Video: Cool Worlds and Exoplanet Moons

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source: Image of Exomoons from Cool Worlds.

We have located exoplanets (planets around other suns) and even free-floating planets (planets without a sun), but what about exoplanet moons? A recent video from the YouTube channel Cool Worlds titled “We Discovered a New Exomoon Candidate! A Survey of 70 Cool Gas Giants,” discusses efforts by the Cool Worlds Lab to find these new moons. The Cool Worlds Lab, based at the Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, is a team of astronomers seeking to discover and understand alien worlds, particularly those where temperatures are cool enough for life, led by Professor David Kipping.

In this video, Professor Kipping discusses his lab’s discovery of exomoon Kepler-1625b-I in 2018. This is a Neptune-sized moon orbiting a Jupiter-sized planet that orbits about the same distant from its star as Earth orbits from our Sun. The video goes into the lab’s “Cool Giant Exomoon Survey” to locate additional exomoons orbiting Jupiter-sized cool giants further out from the host star. I do not want to give away the findings since you can see this for yourself, but it can be safely stated that a new exomoon candidate has been located (and shared in Nature). The exomoon’s designation is given away in the article’s title, so the secret is out.

Check out the Cool Worlds YouTube page for other fascinating videos.

Pic of the Week: Russia’s Luna-25 Moon Station

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source/Credit: The Luna-25 Moon Station from Russia’s Lavochkin Research and Production Association.

The image above is an artist’s rending of Russia’s Luna-25 Moon Station that was to be launched last year and is now scheduled to be launched in July 2022. It will be the first domestic spacecraft in the country’s modern history on the surface of the Moon. Luna-25 will be equipped with a soil-sampling robotic arm and camera to image the terrain. The last lunar mission was Luna-24 in 1976 by the then Soviet Union, which returned Moon samples to the Earth.

Space Quotes: Key to Successful Space Programs

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source/Credit: NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Official Portrait from NASA/Bill Ingalls.

“…in order for a space program to be successful it has to be a multi-administration effort. It’s like building an aircraft carrier; that takes about 12 years and spans many administrations. So the space program has to be the same way.”

–NASA Administrator Bill Nelson responding to a Time Magazine question about the lack of continuity among presidential administrations on moon missions.

Movies: The Coming Moonfall

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source: Moonfall.movie.

On Friday, February 4th, you can watch another crazy science fiction movie if you are up to it, but be prepared. Moonfall has the following premise from Movieinsider.com:

In Moonfall, a mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it. With mere weeks before impact and the world on the brink of annihilation, NASA executive and former astronaut Jo Fowler (Academy Award® winner Halle Berry) is convinced she has the key to saving us all – but only one astronaut from her past, Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson, “Midway”) and a conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman (John Bradley, “Game of Thrones”) believes her. These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving behind everyone they love, only to find out that our Moon is not what we think it is.

Moonfall has plenty of stars, as was the case with the earlier disaster film Don’t Look Up. That said, I think you can just sit back and let this one wash over you without worrying about any science. I doubt NASA needed to be consulted on this one. In fact, late last week NASA sent out the following tweet:

At only ~240,000 miles away, our nearest neighbor affects our life here on Earth. Here are a few reasons why we’re grateful the Moon is stable in its orbit (no offense @MoonfallFilm)

After you enjoy the show, you may want to check out what is planned for the Moon as part of the Artemis Program. This accompanying video by NASA, How We Are Going to the Moon, is pretty dramatic all by itself (with the Moon remaining in orbit, of course).

Source: NASA.