Category The Universe, Exploring the Universe, Solar System, The Moon, Space, Space Travel

On August 24, 2016, Astronomers announced the detection of Proxima b, an Earth-sized exoplanet in the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun. The planet, called Proxima b, is rocky and might be warm enough to host liquid water, and thus be habitable. Proxima Centauri is 4.25 light years from Earth and likely to be 30% more massive than Earth. Proxima Centauri is a small, red dwarf star and shines much less fiercely than the Sun.

Despite its proximity, scientists still know very little about Proxima Centauri’s planetary companion, besides that its mass is at least 1.3 times that of Earth and that it goes around its parent star every 11 days. Therefore, Del Genio and his colleagues had to make some reasonable guesses about the exoplanet Proxima Centauri b — namely, that it had an atmosphere and an ocean on its surface — for their work to proceed.

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Scientists announced that they had made the first direct detection of gravitational waves on February 11, 2016. However, the observation had been made in September 2015. Albert Einstein had said that something special happens when two bodies – such as planets or stars – – orbit each other. He believed that this kind of movement could cause ripples in space. He called it the gravitational waves and described it in his general relativity theory in 1915. But it took about 100 years for scientists to get concrete proof of their existence. Scientists observed these gravitational waves produced by the collision of two neutron stars some 130 million light years away using a very sensitive instrument called LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) in the U.S. The explanation goes that these waves rippled through the universe, effectively warping the fabric of space-time, before passing through Earth as faint traces of their former, violent origins.

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The first food grown and harvested in space – a crop of red lettuce – was eaten by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) on August 10, 2015. The lettuce was grown for 15 months with a system called Veg-01, which uses red, blue, and green LED lights to grow plants in a small space. The growth of plants in outer space has elicited much scientific interest. In January 2016, U.S. astronauts announced that a zinnia had blossomed aboard the ISS. Growing plants in space is an active area of research. The latest being the experiments conducted by China’s Chang’s 4 lunar lander. On January 15, 2019, it was reported that cottonseed, rapeseed, and potato seeds had sprouted in the Lunar Micro Ecosystem, a sealed biosphere cylinder that Chang’e-4 had carried with it.

“There is evidence that supports fresh foods, such as tomatoes, blueberries and red lettuce, are a good source of antioxidants,” Ray Wheeler, the project’s lead researcher, told NASA’s website. “Having fresh food like these available in space could have a positive impact on people’s moods and also could provide some protection against radiation in space.”

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On 14 July, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft successfully flew past Pluto, the icy dwarf planet on July 14, 2015. This was the first time that Pluto and its moon Charon were studied up close. Notably, scientists discovered that Pluto has an adorable heart on its surface. The spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system.

After the Pluto flyby, New Horizons was maneuvered for a flyby of a Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth (nicknamed Ultima Thule). On January 1, 2019, the spacecraft flew by the icy world which is 6.5 billion km away from Earth. Arrokoth is a contact binary consisting of two lobes attached by a bright, narrow neck, and is now the most distant object humans have ever explored.

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On August 6, 2014, The Rosetta Spacecraft from the European Space Agency (ESA) reached the orbit of comet 67/Churyumov- Gerasimenko. It became the first spacecraft to orbit a comet, and to deploy a lander, Philae, on its surface (on November 12, 2014). But the touchdown did not go entirely as planned as Philae bounced off 67P’s surface twice and finally settled in a shady spot on the comet. It managed to gather a great deal of data about 67P for about 57 hours before its battery ran out due to reduced sunlight at the crash site. On November 15, 2014, Philae entered safe mode, or hibernation. The mission evoked so much interest among common people that farewell message poured in for Philae on social media when the ESA decided to end its mission in July 2015. However, the mothership Rosetta continued to remain in orbit around the comet 67/P until September 30, 2016.

Comet 67P orbits the sun once every 6.5 years, making its closest approach to the sun in August 2015. Since then, the comet (and Rosetta) has been traveling farther and farther away from the sun. The mission has to come to an end soon, as Rosetta’s solar panels will no longer be able to power the spacecraft. The probe is not designed to survive the landing, or even to withstand gravity; at the moment of impact, Rosetta will be crushed and its signal will go dark, ESA managers said. 

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On April 17, 2014, NASA announced the discovery of Kepler-186f, the first Earth-sized exoplanet to be found within the habitable zone of its host star. Kepler-186f is orbiting the red dwarf Kepler-186, about 582 light years from Earth. The star hosts four other planets. However, Kepler-186 b, c, d, and e are not habitable as they are very close to their star. They are considered too hot to have liquid water and to host life. Kepler-186f orbits its star compared to what Earth gets from the Sun. The discovery was seen as s significant steps towards finding worlds like planet Earth.

The four companion planets, Kepler-186b, Kepler-186c, Kepler-186d, and Kepler-186e, whiz around their sun every four, seven, 13, and 22 days, respectively, making them too hot for life as we know it. These four inner planets all measure less than 1.5 times the size of Earth.

The next steps in the search for distant life include looking for true Earth-twins — Earth-size planets orbiting within the habitable zone of a sun-like star — and measuring their chemical compositions. The Kepler Space Telescope, which simultaneously and continuously measured the brightness of more than 150,000 stars, is NASA’s first mission capable of detecting Earth-size planets around stars like our sun.

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