Milky Way brims with planets

Carl Sagan would have loved it: not only are there billions and billions of stars in our galaxy, but every star may also harbour a planet. Millions of these could be like the fictional planet Tatooine in Star Wars, which orbits two stars.

About 700 extrasolar planets have been found in the Milky Way, a small number compared with the number of stars present. To find out whether such planets are truly rare or just hard to find, Arnaud Cassan of the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France, and colleagues turned to gravitational microlensing, in which one star focuses the light from a more distant star.

While other techniques are best at finding planets around nearby sun-like stars, gravitational microlensing can study any star up to 20,000 light years away.

The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) observes millions of stars every night with telescopes in Chile to find microlensing events. Then the Probing Lensing Anomalies Network (PLANET) follows up on intriguing signals using a global network of telescopes.

The researchers studied six years of microlensing data from the two projects and estimated that extrasolar planets are the rule rather than the exception, with each star in the galaxy hosting an average of 1.6 planets. More specifically, 17 per cent of the stars host a Jupiter-like planet, 52 per cent have a Neptune-like planet, and 62 per cent harbour a super-Earth – a rocky planet up to 10 times as massive as Earth.

Super-Earths

The seeming abundance of rocky super-Earths lends support to the core accretion model of planet formation, in which small rocky bodies collide and clump together to grow into these objects.

"Our results suggest that Earths should be even more common than super-Earths, if the mechanism to build an Earth is similar to that of building a super-Earth," says Cassan.

Meanwhile, William Welsh of San Diego State University in California and colleagues studied 750 stars observed by NASA's Kepler satellite. Based on their findings, they reckon several million planets in our galaxy orbit two stars, like the Star Wars planet Tatooine.

"Nature seems to like forming planets. The more carefully we look, the more of them we find," says Welsh.

Millions of planets orbit two stars (Illu

The End Of The Space Shuttle Era

Doomsday Clock Moved 1 Minute Closer to Midnight

In a sign of pessimism about humanity's future, scientists today set the hands of the infamous "Doomsday Clock" forward one minute from two years ago.

"It is now five minutes to midnight," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) director Kennette Benedict announced today (Jan. 10) at a press conference in Washington, D.C.

That represents a symbolic step closer to doomsday, a change from the clock's previous mark of six minutes to midnight, set in January 2010. 

The clock is a symbol of the threat ofhumanity's imminent destruction from nuclear or biological weapons, climate change and other human-caused disasters. In making their deliberations about how to update the clock's time, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists focused on the current state of nuclear arsenals around the globe, disastrous events such as the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, and biosecurity issues such as the creation of an airborne H5N1 flu strain.

The Doomsday Clock came into being in 1947 as a way for atomic scientists to warn the world of the dangers of nuclear weapons. That year, the Bulletin set the time at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight symbolizing humanity's destruction. By 1949, it was at three minutes to midnight as the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated. In 1953, after the first test of the hydrogen bomb, the doomsday clock ticked to two minutes until midnight.

The Bulletin — and the clock ­— were at their most optimistic in 1991, when the Cold War thawed and the United States and Russia began cutting their arsenals. That year, the Bulletin set the clock at 17 minutes to midnight.

From then until 2010, however, it was a gradual creep back toward destruction, as hopes of total nuclear disarmament vanished and threats of nuclear terrorism and climate change reared their heads. In 2010, the Bulletin found some hope in arms reduction treaties and international climate talks and nudged the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock back to six minutes from midnight from its previous post at five to midnight.

With today's decision, the Bulletin repudiated that optimism. The panel considers a mix of long-term trends and immediate events in the decision-making process, said Benedict. Trends might include factors like improved solar energy technology to combat climate change, she said, while political events such as the recent United Nations climate meeting in Durban play a role as well. This year, the Fukushima nuclear disaster made a big impression.

"We're trying to weight whether that was a wake-up call, whether it will make people take a closer look at this new and very powerful technology, or whether people will go on with business as usual," Benedict told LiveScience on Monday in an interview before the announcement of the "doomsday time" decision. [Top 10 Alternative Energy Bets]

Other factors that played into the decision included the growing interest in nuclear power from countries such as Turkey, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, Benedict said.

The Bulletin panel found that despite hopes of global agreements about nuclear weapons, nuclear power and climate change in 2010, little progress has been made. 

"The world still has approximately over 20,000 deployed nuclear weapons with enough power to destroy the world's inhabitants many times over," said Lawrence Krauss, an Arizona State University professor and the co-chair of the BAS Board of Sponsors. "We also have the prospect of nuclear weapons being used by terrorist non-state actors."

Likewise, talks on climate change have resulted in little progress, the panel found. In fact, politics seemed to trump science in discussions over the last two years, said Robert Socolow, a Princeton professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and a member of the Bulletin's Science and Security board. 

"We need the political leadership to affirm the primacy of science as a way of knowing, or problems will be far worse than they are already," Socolow said.

What are the Different branches of science and technology?

 Branches of ScienceNote: Not all branches are included.
Aerodynamics: the study of the motion of gas on objects and the forces created
Anatomy: the study of the structure and organization of living things
Anthropology: the study of human cultures both past and present
Archaeology: the study of the material remains of cultures
Astronomy: the study of celestial objects in the universe
Astrophysics: the study of the physics of the universeBacteriology: the study of bacteria in relation to diseaseBiochemistry: the study of the organic chemistry of compounds and processes occurring in organismsBiophysics: the application of theories and methods of the physical sciences to questions of biologyBiology: the science that studies living organismsBotany: the scientific study of plant lifeChemical Engineering: the application of science, mathematics, and economics to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable formsChemistry: the science of matter and its interactions with energy and itself
Climatology: the study of climates and investigations of its phenomena and causesComputer Science: the systematic study of computing systems and computationEcology: the study of how organisms interact with each other and their environmentElectronics: science and technology of electronic phenomenaEngineering: the practical application of science to commerce or industryEntomology: the study of insectsEnvironmental Science: the science of the interactions between the physical, chemical, and biological components of the environmentForestry: the science of studying and managing forests and plantations, and related natural resourcesGenetics: the science of genes, heredity, and the variation of organismsGeology: the science of the Earth, its structure, and historyMarine Biology: the study of animal and plant life within saltwater ecosystemsMathematics: a science dealing with the logic of quantity and shape and arrangementMedicine: the science concerned with maintaining health and restoring it by treating diseaseMeteorology: study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecastingMicrobiology: the study of microorganisms, including viruses, prokaryotes and simple eukaryotesMineralogy: the study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of mineralsMolecular Biology: the study of biology at a molecular levelNuclear Physics: the branch of physics concerned with the nucleus of the atomNeurology: the branch of medicine dealing with the nervous system and its disordersOceanography: study of the earth's oceans and their interlinked ecosystems and chemical and physical processesOrganic Chemistry: the branch of chemistry dedicated to the study of the structures, synthesis, and reactions of carbon-containing compoundsOrnithology: the study of birdsPaleontology: the study of life-forms existing in former geological time periodsPetrology: the geological and chemical study of rocksPhysics: the study of the behavior and properties of matterPhysiology: the study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organismsRadiology: the branch of medicine dealing with the applications of radiant energy, including x-rays and radioisotopesSeismology: the study of earthquakes and the movement of waves through the EarthTaxonomy: the science of classification of animals and plantsThermodynamics: the physics of energy, heat, work, entropy and the spontaneity of processesZoology: the study of animals

Giving birth to innovative ideas, technical thoughts

KANPUR: Creativity and innovation was at it's best at Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj University (CSMU) University, as the annual technical festival Techmart-09 organised by the University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET) kicked-off to a flying start, on Monday.

This is the tradition of providing a platform to innovative ideas and technical thoughts. The event started with technical lecture from IIT-K professor Amitabh Mukherjee, where he discussed cognitive computing and developing robots which can sense emotions and sentiments.

TECHNOLOGICAL INVENTION AND INNOVATION

Invention is the most important product of scientific knowledge.  Without invention, science would be merely inquiry for its own sake, serving few and helping no one. 

Invention involves the discovery of new processes, ideas or tools.  Invention is prioritary, meaning that only a new or previously unknown discovery can be considered an invention, as opposed to the development of an already existing one.  Patenting an invention requires priority, meaning that no one else must have come up with the same (or similar) idea at any previous time.  Patenting involves an exhaustive scrutiny of an idea’s novel qualities and an evaluation of its potential uses by experienced specialists from various fields.  The evaluation of a patent application often requires years before a final determination on award can be made.    

Innovation, on the other hand, involves the use or development of an invention for some useful purpose.  Innovations have often served as the point of departure for new inventions.  Innovation is typically less risky than invention, since it usually deals with known parameters, qualities or quantities.  Invention, on the other hand, often involves a leap unto the unknown, where trial and error, the unexpected or even chance can have a substantial influence on the outcome.  The high risk of invention can act as a deterrent to many organizations and individuals, particularly when rewards cannot be clearly anticipated.

In many ways invention is the wellhead of innovation, even though many inventions are often rooted in existing innovations.  Innovations could therefore not occur without some previous inventive discovery, even though they can come full circle to inspire new inventions.  The relationship between invention and innovation often becomes a synergistic circular flow that reproduces inventive talent for new and varied purposes. 

Technology is the aggregation of all existing inventions and innovations.  Technology can be transferred across borders and between activities, as long as the requisite knowledge and hardware can be made available.  Inventive talent, in contrast, can be transferred only if the individuals possessing it are willing to relocate.  Although inventive capabilities can be learned, considerable amounts of time, education, knowledge and institutional support are typically required for invention to be generated endogenously. 

Societies and economies that concentrate much inventive talent therefore become important sources of invention.  They also become potential sources of much innovation and new technology.  Intangibles play a major role in this process.  The accumulation of creativity, knowledge, skills and experience is a vital prerequisite for any nation or region to become a major source of invention, innovation and new technology.  This process of accumulation requires time, since the talents and intangibles needed may not be widely known, are usually difficult to specify, or may not be marketed at all.              

By measuring the level of patented inventions available for innovation, the concept of innovative capacity therefore provides an indication of the potential or capacity for innovation.  This indicator can also serve as a measure of inventive output.  Because only inventions that have passed the rigorous patent review process are used, its reliability as a measure of invention is typically very high.