Earths . . .

One in 200 stars has habitable Earth-like planets surrounding it – in the galaxy, half a billion stars have Earth-like planets going around them – that’s huge, half a billion. So when we look at the night sky, it makes sense that someone is looking back at us. – Michio Kaku

How to make Oxygen on mars..?

Nasa Looks to Make Oxygen on Mars Using Microbes

Future human missions to the Red Planet may not have to carry heavy oxygen cylinders with them. Scientists are working on ways to produce the life gas on Mars itself. Nasa is looking at creating ecosystems able to support life, for future human missions.

As part of this goal, it is funding Indiana-based company Techshot Inc. to research a solution that will produce oxygen that won't rely heavily on the Earth for future Martian colonies, www.ign.com reported.

"This is a possible way to support a human mission to Mars, producing oxygen without having to send heavy gas canisters," Eugene Boland, chief scientist at Techshot, was quoted as saying.

"Let's send microbes and let them do the heavy lifting for us," he added.

Techshot's experiments are carried out in a "Mars room" which simulates Mars' atmospheric pressure, day-night temperature changes and the solar radiation.

Using Martian soil, the scientists test the feasibility of using ecosystem-building pioneer organisms to produce oxygen. The organisms could also remove nitrogen from the Martian soil.

Boland believes habitable biodomes that "enclose ecopoiesis-provided oxygen through bacterial or algae-driven conversion systems" could exist on the Martian surface in the near future.

Nasa says its goal of landing astronauts on Mars in the 2030s is vital for obtaining evidence of life.

Nasa's Curiosity rover recently found evidence of fixed nitrogen and carbon-containing organic molecules -ingredients for life - on Mars' surface.

It is also now thought that ancient Mars held waterways and vast oceans covering its northern hemisphere.

We are the Most advanced Civilisation in The Universe

No Evidence of Advanced Civilisations in 100,000 Galaxies, Say Scientists

After searching 100,000 galaxies for signs of highly advanced extraterrestrial life, a team of scientists using observations from Nasa's WISE orbiting observatory has found no evidence of advanced civilisations in them.

The team also discovered some mysterious new phenomena in our own Milky Way galaxy.

"The idea behind our research is that, if an entire galaxy had been colonized by an advanced space-faring civilisation, the energy produced by that civilisation's technologies would be detectable in mid-infrared wavelengths," said lead researcher Jason T. Wright, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the Centre for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds at Penn State University.

Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist, had proposed in the 1960s that advanced alien civilizations beyond Earth could be detected by the tell-tale evidence of their mid-infrared emissions.

It was not until space-based telescopes like the WISE satellite that it became possible to make sensitive measurements of this radiation emitted by objects in space.

Roger Griffith, researcher at Penn State and the lead author of the paper, scanned almost the entire catalogue of the WISE satellite's detections - nearly 100 million entries - for objects consistent with galaxies emitting too much mid-infrared radiation.

He also examined and categorized around 100,000 of the most promising galaxy images.

"This research is a significant expansion of earlier work in this area," said Brendan Mullan, director of the Buhl Planetarium at the Carnegie Science Centre in Pittsburgh.

"As we look more carefully at the light from these galaxies, we should be able to push our sensitivity to alien technology down to much lower levels and to better distinguish heat resulting from natural astronomical sources from heat produced by advanced technologies. This pilot study is just the beginning," Wright concluded.

The study will be published in Astrophysical Journal Supplement

END OF A MESSENGER

Nasa's Messenger Probe Crashes on Mercury After 11-Year Mission

An unmanned Nasa spacecraft has crashed on the surface of the planet Mercury, after it ran out of fuel following a successful 11-year mission, the US space agency said Thursday. The MESSENGER probe short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging was the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, and issued a final farewell on Twitter shortly before its demise at 3:26 pm (1926 GMT).

"Well, I guess it's time to say goodbye to all my friends, family, support team. I will be making my final impact very soon."

Shortly after, the official @MESSENGER2011 Twitter account posted another image of Mercury's surface, with the caption: "MESSENGER's LAST ACT? THAT'S SMASHING!"

The image was not of Mercury's fall. Nasa has said previously that there could be no real-time pictures of the impact, which would take place on the side of the planet facing away from the Earth.

But the US space agency confirmed that the probe had indeed crash-landed.

"A Nasa planetary exploration mission came to a planned, but nonetheless dramatic, end Thursday when it slammed into Mercury's surface at about 8,750 miles per hour (3.91 kilometers per second) and created a new crater on the planet's surface," the agency said in a statement.

The spacecraft itself was just about three meters long.

The crater it would cause was expected to be 16 meters (52 feet) in diameter, Nasa said.

The mission, which launched in 2004, had achieved "unprecedented success," with its top discovery being that Mercury had lots of frozen water and other volatile materials in its permanently shadowed polar craters on the planet closest to the Sun, the US space agency said.

"Going out with a bang as it impacts the surface of Mercury, we are celebrating MESSENGER as more than a successful mission," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for Nasa's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

"The MESSENGER mission will continue to provide scientists with a bonanza of new results as we begin the next phase of this mission analyzing the exciting data already in the archives, and unravelling the mysteries of Mercury.

The Devloping Indian space technology

India getting mature in Space Science

Former Isro chairman K. Radhakrishnan has said India is the "role model" in the world in harnessing space research and explorations for the benefit of the common man. "The vision of Vikram Sarabhai, our founder, was that this high technology (space science) should be beneficial for the people of this country, for the governance of this country and that is what we have been doing in this area. I am happy to say India is a role model in the whole world in how space can be used for benefits of the people in this country," Radhakrishnan said at an event here on Wednesday evening.

He was conferred the annual national award, the P.C. Chandra Puraskaar, by the P. C. Chandra Group.

In his address he stressed on how space science (satellite systems and communication) has helped fishermen, farmers and disaster managers in India in early warnings and other services.

During Radhakrishnan's tenure as the chief of the space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation, India created history by becoming the first country to enter Mars orbit in maiden attempt on September 24, 2014 after a nine-month voyage through the inter-planetary space from Earth.

India also became the first Asian country to have entered the Mars sphere of influence (gravity) in its maiden attempt as a similar mission by China failed in 2011.

Describing India as a "major player" in space technology and explorations, the Padma Bhushan recipient said the Mars' mission's success sparked interest in science and space exploration among children in India.

"It was not only the prestigious position that we did it at one go but it kindled the young generation of the country. The children were there in the school together looking at this event and to me that is a great contribution that we have done to the country and we made all Indians proud that India can do it on its own," said Radhakrishnan, the current chairman, Indian Institutes of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, in West Bengal.

A tribute to Hubble Space Telescope on it's 25th birthday

Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble, the first telescope to revolutionize modern astronomy and change our view of the universe by offering glimpses of distant galaxies, marks its 25th year in space this week. "Hubble absolutely has changed the way humans look at the universe and our place in it," said astronomer Jennifer Wiseman, one of the telescope's senior scientists at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Jennifer wiseman says

"It shows us that the universe has been changing over time, that stars in fact are an integral part of producing the type of element that we need for life, for planets, for our well-being,"

Launched on April 24, 1990 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, Hubble orbits the Earth. It doesn't travel to faraway stars but instead snaps incredible pictures of them.

The telescope is the fruit of a collaboration between Nasa and the European Space Agency.

Hubble is celebrated as a triumph these days, but almost as soon as it was launched, a major problem was discovered with its main mirror and it did not become operational until three years later. Its repair required a special space shuttle mission in 1993.

After that, the Hubble space telescope became a veritable legend in its own right, exploring the depths of space from its circular path around Earth and transmitting astonishing images of supernovas, or massive explosions that occur with the death of a star, and other celestial bodies.

One of Hubble's best known images is of the vast Carina Nebula, an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas, helium gas and plasma that lies some 6,500 light years away from Earth.

Hubble, which is named after the pioneering American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), has also shown us black holes at the heart of galaxies scientists did not previously know existed.

The 24,000-pound (10-ton) telescope has taken more than a million pictures, including some that have allowed astronomers to more precisely calculate the age of the universe about 13.8 billion years old.

Observations from the Hubble combined with powerful telescopes on Earth helped astrophysicists confirm in 1998 that the universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate, which earned two Americans the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2011.

Other Hubble discoveries include the first detection of an organic molecule in the atmosphere of a planet circling a distant star far from our galaxy, the Milky Way, and the fact that planetary formation is a relatively common process.

Closer to home, Hubble has advanced knowledge of our own solar system. In March, Nasa announced that Hubble had detected a vast ocean under the surface of Ganymedes, Jupiter's biggest moon, widening the range of known celestial bodies on which life forms may exist.

"Hubble has been a major player in enabling people around the world to have a sense of wonder about the universe that we live in," said Wiseman.

The spectacular images that Hubble has sent back have been described as "the most flamboyantly beautiful artworks of our time," according to British art critic Jonathan Jones.

Hubble's images have made their way into popular culture, and can be seen in countless books and even on a Pearl Jam album cover.

Wiseman believes that Hubble still has a few good years ahead of it, as it is in perfect working condition since the last visit by space shuttle astronauts in 2009.

It will continue to operate alongside its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be 100 times more powerful and should launch in 2018.

"Just as Hubble rewrote all the astronomy texts, Webb will rewrite it again," said Nasa astronomer Matt Greenhouse

Here are few pictures from hubble