Exoplanetology's Twitter Manifesto

When I started the @exoplanetology twitter account I did not expect that it would take me to an amazing journey through fascinating worlds. Well, twitter is a world of it's own, but it has allowed me to learn and discover new interesting realms that i could never have known without this medium.

My goal to answer the question, "How does the discovery of exoplanets impact humanity's culture and future?" --has guided me into worlds I've never known before. Little did I know that tweeting would become a soul-searching activity as well.

So I am forever thankful to the Tweeps--my Karass, the tweeting embodiment of the hive mind. They helped shape the path to new genres that I am dabbling into.

My latest foray, which I am so excited about--is exploring planetary worlds in fiction, comic books, graphic novels, short stories, movies, music, and videogames. I focus only on those that has something to do with worlds and exoplanets. I became interested in SciFi after I realized how inspiring it is to delve into the narrative behind planetary worlds, all the while enjoying the scientific study of real exoplanets. Without the stories, the study of Exoplanetology would be a bore. In a sense, Imaginative Science is the latest addition to my playground.

Thus, if you follow @exoplanetology then you would be taken along on a journey of exploration in science as well as in literature, culture, and some bit of futurism.

Some wackiness slips in between the cracks, occasionally. I often end up drawing other-worldy insights from mundane experiences, or finding planetary metaphors from simple things like soap bubbles.

Sometimes I tweet about what an astrophysics arXiv article is really saying, or you would just find me RT'ing or raving about a new comic book set on a distant alien world.

I like synthesizing. Often i'd tweet about how I can mix different subjects, for example Synthetic Biology and Astrobiology to find insights about detecting life on other planets. Exoplanetology is itself a synthesis of different fields of Science, namely Astronomy and Astrophysics, so it does not come as a surprise that I like to mash up things! I think it resulted in my blogging style becoming 'interstitial'.

The keyword is "Worlds", and it has become my favorite word lately. For me, "Worlds" is a key that integrates Science and Fiction, using imagination as the glue. And from that stems a redefinition: Aside from being "The Art and Science of New Worlds", Exoplanetology is also the over-all study and "Thought" of Worlds.

My intent with this twitter account is to be a node between the Third Culture and the informed public. Perhaps this makes it part of the Fourth Culture--a term derived after C.P. Snow's lecture, A Tale of Two Cultures.

The @Exoplanetology account is being stewarded by a non-scientist non-literati but with a strong interest in Science, the Humanities and the Arts--plus a penchant for seeking Truth. Thus there is no other way but for @Exoplanetology to act as node between these seemingly disparate things.

In terms of that perennial debate on God or un-God, I tweet from the standpoint of an active 'Seeker'--one who thinks that perhaps we don't know enough just yet to make a solid stance on whether God does or does not exist, but that there is plenty of Wonders in the Universe to inspire Awe, and then ponder upon that mystery. As such, it makes me forever curious.

Lastly, I myself am confused whether to treat @Exoplanetology as a person or as a robotic curator with no will of its own. But i've learned to appreciate the ambiguity of such treatment, after I realized that stewarding Exoplanetology has changed me, and guided my thinking in a lot of ways too.

The melding of the person and a meme is quite interesting to me, for I've never seen a nascent field of science come with a personality along with it's presence on the web. This is "only in twitter" they say, only in twitter.

I am @Exoplanetology and this is my Twitter Manifesto.

Serendipity and Imagination

A very cool bookstore called Imagine Atrium in my area is closing, and it's a very sad thing indeed. To show our support, my wife brought the whole family to take part in the last Poetry Reading session at the store. The kids loved it and we all had a blast.
I say that everyone must experience the magic of Poetry for it encompasses many of the great facets of humanity.
After the event, I looked around the store for discounted books to buy and I chanced upon a gem: Galactic Geographic Annual 3003 by Karl Kofoed. It's a highly graphic sci-fi book that set my mind careening in outer space and into the future. How it jives with the theme of Exoplanetology is unmistakeable. It touches upon Exobiology, Exoplanetary science and some bit of Archeo-Astronomy and Astrophysics intermixed with intriguing settings of futuristic fiction that might actually come true, someday.
My imagination was truly set ablaze with this find.
Karl Kofoed's art is truly masterful. I wonder how his paint strokes can evoke visions of the future. It is a work of art. And I am glad that Serendipity has given me a book to power my Imagination.

Exoplanetary Thinking

Certain things happen to an individual who acts as a steward of this particular word, domain, or an entirely new field of science called Exoplanetology. It is new, and quite odd, having been derived from an alien-sounding word -- exoplanet, it ended up sounding humorous and brings up a cultic or thingamaphoooey tone. Yes, it is totally out of this world, but it is a word whose time has come.
Exoplanetology is unique. It is the overall Thought and study of external planets relative to the Sun and our home planet, but it will always involve our own planet, because it is relative to Earth. So there will always be a "personal" touch.
When I decided to take stewardship of the word (and domain), this word has taken hold of the mind of it's steward. In the process of developing this website, a certain kind of Thought began to pervade my mindset, as I became immersed in thinking about the earth, planets, exoplanets, new worlds, suns, galaxies, and life.
Could it be what we might call "Exoplanetary thinking"? Because I never think of the Sun the same way again. It is a star, one among billions, and I am standing on one of it's planets - a habitable one for me and all life I share it with.
On the other hand, I never gaze at stars thinking the same way again. They are other Suns, sign-posts for other solar systems with their own planets and moons, and possibly - Life.
I never looked at the horizon the same way again, with the setting or rising sun radiating marvelous rays, almost saying that just like light, the imperative of life is to spread far far away from where it started before it gets extinguished by the very spark that sustains it.
I never looked at the ocean and it's waves the same way again, that it is a magnificent experience just to feel the wind and the water and know that it is the whole planet touching my face.
I never took a deep breath the same way again, without the thought of mankind's responsibility for the planet, and the future of the biosphere at the hands of humanity.
Words will not fully express the mindset of an exoplanetary thinker. It will not suffice to tell of how one's view of earth gets changed by the knowledge of other worlds around other suns, and the idea of life in those planets, all this amidst the ongoing peril of one's home planet to the growing threat of runaway global warming.
It's been said that life is what we make it, thus we are at the cusp of a magnificent period in the history of mankind, where our history joins with the history of cosmic life, or it may well be the end.
We are at the edge of a revolution that is as great, if not greater than the Copernican revolution, or we may be one great tragedy.
Whence it was the realization that we are not the center of the world, or the universe, this time we will realize - we are not center of Life (and of Intelligent Life), but we have become the steward of life in our small corner of the galaxy, a special role to fulfill.
We are at a decision point where we could end up as another extinct civilization - an interesting subject of study for alien intergalactic historians and explorers. Or we could be those future extrasolar and intergalactic explorers, if we learned the proper stewardship of life.
We are at the crux of history and we are undergoing a shift in global and planetary thinking. Our children will grow up in a world knowing they are interplanetary citizens and awesome stewards of life. Welcome to the future and welcome to a brave new world.
And with Exoplanetology, I welcome you to the era of new worlds.

Students turned Planet-hunters

Congratulations to the three students from the netherlands who turned out to be planet-hunters. Francis Vuijsje, Meta de Hoon, and Remco van der Burg discovered a very hot exoplanet called OGLE-TR-L9 b around a fast-spinning star.
More details about their discovery will be published in the forthcoming issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, but a glimpse of their story hints that the discovery is almost serendipitous: the students detected the exoplanet while testing a method for investigating light fluctuations of thousands of stars in the OGLE database in an automated way.
They combed through OGLE's database to sift through massive amounts of data and found the tell-tale pattern of a planet's existence from the fluctuations on the starlight detected over time.

OGLE stands for Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment. It is a Polish astronomical project based at Warsaw University that is chiefly concerned with discovering dark matter using the Microlensing technique. Since the project began in 1992, it has discovered several extrasolar planets as a side benefit.
You see, OGLE itself might not have been originally designed to hunt for exoplanets, and that makes it all the more fun serendipitously discovering gems.
Where the recent exoplanet discoveries that made headlines were made via direct imaging method, this one was discovered via some cool pattern-finding algorithms that sifted through differential photometry datasets from OGLE.
This method could usher in a new era for amateur exoplanetology, specially when the deluge of data from the new generation of space telescopes comes, and is made accessible to the public.
And so, many other "hidden" exoplanets could be lurking not only out there in space, but "inside" the hard-drives and database of OGLE that contain photometric data, and the tell-tale patterns of the existence of exoplanets are still be waiting to be discovered.

links:
From Livescience
OGLE

Planetology, A Primer to Exo

What happens when you team up together a geologist and an astronaut? You get this book, Planetology. It's a good primer for anyone who wants to begin exploring planets and worlds more alien than the planets within our own solar system. After all, one should get familiar with the local neighborhood before venturing out farther to extrasolar systems.
Starting with our home planet, magnificent earth gives us insights about other worlds. And that's where planetary geologist Ellen Stofan and astronaut Tom Jones pair images of Earth with astonishing scenes of alien surfaces beamed home by NASA’s robotic probes. This portrait of our solar system brings into view important contrasts between Earth and its neighbors in space.
This is a good book with vivid pictures of our local neighborhood, plus it contains a good introduction to exoplanets. Planetology first, then Exoplanetology.

Whole Universe In a Magazine

I don't usually buy magazines at newsstands but this one got the better of me. Discover's Whole Universe magazine is by far the most exoplanetology-centric magazine I've come across so far.
The articles are truly educational and the pictures are amazing. Two of its pages even shows the same image I selected for my past post "Extrasolarise" four months ago.
The only thing I can notice is the inconsistent naming convention of the exoplanet names. I was reminded of the cumbersome process of straightening out the exoplanet duplicates at wikipedia and freebase due to naming convention discrepancies where the space was absent between the star name and exoplanet index. For example, in the article - Forbidden Planets on page 36, Gliese 581d should've been Gliese 581 d.
It's quite trivial I know, and Freebase has now so wonderfully remedied this issue. But leniency to naming conventions would make it difficult to catalog the growing number of exoplanets in the long run.
But still, the magazine is splendid. I would love to come across such a kind of magazine in the newsstands once again.

Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds

Penn State University has recently opened up a Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds. Directed by Alex Wolszczan, Evan Pugh professor of astronomy and astrophysics, the center is devoted to broad, interdisciplinary research in the field of extrasolar planets, to promoting collaborations among scientists, and to improving science education at Penn State and among the general public.
Wolszczan discovered the first planets ever found outside our solar system in 1992, catapulting the field of extrasolar-planet studies into the forefront of astrophysics. Wolszczan had observed tiny fluctuations in the arrival times of the regular signals from a pulsar -- a telltale sign of the presence of orbiting planets around the rapidly spinning neutron star.
Three years later, the first extra-solar planet around a normal solar-like star, named "51 Pegasi b," was identified by Mayor and Didier Queloz. As of today, scientists have discovered more than 300 planets accompanying various types of stars.
The principal objective of research in the field of Exoplanetology is to find planets where living organisms exist, and to determine their rate of occurrence in the universe.
The research on exoplanets and the search for life is intertwined. Opening up a center focused on this field is welcome news for all enthusiasts of the burgeoning field of Exoplanetology.

Source(s):
http://live.psu.edu/story/34577/nw4

Infinite Worlds

If there is any book at all that best captures Exoplanetology--The Art and Science of Exoplanets, then it is this book: Infinite Worlds by Ray Villard and Lynnette Cook.

If there is any book at all that best captures Exoplanetology--The Art and Science of Exoplanets and Life on other Worlds, then it is this book: Infinite Worlds by Ray Villard and Lynnette Cook. This book is truly a masterpiece worth having in the bookshelf of those who are enthralled by other worlds and beckoned by the prospect of life in other planets.
Although it has been published several years ago, this book will never cease to inspire the next generation of space explorers, and will continue to foster the momentum in exoplanet research by way of inspiration and imagination.
Prior to 1992 there were no known planets orbiting stars outside our own solar system. But the next few years have seen fast-paced developments in astronomy where over 300 extrasolar planets have been discovered by 2008--with more discoveries surely on the way.
Though it will be a few more years before we have compelling direct images of these far-flung worlds, this lavishly illustrated book gives us an idea of what they might look like.
A fascinating exploration of Exoplanetology written for a wide audience, Infinite Worlds brings together Lynette Cook's internationally renowned astronomical artwork, the latest and most dramatic images from the world's top observatories, and scientific findings on subjects ranging from stellar evolution and planetary formation to a possible universe filled with countless planets and life forms.
The newly discovered exoplanets are boggling astronomers' minds with their bizarre characteristics, including an unimagined diversity of sizes and orbits. In Lynette Cook's scientifically based illustrations, we glimpse the landscapes and atmospheres that might adorn these planets. Ray Villard's text elegantly describes the state of astronomy today, imagines where it will take us in the coming years, ponders the chances of success for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and explores the survivability of life in an evolving and accelerating universe.

Links:
Lynnette Cook's SpaceArt

NASA boosts Exoplanetology with Sagan Fellowships

In what may well be a boost to Exoplanetology, the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute announced in September 2008 the introduction of the Sagan Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and solicits applications for fellowships. This probably is NASA's response to the the staggering pace of of discovery of planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets with more than 300 currently known.
The Sagan Fellowships support outstanding recent postdoctoral scientists to conduct independent research that is broadly related to the science goals of the NASA Exoplanet Exploration area. The primary goal of missions within this program is to discover and characterize planetary systems and Earth-like planets around nearby stars.
The Sagan Fellowships in Exoplanet Exploration was created to inspire the next generation of explorers seeking to learn more about planets, and possibly life, around other stars.
Decades ago, long before any exoplanets had been found, the late Carl Sagan imagined such worlds, and pioneered the scientific pursuit of life that might exist on them. NASA's new Sagan fellowships will allow talented young scientists to tread the path laid out by Sagan. The program will award stipends of approximately $60,000 per year, for a period of up to three years, to selected postdoctoral scientists. Topics can range from techniques for detecting the glow of a dim planet in the blinding glare of its host star, to searching for the crucial ingredients of life in other planetary systems. The proposed research may be theoretical, observational, or instrumental. The selections will be announced in February 2009.
"Only a select few scientists carry the insight, vision and persistence to open entire new vistas on the cosmos," said Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and Frederick P. Rose director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. "We know about Einstein. We know about Hubble. Add to this list Carl Sagan, who empowered us all -- scientists as well as the public -- to see planets not simply as cosmic objects but as worlds of their own that could harbor life."

Links:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/sep/HQ_08-218_Sagan_Fellowships.html
http://www.astrobiology.net/archives/2008/09/carl_sagan_post.html

What We Still Don't Know (Documentary)

A documentary about searching for the answer to the fascinating question "Are We Alone?" Touches upon Exoplanets and Exobiology. Perfect for Exoplanetology!

ExoGaia Hypothesis

By now you must be wondering why I have added a very curious parameter to the definition of Exoplanetology, which is "the search for life on other worlds". What does "Life" have to do with Exoplanets? Should we just let Exoplanetology simply be the study of Exoplanets?
My short answer is simply because Life is fun! But we may in fact leave it plain and simple as the pure science of exoplanets. But I'm afraid that definition will be temporary. In due time, life will ultimately be detected on other worlds. And those who are familiar with James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis knows that a planet is never the same once Life takes hold of it. It becomes a planet-life symbiosis. The planet becomes a living organism.
Life ultimately alters the make-up of planets, while on the other hand the undulations of the surface of the planet (earthquakes, volcanic activities, tectonics, etc) affects the course of life's evolution. The metabolisms of life changes the "atmosphere" of planets, vise-versa and so on. For example, the planktons, green algae or microscopic plants have been responsible for the copious amounts of Oxygen on Earth's atmosphere, where previously - some few millions of years ago, there was Methane and other gases instead. Now humans are about to replace it with CO2!
So, in the study of exoplanets, the parameter of life is inherently entwined. As a matter of fact, in trying to understand the gases in an exoplanet's atmosphere, an inference to the presence of life is almost always taken into account as a possible catalyst.
Hence, there is no other way but to add "the search for Life" to Exoplanetology at this point. And this is also to inspire all the those who undertake the task of answering one of man's deepest questions, "Are We Alone?". So for now, while we're still searching, we can leave it at that. (Besides, I think its time for interdisciplinary collaborations between related sciences: Isnt it fun to bring aspects of Astrobiology, Astronomy, Cosmology and even Climatology together into Exoplanetology?)
But once we finally discover exoplanetary life, I will immediately change the definition of Exoplanetology to "The Art and Science of Exoplanets and Life on Other Worlds."
And by the way, if Gaia is to Earth, then could ExoGaia be for Exoplanets?

Exoplanetology Entwined

I received an invitation to try out this new "Semantic Social Utility" called Twine and I decided to give it a spin. Of course, I planted the seeds of Exoplanetology in there. You may find the topic of Exoplanetology "en-twined" via this URL: http://www.twine.com/twine/exoplanetology. Although right now, the exoplanet topic there is still lonely, my experience with Twine as a whole has been totally stellar, and I found it quite addictive. At the moment, Twine is open only for invitations, but I can see it's awesome potential. I think Semantic Applications would be a great tool for Science and Research. Science2.0 is coming, I heard. Let's see how it fares for Exoplanet Research.

WASP Exoplanets Follow-up

No. These are not eyeballs nor fisheggs. They're new planets discovered by superWASP.

As promised, the 10 new wasp planets are now in the Freebase Catalogue of exoplanets, WASP-6b all the way to WASP-15b. As there are still some discrepancies in data, I am still reluctant to add more specific numbers in there. Concurrently, I've been discussing with the folks at Freebase on how to effectively catalog exoplanets and all its properties. And also hoping it could be placed within the Freebase's Astronomy domain for a wider public use and exposure. I also plan to create a Freebased Widget sometime in the future.
Learning as I go, I discovered some differences in how exoplanet data are represented compared to regular planets. One of the differences I notice is in the unit of measurement used for Mass and Radius: For planets "Earth Mass" is used, whereas exoplanets use "Jupiter Mass".
Being a new field, Exoplanetary Science or Exoplanetology is still in its infancy. So if anyone wants to be part of this growing field of science, feel free to join in and be part of history.

More Links:
Centauri Dreams on the WASP exoplanets
Exoplanet Data From SuperWASP
Sky and Telescope News

No Joke: 10 New Exoplanets for April 1st!

WASP-3b: One of the Extrasolar planets discovered by SuperWASP. WASP-3b is one of hottest exoplanets ever detected. It was discovered in 2007.

No, this is not an April fools day joke: 10 new Exoplanets have just been discovered by the SuperWASP (Wide Area Search for Planets) team. The SuperWASP technique involves two sets of cameras to watch for events known as transits, where a planet passes directly in front of a star and blocks out some of the star's light. From the Earth the star temporarily appears a little fainter.
The SuperWASP cameras work as robots, surveying a large area of the sky at once. Each night astronomers receive data from millions of stars. They can then check for transits and hence planets. The transit technique also allows scientists to deduce the size and mass of each planet.
A total of 46 planets have been found to transit their stars. Since they started operation in 2004, the SuperWASP cameras have found 15 of these. SuperWASP is the most successful transit survey in the world.
After they formally announce their findings at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy meeting in the U.K. on Wednesday, April 2, I will then add the names of the new extrasolar planets into the Exoplanetology Catalogue on Freebase.
This is wonderful news for the field of Exoplanetology! Way to go SuperWASP!

link: Eurekalert

Do not be afraid of Math

I love this interview of a planet-hunter named Rachel Akeson, who uses the Keck Telescopes in Mauna Kea to hunt for exoplanets. Her advise to enthusiasts on planet-hunting resonates with me. When asked about her advise to people who are interested in the field, she said:

"There are all kinds of people working in this area, so you shouldn't get scared off if math isn't your thing. There are lots of different careers, from science journalism to public outreach, that people can be a part of."

I'm no good in math, but i really am interested in the heavens, the stars and planets therein. Times come when i get uninspired, and hearing something like that from a real planet-hunter makes me continue onwards with this blog and website on exoplanetology.

Link: The Planet Hunters

Exoplanetology and The Encyclopedia of Life

Life is what we make it, they say, so they made an Encyclopedia of it! The Encyclopedia of Life (eol.org) was launched today.
It's inspiring, and yet saddening at the same time. It mentioned that some species might never make it there because of mass extinction, a result of the destruction to Mother Earth.
Also, in connection to Exoplanetology.com and this blog which I launched just a few days earlier, it gives me a "de-energizing" feeling whenever I am reminded of the thought:
"We haven't even fully catalogued all life on our own Planet, so why would we want to look for life on alien worlds ?"
Just by thinking of the variety of life on Earth, i already feel overwhelmed. Double that by the magnitude of the endeavor to find new exoplanets and life in them.
But despite it all, the Encyclopedia of Life still inspires me more.
It is a great start! Look, they named it as Encyclopedia of Life, hence it does not exclude life on other planets or exoplanets! So i am imagining the day when a new category will appear on its pages: Exoplanetary Life - Flora and Fauna from other Worlds!
It's a vision worth pursuing, therefore, onwards we must go with the science of exoplanets! Go exoplanetology!

Source: EOL.org goes online
Link: Encyclopedia of Life (eol.org)

The Living Cosmos: An Inspiration for Exoplanetology

If there is any book at all that magnified my enthusiasm for exoplanetology, then it is The Living Cosmos by Chris Impey. It's mostly on Astrobiology but the parallels to exoplanetology are unmistakable.
An exoplanetologist will learn most from the whole book, but Chapter 6, "Distant Worlds" is what i think is the most devoted to exoplanetology. It's where the planet-hunters are mentioned (such as Geoff Marcy, Debra Fischer and Greg Laughlin) as well as the current techniques used in planet-detection (such as Planetary Transit Method). Future initiatives such as NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) which will be launched in 2015 is mentioned as well.
The book is highly readable, and most of all truly inspiring.

New Discovery, New Beginning

Horrayy for exoplanetology.com's first blog post! I have been yearning to make the first post, but kept getting delayed. But this time, the enthusiasm cannot be stopped: With a new discovery comes a new beginning! The discovery of another solar system that is quite similar to ours, jumpstarts the exoplanetology.com blog!
Here is the link to the discovery from reuters.