Worlds as Metaphor

It's been several months ago that I tweeted about how planetary or exoplanetary thinking is making its way into the human psyche. It became more apparent when a "planetary" model of organization surfaced in the design of User Interface (UI).

You know, we live in an age of data explosion. So much that you need an effective interface design to interact with data in a meaningful way. That's why this "planetary" design hit a sweet spot in organizing and representing your music collection. I remember Last.FM had some solar system visualization back then, but this working interface from Bloom rocks.

I felt compelled to write this post after I came across a more detailed exposition of how this "Worlds" interface was created. I am amazed how the representation of data about artists, albums and songs fits in place "naturally" with how nature has organized stars, planets, moons, and galaxies. It almost seems to say that music and nature are intertwined. And it is intertwined!

All this just proves that it is most elegant to use Worlds as Metaphor, not just in interfacing with machines and data, but in interacting with ideas!

Links:
Creating New Worlds
Worlds, Not Windows

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!

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!

Exoplanet 500

I wrote this post to mark a milestone in Exoplanet Science. There are now over five hundred known exoplanets in our database.

It may not be such a big deal. Five Hundred is not much. Not until one considers the fact that gazillions of planets wander the galaxy. It means that cataloguing worlds is an infinite pursuit. Such task tickles the potential of the whole human race, and the human mind.

We have "Indy 500", and we have "Fortune 500", now why not have "Exoplanet 500"?

Yes, "Five Hundred" is fun to utter. And as I sing it out loud, I reflect upon the accomplishments of the Astronomers whose dedication continue to expand our view of the Cosmos.

Amazing how far we've gone as a curious species.

Now's a good time to pause and appreciate the contributions of the rest of the Scientists, Philosophers, Artists, Thinkers and Dreamers--not only those that are currently in our midst, but especially those who have gone before us. They are the Giants upon whose shoulders we are standing on to get a better view of our wondrous universe, enabling us to glimpse New Worlds.

"For I would walk 500 miles, and i will walk 500 more..."
~ The Proclaimers, I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)

Tadalala! Tadalala...tadalalalalalaa...


Links:
Exoplanet Encyclopaedia

How to get Offworld

Everybody’s heard of Gliese 581g. It is claimed to be the first rocky exoplanet ever discovered that is within the Habitable Zone. I wont bore you with details. But let us explore the effects of that discovery upon the populace. What are the reactions of the public? It seems that more people became more aware about the idea of interstellar space travel. And within some high-profile organizations, prospects on how to move off-world were speculated upon. DARPA and NASA even planned a Hundred-Year Starship program to explore other star systems.

"The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the NASA Ames Research Center have teamed together to take the first step in the next era of space exploration—a journey between the stars." ~DARPA

Yes, we are seeing seeds of action being generated by exoplanet discoveries. The impact of exoplanet discoveries upon humanity is that now we are beginning to think “Offworld”. We are beginning to plan missions to explore worlds not only the within our Solar System but somewhere beyond the light of other Suns.

The allure of sending humans to outer space is stronger than ever. But is it actually feasible? This fragile flesh and blood could be too brave for its own good. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (so to speak).

Even a trip to Mars may be a one-way mission for us puny earth-based creatures. But if we are really serious to set up a “human” colony on another planet, then we should send a couple--to begin with. They should be willing to make love on Mars and bear children on that planet. I’m curious how that "natural" way of adapting a human’s genetics to a particular planet would pan out. I’m pretty sure martian gravity, among other things, would have a profound effect on a local Mars-born baby (you might be thinking about height now). It all seems like science fiction at first glance. But wait till you hear about the prospect of modifying humanity's genetics to adapt to outer space, as NASA's Worden speculated upon.

But that brings me to the question: once you modify a human being, would he be still “human”? If we genetically-modified humans so much as to survive interstellar or interplanetary travel, would that scenario give birth to the “post-human” being?

"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."
~ John Wooden


Thinking about such things has led me to write a speculative story on how we could send an essence of humanity to extrasolar worlds. Not of flesh and blood nor bones--but of heart and soul, and the enduring human spirit of exploration. That story is called Boltzmann's Brain.

Links:
DARPA’s Starship (PDF)
NASA/DARPA Hundred Year Starship (PopSci)

Wake up! It's an Amazing Time to be Alive!

Finally, xkcd did exoplanets! And a good one at that! I've been waiting for this webcomic and now it has finally come!

And it resonates. Tracking the surge in exoplanet discoveries has naturally led me to look into interstellar space travel as well, which is somewhat inevitable for anyone enthusiastic about exoplanets and what they would mean for mankind, and to our culture and future.

Wake up! Wake up! You live in an amazing time! Hit the snooze button once and then head for the stars!



"Knowledge...is advancing as irresistibly, as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in upon the shore."
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.


Links:
Onwards to Exoplanets: http://exoplanetology.blogspot.com/2010/06/onwards-to-exoplanets.html

Possible Data Mining Age in the Future of Exoplanet Science

Exoplanets. Distant worlds light-years away, yet they continue to move ever closer to humanity’s psyche, enticing us to declare them worthy of serious research.

“The study of exoplanets is of such enormous intellectual importance and it helps us understand our place in the universe,” said Louis Friedman of the Planetary Society.

“The search for exoplanets is one of the most exciting subjects in all of astronomy,” the Astronomy Decadal Survey committee expressed their enthusiasm in a report entitled New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Thus, a program was recommended “to explore the diversity and properties of planetary systems around other stars, and to prepare for the long-term goal of discovering and investigating nearby, habitable planets." The survey proposed The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), a $1.6 billion dollar telescope that would provide us with more exoplanet data. The report states that “in addition to determining just the planetary statistics, a critical element of the committee’s exoplanet strategy is to continue to build the inventory of planetary systems around specific nearby stars.”

Now look closer at those words. “Inventory”, “census” and “statistics” of planetary systems. Clearly, the current focus is to continue to “gather” more and more data. We just turned into proverbial planet hunter-gatherers!

Kiddding aside, the excitement to gather more exoplanets in our database is great. But then I feel that something is missing, and that something must be done in addition to it all.

I feel that the future prospect of “processing” must also be planned in parallel with the construction of these telescopes.

We are continously building instruments to gather more and more exoplanet data but we are not preparing the infrastructure to handle the imminent data explosion in Exoplanetary Science.

I anticipate a bottleneck when all these planet-hunting telescopes finally get deployed and the copious amounts of data comes flooding in. On what basis am i saying this? Well, take this for example: Dozens of Earth-mass planets could already be within the database of the Kepler Team right now even as we sit waiting for their announcement. That is why i think that not just one earth-sized planets would be announced at one time, but several of them. It’s just that the Kepler scientists are extra careful about their greatest discovery ever in humanity's history. They are simply making sure that their discoveries are solid before they reveal it to the whole world.

But perhaps it’s understandable to withhold data about historical “firsts” because so much is at stake for the Scientists making the announcement.

The raw data will eventually be shared to the public for Citizen Scientists to gobble up. But I can't help but think that in some way, it’s a mini-bottleneck. And looking ahead, there is no infrastructure for outside help to “harvest” planets from the raw data the will eventually pour in. So far so good, only pure Scientists can harvest the goods.

In my previous post, I asked these questions: How will Scientists keep up with petabytes of raw data? How will web technology keep up? How will the internet enable Citizens to contribute to science for the love of it? What needs to be done?

Looking around at the changing face of Science that results from the enabling power of web technology, we see the important contributions of a swarm of minds working together for Scientific goals.

Take a look at GalaxyZoo, FoldIt, StarDust@Home, Rosetta@Home, Einstein@Home and SETI@Home. These are awesome computational engines that tap the human potential in analyzing massive amounts of data, to produce novel scientific discoveries. Despite the public excitement in the field of exoplanets, I'm surprised that there is no program like them that are focused on exoplanetary science. I have reason to think that in some way, the same idea of "distributed processing" can be applied to the deluge of exoplanet data that will arrive in the coming decades.

"We're at the dawn of a new era, in which computation between humans and machines is being mixed," says Michael Kearns--a computer scientist dealing with the concept of distributed thinking.

So how can we apply the power of distributed thinking in Exoplanetary Science? Who must jump-start the GalaxyZoo for Exoplanets? Should NASA or ESA do it? Should ExoPAG work on it? Universities? Or should the private sector do it? Should someone write a grant proposal? Or perhaps open a kickstarter project for it?

It’s been said that we are currently in the Golden Age of planetary discovery. But if we don’t begin to create some way to collectively "process" the huge amount of data gathered by planet-hunting telescopes, a “bottleneck era” might follow. It will be an era in which we are virtually “aware” that planets lie hidden within massive amounts of data stored somewhere in hard drives locked away at some facility. And like the exoplanet that was re-discovered within the Hubble archives, it would take years to mine these planets from out of the digital ones and zeros and be announced as a belated exoplanet discovery.

I am guessing that that such an era may likely occur if we don't build a system to process the data in a collective fashion. But then we would refuse to call it a bottleneck era. We would simply name it a much better-sounding term, The Data Mining Age of Exoplanetary Science.


Links:
New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12951
$1.6 billion telescope would seek out alien planets: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38692359/ns/technology_and_science-space/
Dark Energy and Exoplanets Top List of Astronomy Priorities: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/nrc-space-report/
Citizen science, People power:
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100804/full/466685a.html

Onwards to Exoplanets

On a good session of stargazing, my typical cycle of moods gets its round. The elation of a beautiful star-filled night-sky is often the first emotion I get. Then comes the melancholy of a starry void--that sinking feeling of insignificance is inevitable. But it is followed by that sense of wonder that lifts me up, upon realizing the joy of being alive in the moment to ponder all these things. Then thankfulness and gratefulness often ends my exogazing session.
Curiously, there has been a new addition to these "mood swings". Lately, I found myself wondering what it would feel like to land on a planet of another star. Thus, I began to delve on topics about space travel. What started as an interest in exoplanets expanded to interstellar travel as well.
Often, the thought of going to the stars seems like science fiction. But the steady stream of news about probes reaching unknown places more otherworldy than imagination could conjure, always brings me to a point that landing a probe on an exoplanet might be possible. To this regard, The Planetary Society is stewarding precursor missions that may one day lead to sending humans to other planets. I’m well aware that it will not be during my lifetime, but yes I believe it is possible in due time.
My recent interest in the prospect of humans travelling to extrasolar planets has been fueled by Centauri Dreams whose well-informed articles by Paul Gilster always bring inspiration. As everyone knows, Centauri Dreams coordinates with the Tau Zero Foundation whose main goal is to send humans to the stars. Tau Zero collaborated with the British Interplanetary Society on Project Icarus, the successor to Project Daedalus.
To sail to the stars will be a step by step endeavor by Humanity. As what the purveyors of Project Daedalus envisioned--the successor missions will be stewarded by the next generation, and so on.
Little by little, we'll get there someday. Onwards to other worlds, onwards to exoplanets!

Exoplanetary Singularities

“A courtier presented the Persian king with a beautiful, hand-made chessboard. The king asked what he would like in return for his gift and the courtier surprised the king by asking for one grain of rice on the first square, two grains on the second, four grains on the third etc. The king readily agreed and asked for the rice to be brought. All went well at first, but the requirement for 2 to the power of [n − 1] grains on the nth square demanded over a million grains on the 21st square, more than a million million (aka trillion) on the 41st and there simply was not enough rice in the whole world for the final squares.”

For over three years now since I started following the developments in the subject of exoplanets, I've been saying that the rate of discovery of exoplanets is progressing exponentially. In 2008, around 60 exoplanet discoveries were made. in 2009, we saw over 85 new planets. Suddenly, with Kepler’s impending release of over 700 new exoplanet candidates, it is apparent that we are currently at the event horizon of planetary discoveries.

The Singularity is near. But the fact is that there’s many of them, Singularities. And two of them are close at hand in the field of Exoplanetology.
The first singularity in planetary science is the discovery of the first earth-like world. The next is the detection of life on exoworlds. Perhaps the third is the actual discovery of extraterrestrial life. And the march goes on. But what happens after you enter these Singularities? No one really knows for sure. They are great upheavals in humanity’s history that heralds new ways of thinking. Keep your mind open, and your eyes wide open. Brace yourselves for brave new worlds.

Brainwave 2010: Is Life Out There?

It was a beautiful day, and perhaps many were more interested in getting some sun as there were less people this time than the previous brainwave event I attended. This time it was rock musician Claire Evans of Yacht and Fred Adams author of The Five Ages of The Universe.
When the Director of the Event, Tim McHenry introduced the duo, i just learned that Claire Evans actually has a blog called Universe, and Tim started the event by showing the 60-sec animation created by Claire about the evolution of life. Then she began the conversation by introducing the Fermi Paradox.
The speculations that followed included the notion that Life is common, but intelligence is rare.
Claire is cognizant of the fact that we dont know enough just yet about the makeup of extra-terrestrial lifeforms, speculating--for example, about a "sentient cloud" and then wondering how to best detect them. However Fred says that we don't know anything better than using radio astronomy for SETI just yet, and so that is the method we currently use.
Claire likes the Hypothesis that some Advanced Technological Civilizations (ATC) know that we exist, but they dont want to touch us--in line with the "Prime Directive" in Star Trek, ATCs must not bother with developing civilizations.
As the duo continued to explore the solutions to the Fermi Paradox, they moved on to bleaker scenarios such as the inclination of Technological societies to destroy itself. Or various naturally occuring cosmic events such as Supernovae could explain why no civilization ever lives long enough to meet everyone else.
Fred mentions the idea that we're literally living in a supernova bubble--that supernovae have been a few parsecs away around our sun's neighborhood in the distant past.
Somehow this alerted Claire to mention speculations of how earth might die, such as getting yanked out of orbit by a passing celestial object. She says she might find the scene beautiful, how the atmosphere would snow down on earth, as the planet freezes the surface dwellers to death. She added that among the survivors would be the creatures around the deep underwater vents.
Fred adds how a watery planet would be in the cold outer part of a solar system. It will have a frozen outer shell, but internal heat would cause liquid water beneath.
And since Fred mentioned that the "Holy Grail" of SETI is the discovery of a technologically advanced civilization, Claire asks what would it mean if extra-terrestrial life were found.
Fred answers that its a gamechanger...but creationism wouldn't go away. Fred mentions though, a "lesser" Holy Grail, in the form of developing the ability to create synthetic life in the lab. Claire asks Fred "Do you believe in Technological Singularity?" since she herself finds it hard to believe. Fred answers by saying that ours is a young civilization and we might engineer our survival. Fred mentions the idea of moving the earth by a bit outwards (i think he meant gravity traction) via an asteroid. The gradual outward migration of Earth's orbit will hopefully match the swelling of the sun and move outwards to the expanding habitable zone to prolong life on this planet. Finally, among other feats of hypothetical Astroengineering, the Dyson sphere was mentioned, of course.
As the Q&A portion ensued, I happened to be picked to ask the third question. After a gentleman asked about Kepler and it's discoveries, Fred was optimistic that the Earth-like discovery will come very soon (if not this year). I followed up by asking what the impact of the discovery of an Earth-like planet will be to the human culture.
Fred answers that the impact of the discovery of an earth analog on human culture will be modest. Though, it will be on the front page of the New York Times, he adds. Claire says it takes much more than an earth-like planet to rouse the masses as people generally doesn't care much about these things. It will be the discovery of Life on these worlds that will have much impact on humanity.
Tim asks what scifi film exemplifies SETI best. Claire mentions "Contact". Fred, still in the technological frame of mind from answering a previous singularity question, says he likes "Bladerunner". Science fiction was briefly discussed among the audience, mentioning how scifi mirrors our hopes and anxieties in terms of a technological future.
Tim wraps up with a question on the future of our universe. Fred shows a few slides of new findings about our cosmic future, how the accelerating expansion of the cosmos will isolate galaxies, and result in "island universes", rendering all hopes of communicating with other galaxies impossible as light will never reach from one to the other.
The point of contact seems bleak in terms of gigayears ahead. And even now, the prospect of finding any extra-terrestrial signal may seem to be a hopeless endeavor if you take the negative stance.
The key I suppose, is to keep asking, and to keep searching. Perhaps there really is something incredible out there just waiting to be known.

Humanity’s First Interstellar Flight

The idea of mankind going to the stars might be jumpstarted by the discovery of the first earth-like planet. It's a bold new era.

Do Androids Dream of Exoplanets?

"The ship turned back a sixth of the way to Proxima. Otherwise Rachael would never have seen earth.." Thus that line inspired me to write a post about "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", the futuristic novel by the legendary author Philip K. Dick (PKD).

Probably known as the story which inspired the cult scifi movie Bladerunner, I also enjoyed it's rendition as a graphic novel. Although the art behind the comics version did not fully capture the kind of world that PKD painted, I honestly did not expect "Do Androids Dream" to be as rich as it is, touching upon a lot of topics that might become apparent in the near future.

First, is the opening introduction to the issue of animal extinction, and how Deckard--the pet-loving bounty-hunter (specializing in retiring "Andys") is yearning to own a real sheep, a real horse or any genuine animal, for that matter. As I write this, thousands of species are actually disappearing from our planet. Perhaps our children may someday own pets that are genetically-modified or fully synthetic versions of extinct species.

Second is the apparent evolution of robots into Androids that are so sophisticated that they are difficult to discern from real human beings. A special kind of modern psychological Turing Test is needed, which is requires a Voight-Kampff machine to detect whether a subject is an android or a human.

And the third one, which is of particular interest to this blog is the mention of Colony Worlds. In the future, we will employ hordes of androids, called "replicants"--to do all the drudgery for us, in building off-world colonies on inhospitable worlds like Mars. Already in the beginning stages of planetary exploration as we use rudimentary robots like the Spirit rover whom we already ascribe with anthropomorphic qualities, and who already moves our emotions in ways we could never explain.

Google perhaps even named their "Android" phones after one of the earlier versions of the replicants called the Nexus-6 (which gives us a hint of what this "evil" company may be up to in the near future). Corporations may utilize the charm of anthropomorphized machines to create profitable products that appeal to the masses and thus secure funding from "gadget-loving" consumers. Now that Human Space Flight is wide open for commercial entrepreneurship, it signals a glimpse of what lies ahead. Planetary exploration and colonization may in fact be undertaken by private firms.

And since humans are so fragile and expensive to transport and land on other planets, could there be good reasons to believe that the future exoplanetary exploration will be done in whole or in part, by artificially intelligent robots and androids operating under the funding or technology of commercial firms? One can never tell, unless of course when they're already staring us right in the face.

But if i was an Andy i will never go back to Earth, especially with that kind of treatment depicted in the novel. I'd rather run away far unto outer planets than be extinguished by narrow-minded humans on this forsaken world.

Links:
"Spirit" from XKCD
"Do Androids Dream" Official Page
Commercial Spaceflight