The Kepler satellite’s first photo, captured on April 8, 2009. Photo: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

It’s been just over four years since NASA’s exoplanet-hunting Kepler satellite switched on and began staring unwaveringly at the same patch of the universe, watching for the subtle dips of light caused by a far-off planet passing in front of its star. Where the ancient Greeks knew of five planets besides our own Kepler gave us thousands. Extrapolations from this tiny patch of sky gave us hints of billions more.

Originally designed to run for three-and-a-half years, Kepler has pushed on. But the satellite’s quest may be at an end. Sad news came out from NASA yesterday that one of the satellite’s reaction wheels, a device that keeps Kepler’s eye steady, has failed. There may still be a way to fix the broken wheel or concoct some other strategy to keep Kepler shooting straight. But without a steady gaze the satellite can no longer carry out its mission.

In the science press, the obituaries are already rolling out. Though many scientific experiments teach us something new about the world, few have been able to so clearly redefine our place in the universe as Kepler. Decades ago, the planets in our solar system were all we knew. Now, we’re practically swimming in them.

Kepler may be down (but not “out”), but that doesn’t mean the discoveries will stop. It will take years to sort through and analyze all the data the mission has already collected. And, follow up research using other satellites on Kepler’s exoplanet “candidates” could still yet unveil the marvels of the universe.

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17 Billion Earth-Size Planets! An Astronomer Reflects on the Possibility of Alien Life
What if All 2,299 Exoplanets Orbited One Star?

The Hubble Space Telescope. Photo: NASA

Last year the National Reconnaissance Office—the U.S. government’s spy satellite program—surprised the world when it let on that it had two unwanted, Hubble-sized spy satellites just sort of sitting around. The Hubble Space Telescope, the great eye in the sky that has given us some of the best photographs in the universe, has a 7.9 foot-wide mirror. The NRO’s two leftover spy satellites also had 7.9 foot-wide mirrors. For satellites, the bigger the mirror the more detail in the photo.

Where Hubble was designed to look off into space, the spy satellites were meant to look down at us. Some rough calculations by UNC-Charlotte associate professor Greg Gbur (otherwise known as Dr Skyksull) let us known that this telescope would be able to see things that are just 5 inches across. With some computer processing, you could probably pick out things on the ground that are just 2.5 inches wide. From space.

But, the spy agency doesn’t want these satellites anymore, so they gave them to NASA. For the better part of a year, says Astronomy Now, NASA has been trying to figure out what exactly to do with these new satellites. Now, says Space.com, the idea is being floated that one of the satellites could be shipped to Mars.

Scientists have proposed sending one of the powerful telescopes to Mars orbit, where it could look both up and down, giving researchers great views of the Red Planet’s surface as well as targets in the outer solar system and beyond.

From orbit around Mars, says Space.com, researchers expect the satellite would be able to take photos that capture around 3.1 inches of the Red Planet per pixel. Such high-resolution imagery could help them build maps and study the planet in unprecedented detail.

But that’s just one possible future for the NRO’s leftover satellites. NASA might also use them to hunt for dark energy or search for exoplanets. Or use them for any one of a number of other projects. Trust us, NASA has plenty of ideas for what to do with two gigantic satellites.

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A partial solar eclipse in Albuquerque, New Mexico as photographed by Colleen Pinski. This photo was one of the finalists in Smithsonian’s annual photo contest. Photo: Colleen Pinski

Technically, this partial solar eclipse—which will produce this stunning “ring of fire”— will occur as the early morning Sun rises on Friday in Australia. But for those of us in North America, the spectacle will play out this evening starting around 6:30 pm on the East coast.

If you’re in Australia or the Philippines, enjoy the show. But if you’re not and still want to watch, you can tune in to the Slooh Space Camera to watch the whole thing live.

This is only a partial solar eclipse, so there will still be a bit of bright sun poking around the dusk of the Moon. This is what gives it the moniker “ring of fire.” For an idea of what you’re in for if you decide to turn into the Slooh feed, here is a video shot during last year’s similar eclipse.

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When a huge star collapses in a supernova, it can produce a gamma-ray burst, spires of tightly-concentrated energy shooting from the dying star. Photo: NASA

A star being ripped to shreds in a violent supernova is one of the most powerful explosions in the universe. The largest supernovae can produce gamma-ray bursts: a tightly concentrated lance of light that streams out into space. Gamma-ray bursts, says NASA, “are the most luminous and mysterious explosions in the universe.”

The blasts emit surges of gamma rays — the most powerful form of light — as well as X-rays, and they produce afterglows that can be observed at optical and radio energies.

Two weeks ago, says NASA, astronomers saw the longest and brightest gamma-ray burst ever detected. It was the biggest shot of energy we’ve ever seen, streaming from the universe’s most powerful class of explosions. NASA:

“We have waited a long time for a gamma-ray burst this shockingly, eye-wateringly bright,” said Julie McEnery, project scientist for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

“The event, labeled GRB 130427A, was the most energetic gamma-ray burst yet seen, and also had the longest duration,” says Matthew Francis for Ars Technica. “The output from GRB 130427A was visible in gamma ray light for nearly half a day, while typical GRBs fade within a matter of minutes or hours.”

The gamma-ray burst was a stunningly bright spot against the background gamma ray radiation. Photo: NASA

There are a few different of classes of gamma-ray bursts in the world. Astrophysicists think that some—short gamma-ray bursts—form when two neutron stars merge and emit a pulse of energy. Huge ones like the one just detected are known as long gamma-ray bursts, and they form when huge stars collapse, often leading to the formation of a black hole.

Gamma-ray bursts focus their energy in a tightly-concentrated spire of energy. A few years ago, says Wired, researchers calculated what would happen if a gamma-ray burst went off nearby, and was pointed at the Earth.

Steve Thorsett of Princeton University has calculated the consequences if such a merger were to take place within 3,500 light-years of Earth, with its energy aimed at the solar system. The blast would bathe Earth in the equivalent of 300,000 megatons of TNT, 30 times the world’s nuclear weaponry, with the gamma-ray and X-ray radiation stripping Earth of its ozone layer.

While scientists cannot yet predict with any precision which nearby stars will go supernova, the merger of neutron star binaries is as predictable as any solar eclipse. Three such binary systems have been discovered, and one, PSR B1534+12, presently sits about 3,500 light-years away and will coalesce in a billion years.

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A video stitched together from sequential photos of Saturn’s hexagon. Photo: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Saturn changes seasons ever so slowly, and in 2009, after seven years of winter, the planet’s orbit tipped, bringing sunlight once more to Saturn’s north pole. The changing season offered astronomers the first good look at the region since the Sun began to wane in the mid-1990s, says Wired.  And the break of first light provided a stunning view of a marvel that has baffled scientists since they first saw it in images captured by the Voyager spacecraft back in the 1980s, during Saturn’s most recent summer.

At the tip of Saturn’s north pole, there’s an oddly geometric hexagon: a wall of clouds with six distinct sides. Here’s what Voyager was able to document three decades ago:

Saturn’s hexagon as seen in the 1980s. Photo: NASA, seen through Universe Today

Wired, in 2009, explained what was so interesting about that figure:

“The longevity of the hexagon makes this something special, given that weather on Earth lasts on the order of weeks,” said Kunio Sayanagi, a Cassini project researcher at the California Institute of Technology, in a NASA release. “It’s a mystery on par with the strange weather conditions that give rise to the long-lived Great Red Spot of Jupiter.”

The hexagon circles Saturn at 77 degrees north and is wider than two Earths. Nearly everything about the weather pattern is baffling. First, it’s unclear what causes the hexagon. Second, it’s bizarre that the jet stream would make such sharp turns. Earth’s atmospheric movements rarely display such geometric rigor.

But now, says NASA, improvements in satellite sensors and a bit better timing gave scientists working with the Cassini satellite a view into the very heart of the storm. There, they discovered something surprising: a gigantic hurricane.

Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

Wired:

Though 20 times larger than an average Terran twister, the hurricane is very similar to the ones we see on Earth. Both have central eyes with low-hanging clouds surrounded by a wall of higher clouds spiraling around. Saturn’s hurricane winds are four times stronger than those on Earth, whipping by at 530 kmph (330 mph). Cyclones on our planet also tend to move around but Saturn’s polar storm has nowhere to go, remaining stuck in place for years.

As Saturn edges ever more into summer, an opportunity for scientific study of the storm—and hopefully more gorgeous photos—should emerge.

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Saturn’s Polar Hexagon

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo during yesterday’s test. Photo: MarsScientific.com and Clay Center Observatory

In an early morning flight yesterday, SpaceShipTwo, the passenger-carrying spacecraft of private spaceflight company Virgin Galactic rocketed through the sky above the Mojave Desert at a blistering mach 1.2 (around 913 miles per hour). It was the first rocket-powered test flight of the craft, an event heralded as the dawn of the commercial space age. More than 500 people have bought tickets to ride the ship, says the New York Times, and their wait, says Virgin Galactic owner Richard Branson, might nearly be over.

“We will be going to space at the end of this year,” Mr. Branson said in a telephone interview after the test flight over Mojave, Calif. Or, he added, possibly in the first quarter of next year.

Branson’s confidence, just like his ship, is soaring. He’s so confident, in fact, Virgin Galactic has decided to raise their rates: formerly $200,000, a trip to space with the company will now cost $250,000. But that confidence may be a bit misplaced, if the company’s track record in this regard is considered.

2004

After years of work, the original SpaceShipOne, designed by the company Scaled Composites, took home the $10 million bounty of the Ansari X Prize.

Following that win, Richard Branson partnered with Scaled Composites to form Virgin Galactic, says CNN. At the time, the company announced that they planned to have people riding into space by 2007. Space Daily:

Addressing reporters in central London, Branson said that the new firm — Virgin Galactic — would launch its maiden flight in only three years, and that he would join the very first trip into space.

“Within five years, Virgin Galactic will have created over 3,000 new astronauts from many countries,” Branson said, speaking alongside US aviation pioneer Burt Rutan, who designed and built SpaceShipOne.

2005

Talking to the BBC, Branson walked back his estimate a bit, now gunning for 2008. “Space tourism is less than three years away, Sir Richard Branson has claimed.”

2008

The 2008 schedule came and went, and according to the BBC, the deadline for launch was pushed to 2010.

2009

The first unveiling of SpaceShipTwo, the ship that underwent its first real test flight yesterday.

2010

With construction of SpaceShipTwo complete, Richard Branson tells Agence France Press that “We are 18 months away from taking people into space.”

2011

The year saw another bump, wrote this author in Discover Magazine: “Virgin Galactic refuses to set a date for when it will begin flying its paying customers to the edge of space, but some are hoping to see flights start as early as the end of 2011.” But 2011 came and went with no avail.

2012

Flights should start by 2012, or early 2013 at the latest, says Aviation Explorer.

You see the pattern.

Getting into space is an incredibly difficult and expensive task, and delays are commonplace. Yesterday’s rocket-powered test was an achievement worth celebrating, but a skeptical eye can be cast on Branson’s claims that you’ll be riding the ship within the next year.

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A meteor from the Lyrids burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere, as seen from the International Space Station. Photo: NASA/JSC/Don Pettit

Though a nearly-full Moon will brighten the dark sky, making conditions less than ideal, this weekend will see the peak of the annual Lyrid meteor shower, a dazzling display of comet dust  burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Normally, the Lyrids will treat you to a couple dozen meteors an hour. A bright Moon will make the faint trails harder to pick out from the dark backdrop of space. EarthSky provides some detail:

The Lyrid meteor shower is expected to be active from April 16 to April 25, with an expected peak day of April 22. Unfortunately, this year there will be a waxing-gibbous moon (should be around 80% iluminated the night of the peak) which means there would only be a little more than an hour before sunrise with completely dark skies, and adding insult to injury, this would happen on the early hours of Monday, April 22.

If you can stay up late into Monday morning, between around 4 am when the Moon sets, and 5 am when the Sun comes up, you may catch quite a show, says EarthSky:

The Lyrids are known for uncommon surges that can sometimes bring the rate up to 100 per hour. Those rare outbursts are not easy to predict, but they’re one of the reasons the tantalizing Lyrids are worth checking out.

The western U.S., says Universe Today, has the best seats for this year’s Lyrids. If you’re an early riser, or a particularly devoted meteor watcher, you’d do well to look to the northeast. The meteors will stream from the constellation Lyra.

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Artisits illustrations of the previously known Kepler 22b, and the new 69c, 62e and 62f line up next to Earth. Photo: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech

This week. Man. Waco, ricin, Boston. The satirical site The Onion put it best (warning, full story contains swear words):

“Seriously, can we wrap this up already?” Maryland resident James Alderman told reporters, echoing the thoughts of all 311 million Americans, who have just about reached their weekly goddamned quota for carnage, misery, confusion, heartbreak, and rage. “Because, you know, I’m pretty sure we’ve all had our hearts ripped out of our chests and stomped on enough times for one seven-day period, thank you very much.”

In case you share The Onion’s sentiments, a spot of good news from Science: astronomers have discovered the “most Earth-like” planets yet, orbiting a far off star. Two planets, says the BBC’s Jonathan Amos, are just a bit bigger than our rocky Earth, and orbit their star in about the right place to have liquid water. And, best of all for those wanting to get far, far away from this week: the planets, Kepler 62e and 62f, are around 1,200 light years away. NASA says that they also found another third potentially habitable planet, Kepler 69c, around a second star. According to the BBC:

“Statements about a planet’s habitability always depend on assumptions,” said Lisa Kaltenegger, an expert on the likely atmospheres of “exoplanets” and a member of the discovery group.

“Let us assume that the planets Kepler-62e and -62f are indeed rocky, as their radius would indicate. Let us further assume that they have water and their atmospheric composition is similar to that of Earth, dominated by nitrogen, and containing water and carbon dioxide,” the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg researcher went on.

“In that case, both planets could have liquid water on their surface.”

The scientists, says Nature, “theorize that the two water worlds are either liquid all the way down to their core or have a solid surface just beneath a shallower ocean. The latter model would be more conducive to life as we know it on Earth, where a recycling of material and energy from hydrothermal vents can sustain organisms, Sasselov says.”

The planets are there, we know that. But their potential habitability is still mostly educated guesswork. But, as this week continues to unfold, getting a closer look at Keplers 62e, 62 and 69c sounds just a little more tempting.

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Photo: Orbital Sciences Corporation

Usually, residents of Florida and California have a leg up over the rest of the country when it comes to one of America’s most favorite past times: watching rockets soar into the sky. But in the early evening today, the Northeast coast will be treated to a special show. At around 5 p.m., from Maine to South Carolina, look up in the sky and you just may see the brand new Antares rocket climbing into the sky on its maiden voyage as it blasts off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.

Wallops has seen launches before, in 2006 and 2007, but the Antares launch, says Universe Today, will be “the biggest, loudest and brightest rocket ever to launch” from the site. CBS News:

“We’ll lift off with approximately 750,000 pounds of thrust, weighing about 600,000 pounds,” said Frank Culbertson, a former shuttle commander who oversees Orbital’s advanced programs group. “So it’ll not race off the pad, but it will accelerate very quickly once it gets going.

 

The launch will appear lower on the horizon the further you are from Virginia. Photo: Orbital Sciences Corporation

For those not in the northeast, or if clouds mar your view, NASA will be streaming the show live starting at 4 pm.

The Antares rocket is a huge machine, a two-stage booster rocket that stands 131 feet tall, says Space.com. The rocket is designed to carry cargo to the International Space Station, and will be the first direct competitor of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket in the burgeoning private space race. This evening’s launch will be the rocket’s first.

According to CBS News, the weather may not play nicely with Orbital Science Corp’s test. If the launch is scrubbed, they’ll have openings to try again through the end of the week.

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An artist’s rendition of Gliese 581 g, a potentially habitable exoplanet with a decidedly boring name. Photo: NASA / Lynette Cook

The Kepler spacecraft is hunting down planets outside our solar system at a rapid clip. The total number of confirmed exoplanets is now at a whopping 861 and there are 2,903 more potential exoplanet candidates waiting in the wings. Space, it seems, is less of an empty void with each passing day.

The pace of discovery and the uncertainty in each finding—with exoplanets first being considered “candidates” before moving to full-fledged “discovered” status with subsequent observations—means that exoplanets are often given unwieldy placeholder names. Gliese 667Cc, for example, is the second planet around the third star in the Gliese 667 system. Gliese 581 g is the 6th planet around the star Gliese 581. But as useful as these names are for astronomers—more road map than moniker—they don’t exactly roll off the tongue.

A new organization—Uwingu–wants to fix this little dilemma. They’re offering a platform for you to suggest and vote on new planetary names. Their general goal is not to assign a specific name to a specific planet, but rather to tabulate a ready-made list from which astronomers can draw. They did, however, recently launch a contest to rename the planet Alpha Centauri Bb, the closest exoplanet to Earth. Drawing a wary eye from some, Uwingu wants you to back your votes with cash: one dollar, one vote.

Uwingu’s project to give exoplanets new names has drawn the ire of another group – the people who actually name exoplanets. The International Astronomical Union, says the CBC, wants to remind everyone that only they have the power to officially name extraplanetary bodies. Even if your exoplanet name of choice wins Uwingu’s contest, they say, it will have “no bearing on the official naming process.” Uwingu points out, however, that while the International Astronomical Union controls planets’ official names, they have no control over their common names. And, just because a name isn’t official doesn’t mean people won’t use it.

Back in October, The Weather Channel tried a similar trick when they unilaterally decided to start giving names to winter storms without first talking to the World Meteorological Organization or other large meteorological bodies. If you remember Winter Storm Nemo, thank The Weather Channel.

So while it may be true that you can’t vote your way to an official new planet name, the CBC adds that for many celestial objects their unofficial common name (say, the North Star) is used by many in place of the official name (Alpha Ursa minori).

Besides, says Phil Plait for his blog Bad Astronomy, the money being raised is going toward real science. Uwingu “will use the profits to fund scientific research. People will be able to submit proposals for the funding, which will be peer reviewed to ensure high-quality work. And it’s not just research: they hope to fund space-based projects, education, and other science-supporting ventures.”

Indeed, says Plait, even though only the IAU can make planet names official, the names on Uwingu’s list “will be seen by planetary astronomers, and eventually those planets are going to need names. Why not yours?”

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The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer aboard the ISS. Photo: NASA

First off: No. Scientists did not just find dark matter.

Now that that’s out of the way, we can get to the good bits.

The first results are in from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a super-expensive detector that is currently hurtling overhead at a brisk 17,500 miles per hour from its perch aboard the International Space Station. That detector, designed to measure high-energy particles such as cosmic rays and the antimatter particle positrons, was designed to finally pin down the elusive dark matter.

What Is Dark Matter?

“Dark matter,” says the Associated Press, “is thought to make up about a quarter of all the matter in the universe.” Yet we can’t see it. Physicists have long suspected the existence of dark matter, and it is possible to sort of see that it is exists by looking at the effect of its gravity on regular matter around it. Without dark matter, the thinking goes, galaxies like our own Milky Way wouldn’t be able to hold their shapes.

No dark matter, no universe as we know it.

So What Did They Find?

Using the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, scientists “collected some 25 billion cosmic-ray particles, including 6.8 million electrons and positrons,” says John Matson for Scientific American. Positrons are the antimatter equivalent of an electron—essentially, an electron with a positive charge rather than a negative electrical charge. Some physicists think that when two dark matter particles crash into one another they can make positrons.

According to Matson, the big find was that “the fraction of positrons in the particle mix exceeds what would be naively expected in the absence of dark matter or other unaccounted sources.” In other words, there were more positrons than there should have been—unless we consider the fact that some other force is making all these bonus positrons.

The scientists could also see how much energy the positrons that hit their detector had. Positrons made by dark matter should mostly have high energies, but after a certain point, the number of positrons should drop off again, fairly dramatically. But the scientists didn’t find this drop-off, which means they can’t specifically ascribe the positrons they observed to dark matter.

What Does It Mean?

According to Wired‘s Adam Mann, the extra positrons “might be the best direct evidence of dark matter to date.” The Associated Press calls the observations “tantalizing cosmic footprints that seem to have been left by dark matter.”

The results are, however, not quite so conclusive. The AP: “The evidence isn’t enough to declare the case closed. The footprints could have come from another, more conventional suspect: a pulsar, or a rotating, radiation-emitting star.”

So, as it’s commonly being talked about, the new study is amazing evidence of dark matter. Or, you know, maybe not.

What Does It Really Mean?

“The experiment’s principal investigator, Nobel laureate Samuel Ting, says the evidence collected so far “supports the existence of dark matter but cannot rule out pulsars.” He could quite easily have said that sentence round the other way,” says the Guardian‘s Stuart Clark.

“The results so far have nothing new to say about the source of the antimatter,” and hence can’t really say much one way or another about dark matter.

The experiment will continue to collect some 16bn cosmic rays per year for as long as the International Space Station remains operational. So, really the message is that this work is just the beginning.

“Dark matter,” writes Clark, “remains as elusive as ever.”

So What’s Next?

First off, the AMS detector will keep running, looking for the drop off in positron energies that would indicate they were being made by dark matter.

“To definitively expose dark matter,” writes Space.com, will likely require a different approach altogether.

Physicists must look deep beneath the Earth to directly detect particles that make up dark matter, called WIMPs (or Weakly Interacting Massive Particles), several experts said. Finding direct evidence of dark matter on Earth would help reinforce the space-station experiment’s discovery by showing independent evidence that dark matter particles exist.

Why Is It Cool Anyway?

If nothing else the research is a reminder that while we most often talk about the International Space Station in terms of the beautiful photos and sandwich-making How Tos that astronauts stream back, the station is also a platform for world-leading scientific research and an indispensable asset.

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In a type Ia supernova, and the new Iax mini-supernova, a white dwarf star (the one with the disk) eats a nearby star. When it grows big enough, it explodes. Photo: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Supernovae are the parents of the universe, the scatterers of the star stuff that make us all (as Carl Sagan so famously described). But now, new research led by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’ Ryan Foley describes the discovery of a new kind of miniature supernova, one that leaves the exploding star “battered and bruised, but it might live to see another day,” said Foley to Charles Choi for Space.com.

“We’re not quite sure why only part of the star might get destroyed. That’s a tough problem we’re working on right now.”

The new type of partial supernova happens in much the same way as one class of regular, full-blown supernovae. A white dwarf star in a two-star system, says Choi, sucks material off of its partner. When the white dwarf consumes too much of its partner’s mass, it explodes (this is called a Ia supernova). In the new type of mini-supernova (a Iax supernova), the white dwarf’s partner star is missing its outer layer. The white dwarf star still steadily consumes its stellar neighbor, but something is different (and scientists aren’t quite sure why, exactly, this matters.)

The end result: a small supernova, some shining just 1% as bright as their full-sized brethren.

“Type Iax supernovas aren’t rare, they’re just faint,” Foley said. “For more than a thousand years, humans have been observing supernovas. This whole time, this new class has been hiding in the shadows.”

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It may look little, but this beautiful panorama of Mars’ Mount Sharp, at 15,000 pixels across, is huge. Click for maximum Mars beauty. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This is it, folks. This is what it’s all about. Since the Curiosity rover first set down on Mars in August, the one-ton mobile laboratory has been slowly inching its way towards Mount Sharp, a 3.4 mile high mountain nestled within a crater on the face of the red planet.

In this gorgeous mosaic NASA shows how the surface of Mount Sharp would look if the light on the dusty planet were the same as on Earth. In reality the Martian atmosphere makes the vistas appear a bit more drab, but editing the photo to look more Earthlike “helps scientists recognize rock materials based on their experience looking at rocks on Earth.”

The slow crawl toward Mount Sharp began months ago, and photos taken over time show the feature slowly inching into view.

One of Curiosity’s first photos shows Mount Sharp in the distance. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA:

Mount Sharp, also called Aeolis Mons, is a layered mound in the center of Mars’ Gale Crater, rising more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the crater floor, where Curiosity has been working since the rover’s landing in August 2012. Lower slopes of Mount Sharp are the major destination for the mission, though the rover will first spend many more weeks around a location called “Yellowknife Bay,” where it has found evidence of a past environment favorable for microbial life.

Another huge photo of Mars’ surface. Captured in August, this black and right panorama shows the crest of Mount Sharp off in the distance. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mount Sharp, a peak rising in the midst of Gale Crater, was selected for the rover’s research because scientists thought they could find water and other signs that the region was once hospitable for life—dreams that have so far come true.

A computer image of Mount Sharp, resting in Gale Crater. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MSSS

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Space suits might not be this sexy, but sex is space is bound to happen. Image: Timothy Wells

If reality television has taught anybody anything, it’s that if you put a bunch of people together in a small space for a period of time, they’re going to have sex. Space exploration is really no exception to that. So as technology progresses and people start to talk seriously about trips to Mars or other planets, the questions of love and sex in space become more pressing. But would it actually be a terrible idea to have a child in space?

Before astronauts go into space, they have to do a lot of physically strenuous tasks. Science knows quite a bit about what the adult (mostly male) body does in space, how its muscles and bones react and how microgravity effects the body. But no one really knows anything about how the female reproductive system changes or is impacted. Live Science writes about some new plant research that might provide clues:

The news that University of Montreal researchers found that reproductive processes in plants were affected by changes in gravity is very important because it gives us a clue as to how the human reproductive system might react to micro- or hyper-gravity. That study only increases my concern that there could be trouble ahead for babies conceived in space, as well as for the mothers.

If a baby was conceived in space and it did manage to grow into a fetus, no one really knows the impacts that growing up in zero gravity might have on the development of a tiny human. Would neurons and blood vessels and muscles grow and develop the same way? MSNBC reported a few years ago on just a few of the concerns:

For example, Russian studies with pregnant rats showed a 13 to 17 percent arrest in the development of nearly every area of the fetal skeleton in zero-G, he said. [NASA physician Jim] Logan also noted that the proper formation of neural connections — a process that continues even after birth — requires movement under gravity loading. Immune functions are also compromised in microgravity.

At Wired, they argue that NASA and the rest of the space agencies need to be ready to address this question, because, like we all learned from television, it’s bound to come up. They write:

We need to acknowledge that humans will bring our sexuality with us into space and that includes all the complexities of relationships as well as the relatively simple matter of bodies. NASA cannot avoid confronting those complexities, especially now that the public knows even astronauts sometimes confuse obsession with love.

“How long can humans go without sex?” is not the right question.

I don’t care if you have a same-sex crew of great-grandparents who have never had a flicker of sexual desire in their entire lives. Lock a group of humans into a ship, sail them through space and time, and it won’t take long for that deep, ancient need for touch and intimacy to surface.

Back at Live Science, author Laura Woodmansee thinks we’re just not ready to have women having babies in space:

The research that has come out today on plant sex and conception in space highlights the fact that we simply don’t know the impact space conditions would have on human conception and pregnancy. Right now, it would be unethical to conceive a baby in orbit, or even risk conception. That’s my bottom line.

But, if reality television has taught us one other thing, it’s that just because something is a bad idea doesn’t mean people won’t try it.

More from Smithsonain.com:

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Pluto and three of its moons, Charon, Hydra and Nix. Photo: International Astronomical Union

In the past few years observant astronomers have found two more moons for the non-planet that is Pluto. But that wave of discovery may not be over just yet. Based on new research [pdf] by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Scott Kenyon and the University of Utah’s Benjamin Bromley, Pluto may have a small pile of moons just waiting to be found.

“The potential moons,” says Elizabeth Howell for Space.com “arose in a simulation looking at how Pluto’s known small satellites came to be.”

It’s hard to say how many there are, the researchers said, as it’s difficult to simulate collisions among these tiny satellites. There could be anywhere from one to more than 10 objects lurking beyond Hydra’s orbit.

The New Horizons satellite, currently on its way to Pluto, should be able to help figure it out. The new moons would be small, say the scientists in their study, with radius of just 1 to 3 kilometers. But, “detecting these satellites and the disk from the ground is very challenging. If they are present,” they write, “New Horizons should detect them easily.”

The scientists’ model of what Pluto’s orbit could look like, with the new moons and a light disc of smaller debris. Photo: Kenyon and Bromley

More from Smithsonian.com:

Astronomers Find Pluto’s Fifth Moon
William Shatner Hijacks Contest to Name Pluto’s Moon