Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

If we don't find one, maybe we'll go extinct (June 15th 2012)

Charles H. Lineweaver the Australian Astrophysicist and Senior Fellow at the Planetary Science Institute believes finding planets outside the solar system that can sustain life should be made a top priority, and may be crucial for our survival as a species. Lineweaver profiled by Darren Osbourne stated “Determining whether these planets are habitable has become the new holy grail of astronomy, It’s probably one of the biggest, most confusing, and important issues that planetary scientists are going to have to deal with in the next 10 to 20 years. …Over the past few decades our exploration of the Earth has turned up life in all kinds of weird environments where we didn’t think life could be in, and we’re finding all types of extraterrestrial environments that we didn’t know about before, as these two groups expand they start to overlap in big ways, and that’s where habitable planets will be found. …Life, by managing its own environment, makes a planet habitable. It has produced adaptive features as a result of Darwinian evolution to live in colder and warmer environments. …The next step will be to develop a satellite that can look at the atmospheres of these planets, which will be able to give us some information about whether there is life there or not, …and if we don’t find one, maybe we’ll go extinct.”

Inspired by Darren Osborne ow.ly/bs3tA image source Facebook ow.ly/bs1T8

How much would you pay for the universe? (March 26th 2012)

Neil deGrasse Tyson the 53 year old US astrophysicist and the director of the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History appeared before the US Senate Committee hearing submissions on NASA’s 2013 budget request & space program. Tyson stated “Exploration of the unknown might not strike everyone as a priority. Yet audacious visions have the power to alter mind-states — to change assumptions of what is possible. When a nation permits itself to dream big, those dreams pervade its citizens’ ambitions…  Epic space adventures plant seeds of economic growth, because doing what’s never been done before is intellectually seductive (whether deemed practical or not), and innovation follows, just as day follows night. When you innovate, you lead the world, you keep your jobs, and concerns over tariffs and trade imbalances evaporate … At what cost? … The 2008 bank bailout of $750 billion was greater than all the money NASA had received in its half-century history; two years’ U.S. military spending exceeds it as well… How much would you pay to “launch” our economy. How much would you pay for the universe?”

Inspired by Carl Zimmer http://ow.ly/9E620 image source NASA http://ow.ly/9E6Ng

A theory emerged as a result of the discovery (October 19th)

Saul Perlmutter the 51 year old US astrophysicist from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has been awarded the Nobel prize for Physics along with two others, for their discovery that the universe’ expansion is speeding up instead of slowing down as has long been held. Perlmutter a professor of physics at the University of California aims now to gain a better understanding of the universes’ acceleration rate. Perlmutter is the leading investigator in the Supernova/Acceleration Probe project, designing a satellite dedicated to finding and studying the distant universe for more supernovae. The three winners of the award have shown how the universe emerged from the Big Bang. Dark energy, a theory that emerged as a result of the discovery, is an inverse gravity making up 75% of the universe, causing the accelerated expansion.

Inspired by Robert Sanders http://ow.ly/6Tvgp image source supervova.lbl.gov http://ow.ly/6TvID