Missions to and Sample Returns from Nearby Interstellar Objects
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Lecture-29 (PDF)
Life in the Universe Orin Harris and Greg Anderson Department of Physics & Astronomy Northeastern Illinois University Spring 2021 c 2012-2021 G. Anderson., O. Harris Universe: Past, Present & Future – slide 1 / 95 Overview Dating Rocks Life on Earth How Did Life Arise? Life in the Solar System Life Around Other Stars Interstellar Travel SETI Review c 2012-2021 G. Anderson., O. Harris Universe: Past, Present & Future – slide 2 / 95 Dating Rocks Zircon Dating Sedimentary Grand Canyon Life on Earth How Did Life Arise? Life in the Solar System Life Around Dating Rocks Other Stars Interstellar Travel SETI Review c 2012-2021 G. Anderson., O. Harris Universe: Past, Present & Future – slide 3 / 95 Zircon Dating Zircon, (ZrSiO4), minerals incorporate trace amounts of uranium but reject lead. Naturally occuring uranium: • U-238: 99.27% • U-235: 0.72% Decay chains: • 238U −→ 206Pb, τ =4.47 Gyrs. • 235U −→ 207Pb, τ = 704 Myrs. 1956, Clair Camron Patterson dated the Canyon Diablo meteorite: τ =4.55 Gyrs. c 2012-2021 G. Anderson., O. Harris Universe: Past, Present & Future – slide 4 / 95 Dating Sedimentary Rocks • Relative ages: Deeper layers were deposited earlier • Absolute ages: Decay of radioactive isotopes old (deposited last) oldest (depositedolder first) c 2012-2021 G. Anderson., O. Harris Universe: Past, Present & Future – slide 5 / 95 Grand Canyon: Earth History from 200 million - 2 billion yrs ago. Dating Rocks Life on Earth Earth History Timeline Late Heavy Bombardment Hadean Shark Bay Stromatolites Cyanobacteria Q: Earliest Fossils? Life on Earth O2 History Q: Life on Earth How Did Life Arise? Life in the Solar System Life Around Other Stars Interstellar Travel SETI Review c 2012-2021 G. -
Materials Challenges for the Starshot Lightsail
PERSPECTIVE https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0075-8 Materials challenges for the Starshot lightsail Harry A. Atwater 1*, Artur R. Davoyan1, Ognjen Ilic1, Deep Jariwala1, Michelle C. Sherrott 1, Cora M. Went2, William S. Whitney2 and Joeson Wong 1 The Starshot Breakthrough Initiative established in 2016 sets an audacious goal of sending a spacecraft beyond our Solar System to a neighbouring star within the next half-century. Its vision for an ultralight spacecraft that can be accelerated by laser radiation pressure from an Earth-based source to ~20% of the speed of light demands the use of materials with extreme properties. Here we examine stringent criteria for the lightsail design and discuss fundamental materials challenges. We pre- dict that major research advances in photonic design and materials science will enable us to define the pathways needed to realize laser-driven lightsails. he Starshot Breakthrough Initiative has challenged a broad nanocraft, we reveal a balance between the high reflectivity of the and interdisciplinary community of scientists and engineers sail, required for efficient photon momentum transfer; large band- Tto design an ultralight spacecraft or ‘nanocraft’ that can reach width, accounting for the Doppler shift; and the low mass necessary Proxima Centauri b — an exoplanet within the habitable zone of for the spacecraft to accelerate to near-relativistic speeds. We show Proxima Centauri and 4.2 light years away from Earth — in approxi- that nanophotonic structures may be well-suited to meeting such mately -
Breakthrough Propulsion Study Assessing Interstellar Flight Challenges and Prospects
Breakthrough Propulsion Study Assessing Interstellar Flight Challenges and Prospects NASA Grant No. NNX17AE81G First Year Report Prepared by: Marc G. Millis, Jeff Greason, Rhonda Stevenson Tau Zero Foundation Business Office: 1053 East Third Avenue Broomfield, CO 80020 Prepared for: NASA Headquarters, Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) and NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Washington, DC 20546 June 2018 Millis 2018 Grant NNX17AE81G_for_CR.docx pg 1 of 69 ABSTRACT Progress toward developing an evaluation process for interstellar propulsion and power options is described. The goal is to contrast the challenges, mission choices, and emerging prospects for propulsion and power, to identify which prospects might be more advantageous and under what circumstances, and to identify which technology details might have greater impacts. Unlike prior studies, the infrastructure expenses and prospects for breakthrough advances are included. This first year's focus is on determining the key questions to enable the analysis. Accordingly, a work breakdown structure to organize the information and associated list of variables is offered. A flow diagram of the basic analysis is presented, as well as more detailed methods to convert the performance measures of disparate propulsion methods into common measures of energy, mass, time, and power. Other methods for equitable comparisons include evaluating the prospects under the same assumptions of payload, mission trajectory, and available energy. Missions are divided into three eras of readiness (precursors, era of infrastructure, and era of breakthroughs) as a first step before proceeding to include comparisons of technology advancement rates. Final evaluation "figures of merit" are offered. Preliminary lists of mission architectures and propulsion prospects are provided. -
A Dwarf Planet Class Object in the 21:5 Resonance with Neptune
A dwarf planet class object in the 21:5 resonance with Neptune Holman, M. J., Payne, M. J., Fraser, W., Lacerda, P., Bannister, M. T., Lackner, M., Chen, Y. T., Lin, H. W., Smith, K. W., Kokotanekova, R., Young, D., Chambers, K., Chastel, S., Denneau, L., Fitzsimmons, A., Flewelling, H., Grav, T., Huber, M., Induni, N., ... Weryk, R. (2018). A dwarf planet class object in the 21:5 resonance with Neptune. Astrophysical Journal Letters, 855(1), [L6]. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aaadb3 Published in: Astrophysical Journal Letters Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Queen's University Belfast - Research Portal: Link to publication record in Queen's University Belfast Research Portal Publisher rights © 2018 American Astronomical Society. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The Research Portal is Queen's institutional repository that provides access to Queen's research output. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact [email protected]. -
Biosignatures Search in Habitable Planets
galaxies Review Biosignatures Search in Habitable Planets Riccardo Claudi 1,* and Eleonora Alei 1,2 1 INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Padova, Vicolo Osservatorio, 5, 35122 Padova, Italy 2 Physics and Astronomy Department, Padova University, 35131 Padova, Italy * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 2 August 2019; Accepted: 25 September 2019; Published: 29 September 2019 Abstract: The search for life has had a new enthusiastic restart in the last two decades thanks to the large number of new worlds discovered. The about 4100 exoplanets found so far, show a large diversity of planets, from hot giants to rocky planets orbiting small and cold stars. Most of them are very different from those of the Solar System and one of the striking case is that of the super-Earths, rocky planets with masses ranging between 1 and 10 M⊕ with dimensions up to twice those of Earth. In the right environment, these planets could be the cradle of alien life that could modify the chemical composition of their atmospheres. So, the search for life signatures requires as the first step the knowledge of planet atmospheres, the main objective of future exoplanetary space explorations. Indeed, the quest for the determination of the chemical composition of those planetary atmospheres rises also more general interest than that given by the mere directory of the atmospheric compounds. It opens out to the more general speculation on what such detection might tell us about the presence of life on those planets. As, for now, we have only one example of life in the universe, we are bound to study terrestrial organisms to assess possibilities of life on other planets and guide our search for possible extinct or extant life on other planetary bodies. -
Optimizing a Solar Sailing Polar Mission to the Sun
Optimizing a Solar Sailing Polar Mission to the Sun Development and Application of a New Ant Colony Optimizer Giacomo Acciarini Optimizing a Solar Sailing Polar Mission to the Sun Development and Application of a New Ant Colony Optimizer by Giacomo Acciarini to obtain the degree of Master of Science at the Delft University of Technology, to be defended publicly on Friday November 1, 2019 at 1:30 PM. Student number: 4754883 Project duration: January 4, 2019 – November 1, 2019 Thesis committee: Prof. Dr. P. Visser, TU Delft, chair Dr. ir. E. Mooij, TU Delft, supervisor Dr. F. Oliviero, TU Delft Dr. D. Izzo, European Space Agency This thesis is confidential and cannot be made public until December 31, 2020. An electronic version of this thesis is available at http://repository.tudelft.nl/. Cover image credit: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/11/ spacewatch-lightsail-deploys-solar-sail, date of access: August 2019. ii Preface After months of hard work, I am proud to present to you my thesis to obtain the Master of Science degree at the faculty of Aerospace Engineering, at the Delft University of Technology. It has been an amazing experience that allowed me to come in contact with many researchers from all over the world who share my same love and interest in space exploration. I have always felt privileged and honored to be able to study such a marvelous and challenging subject. First of all, I would thus like to thank my parents, Andrea and Manuela, and my sister, Chiara, without your help and support I would have never been able to reach this point. -
DIRECT FUSION DRIVE for Interstellar Exploration S.A
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society VOLUME 72 NO.2 FEBRUARY 2019 General interstellar issue DIRECT FUSION DRIVE for Interstellar Exploration S.A. Cohen et al. INTERMEDIATE BEAMERS FOR STARSHOT: Probes to the Sun’s Inner Gravity Focus James Benford & Gregory Matloff REALITY, THE BREAKTHROUGH INITIATIVES and Prospects for Colonization of Space Edd Wheeler A GRAVITATIONAL WAVE TRANSMITTER A.A. Jackson and Gregory Benford CORRESPONDENCE www.bis-space.com ISSN 0007-084X PUBLICATION DATE: 29 APRIL 2019 Submitting papers International Advisory Board to JBIS JBIS welcomes the submission of technical Rachel Armstrong, Newcastle University, UK papers for publication dealing with technical Peter Bainum, Howard University, USA reviews, research, technology and engineering in astronautics and related fields. Stephen Baxter, Science & Science Fiction Writer, UK James Benford, Microwave Sciences, California, USA Text should be: James Biggs, The University of Strathclyde, UK ■ As concise as the content allows – typically 5,000 to 6,000 words. Shorter papers (Technical Notes) Anu Bowman, Foundation for Enterprise Development, California, USA will also be considered; longer papers will only Gerald Cleaver, Baylor University, USA be considered in exceptional circumstances – for Charles Cockell, University of Edinburgh, UK example, in the case of a major subject review. Ian A. Crawford, Birkbeck College London, UK ■ Source references should be inserted in the text in square brackets – [1] – and then listed at the Adam Crowl, Icarus Interstellar, Australia end of the paper. Eric W. Davis, Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, USA ■ Illustration references should be cited in Kathryn Denning, York University, Toronto, Canada numerical order in the text; those not cited in the Martyn Fogg, Probability Research Group, UK text risk omission. -
Examining Explanations for the Strange Phenomena Encountered by U.S
AIRCRAFT DESIGN 14 LUNAR SPACESUITS 18 SUPERSONICS 36 Perlan 2 glider — explained More fl exibility for astronauts Listening for X-59’s sonic thump Mystery sightings Examining explanations for the strange phenomena encountered by U.S. Navy pilots. PAGE 26 NOVEMBER 2019 | A publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org The Premier Global, Commercial, Civil, Military and Emergent Space Conference Where Ideas Launch • Connections Are Made • Business Gets Done! SpaceSymposium.org SAVE $600 – Register Today for Best Savings! Special Military Rates! +1.800.691.4000 Share: FEATURES | November 2019 MORE AT aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org The Premier Global, Commercial, Civil, Military and Emergent Space Conference 14 18 36 26 Aiming for Exploring the Planning for 90,000 feet moon in new the sound of Mystery phenomena spacesuits Designers of Perlan 2 supersonic fl ight We look at possible explanations for those overcame formidable Former astronaut How NASA’s Low Boom fast and agile objects zipping across F/A-18 engineering Tom Jones examines Flight Demonstrator screens. challenges to NASA’s plans to give will test the public’s create a glider that explorers suits that tolerance for sonic By Jan Tegler and Cat Hofacker has reached the will let them walk, thumps. stratosphere and will lope, crouch and even try to beat its own kneel. By Jan Tegler record next year. Where Ideas Launch • Connections Are Made • Business Gets Done! By Tom Jones By Keith Button SpaceSymposium.org SAVE $600 – Register Today for -
Interstellar Escape from Proxima B Is Barely Possible with Chemical Rockets
Interstellar Escape from Proxima b is Barely Possible with Chemical Rockets A civilization in the habitable zone of a dwarf star might find it challenging to escape into interstellar space using chemical propulsion _______ By Abraham Loeb on April 8, 2018 Almost all space missions of our civilization were based so far on chemical propulsion. The fundamental limitation of chemical propulsion is easy to understand. The rocket is pushed forward by ejecting burnt fuel gases backwards through its exhaust. The characteristic composition and temperature of the burnt fuel set its exhaust speed to a typical value of a few kilometers per second. Momentum conservation implies that the terminal speed of the rocket is given by this exhaust speed times the natural logarithm of the ratio between the initial and final mass of the rocket. To exceed the exhaust speed by some large factor requires an initial fuel mass that exceeds the final payload mass by the exponential of this factor. Since the required fuel mass grows exponentially with terminal speed, it is not practical for chemical rockets to exceed a terminal speed that is more than an order of magnitude larger than the exhaust speed, namely a few tens of kilometers per second. Indeed, this was the speed limit of all spacecrafts launched so far by NASA or other space agencies. By a fortunate coincidence, the escape speed from the surface of the Earth, 11 kilometers per second, and the escape speed from the location of the Earth around the Sun, 42 kilometers per second, are just around the speed limit attainable by chemical propulsion. -
Trans-Neptunian Space and the Post-Pluto Paradigm
Trans-Neptunian Space and the Post-Pluto Paradigm Alex H. Parker Department of Space Studies Southwest Research Institute Boulder, CO 80302 The Pluto system is an archetype for the multitude of icy dwarf planets and accompanying satellite systems that populate the vast volume of the solar system beyond Neptune. New Horizons’ exploration of Pluto and its five moons gave us a glimpse into the range of properties that their kin may host. Furthermore, the surfaces of Pluto and Charon record eons of bombardment by small trans-Neptunian objects, and by treating them as witness plates we can infer a few key properties of the trans-Neptunian population at sizes far below current direct-detection limits. This chapter summarizes what we have learned from the Pluto system about the origins and properties of the trans-Neptunian populations, the processes that have acted upon those members over the age of the solar system, and the processes likely to remain active today. Included in this summary is an inference of the properties of the size distribution of small trans-Neptunian objects and estimates on the fraction of binary systems present at small sizes. Further, this chapter compares the extant properties of the satellites of trans-Neptunian dwarf planets and their implications for the processes of satellite formation and the early evolution of planetesimals in the outer solar system. Finally, this chapter concludes with a discussion of near-term theoretical, observational, and laboratory efforts that can further ground our understanding of the Pluto system and how its properties can guide future exploration of trans-Neptunian space. -
ALMA Investigates 'Deedee,' a Distant, Dim Member of Our Solar System 12 April 2017
ALMA investigates 'DeeDee,' a distant, dim member of our solar system 12 April 2017 spherical, the criteria necessary for astronomers to consider it a dwarf planet, though it has yet to receive that official designation. "Far beyond Pluto is a region surprisingly rich with planetary bodies. Some are quite small but others have sizes to rival Pluto, and could possibly be much larger," said David Gerdes, a scientist with the University of Michigan and lead author on a paper appearing in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. "Because these objects are so distant and dim, it's incredibly difficult to even detect them, let Artist concept of the planetary body 2014 UZ224, more alone study them in any detail. ALMA, however, informally known as DeeDee. ALMA was able to observe has unique capabilities that enabled us to learn the faint millimeter-wavelength "glow" emitted by the exciting details about these distant worlds." object, confirming it is roughly 635 kilometers across. At this size, DeeDee should have enough mass to be Currently, DeeDee is about 92 astronomical units spherical, the criteria necessary for astronomers to (AU) from the Sun. An astronomical unit is the consider it a dwarf planet, though it has yet to receive average distance from the Earth to the Sun, or that official designation. Credit: Alexandra Angelich (NRAO/AUI/NSF) about 150 million kilometers. At this tremendous distance, it takes DeeDee more than 1,100 years to complete one orbit. Light from DeeDee takes nearly 13 hours to reach Earth. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have revealed Gerdes and his team announced the discovery of extraordinary details about a recently discovered DeeDee in the fall of 2016. -
Viewed on a Computer Screen, the Stars Appear As Inscrutable Bright Globs
Science & Technology Brave New Worlds Columbia astronomers are going beyond our solar system to understand exoplanets, find exomoons, and explore all sorts of surreal estate. By Bill Retherford '14JRN | Winter 2017-18 NASA / JPL-CalTech / T. Pyle (IPAC) UPDATE: Columbia astronomers David Kipping and Alex Teachey have found new evidence of the existence of an exomoon. The sun, veiled by the mist of a soggy Manhattan morning, was undetectable outside David Kipping’s thirteenth-floor office window in Pupin Hall on the Morningside Heights campus. But Kipping, an assistant professor of astronomy, was contemplating another celestial object anyway, one far more obscure — TrES-2b, the darkest world in the galaxy. “It absorbs 99 percent of its sun’s light,” Kipping says. “That’s less reflective than black paint.” An artistic rendering of TrES-2b, hanging on the wall opposite the window, reveals a disk coal-dark, streaked with scorched red swirls. In space, nothing is close, but TrES-2b is unthinkably distant, 750 light years away, about four and a half quadrillion miles from Earth. TrES-2b is an exoplanet, a world outside our solar system, one of 3,529 verified by NASA as of October 2017. “But that,” says Kipping, “is the tip of the iceberg. There are so many worlds, it’s mind-blowing.” Exoplanets are everywhere, scattered through the Milky Way like Motel 6 on the freeway. Scan the night sky, pick out any star, and it probably has planets; most all of the two hundred billion stars in our galaxy do. “On average, it’s a few planets per star,” says Kipping.