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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:09:15 ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) returns to Earth on 19–20 August 2024, to complete the world's first Lunar-Earth gravity assist. Flight controllers will guide the spacecraft past the Moon and then Earth itself, ‘braking’ the spacecraft. This manoeuvre may seem counterintuitive but will allow Juice to take a shortcut via Venus on it's way to Jupiter.
Juice has already travelled more than 1000 million km to the giant planet but it still has a long way to go even though Jupiter is on average ‘just’ 800 million km away from Earth. Join us as we explain why Juice's journey to Jupiter is taking sooo long.
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By NASA
5 min read
NASA Scientists on Why We Might Not Spot Solar Panel Technosignatures
One of NASA’s key priorities is understanding the potential for life elsewhere in the universe. NASA has not found any credible evidence of extraterrestrial life — but NASA is exploring the solar system and beyond to help us answer fundamental questions, including whether we are alone in the universe.
For those who study the potential for life beyond Earth, one of the questions has long been trying to determine the likelihood of microbial life versus complex life versus a civilization so advanced that we can spot signs of it, called technosignatures, from here at home. Studying the answers to questions like that can help guide suggestions on new telescopes or missions to emphasize the most likely places and ways to look for life.
Now a recent paper published May 24 in the Astrophysical Journal postulates that if advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist, one reason they might be hard to detect with telescopes from our vantage point is because their energy requirements may be relatively modest. If their culture, technology, and population size do not need vast amounts of power, they would not be required to build enormous stellar-energy harvesting structures that could be detected by current or proposed telescopes. Such structures, based on our own Earthly experience, might be solar panel arrays that cover a significant portion of their planet’s surface or orbiting megastructures to harness most of their parent star’s energy—both of which we might be able to spot from our own solar system.
Conceptual image of an exoplanet with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Structures on the right are orbiting solar panel arrays that harvest light from the parent star and convert it into electricity that is then beamed to the surface via microwaves. The exoplanet on the left illustrates other potential technosignatures: city lights (glowing circular structures) on the night side and multi-colored clouds on the day side that represent various forms of pollution, such as nitrogen dioxide gas from burning fossil fuels or chlorofluorocarbons used in refrigeration. NASA/Jay Freidlander “We found that even if our current population of about 8 billion stabilizes at 30 billion with a high standard of living, and we only use solar energy for power, we still use way less energy than that provided by all the sunlight illuminating our planet,” said Ravi Kopparapu of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, lead author of the paper.
The study has implications for the Fermi paradox, postulated by physicist Enrico Fermi, which asks the question that since our galaxy is ancient and vast, and interstellar travel is difficult but possible, why hasn’t an alien civilization spread across the galaxy by now?
“The implication is that civilizations may not feel compelled to expand all over the galaxy because they may achieve sustainable population and energy-usage levels even if they choose a very high standard of living,” said Kopparapu. “They may expand within their own stellar system, or even within nearby star systems, but a galaxy-spanning civilizations may not exist.”
Additionally, our own technological expertise may not yet be able to predict what more advanced civilizations could do.
“Large-scale stellar-energy harvesting structures may especially be obsolete when considering technological advances,” adds Vincent Kofman, a co-author of the paper at NASA Goddard and American University, Washington, D.C. “Surely a society that can place enormous structures in space would be able to access nuclear fusion or other space-efficient methods of generating power.”
The researchers used computer models and NASA satellite data to simulate an Earth-like planet with varying levels of silicon solar panel coverage. The team then modeled an advanced telescope like the proposed NASA Habitable Worlds Observatory to see if it could detect solar panels on the planet about 30 light-years away, which is relatively nearby in a galaxy that spans over 100,000 light-years. They found that it would require several hundreds of hours of observing time with that type of telescope to detect signatures from solar panels covering about 23% of the land area on an Earth-like exoplanet. However, the requirement for 30 billion humans at a high-living standard was only about 8.9% solar-panel coverage.
Extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced technology could be discovered by their technosignatures – observational manifestations of extraterrestrial technology that could be detected or inferred through astronomical searches. For decades, scientists have been using radio telescopes to look for potential extraterrestrial radio transmissions. More recently, astronomers have proposed using a telescope like the Habitable Worlds Observatory to look for other kinds of technosignatures, such as chemical “fingerprints” in exoplanet atmospheres or specific characteristics in the light reflected by an exoplanet that might announce the presence of vast silicon solar arrays.
The new study assumes that extraterrestrials would build solar panels out of silicon because it’s relatively abundant compared to other elements used in solar power, such as germanium, gallium, or arsenic. Also, silicon is good at converting the light emitted by Sun-like stars into electricity and it’s cost-effective to mine and manufacture into solar cells.
The researchers also assume that a hypothetical extraterrestrial civilization would rely exclusively on solar energy. However, if other sources of energy are used, such as nuclear fusion, it would reduce the silicon technosignature, making the civilization even harder to detect. The study further assumes that the civilization’s population stabilizes at some point. If this doesn’t happen for whatever reason, perhaps they will be driven to expand ever-father into deep space. Finally, it’s impossible to know if an advanced civilization may be using something we haven’t imagined yet that requires immense amounts of power.
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Last Updated Aug 02, 2024 Editor wasteigerwald Contact wasteigerwald william.a.steigerwald@nasa.gov Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Astrobiology Goddard Space Flight Center The Search for Life The Universe Explore More
8 min read Searching for Signs of Intelligent Life: Technosignatures
Signs of life beyond Earth could take forms that are clearly artificial – radio or…
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1 year ago
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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 2 min read
Sols 4255-4256: Just Passing Through
Navcam Left image of our stowed arm turret, including the drill as it rests between drill campaigns NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Happy Wednesday, terrestrials! We wrapped up our Mammoth Lakes drill campaign only three weeks ago and are already looking for our next drill site. This will be the last drill campaign in the Gediz Vallis region, an area on Mars the Curiosity team has had their eyes on since sol 0, just under 12 years ago! This upcoming campaign is even more exciting after the elemental sulfur we found at Mammoth Lakes. And while sulfur on its own doesn’t smell, I’ve always wondered… what does Mars smell like?
Finding ourselves less than a meter from our hopeful end-of-drive on Monday, we started on a very familiar plan: Starting with an arm backbone for removing dust and using APXS to investigate a bedrock target named “Russell Pass,” placing the arm out of the way for imaging, spending just over an hour on Mastcam imaging and ChemCam LIBS on Russell Pass, then one more arm backbone for MAHLI images of Russell Pass, and finally a drive in the afternoon. These plans, dubbed “touch-and-go” plans, are usually busy at the start and slow at the end. Our drive this time is planned to go ~10 meters almost perfectly east and leaving our heading almost perfectly west. If on Friday, our wheels are solidly on the Martian ground and there is a flat-enough bedrock surface to place our drill, we might be staying put for another two weeks while we try and collect another Gediz Vallis channel sample. And since we drive backwards with the arm taking up the rear, we might even have a workspace we’ve already driven over – hopefully exposing some internal bedrock even before drilling.
Written by Natalie Moore, Mission Operations Specialist at Malin Space Science Systems
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Last Updated Jul 29, 2024 Related Terms
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By USH
With today's technology, including CGI, Artificial Intelligence, and other similar programs, it is not difficult to create fake UFO videos. It is currently a challenge to distinguish a fake UFO video from a real one.
Additionally, you also need to ask yourself whether a observed UFO is a craft made by certain organizations here on Earth or if it is a real alien UFO.
So far, the most reliable recordings of UFO sightings come from the time before the advent of Artificial Intelligence.
The following recording is a UFO sighting from 2007. Marvin Badilla, a carpenter from Acosta, Costa Rica, filmed an extraordinary video of a metallic, disc-shaped object hovering momentarily before flipping vertically and departing.
Captured on a Motorola Razr, this footage has fascinated both enthusiasts and experts for years.
In the video below, we delve into a detailed analysis of this compelling UFO sighting, compare the original and enhanced footage, and listen to expert opinions on its authenticity.
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By USH
In this video, we delve into an extraordinary UFO sighting over Puerto Rico that left witnesses in awe. On May 15, 2005, an immense triangular object, comparable to the size of two ballparks, was photographed in Carolina, Puerto Rico. Witnesses reported the UFO caused their vehicle's engine and lights to fail as it silently passed overhead.
Editor's note: The UFO resembles the infamous TR-3B antigravity craft but given the size of the UFO compared to the size of TR-3B it is possible that the witnesses saw a real UFO.
(The TR-3B: This craft uses highly pressured mercury accelerated by nuclear energy to produce a plasma that creates a field of anti-gravity around the ship. Conventional thrusters located at the tips of the craft allow it to perform all manner of rapid high speed maneuvers along all three axes. Interestingly, the plasma generated also reduces radar signature significantly. So it'll be almost invisible on radar and remain undetected.)
We analyze the photographic evidence, recount the firsthand experiences, and explore the potential electromagnetic effects of this mysterious craft.
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