Podcasts about Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite

What is a transiting brown dwarf, why are they so rare, and how do you find them? Equally important, how do you make a good French macaron? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome astronomer and astrophysicist Dr. Theron Carmichael. As always, though, we start off with the day's joyfully cool cosmic thing: a recent paper in the Astrophysical Journal possibly linking a supernova that took place millions of years ago and bombarded Earth with cosmic rays and radioactive iron with a flurry of virus mutation that took place in deep ancient lakes on our planet. After Theron brings up the Chicxulub meteor impact (the one that spelled trouble for dinosaurs) and how astronomical events can affect the evolution of life here on Earth, we naturally turn to the effects of extreme radiation events and… the mighty Marvel mutants themselves, the X-Men! Then it's time to talk about Dr. Carmichael's bread and butter: detecting and categorizing transiting brown dwarfs, an exceedingly rare form of the “failed stars” which actually orbit other stars. Theron explains that while we know how stars and planets form, we don't exactly understand the formation of brown dwarfs, which exist in the gray region between a star and a planet. Allen reminds us how protoplanetary discs form, while Theron points out that the distinctions may not be as clear as we used to think. Our first student question comes from Ani, who asks, “There are a lot more small, faint stars than big bright stars. Does that mean there are a huge number of brown dwarfs in the galaxy?” Yes, according to Dr. Carmichael. And not only are there more of them, but Theron explains that they last longer, too. Finding them is challenging, but it's become easier thanks to TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission that's been running for over 7 years, well past its operational lifespan. Our next student question comes from Josie, who asks, “Could there be life on brown dwarfs?” While brown dwarfs are colder than stars, they are still too hot to form and sustain the molecules we believe are necessary for life. And while those molecules are in fact present in the atmosphere of brown dwarfs – along with titanium oxide clouds – the pressure and temperature conditions of brown dwarfs make life as we know it unlikely. Theron explains that the atmospheric conditions of brown dwarfs are not dissimilar to Jupiter, as opposed to those on Jovian moons like Europa that we're going to explore when the Europa Clipper reaches its destination in 2030. After that, Theron tells us about the annual MIT Mystery Hunt, his long-time love of baking, and the astronomical value of macarons. (For his French macaron recipe, please visit our Patreon page.) Allen shares how he has made cookies conforming to the Einstein tile, and Charles mentions a few scientists who also love to bake. Theron explains how baking and brown dwarf research use the same parts of his brain. We even get to see a video clip of him making macarons! To end the show, Theron tells us about the international working group he helps lead focused on learning more about transiting brown dwarfs. If you'd like to know more about Dr. Theron Carmichael, you can follow him on Twitter/X @TherBaer or his website, www.theroncarmichael.com. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Chicxulub impact 65 million years ago – Illustration credit: Lunar Planetary Institute/David King. Rendering representing the size of a Brown Dwarf compared to other celestials. – Illustration credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ UCB. Planets forming around a young star – a protoplanetary disc. – Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF. Illustration of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission. – Credit: NASA. Rendering of Europa Clipper as it orbits Jupiter. – Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Animation showing the orbit of the TESS telescope relative to the Earth and the Moon. – Credit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio. Einstein Tile - a play on the German phrase "ein stein' or "one stone." – Credit: Creative Commons/University of Waterloo/David Smith, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan, Chaim Goodman-Strauss. Video of Dr. Carmichael making macarons. – Credit: Theron Carmichael. #TheLIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AllenLiu #SciencePodcast #AstronomyPodcast #TheronCarmichael #Chicxulubmeteor #BrownDwarf #protoplanetarydisc #TESS #EuropaClipper #exoplanets #EinsteinTile #macaron #failedstars #Jupiter #Europa #MITMysteryHunt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gL95pvc5OI From Aug 30, 2023. TRAPPIST-1 has held our attention for a long time because it has so many rocky worlds orbiting a star that may allow some of them to have liquid water. The promise of life is too great to ignore, so we turn our most powerful telescopes to this system whenever possible.   Now there's been a new system on the block. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has brought us the discovery of a system that is every bit as interesting as TRAPPIST-1.   Get all episodes: https://exoplanetradio.com Music by Geodesium: https://lochnessproductions.com   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.

The universe is too big for us to be the only ones in it. It's just a matter of knowing where to look, and scientists from NASA's TESS program might have stumbled across the next clue in this galactic scavenger hunt. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite was launched in April of 2019 with the aim of locating planets in orbit around nearby stars. One of these stars is the comparatively small GEE-JAY 357. It's about 31 light-years from Earth. It's one of the closest to Earth! Thanks to TESS, NASA astronomers discovered a planet orbiting this distant star. And in fact, it's one of the few whose atmosphere can be studied by scientists, once they determine if it has one! Other videos you might like: NASA Has Just Discovered a New Planet!    • NASA Has Just Discovered a New Planet!   The Solar System Is Not Like You Think It Is    • The Solar System Is Not Like You Thin...   The Real Size of the Universe (Even a Child Understands)    • The Real Size of the Universe (Even a...   TIMESTAMPS: What is this planet like? 0:27 A planet that is technically survivable for humans 2:15 Can we expect any alien visitors? 5:03 Why we can't see those planets directly 6:57 #planets #space #brightside SUMMARY: GEE-JAY 357 b is believed to be about twenty-two percent larger than Earth, and eleven times closer to its star than Mercury is to the Sun. Scientists have discovered planets beyond our solar system before, but GEE-JAY 357-b is one of the closest to Earth. Hidden beyond the semi-molten glow of this “hot Earth,” as astronomers called it, were two more planets. One of them, GEE-JAY 357-d is just far enough from the star to potentially support life. Its orbiting inside its solar system's habitable zone, warm enough to support life, but not so warm that it ends up charbroiled. NASA scientists estimate that that planet has an average temperature of about minus sixty-four degrees. That's cold, comparable to the interior of Antarctica. I wouldn't expect any alien visitors for most of the same reasons humans will probably never be visiting GEE-JAY 357-d for themselves. If intelligent life developed, there's no reason to believe it wouldn't sooner or later turn its sensory organs to the stars. That's when the planet's gravity becomes an obstacle. I Scientists have estimated that reaching the moon of a planet ten times the size of Earth, would require almost five hundred thousand tons of fuel to get off the ground. It is worth noting that Astronomers haven't yet been able to see any of these planets directly. The TESS only discovered the massive and hot planet b because of its silhouette passing in front of the star. Since c and d never passed between Earth and GEE-JAY 357 during the month when TESS was able to capture images of the star, we've only been able to study them indirectly. The middle planet, called GEE-JAY 357-c just to make things confusing, didn't even give us that. Because of its unusually tilted orbit, this planet never passes between Earth and its star at all. Music by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com/ Subscribe to Bright Side : https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook:   / brightside   Instagram:   / brightgram   5-Minute Crafts Youtube: https://www.goo.gl/8JVmuC Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we sat down with Professor Tansu Daylan, astrophysicist, assistant professor of the Department of Physics, and faculty fellow at the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences here at WashU. Dr. Daylan works with data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite on the discovery and characterization of exoplanets. He is also interested in researching the particle nature of dark matter. Have you ever been interested in how researchers discover planets outside our solar system? Or perhaps wondered if there could exist life in other corners of our universe? Listen on to find out!

The discovery: A “super-Earth” ripe for further investigation orbits a small, reddish star that is, by astronomical standards, fairly close to us – only 137 light-years away. The same system also might harbor a second, Earth-sized planet.The bigger planet, dubbed TOI-715 b, is about one and a half times as wide as Earth, and orbits within the “conservative” habitable zone around its parent star. That's the distance from the star that could give the planet the right temperature for liquid water to form on its surface. Several other factors would have to line up, of course, for surface water to be present, especially having a suitable atmosphere. But the conservative habitable zone – a narrower and potentially more robust definition than the broader “optimistic” habitable zone – puts it in prime position, at least by the rough measurements made so far. The smaller planet could be only slightly larger than Earth, and also might dwell just inside the conservative habitable zone.Astronomers are beginning to write a whole new chapter in our understanding of exoplanets – planets beyond our solar system. The newest spaceborne instruments, including those onboard NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, are designed not just to detect these distant worlds, but to reveal some of their characteristics. That includes the composition of their atmospheres, which could offer clues to the possible presence of life.The recently discovered super-Earth, TOI-715 b, might be making its appearance at just the right time. Its parent star is a red dwarf, smaller and cooler than our Sun; a number of such stars are known to host small, rocky worlds. At the moment, they're the best bet for finding habitable planets. These planets make far closer orbits than those around stars like our Sun, but because red dwarfs are smaller and cooler, the planets can crowd closer and still be safely within the star's habitable zone. The tighter orbits also mean those that cross the faces of their stars – that is, when viewed by our space telescopes – cross far more often. In the case of planet b, that's once every 19 days, a “year” on this strange world. So these star-crossing (“transiting”) planets can be more easily detected and more frequently observed. That's the case for TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), which found the new planet and has been adding to astronomers' stockpile of habitable-zone exoplanets since its launch in 2018. Observing such transits for, say, an Earth-sized planet around a Sun-like star (and waiting for an Earth year, 365 days, to catch another transit) is beyond the capability of existing space telescopes.Planet TOI-175 b joins the list of habitable-zone planets that could be more closely scrutinized by the Webb telescope, perhaps even for signs of an atmosphere. Much will depend on the planet's other properties, including how massive it is and whether it can be classed as a “water world” – making its atmosphere, if present, more prominent and far less difficult to detect than that of a more massive, denser and drier world, likely to hold its lower-profile atmosphere closer to the surface. If the possible second, Earth-sized planet in the system also is confirmed, it would become the smallest habitable-zone planet discovered by TESS so far. The discovery also exceeded early expectations for TESS by finding an Earth-sized world in the habitable zone.An international team of scientists led by Georgina Dransfield of the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, published a paper in January 2024 on their discovery, “A 1.55 R⊕ habitable-zone planet hosted by TOI-715, an M4 star near the ecliptic South Pole,” in the journal, “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.” An international array of facilities used to confirm the planet included Gemini-South, Las Cumbres Observatory telescopes, the ExTrA telescopes, the SPECULOOS network, and the TRAPPIST-south telescope.Make sure you subscribe to this podcast and never miss an update. Thanks for listening.

The Little Book of Exoplanets by Joshua N. Winn https://amzn.to/3KZUfzS A concise and accessible introduction to exoplanets that explains the cutting-edge science behind recent discoveries For centuries, people have speculated about the possibility of planets orbiting distant stars, but only since the 1990s has technology allowed astronomers to detect them. At this point, more than five thousand such exoplanets have been identified, with the pace of discovery accelerating after the launch of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the Webb Space Telescope. In The Little Book of Exoplanets, Princeton astrophysicist Joshua Winn offers a brief and engaging introduction to the search for exoplanets and the cutting-edge science behind recent findings. In doing so, he chronicles the dawn of a new age of discovery―one that has rapidly transformed astronomy and our broader understanding of the universe. Scientists now know that many Sun-like stars host their own systems of planets, some of which may resemble our solar system and include planets similar to the Earth. But, Winn tells us, the most remarkable discoveries so far have been of planets with unexpected and decidedly un-Earth-like properties, which have upended what we thought we knew about the origins of planetary systems. Winn provides an inside view of the sophisticated detective work astronomers perform as they find and study exoplanets and describes the surprising―sometimes downright bizarre―planets and systems they have found. He explains how these discoveries are revolutionizing astronomy, and he explores the current status and possible future of the search for another Earth. Finally, drawing on his own and other scientists' work, he considers how the discovery of exoplanets and their faraway solar systems changes our perspectives on the universe and our place in it.

Pulse Timing Discovery of a Three-Day Companion to the Hot Subdwarf BPM 36430 by Bryce A. Smith et al. on Wednesday 21 September Hot subdwarf B stars are core-helium burning objects that have undergone envelope stripping, likely by a binary companion. Using high-speed photometry from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, we have discovered the hot subdwarf BPM 36430 is a hybrid sdBV_rs pulsator exhibiting several low-amplitude g-modes and a strong p-mode pulsation. The latter shows a clear, periodic variation in its pulse arrival times. Fits to this phase oscillation imply BPM 36430 orbits a barycenter approximately 10 light-seconds away once every 3.1 d. Using the CHIRON echelle spectrograph on the CTIO 1.5-m telescope, we confirm the reflex motion by detecting a radial velocity variation with semi-amplitude, period, and phase in agreement with the pulse timings. We conclude that a white dwarf companion with minimum mass of 0.42 Msun orbits BPM 36430. Our study represents only the second time a companion orbiting a pulsating hot subdwarf or white dwarf has been detected from pulse timings and confirmed with radial velocities. arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/http://arxiv.org/abs/2209.09909v1

GJ 3090 b: one of the most favourable mini-Neptune for atmospheric characterisation by J. M. Almenara et al. on Monday 19 September We report the detection of GJ 3090 b (TOI-177.01), a mini-Neptune on a 2.9-day orbit transiting a bright (K = 7.3 mag) M2 dwarf located at 22 pc. The planet was identified by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and was confirmed with the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher radial velocities. Seeing-limited photometry and speckle imaging rule out nearby eclipsing binaries. Additional transits were observed with the LCOGT, Spitzer, and ExTrA telescopes. We characterise the star to have a mass of 0.519 $pm$ 0.013 M$_odot$ and a radius of 0.516 $pm$ 0.016 R$_odot$. We modelled the transit light curves and radial velocity measurements and obtained a planetary mass of 3.34 $pm$ 0.72 M$_oplus$, a radius of 2.13 $pm$ 0.11 R$_oplus$, and a mean density of 1.89$^{+0.52}_{-0.45}$ g/cm$^3$. The low density of the planet implies the presence of volatiles, and its radius and insolation place it immediately above the radius valley at the lower end of the mini-Neptune cluster. A coupled atmospheric and dynamical evolution analysis of the planet is inconsistent with a pure H-He atmosphere and favours a heavy mean molecular weight atmosphere. The transmission spectroscopy metric of 221$^{+66}_{-46}$ means that GJ 3090 b is the second or third most favourable mini-Neptune after GJ 1214 b whose atmosphere may be characterised. At almost half the mass of GJ 1214 b, GJ 3090 b is an excellent probe of the edge of the transition between super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. We identify an additional signal in the radial velocity data that we attribute to a planet candidate with an orbital period of 13 days and a mass of 17.1$^{+8.9}_{-3.2}$ M$_oplus$, whose transits are not detected. arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/http://arxiv.org/abs/2207.14121v2

GJ 3090 b: one of the most favourable mini-Neptune for atmospheric characterisation by J. M. Almenara et al. on Monday 19 September We report the detection of GJ 3090 b (TOI-177.01), a mini-Neptune on a 2.9-day orbit transiting a bright (K = 7.3 mag) M2 dwarf located at 22 pc. The planet was identified by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and was confirmed with the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher radial velocities. Seeing-limited photometry and speckle imaging rule out nearby eclipsing binaries. Additional transits were observed with the LCOGT, Spitzer, and ExTrA telescopes. We characterise the star to have a mass of 0.519 $pm$ 0.013 M$_odot$ and a radius of 0.516 $pm$ 0.016 R$_odot$. We modelled the transit light curves and radial velocity measurements and obtained a planetary mass of 3.34 $pm$ 0.72 M$_oplus$, a radius of 2.13 $pm$ 0.11 R$_oplus$, and a mean density of 1.89$^{+0.52}_{-0.45}$ g/cm$^3$. The low density of the planet implies the presence of volatiles, and its radius and insolation place it immediately above the radius valley at the lower end of the mini-Neptune cluster. A coupled atmospheric and dynamical evolution analysis of the planet is inconsistent with a pure H-He atmosphere and favours a heavy mean molecular weight atmosphere. The transmission spectroscopy metric of 221$^{+66}_{-46}$ means that GJ 3090 b is the second or third most favourable mini-Neptune after GJ 1214 b whose atmosphere may be characterised. At almost half the mass of GJ 1214 b, GJ 3090 b is an excellent probe of the edge of the transition between super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. We identify an additional signal in the radial velocity data that we attribute to a planet candidate with an orbital period of 13 days and a mass of 17.1$^{+8.9}_{-3.2}$ M$_oplus$, whose transits are not detected. arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/http://arxiv.org/abs/2207.14121v2

Convolutional Neural Networks for Searching Superflares from Pixel-level Data of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite by Zuo-Lin Tu et al. on Sunday 18 September In this work, six convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been trained based on %different feature images and arrays from the database including 15,638 superflare candidates on solar-type stars, which are collected from the three-years observations of Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite ({em TESS}). These networks are used to replace the artificially visual inspection, which was a direct way to search for superflares, and exclude false positive events in recent years. Unlike other methods, which only used stellar light curves to search superflare signals, we try to identify superflares through {em TESS} pixel-level data with lower risks of mixing false positive events, and give more reliable identification results for statistical analysis. The evaluated accuracy of each network is around 95.57%. After applying ensemble learning to these networks, stacking method promotes accuracy to 97.62% with 100% classification rate, and voting method promotes accuracy to 99.42% with relatively lower classification rate at 92.19%. We find that superflare candidates with short duration and low peak amplitude have lower identification precision, as their superflare-features are hard to be identified. The database including 71,732 solar-type stars and 15,638 superflare candidates from {em TESS} with corresponding feature images and arrays, and trained CNNs in this work are public available. arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/http://arxiv.org/abs/2204.04019v2

A Population of Dipper Stars from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite Mission by Benjamin K. Capistrant et al. on Thursday 08 September Dipper stars are a classification of young stellar objects that exhibit dimming variability in their light curves, dropping in brightness by 10-50%, likely induced by occultations due to circumstellar disk material. This variability can be periodic, quasi-periodic, or aperiodic. Dipper stars have been discovered in young stellar associations via ground-based and space-based photometric surveys. We present the detection and characterization of the largest collection of dipper stars to date: 293 dipper stars, including 234 new dipper candidates. We have produced a catalog of these targets, which also includes young stellar variables that exhibit predominately bursting-like variability and symmetric variability (equal parts bursting and dipping). The total number of catalog sources is 414. These variable sources were found in a visual survey of TESS light curves, where dipping-like variability was observed. We found a typical age among our dipper sources of

Michelle Kunimoto was one of Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 in science. Now she leads the most successful search for exoplanets that relies on data delivered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS. She shares this fast-growing catalog of worlds in her first Planetary Radio conversation. Bruce Betts and Mat Kaplan also kick off a new series of great prizes in the What's Up space trivia contest. Discover more at https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2022-michelle-kunimoto-tess See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The instruments on NASA's TESS are ideal for studying stellar vibrations, a field of research known as asteroseismology.

当下最前沿的天文学活动当属对外星人世界的探索了，也就是探索地球外的生物存在。目前为止，在过去 20 年间，宇航员已经通过各种技术发现了 1800 余个系外行星，动用到的技术有「凌日法」及「微重力透镜法」等。在开普勒太空望远镜投入使用后研究有了很大的进步。在目前已证实的 1800 例系外行星数据中，就有超过 1000 个是通过开普勒望远镜得到的，成千上万的其他系外行星正翘首以待开普勒望远镜的进一步研究。现在，NASA 正准备将这整个探索系外行星的工程提升到一个新境界。已有经纪人宣布他们正召集各个科学领域的专家联合起来寻找我们生活的太阳系外的太空生物。一个名为 NExSS（全称 Nexus for Exoplanet System Science）的团队计划成立，致力于研究系外行星构成和行星间（行星和周边行星以及母星）的相互影响。「这种跨领域的努力让顶级的研究团队得以相互联系，为探索行星上潜在的生命迹象提供了一个综合的方法，」吉姆·格林，NASA 行星科学的主管这样说道，「对系外行星的探索并不仅仅是宇航员的至上使命，还是行星学家和气候学家的强烈兴趣所在。」NASA-640x353.jpg这个团队到底在找寻什么？围绕发现某个特定行星的最大的疑问是要研究它的可居性。据 NASA 透露，为了处理这个问题，专家们计划研究生物活动对大气、地理、海域以及行星内部的影响，并且还需研究有哪些确切的生物作用在发生，以及寄主星对这些生物作用的影响。为了完成这些任务，NASA 正在挖掘生物学家、地理学家、大气学家、行星学家、太阳物理学家和天体物理学家。专家们不仅仅会关注已存在的系外行星数据，还会着眼于进行更多未来太空任务的探索。比如 TESS 项目（Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite，掩星系外行星探测卫星），将于 2017 年启动；哈勃空间望远镜的「继承者」——JWST（James Webb Space Telescope，詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜），计划在 2018 年启动；以及 WFIRST 天文望远镜，想要试验性投入使用还得再等个十年左右。该研究中的调研者来自伯克利大学、斯坦福大学、亚利桑那州州立大学以及 NASA 专门为太空研究设立的戈达德学院和 NASA 的艾姆斯氏试验研究中心等等。但据最新消息推测，这些科学家肩负的无疑是一个极为艰巨的任务。到目前为止，所有成果只不过掀开了系外行星可能存在位置的一角，至于系外行星的卫星更是仅存在于理论中，目前科技水平下，科学家并没有发现它们确实存在的证据。

The Tempest Universe : https://www.spreaker.com/show/the-tempest-universe Join the Episode after party on Discord! Link: https://discord.gg/ZzJSrGP Researchers looking for aliens discover strange radio signal from nearest star system to the sun Link: https://www.foxnews.com/science/researchers-looking-for-aliens-discover-radio-signal-nearest-star-system Proxima Centauri is a small, low-mass star located 4.2465 light-years away from the Sun in the southern constellation of Centaurus. Its Latin name means the "nearest [star] of Centaurus". This object was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes and is the nearest-known star to the Sun. In the search for alien life, researchers have discovered an "intriguing" radio signal emanating from the star system closest to the sun, according to a media report. The Guardian reports that researchers at the Breakthrough Listen project, which is "the largest ever scientific research program aimed at finding evidence of civilizations beyond Earth," have discovered a 980 MHz signal that appears to emanate from the Proxima Centauri star system, slightly more than four light-years from Earth. One of the researchers behind the project, Andrew Siemion from the University of California, Berkeley, was hard-pressed to describe the source of the signal. "It has some particular properties that caused it to pass many of our checks, and we cannot yet explain it," Siemion told Scientific American of the 980 MHz signal. Fox News has reached out to NASA with a request for comment. "We don't know of any natural way to compress electromagnetic energy into a single bin in frequency" Siemion added, noting there could be some natural explanations behind it. But "for the moment, the only source that we know of is technological." Proxima Centauri b is the closest confirmed exoplanet to Earth, at 4.2 light-years away. In January, researchers discovered the presence of a possible second exoplanet, a "Super-Earth," also orbiting Proxima Centauri. This new signal has been given the name BLC1, for Breakthrough Listen. It was initially discovered in April 2019 by the Parkes 210-foot radio telescope in Sydney, Australia. The Breakthrough Listen project, which collaborates with NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), detects radio signals in space constantly. Did Proxima Centauri Just Call to Say Hello? Not Really! Link: https://www.seti.org/did-proxima-centauri-just-call-say-hello-not-really You've probably heard about the story, published in The Guardian, a respectable newspaper in the UK, about the potential discovery of an alien signal from the Proxima Centauri system, the star closest to us. This article, and a companion piece in Scientific American, noted that in April and May 2019, the Parkes telescope in Australia was listening to Proxima b, a red dwarf. This star is known to be active, and this listening was part of a stellar-flare survey. Shane Smith, a student at Breakthrough Listen, a program privately funded by Yuri Milner to search and find so-called technosignatures, or signals that indicate the existence of a civilization like ours, checked out the data. He found an exceedingly curious narrowband emission, needle-sharp at 982.002 megahertz. The team inspected the data, confirmed its veracity, and named it BLC1, for “Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1.” The name clearly identifies what it is. It's a candidate, not a confirmed signal. Everyone at Breakthrough Listen emphasized this, including executive director Pete Worden. Because of its profile, it's very unlikely that the signal was produced by a natural but unknown cosmic source, but who knows…Nature often surprises us. One simple explanation is that Parkes picked up a signal that originated on Earth. We use radio to communicate, and this could be terrestrial interference. And that's probably the most likely explanation. Space Force troops now called Guardians Link: https://www.krqe.com/new-mexico-cw-my50tv/mystery-wire/space-force-troops-now-called-guardians/ MYSTERY WIRE — The Trump administration celebrated the first birthday of the U.S. Space Force on Friday by announcing that its members will be known as “guardians.” Vice President Mike Pence made the announcement at a celebratory event tracing the development of the newest branch of the military over the past year. “It is my honor, on behalf of the president of the United States, to announce that henceforth the men and women of the United States Space Force will be known as guardians,” Pence said. “Soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and guardians will be defending our nation for generations to come.” President-elect Joe Biden has yet to reveal his plans for the Space Force in the next administration. Fargo's most famous UFO sighting was in the skies above a 1948 Bison-Augustana football game Link: https://www.grandforksherald.com/community/history/6807883-Fargos-most-famous-UFO-sighting-was-in-the-skies-above-a-1948-Bison-Augustana-football-game Who was George Gorman? According to columnist Curt Eriksmoen, who wrote about Gorman in The Forum in 2011, Gorman was born July 7, 1923, to Norbert and Roberta Gorman. He grew up in Fargo, where his father was a Cass County agent. During World War II, Gorman became a B-25 instructor for French aviation students. When the North Dakota Air National Guard formed at Fargo's Hector Airport on Jan. 16, 1947, Gorman joined the squadron as a second lieutenant. What exactly happened Oct. 1, 1948? Gorman was flying his P-51 Mustang with other guard pilots in the early evening hours of Oct. 1, 1948. Part of their flight path was over the old Dacotah Field where the North Dakota Agricultural College Bison football team played its games. According to North Dakota State University Assistant Athletic Director Ryan Perreault, the field was slightly south of the current Dacotah Field. About a half hour later, most of the pilots flying decided to call it a night, but Gorman wanted to get in more flying time. According to a story in The Fargo Forum dated Oct. 3, 1948, Gorman was flying near Hector Field, about two and a half miles from the football field, when an air traffic controller told him about a small Piper Cub in the area. He acknowledged the smaller plane about 500 feet below, but a few minutes later, he spotted something else. He said it was a "flying disk," was round with well-defined edges, brilliantly lit and circling slowly over the city. He asked the tower about the object, and they said they only saw Gorman's plane and the Piper Cub. This object was not showing up on radar. Gorman decided to investigate, but as he got closer to the object, it suddenly got brighter and shot away from him. He estimated it was flying around 250 miles an hour, but accelerated to 600 miles an hour. Gorman's plane could only fly about 400 miles an hour, so he lost the object. But it came back and flew right at him. "When the object was coming head on, I held my plane pointed right at it," Gorman said. "The object came so close that I involuntarily ducked my head because I thought a crash was inevitable. But the object zoomed over my head." The "dogfight" lasted 27 minutes — a lifetime for a UFO encounter. The declassified documents include a diagram Gorman drew of what went on in the air that night. Despite what seems to be evidence to the contrary, the Air Force concluded the object was a combination of looking at the planet Jupiter and a weather balloon. According to Eriksmoen, Gorman insisted it wasn't a weather balloon, but the Air Material Command warned him not to divulge any further information or he would be subject to a court martial. That might be one reason why Gorman stayed pretty quiet throughout the rest of his military career, which took him to bases in Italy and throughout the U.S. He retired as a lieutenant colonel and died from pancreatic cancer in Texas in the early 1980s at the age of 59. Podcast Stuff Facebook: The Dark Horde - https://www.facebook.com/thedarkhordellc Facebook: The Tempest Universe - https://www.facebook.com/thetempestuniverse Facebook: Manny's Page - https://www.facebook.com/MannyPodcast Twitter: The Tempest Universe - https://twitter.com/ufobusterradio Twitter: The Dark Horde - https://twitter.com/HordeDark Discord Group - https://discord.com/channels/679454064890871869/679454064890871875 Mail can be sent to: The Dark Horde LLC PO BOX 769905 San Antonio TX 78245

The Tempest Universe : https://www.spreaker.com/show/the-tempest-universe Join the Episode after party on Discord! Link: https://discord.gg/ZzJSrGP Researchers looking for aliens discover strange radio signal from nearest star system to the sun Link: https://www.foxnews.com/science/researchers-looking-for-aliens-discover-radio-signal-nearest-star-system Proxima Centauri is a small, low-mass star located 4.2465 light-years away from the Sun in the southern constellation of Centaurus. Its Latin name means the "nearest [star] of Centaurus". This object was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes and is the nearest-known star to the Sun. In the search for alien life, researchers have discovered an "intriguing" radio signal emanating from the star system closest to the sun, according to a media report. The Guardian reports that researchers at the Breakthrough Listen project, which is "the largest ever scientific research program aimed at finding evidence of civilizations beyond Earth," have discovered a 980 MHz signal that appears to emanate from the Proxima Centauri star system, slightly more than four light-years from Earth. One of the researchers behind the project, Andrew Siemion from the University of California, Berkeley, was hard-pressed to describe the source of the signal. "It has some particular properties that caused it to pass many of our checks, and we cannot yet explain it," Siemion told Scientific American of the 980 MHz signal. Fox News has reached out to NASA with a request for comment. "We don't know of any natural way to compress electromagnetic energy into a single bin in frequency" Siemion added, noting there could be some natural explanations behind it. But "for the moment, the only source that we know of is technological." Proxima Centauri b is the closest confirmed exoplanet to Earth, at 4.2 light-years away. In January, researchers discovered the presence of a possible second exoplanet, a "Super-Earth," also orbiting Proxima Centauri. This new signal has been given the name BLC1, for Breakthrough Listen. It was initially discovered in April 2019 by the Parkes 210-foot radio telescope in Sydney, Australia. The Breakthrough Listen project, which collaborates with NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), detects radio signals in space constantly. Did Proxima Centauri Just Call to Say Hello? Not Really! Link: https://www.seti.org/did-proxima-centauri-just-call-say-hello-not-really You've probably heard about the story, published in The Guardian, a respectable newspaper in the UK, about the potential discovery of an alien signal from the Proxima Centauri system, the star closest to us. This article, and a companion piece in Scientific American, noted that in April and May 2019, the Parkes telescope in Australia was listening to Proxima b, a red dwarf. This star is known to be active, and this listening was part of a stellar-flare survey. Shane Smith, a student at Breakthrough Listen, a program privately funded by Yuri Milner to search and find so-called technosignatures, or signals that indicate the existence of a civilization like ours, checked out the data. He found an exceedingly curious narrowband emission, needle-sharp at 982.002 megahertz. The team inspected the data, confirmed its veracity, and named it BLC1, for “Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1.” The name clearly identifies what it is. It's a candidate, not a confirmed signal. Everyone at Breakthrough Listen emphasized this, including executive director Pete Worden. Because of its profile, it's very unlikely that the signal was produced by a natural but unknown cosmic source, but who knows…Nature often surprises us. One simple explanation is that Parkes picked up a signal that originated on Earth. We use radio to communicate, and this could be terrestrial interference. And that's probably the most likely explanation. Space Force troops now called Guardians Link: https://www.krqe.com/new-mexico-cw-my50tv/mystery-wire/space-force-troops-now-called-guardians/ MYSTERY WIRE — The Trump administration celebrated the first birthday of the U.S. Space Force on Friday by announcing that its members will be known as “guardians.” Vice President Mike Pence made the announcement at a celebratory event tracing the development of the newest branch of the military over the past year. “It is my honor, on behalf of the president of the United States, to announce that henceforth the men and women of the United States Space Force will be known as guardians,” Pence said. “Soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and guardians will be defending our nation for generations to come.” President-elect Joe Biden has yet to reveal his plans for the Space Force in the next administration. Fargo's most famous UFO sighting was in the skies above a 1948 Bison-Augustana football game Link: https://www.grandforksherald.com/community/history/6807883-Fargos-most-famous-UFO-sighting-was-in-the-skies-above-a-1948-Bison-Augustana-football-game Who was George Gorman? According to columnist Curt Eriksmoen, who wrote about Gorman in The Forum in 2011, Gorman was born July 7, 1923, to Norbert and Roberta Gorman. He grew up in Fargo, where his father was a Cass County agent. During World War II, Gorman became a B-25 instructor for French aviation students. When the North Dakota Air National Guard formed at Fargo's Hector Airport on Jan. 16, 1947, Gorman joined the squadron as a second lieutenant. What exactly happened Oct. 1, 1948? Gorman was flying his P-51 Mustang with other guard pilots in the early evening hours of Oct. 1, 1948. Part of their flight path was over the old Dacotah Field where the North Dakota Agricultural College Bison football team played its games. According to North Dakota State University Assistant Athletic Director Ryan Perreault, the field was slightly south of the current Dacotah Field. About a half hour later, most of the pilots flying decided to call it a night, but Gorman wanted to get in more flying time. According to a story in The Fargo Forum dated Oct. 3, 1948, Gorman was flying near Hector Field, about two and a half miles from the football field, when an air traffic controller told him about a small Piper Cub in the area. He acknowledged the smaller plane about 500 feet below, but a few minutes later, he spotted something else. He said it was a "flying disk," was round with well-defined edges, brilliantly lit and circling slowly over the city. He asked the tower about the object, and they said they only saw Gorman's plane and the Piper Cub. This object was not showing up on radar. Gorman decided to investigate, but as he got closer to the object, it suddenly got brighter and shot away from him. He estimated it was flying around 250 miles an hour, but accelerated to 600 miles an hour. Gorman's plane could only fly about 400 miles an hour, so he lost the object. But it came back and flew right at him. "When the object was coming head on, I held my plane pointed right at it," Gorman said. "The object came so close that I involuntarily ducked my head because I thought a crash was inevitable. But the object zoomed over my head." The "dogfight" lasted 27 minutes — a lifetime for a UFO encounter. The declassified documents include a diagram Gorman drew of what went on in the air that night. Despite what seems to be evidence to the contrary, the Air Force concluded the object was a combination of looking at the planet Jupiter and a weather balloon. According to Eriksmoen, Gorman insisted it wasn't a weather balloon, but the Air Material Command warned him not to divulge any further information or he would be subject to a court martial. That might be one reason why Gorman stayed pretty quiet throughout the rest of his military career, which took him to bases in Italy and throughout the U.S. He retired as a lieutenant colonel and died from pancreatic cancer in Texas in the early 1980s at the age of 59. Podcast Stuff Facebook: The Dark Horde - https://www.facebook.com/thedarkhordellc Facebook: The Tempest Universe - https://www.facebook.com/thetempestuniverse Facebook: Manny's Page - https://www.facebook.com/MannyPodcast Twitter: The Tempest Universe - https://twitter.com/ufobusterradio Twitter: The Dark Horde - https://twitter.com/HordeDark Discord Group - https://discord.com/channels/679454064890871869/679454064890871875 Mail can be sent to: The Dark Horde LLC PO BOX 769905 San Antonio TX 78245

NASA Deputy Director of Astrophysics Jeff Volosin discusses the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission.

NASA Deputy Director of Astrophysics Jeff Volosin discusses the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission.

NASA Deputy Director of Astrophysics Jeff Volosin discusses the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission.

NASA Deputy Director of Astrophysics Jeff Volosin discusses the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite was designed to find exoplanets -- but, it turns out that there's a huge amount of other science that it can do, too! In this episode, we provide an inside look at the TESS Ninja 3 conference and explore the range of science being studied with TESS: comets, stellar clusters and flares, trans-Neptunian objects, black holes, and more.   Featured Astrobites: astrobites.org/2019/12/06 astrobites.org/2019/11/19   Credits: Interviews: Isabel Colman, Kareem El-Badry Space sound: http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/space-audio/sounds/ Music: Joel Ong Logo: Joanna Ramasawmy

The planet has the less than romantic name TOI 700 d, but its discovery has generated passion among those searching for another Earth, including Emily Gilbert. The graduate student is lead author of a paper about the new world. TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, played a key role in its discovery. MIT planetary scientist and astrophysicist Sara Seager returns to tell us about this powerful tool and more. We also visit with the leader of NASA heliophysics research as she awaits launch of the Solar Orbiter. Look out! The rubber asteroids are back on What’s Up! Learn more and enter the contest at https://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2020/0212-2020-tess-toi700d-seager-gilbert.html

Dr. Kiki Sanford makes her seventh appearance on Background Mode. Kiki is a neurophysiologist with a B.S. in conservation biology and a Ph.D. avian neurophysiology from the University of California. She’s a popular science communicator and creator of This Week in Science (TWIS) podcast and radio show. In this episode, we chat about Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Tardigrades on the Earth’s moon, how Dark Matter may have actually preceded the Big Bang, how older parents tend to have children with fewer behavior problems, the latest findings from the exoplanet hunter, TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and, finally, how climate change is affecting the size of some birds. Dr. Kiki is always a delight to listen to and learn from.

In this clip from Science on Fueled By Death Show 109, we talk about 13 new fast radio burst detected in space. Astrophysicists from the CHIME collaboration have found these events along with the second ever repeating signal discovered. Could this mean aliens are trying to contact us, or is it the death knell of a black hole? We also discuss the third exoplanet discovered by the TESS satellite. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite was launched in April of 2018 and is already delivering some surprising data about what is beyond our solar system. Check out the full show along with the weekly podcast at deathwishcoffee.com/karlitaylor Follow Fueled By Death Cast on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @fueledbydeathcast

Exoplanets, satellites, telescopes, and the science behind the search – Astro Mike Massimino, comic co-host Chuck Nice, and astronomer David Kipping answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries on exploring our universe. Don't miss an episode of StarTalk All-Stars. Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts: https://itun.es/us/P9kphb.c Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk-allstars TuneIn: http://tunein.com/radio/StarTalk-All-Stars-p949405/ SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_all-stars Google Play Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I2nz5bguurd5se7zu4fhnd25lk4NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/mission-exoplanets-with-mike-massimino/Image Credit: MIT.

Exoplanets, satellites, telescopes, and the science behind the search – Astro Mike Massimino, comic co-host Chuck Nice, and astronomer David Kipping answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries on exploring our universe.  Don’t miss an episode of StarTalk All-Stars. Subscribe on:  Apple Podcasts: https://itun.es/us/P9kphb.c    Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk-allstars    TuneIn: http://tunein.com/radio/StarTalk-All-Stars-p949405/  SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_all-stars    Google Play Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I2nz5bguurd5se7zu4fhnd25lk4 NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/mission-exoplanets-with-mike-massimino/ Image Credit: MIT.

NASA launched TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, on April 18, 2018, continuing our search for planets outside of our solar system (aka exoplanets). Over a two-year period, TESS will survey the entire sky looking for drops in the brightness of stars that indicate the presence of a passing, or transiting, planet. On this episode Emily, Matt, and Nick unpack TESS, discussing space telescopes, exoplanets, and the search for life in our universe (also: Goldilocks, crud-eating enzymes, and Dan Brown books).

NASA EDGE takes an in-depth look at the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Mission just hours before launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Discover how NASA and its partners from MIT developed sophisticated cameras to capture a full sky survey of the most likely Earth-like planets outside our solar system.

NASA EDGE takes an in-depth look at the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Mission just hours before launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Discover how NASA and its partners from MIT developed sophisticated cameras to capture a full sky survey of the most likely Earth-like planets outside our solar system.

Stream on demand from www.bitesz.com (mobile friendly). T*NASA launches its latest planet hunting spacecraft. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS has blasted into orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from space launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida. TESS will follow on from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope which helped scientists identify over two thousand six hundred exoplanetary candidates orbiting distant stars.  You tube video url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfZ2y3-2tc0 *Tunguska class asteroid near miss A Tunguska class asteroid has just come within a few hours of crashing into the Earth. Even more concerning – the massive space rock was only spotted 21 hours before its closest approach to the Earth. *A new era of antimatter studies  Physicists have undertaken the most precise measurement ever done on antimatter. Scientists with the ALPHA collaboration at CERN -- the European Organization for Nuclear Research -- successfully conducted the most accurate ever measurements revealing the spectral structure of the antihydrogen atom in unprecedented detail.  *The Science Report A new study claims eating nuts could help avoid atrial fibrillation. Fears the 2016 marine heatwave means the Great Barrier Reef may never fully recover. Human migration out of Africa coincided with a dramatic reduction in the size of mammals and it’s still happening. Palaeontologists discover ichthyosaur as large as a blue whale. For enhanced Show Notes including photos to accompany this episode, visit: http://www.bitesz.com/spacetimeshownotes Subscribe, rate and review SpaceTime at all good podcasting apps…including Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes), Google Podcasts, Stitcher, PocketCasts, Podbean, Radio Public, Tunein Radio, Spreaker, Spotify, Deezer etc Would you prefer to have access to the special commercial free version of SpaceTime? Help support the show, subscribe at Patreon....and share in the rewards. Details at www.patreon.com/spacetimewithstuartgary Help support SpaceTime : The SpaceTime with Stuart Gary merchandise shop. Get your T-Shirts, Coffee Cups, badges, tote bag + more and help support the show. Check out the range: http://www.cafepress.com/spacetime Thank you. Plus: As a part of the SpaceTime family, you can get a free audio book of your choice, plus 30 days free access from audible.com. Just visit www.audibletrial.com/spacetime or click on the banner link at www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com Email: SpaceTime@bitesz.com Join our mailing list at http://www.bitesz.com/join-our-mailing-list  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/spacetime. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Allan gets the Geek Patrol up to speed on the latest adventures of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.Find us on Twitter: @syzygypod twitter.com/SyzygyPodOr just visit us at home: syzygy.fmEmily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/Chris online: kipstewart.comSome of the things we talk about in this episode:Astronomical naming schemes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_naming_conventionsTESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite: https://tess.gsfc.nasa.govThe best exoplanet pages out there- get lost in the awesome! https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/Kepler and K2 missions: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.htmlComparing Kepler and TESS fields of view: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=12885&button=recentExoplanet atmospheres: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2130730-neptune-like-exoplanet-spotted-that-has-a-watery-atmosphere/https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180301144131.htmTESS’s Mission Objectives: https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/tess/objectives.htmlTESS’s orbit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AIbD2WxyN8SpaceX Rocket Man: https://youtu.be/aBr2kKAHN6MFly Your Exoplanet on TESS: https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/fly_your_exoplanet.htmlhttps://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/fly_your_exoplanet_pics.htmlJames Webb Space Telescope: https://jwst.nasa.govJWST and Hubble mirror comparison: https://jwst.nasa.gov/mirrors.htmlJWST’s L2 Lagrange Point: https://www.wired.com/2011/08/james-webb-space-telescope-and-l2-orbits/Lagrange and Laplace: https://manyworldstheory.com/2014/11/24/lagrange-laplace-and-legendre-which-one-is-which/

If humans ever leave this solar system, they probably won't do it aimlessly. More likely they'll set a course for some distant waypoint, perhaps another solar system, to visit, study, or maybe even settle. And when they do, there's a good chance the destination they choose will have been discovered by NASA's new planet-hunting spacecraft. Called the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, the instrument will soon hitch a ride to space aboard one of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets.

I had an embarrassing moment today that I will call my elevator fail. While on the elevator in my building I acted like a mumbling fool. My fail will not teach me any lesson as I am sure to fail in the same way again at some point of my future elevator adventures. Are you afraid of restroom and the germs whom lurk in their germ ways? I am! Do you prefer air dryers or paper towels? I chat about an article I found earlier today that tackles the question in a way that I cannot. Restroom germs are real and I cringe at the very thought of them. Google’s AI division is showing off some fun new ways of using AI. Check out what Google AI is producing using these link for Talk To Books - https://books.google.com/talktobooks/ as well as this fun Google AI game called Semantris located here - https://research.google.com/semantris TESS while be lifted of the old blue ball we call home via SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket! TESS stands for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. TESS will help us in our search for more planets and will help set the stage for the James Webb Space Telescope coming in 2019! For more of my work please go to iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dom-b-podcast/id1313384769?mt=2Dom B Website - http://www.dombphotography.com/Dom B Instagram - @dombphotographyDom B Twitter - @dombpodcastDom B Facebook (Business) - https://www.facebook.com/Dom-B-Photography-484353875094683/?ref=bookmarksDom B Facebook Personal - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010289703861

As astronomers hunt for habitable, Earth-like worlds, one popular place to look is around M stars, a type of red dwarf. Couple reasons for that:"First of all most of the stars in our galaxy are like that." Eike Guenther is an astronomer at the Thüringer State Observatory in Germany. "And secondly the closest stars to us are like this. And thirdly, it's relatively easy to find planets around them which have a low mass or small diameter."M stars are smaller and fainter than our Sun. Meaning the zone around them where liquid water could exist—the habitable zone—is really close in. And in that region around the star it's also easier to spot small exoplanets, with current techniques.A few months back, Guenther had his telescope trained on an M star 16 light-years away, known as AD Leonis, when he spotted a huge stellar flare. A Neptune-sized giant exoplanet lurking around the star appears to have survived unscathed. But the event inspired Guenther and his team to ask how that huge flare would have affected a hypothetical Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting the star. So they ran a computer simulation.The result? The shower of X-rays, thousands of times stronger than what the Sun unleashes on the Earth, would have blasted away much of the imaginary exoplanet's protective ozone. And multiple such flare events would be disastrous for life as we know it."So this analog, of taking the Earth, and saying, 'Ok, we put it in the habitable zone, and that's how a habitable planet looks like'—that's presumably wrong. One now has to consider these very energetic events that change the properties of the atmospheres of the other planets."He presented the observations at the recent European Week of Astronomy and Space Science conference in Liverpool. [Eike Guenther, Flares and CMEs in M-stars]Guenther says, if anything, this finding makes the weird planets hugging M-stars even more intriguing, in terms of planetary diversity. "I would say… keep looking!"NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, is set to launch April 16th… if all goes well… it'll soon be looking too.—Christopher Intagliata[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]

As astronomers hunt for habitable, Earth-like worlds, one popular place to look is around M stars, a type of red dwarf. Couple reasons for that:"First of all most of the stars in our galaxy are like that." Eike Guenther is an astronomer at the Thüringer State Observatory in Germany. "And secondly the closest stars to us are like this. And thirdly, it's relatively easy to find planets around them which have a low mass or small diameter."M stars are smaller and fainter than our Sun. Meaning the zone around them where liquid water could exist—the habitable zone—is really close in. And in that region around the star it's also easier to spot small exoplanets, with current techniques.A few months back, Guenther had his telescope trained on an M star 16 light-years away, known as AD Leonis, when he spotted a huge stellar flare. A Neptune-sized giant exoplanet lurking around the star appears to have survived unscathed. But the event inspired Guenther and his team to ask how that huge flare would have affected a hypothetical Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting the star. So they ran a computer simulation.The result? The shower of X-rays, thousands of times stronger than what the Sun unleashes on the Earth, would have blasted away much of the imaginary exoplanet's protective ozone. And multiple such flare events would be disastrous for life as we know it."So this analog, of taking the Earth, and saying, 'Ok, we put it in the habitable zone, and that's how a habitable planet looks like'—that's presumably wrong. One now has to consider these very energetic events that change the properties of the atmospheres of the other planets."He presented the observations at the recent European Week of Astronomy and Space Science conference in Liverpool. [Eike Guenther, Flares and CMEs in M-stars]Guenther says, if anything, this finding makes the weird planets hugging M-stars even more intriguing, in terms of planetary diversity. "I would say… keep looking!"NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, is set to launch April 16th… if all goes well… it'll soon be looking too.—Christopher Intagliata[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]

A conversation with Doug Caldwell, instrument scientist for the Kepler Space Telescope, and who’s now working on NASA’s next planet-hunting mission— the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS.

A few weeks ago, Inside Science featured an item on neonicotinoids and the negative impact these pesticides have on insects like honey bees. The discussion turned to alternatives, including organic farming. Many listeners wrote in about some issues that went unchallenged. So this week, Adam returns to the subject to get into the nuts and bolts of both organic and conventional farming. Next week sees the launch of a NASA mission called TESS. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is surveying the brightest stars near Earth and looking for habitable planets. Roland Pease reports. Traditionally, the move from Bronze Age to the Iron Age is estimated to be around 1200 BCE. But recent excavations of smelting sites in Uttar Pradesh in India suggest that this date might be a few centuries late and that it might even originate in Asia. Adam visits The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire to see how a particle accelerator is revealing the details of the Indian Iron Age. Our ancestors bore a very prominent brow ridge, which scientists think was a symbol of dominance. Modern humans, however, have lost this ridge in favour of a flatter forehead. Why? Dr Penny Spikins and her colleagues think the answer lies in social interaction and in particular, the ability to raise your eyebrows.

What do Annihilation, Buckyballs, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and an itsy-bitsy galaxy have in common? They're all topics for the latest walkabout the galaxy with the astroquarks. A small galaxy has been observed with essentially no dark matter (most are mostly made of the dark stuff). Paradoxically, this is very strong evidence for the existence of dark matter. Speaking of things that are hard to see, we'll also check in on TESS, the next space telescope designed to discover lots of Earth-y exoplanets. Join Josh, Addie, and Jim for another whimsical jaunt through the latest news in astronomy and a peak at science fiction.

Oct. 8, 2015. Stephen Rinehart discussed the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which will launch in 2017 and search for planets outside our solar system. Speaker Biography: Stephen Rinehart is an astrophysicist and associate chief of the Laboratory for Observational Cosmology at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. For transcript, captions, and more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=7148

We are one tool away from learning which distant planets already have life on them and which might be welcoming to life. MIT Planetary Scientist Sara Seager is working on the tool. She is chair of the NASA team developing a “Starshade” that would allow a relatively rudimentary space telescope to observe Earth-size planets directly, which would yield atmospheric analysis, which would determine a planet’s life-worthiness. Despite 1,000-plus exoplanet discoveries by the Kepler spacecraft and the hundreds more expected from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite after 2017, neither instrument can make detailed observation of the atmosphere of small rocky planets, because each star’s brilliance overwhelms direct study of the rocky motes that might harbor life. A Starshade cures that. A former MacArthur Fellow, Seager is author of Exoplanet Atmospheres (02010) and an astrophysics professor at MIT. Her maxim: “For exoplanets, anything is possible under the laws of physics and chemistry.” Photo by Justin Knight.