kepler might discover some wormhole-bearing stars! Heh!



Now back to the fiction. To cut a long story short, by sheer teamwork, inspired by a massive recital of their green lantern oath (in brightest day, in blackest night...blah...blah), the Green Lantern Corps managed to push back the invading marauders back into the star--including the star itself! Their own sun got pushed into the wormhole-tunnel from the outside-in and was destroyed along with the Spider Guild's nest. So now, in that episode, the green lantern's planet Oa has actually become a starless planet, a rogue planet!

And there you have it, folks. Just a brief excursion in the world of scifi on a friday night! Happy Friday!

Links:
A Star Harbouring a Wormhole at its Center (PDF)
Stars Could Have Wormholes At Their Cores (Tech. Review)
the possibility of wormholes between stars (Physorg)

Exoplanets are not Planets

How long will exoplanets keep on destroying our predefined notions? Just a few days short of smashing our theories of planetary formation into smithereens, now we have two exoplanets sharing one orbit.

According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) a planet should clear its orbit of other objects. This condition was a source of heated debate among astronomers that rages on to this very day. It was this alienating third criterion that dethroned Pluto and other dwarf planets from planetary status.

So when I heard that KOI-730's exoplanets were sharing orbits, my first reaction was, “Hey wait a minute...if we try to apply the ‘official’ definition of 'planet' to these exoplanets, they would not be planets at all!”

This is just one instance, but i'm sure there are many derivatives of the case of KOI-730's co-orbiting exoplanets that "share" orbits with other objects. Think of intersecting resonant orbital paths, or locked LaGrangian exoplanet orbits, or exoplanets still in the process of clearing out debris in their path. (It would take millions of years for young planets to clear their orbital zones, mind you.)

I’ve always thought that exoplanets are planets. But today, I'm rethinking that. Yes, exoplanets continue to surprise us, and it's for that reason that I once concluded, Exoplanet is the new 'Planet' by virtue of the awe and wonder that they instill upon us. But now, I’ve come to another realization: Exoplanets are not Planets, and that is liberating. It frees the mind from a limited way of thinking, because the mindset needed for understanding exoplanets is different. Exoplanet discoveries forces you to unlearn, and it frees your mind from the confines of your own star system. Exoplanets require a novel way of thinking. And that is why I love exoplanets so much. They make us think in new ways. Exoplanets make us think outside the sphere! And all that is possible because of Science.

It frustrates me when some astronomers deny dwarf planets of being planets, and yet speak of exoplanets as planets in a carefree way. I want to avoid being annoyed by such inconsistent mindset. So I am letting go of the debate about planets. (Of course, I still consider dwarf planets as legit planets) I will simply let planets be planets, and exoplanets be exoplanets. Just that. I will not try to make exoplanets fit in as planets. I will not even attempt to redefine what a planet is, or grumble about its flawed definition. In fact, I'd rather we keep the current planet definition the way it is now. Let it be a reminder, a tainted bygone--an old ugly chapter in the history of Astronomy.

Perhaps someday, a new definition of the planet will emerge, one that is more universal, that will encompass exoplanets as well. But for now, we are experiencing a temporary chaos brought about by the "growing pains" in our effort to understand the universe.

But until then, with the narrow-minded planet definition we have arrogantly locked ourselves into, who can say with certainty that exoplanets are planets?

This is a new era of planetary thinking. Humanity’s concept of the Planet is of the past, but Exoplanets are of the future.

Links:
NewScientist: Two exoplanets found, sharing one orbit
Life, Unbounded: Make Me a Planet
Theories of Planetary Formation, Busted
Exoplanet is the new 'Planet'

Sunless Biospheres

Today, I heard about the newly discovered sets of undersea vents found near Antartica. I can’t help but remember an article just a few days ago that mentioned the possibility of rogue planets harboring life. Although the theory is based on computer simulations, the researchers say that a “Steppenwolf planet” wandering in outer space like a “lone wolf”--may have liquid oceans if the water were heated from below by the planet's core and insulated from above by a thick layer of ice. A sunless biosphere.

I wonder how long these Steppenwolf planets will manage to keep the heat inside it's shell of ice to give enough time for life to synthesize from within its undersea vents. Time and luck is definitely a factor. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of planets out there; and not even counting exomoons in the equation, Hydrothermal Vents may be common for those planets that may have ample amount of water and enough internal heat as a source of energy. And judging from the resiliency of life as demonstrated by extremophiles thriving upon the energy and minerals around these vents, it makes me even more convinced of the possibility that life may be common in the universe.

Perhaps Life is not wholly dependent upon stars and suns. Perhaps Life just needs is a source of energy in any which form it is available and it will take hold given enough time and space--which in this case, is a Sunless Biosphere of a Steppenwolf Planet.

Links:
More deep-sea vents discovered
Rogue Planets could harbor life

Transit Light-Curve Signatures of Artificial Objects

Hot on the trail of Transit Light Curve (TLC*) Mechanics, I’d like to follow up my previous post dealing with transits by featuring this topic: Transit Light-Curve Signatures of Artificial Objects. It's a "Dysonian SETI" paper written by Luc Arnold from way back in 2005 that also mentions possible signals that might be encoded within transit light curves, and hints at the detection of ringed planets as well.

The main idea is that non-spherical objects have different light curve signatures and should be distinguishable from the usual patterns of a transiting planet.

Because hundreds or thousands of people are now looking at light curves via the Planet Hunters project, I thought it’s a good idea to post what the paper says about unusual light-curve patterns that might be caused by the transit of artificial planet-sized objects. Who knows? Perhaps the common folk hunting for planets might end up finding Civilizations as well!

So, dear planet-hunter slash civilization-hunter, start familiarizing yourself with the sample patterns I compiled below (as a quick reference) while you're classifiying light curves at PlanetHunters.org. Good luck with spotting that Kardashev Type II Civilization !!!

* TLC Mechanics/Dynamics, A sub-field of the science of planet-hunting focused on the study and analysis of Transit Light Curves

Bow Shock Transits

Just a quick note to all the Citizen Planet Hunters (CPH) involved in Zooniverse's Planet Hunter project. Based on this paper, Transit Variability in Bow Shock-Hosting Planets, exoplanet bow shocks can affect the light curve during transits. There will be small variations in the light curve caused by the bow shock when the planet’s magnetosphere adjusts in response to "variations in the surrounding ambient medium."

In essence, the variations and irregularities are caused by "shock transits". We should be aware of them when analyzing light curves. I believe that many of the exoplanet candidates in Kepler's data release have bow shocks because most of them lie very close to their respective host stars.

Also, I think that bow shocks are bright, especially when the planet plows through material from a massive coronal mass ejection (CME). Hence some bow shock transits should cause a spike (instead of a dip) in the light curve. This spike, I assume, should occur a short moment before the planet crosses the star, or shortly before the "ingress".

However, there's a disclaimer I'd like to add to this post: The paper says that the effect of the shock transit shows up in the near-UV light curves. But Kepler's light curves are photometric optical light curves, so i am making an inference that effects of bow shocks might show up in Kepler's optical light curves as well. (I will dig more about this topic and post as soon as i get more info).

But For now, take a look at the snapshot below and note the pattern of how the bow shock's transit shows itself in the light curves. And more importantly, a reversed pattern might show up for planets that have "behind shocks". The main principle is that bow shocks can affect light curves.

Good luck! And don't be shocked if you find yourself one of the co-discoverers of a planet with an amazing bow shock!

Kepler's Groundhog Day Exoplanets

Groundhog Day, year 2011. The Kepler Mission team announces new exoplanet discoveries and releases data on more than a thousand new exoplanet candidates giving a clear sign of what is to come: There will be more exoplanet discoveries, again and again, over and over, for decades onwards.

The latest exoplanet announcements from Kepler are six “Neptune-type” planets all of are in tight orbits around their parent star called Kepler-11.

But even more exciting than the announcement of these six planets around Kepler-11 is the Kepler team's public release of data that contains more than a thousand new exoplanet candidates that have yet to be confirmed. Approximately 90% is expected to turn out as true exoplanets from this data set alone. They would most likely include many super-earths, and even more earth-size planets some of which lie in the habitable zone.

There will be more exoplanets in the coming months and years. I cannot even fathom what this would mean for our generation. We are witnessing a historic event in humanity's quest to find our place in the universe.

Consider this: in the Cygnus constellation alone, an area in the sky smaller than a coin held at arms length harbors thousands of planets, if not millions. A few thousand of those planets are as small, or smaller than our own, orbiting within the Habitable Zone. I cannot even dare say (because it's an understatement) that at least one of these worlds could harbor some form life.

Are you having an existential shock now? Well, get used to it. This will happen over and over again.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Links:
Bounty of Multi-Planet Solar Systems
It’s Full of Planets