SolarImpulse - Bertrand Piccard just took off to Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania!

SolarImpulse - Around The World patch.

May 25, 2016

Solar Impulse 2 rose from the Dayton International Airport tarmac with Bertrand Piccard in the cockpit. Direction: Lehigh Valley International Airport. He took off from Dayton, Ohio at 8:02 AM UTC, 10:02 AM CET, 4:02 AM EDT for a journey that is expected to last 17 hours until reaching his destination. It was important that we leave Dayton, Ohio early, as clouds are expected to follow Si2’s path during the first part of the flight.

Solar Impulse 2 in flight

Join our adventure with the plane, pilot and Mission Control Center in Monaco through our LIVE experience we have designed for you that can be found on our website: http://www.solarimpulse.com/leg-13-from-Dayton-to-Lehigh_Valley

For more information about SolarImpulse Around The World, visit:  http://blog.solarimpulse.com/

Image, Text, Credit: SolarImpulse.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Telescopes Find Clues For How Giant Black Holes Formed So Quickly

NASA - Spitzer Space Telescope patch / NASA - Chandra X-ray Observatory patch / NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch.

May 24, 2016

Using data from NASA’s Great Observatories, astronomers have found the best evidence yet for cosmic seeds in the early universe that should grow into supermassive black holes.

Researchers combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer Space Telescope to identify these possible black hole seeds. They discuss their findings in a paper that will appear in an upcoming issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

“Our discovery, if confirmed, explains how these monster black holes were born,” said Fabio Pacucci of Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS) in Pisa, Italy, who led the study. “We found evidence that supermassive black hole seeds can form directly from the collapse of a giant gas cloud, skipping any intermediate steps.”

Scientists believe a supermassive black hole lies in the center of nearly all large galaxies, including our own Milky Way. They have found that some of these supermassive black holes, which contain millions or even billions of times the mass of the sun, formed less than a billion years after the start of the universe in the Big Bang.

Images above: This illustration represents the best evidence to date that the direct collapse of a gas cloud produced supermassive black holes in the early Universe. Researchers combined data from NASA’s Chandra, Hubble, and Spitzer telescopes to make this discovery. Images Credits: NASA/CXC/STScI.

One theory suggests black hole seeds were built up by pulling in gas from their surroundings and by mergers of smaller black holes, a process that should take much longer than found for these quickly forming black holes.

These new findings suggest instead that some of the first black holes formed directly when a cloud of gas collapsed, bypassing any other intermediate phases, such as the formation and subsequent destruction of a massive star.

“There is a lot of controversy over which path these black holes take,” said co-author Andrea Ferrara, also of SNS. “Our work suggests we are narrowing in on an answer, where the black holes start big and grow at the normal rate, rather than starting small and growing at a very fast rate.”

The researchers used computer models of black hole seeds combined with a new method to select candidates for these objects from long-exposure images from Chandra, Hubble, and Spitzer.

The team found two strong candidates for black hole seeds. Both of these matched the theoretical profile in the infrared data, including being very red objects, and also emit X-rays detected with Chandra. Estimates of their distance suggest they may have been formed when the universe was less than a billion years old

“Black hole seeds are extremely hard to find and confirming their detection is very difficult,” said Andrea Grazian, a co-author from the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy. “However, we think our research has uncovered the two best candidates to date.”

The team plans to obtain further observations in X-rays and the infrared to check whether these objects have more of the properties expected for black hole seeds. Upcoming observatories, such as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope will aid in future studies by detecting the light from more distant and smaller black holes. Scientists currently are building the theoretical framework needed to interpret the upcoming data, with the aim of finding the first black holes in the universe.

“As scientists, we cannot say at this point that our model is ‘the one’,” said Pacucci. “What we really believe is that our model is able to reproduce the observations without requiring unreasonable assumptions.”

Chandra X-ray Observatory. Image Credits: NASA/CXC

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program while the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

Hubble and the sunrise over Earth. Video Credit: ESA

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington.

Spitzer Space Telescope. Image Credits: NASA/JPL

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission, whose science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado.

Related link:

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.08522

For more on NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/chandra

For more on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, visit:

    http://www.nasa.gov/hubble
    https://www.spacetelescope.org/
    http://hubblesite.org/

For more on NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Felicia Chou/Sean Potter/Karen Northon.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA Scientist Suggests Possible Link Between Primordial Black Holes and Dark Matter

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center logo.

May 24, 2016

Dark matter is a mysterious substance composing most of the material universe, now widely thought to be some form of massive exotic particle. An intriguing alternative view is that dark matter is made of black holes formed during the first second of our universe's existence, known as primordial black holes. Now a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, suggests that this interpretation aligns with our knowledge of cosmic infrared and X-ray background glows and may explain the unexpectedly high masses of merging black holes detected last year.

"This study is an effort to bring together a broad set of ideas and observations to test how well they fit, and the fit is surprisingly good," said Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA Goddard. "If this is correct, then all galaxies, including our own, are embedded within a vast sphere of black holes each about 30 times the sun's mass." 

In 2005, Kashlinsky led a team of astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to explore the background glow of infrared light in one part of the sky. The researchers reported excessive patchiness in the glow and concluded it was likely caused by the aggregate light of the first sources to illuminate the universe more than 13 billion years ago. Follow-up studies confirmed that this cosmic infrared background (CIB) showed similar unexpected structure in other parts of the sky.

 Fig-1

Fig-2

Image above: Fig-1 This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows an infrared view of a sky area in the constellation Ursa Major. Fig-2: After masking out all known stars, galaxies and artifacts and enhancing what's left, an irregular background glow appears. This is the cosmic infrared background (CIB); lighter colors indicate brighter areas. The CIB glow is more irregular than can be explained by distant unresolved galaxies, and this excess structure is thought to be light emitted when the universe was less than a billion years old. Scientists say it likely originated from the first luminous objects to form in the universe, which includes both the first stars and black holes. Images Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Kashlinsky (Goddard).

In 2013, another study compared how the cosmic X-ray background (CXB) detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory compared to the CIB in the same area of the sky. The first stars emitted mainly optical and ultraviolet light, which today is stretched into the infrared by the expansion of space, so they should not contribute significantly to the CXB.

Yet the irregular glow of low-energy X-rays in the CXB matched the patchiness of the CIB quite well. The only object we know of that can be sufficiently luminous across this wide an energy range is a black hole. The research team concluded that primordial black holes must have been abundant among the earliest stars, making up at least about one out of every five of the sources contributing to the CIB.

The nature of dark matter remains one of the most important unresolved issues in astrophysics. Scientists currently favor theoretical models that explain dark matter as an exotic massive particle, but so far searches have failed to turn up evidence these hypothetical particles actually exist. NASA is currently investigating this issue as part of its Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope missions.

"These studies are providing increasingly sensitive results, slowly shrinking the box of parameters where dark matter particles can hide," Kashlinsky said. "The failure to find them has led to renewed interest in studying how well primordial black holes -- black holes formed in the universe's first fraction of a second -- could work as dark matter."

Physicists have outlined several ways in which the hot, rapidly expanding universe could produce primordial black holes in the first thousandths of a second after the Big Bang. The older the universe is when these mechanisms take hold, the larger the black holes can be. And because the window for creating them lasts only a tiny fraction of the first second, scientists expect primordial black holes would exhibit a narrow range of masses.

On Sept. 14, gravitational waves produced by a pair of merging black holes 1.3 billion light-years away were captured by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) facilities in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana. This event marked the first-ever detection of gravitational waves as well as the first direct detection of black holes. The signal provided LIGO scientists with information about the masses of the individual black holes, which were 29 and 36 times the sun's mass, plus or minus about four solar masses. These values were both unexpectedly large and surprisingly similar.

"Depending on the mechanism at work, primordial black holes could have properties very similar to what LIGO detected," Kashlinsky explained. "If we assume this is the case, that LIGO caught a merger of black holes formed in the early universe, we can look at the consequences this has on our understanding of how the cosmos ultimately evolved."

What the first LIGO detection would look like up close

Video above: Primordial black holes, if they exist, could be similar to the merging black holes detected by the LIGO team in 2014. This computer simulation shows in slow motion what this merger would have looked like up close. The ring around the black holes, called an Einstein ring, arises from all the stars in a small region directly behind the holes whose light is distorted by gravitational lensing. The gravitational waves detected by LIGO are not shown in this video, although their effects can be seen in the Einstein ring. Gravitational waves traveling out behind the black holes disturb stellar images comprising the Einstein ring, causing them to slosh around in the ring even long after the merger is complete. Gravitational waves traveling in other directions cause weaker, shorter-lived sloshing everywhere outside the Einstein ring. If played back in real time, the movie would last about a third of a second. Video Credit: SXS Lensing.

In his new paper, published May 24 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Kashlinsky analyzes what might have happened if dark matter consisted of a population of black holes similar to those detected by LIGO. The black holes distort the distribution of mass in the early universe, adding a small fluctuation that has consequences hundreds of millions of years later, when the first stars begin to form.

For much of the universe's first 500 million years, normal matter remained too hot to coalesce into the first stars. Dark matter was unaffected by the high temperature because, whatever its nature, it primarily interacts through gravity. Aggregating by mutual attraction, dark matter first collapsed into clumps called minihaloes, which provided a gravitational seed enabling normal matter to accumulate. Hot gas collapsed toward the minihaloes, resulting in pockets of gas dense enough to further collapse on their own into the first stars. Kashlinsky shows that if black holes play the part of dark matter, this process occurs more rapidly and easily produces the lumpiness of the CIB detected in Spitzer data even if only a small fraction of minihaloes manage to produce stars.

As cosmic gas fell into the minihaloes, their constituent black holes would naturally capture some of it too. Matter falling toward a black hole heats up and ultimately produces X-rays. Together, infrared light from the first stars and X-rays from gas falling into dark matter black holes can account for the observed agreement between the patchiness of the CIB and the CXB.

Occasionally, some primordial black holes will pass close enough to be gravitationally captured into binary systems. The black holes in each of these binaries will, over eons,  emit gravitational radiation, lose orbital energy and spiral inward, ultimately merging into a larger black hole like the event LIGO observed.

"Future LIGO observing runs will tell us much more about the universe's population of black holes, and it won't be long before we'll know if the scenario I outline is either supported or ruled out," Kashlinsky said.

Kashlinsky leads science team centered at Goddard that is participating in the European Space Agency's Euclid mission, which is currently scheduled to launch in 2020. The project, named LIBRAE, will enable the observatory to probe source populations in the CIB with high precision and determine what portion was produced by black holes.

Related article:

Fermi data tantalize with new clues to dark matter
http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2014/04/fermi-data-tantalize-with-new-clues-to.html

Related links:

Chandra X-ray Observatory: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/main/index.html

Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer: http://www.nasa.gov/content/researchers-make-progress-in-the-hunt-for-dark-matter-through-space-station-particle

Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope: http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/

The Astrophysical Journal Letters: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8205/823/2/L25

The project LIBRAE: http://www.euclid.caltech.edu/page/Kashlinsky%20Team

European Space Agency's Euclid mission: http://sci.esa.int/euclid/

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Francis Reddy/Ashley Morrow.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Solarimpulse - Flight to Lehigh Valley Postponed

SolarImpulse - Around The World patch.

 May 24, 2016

Solar Impulse with Bertrand Piccard at the controls was planned to fly from Dayton towards Lehigh Valley KABE on Tuesday morning (Dayton Time) May 24 Th.

SolarImpulse Team we experienced a brief cabinet failure which distributes the fan power needed to keep the mobile hangar inflated.

This lasted approximately 2.5 minutes. During the time it took to reboot the system, some parts of the airplane were lightly touched by the deflating hangar fabric.

Solar Impulse 2 mobile hangar

After a first check by the engineers, we do not see any damage. However this will have to be studied more carefully over the next few days and as such the flight from Dayton to LeHigh Valley has to be postponed.

Let’s remember that airplane safety and risk mitigation is of paramount importance and hence we want to ensure that the structures that were touched are in perfect working order.

For more information about SolarImpulse Around The World, visit: http://blog.solarimpulse.com/

Image, Text, Credit: SolarImpulse.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

And Yet It Moves: 14 Galileo Satellites Now In Orbit

ARIANESPACE / ESA - Galileo 13 & 14 - Flight VS15 Mission poster.

24 May 2016

Galileo VS15 liftoff

Named for the astronomer who pinpointed Earth’s true position in the Solar System, the Galileo satellite navigation system that will help Europe find its way in the 21st century now has 14 satellites in orbit after today’s double launch.

Galileos 13 and 14 lifted off together at 08:48 GMT (10:48 CEST, 05:48 local time) atop a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana.

Galileo VS15 liftoff replay

This seventh Galileo launch went by the book: the first three Soyuz stages placed the satellites safely into low orbit, after which their Fregat upper stage hauled them the rest of the way into their target medium-altitude orbit.

The twin Galileos were deployed into orbit close to 23 522 km altitude, at 3 hours and 48 minutes after liftoff. The coming days will see a careful sequence of orbital fine-tuning to bring them to their final working orbit, followed by a testing phase so that they can join the working constellation later this year. 

Galileo satellites atop Soyuz

“Today’s textbook launch has added two more satellites to what has become Europe’s largest satellite constellation,” commented Jan Woerner, Director General of ESA.

“It was made possible by the fact that European industry’s manufacturing and testing of Galileo satellites has achieved a steady tempo.”

“Today’s launch brings Europe’s Galileo constellation halfway to completion, in terms of numbers,” remarked Paul Verhoef, ESA’s Director of the Galileo Programme and Navigation-related Activities. 

Galileos on dispenser

“It is also significant as Galileo’s last flight by Soyuz this year before the first launch using a customised Ariane 5 to carry four rather than two satellites each time – which is set to occur this autumn. 

“Meanwhile, hard work is proceeding behind the scenes to ensure the worldwide Galileo system, including its far-flung ground stations, is reliable, secure and robust for the start of operational services to users.”

About Galileo

Galileo is Europe’s civil global satellite navigation system. It will allow users worldwide to know their exact position in time and space with great precision and reliability. Once complete, the system will consist of 24 operational satellites and the ground infrastructure for the provision of positioning, navigation and timing services.

The Galileo programme is funded and owned by the EU. The European Commission has the overall responsibility for the programme, managing and overseeing the implementation of all programme activities.  

Galileo satellite

Galileo’s deployment, the design and development of the new generation of systems and the technical development of infrastructure are entrusted to ESA. The definition, development and in-orbit validation phases were carried out by ESA, and co-funded by ESA and the European Commission.

The European Global Navigation Satellite System Agency (GSA) is ensuring the uptake and security of Galileo. Galileo operations and provision of services will be entrusted to the GSA from 2017.

Related links:

Launching Galileo website: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Navigation/The_future_-_Galileo/Launching_Galileo

Galileo Tour: http://esamultimedia.esa.int/multimedia/Galileo_tour/galileo.swf?lang=gb&mylang=gb

EC Galileo website: http://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/space/galileo/index_en.htm

European GNSS Agency: http://www.gsa.europa.eu/

Images, Video, Text,Credits: ESA/Pierre Carril/CNES/ARIANESPACE-Optique Video du CSG, P. Piron, JM Guillon.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

From Space to Sea to Scientists: SpaceX Return of Samples Marks Next Step in One-Year Mission Science

ISS - International Space Station patch / SpaceX - CRS-8 Dragon Mission patch.

May 23, 2016

International Space Station (ISS). Image Credits: NASA/STS-132

More than one thousand tubes of blood, urine, and saliva made their way back to Earth from the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX-8 Dragon capsule, signaling an exciting next step for the scientists leading research for the recently completed One Year Mission. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko returned to Earth from their yearlong mission aboard the orbiting laboratory more than two months ago, but many of the samples critical to the continuation of research have only just made their way back to labs this week.

“[It’s] like Christmas in May, with frost to boot,” said Scott M. Smith, who holds a doctorate in nutrition and is a principal investigator of the Biochemical Profile investigation.

Smith was referring to the specialized cold stowage needed to safely transport temperature-sensitive samples. After being collected in space, crew members store the samples in the Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI). The tubes are transferred to either powered freezers or insulated coolers with special ice packs which are then packed inside the SpaceX Dragon capsule to be returned to Earth.

Image above: Members of the Cold Stowage Lab unpack samples of blood, urine and saliva that returned aboard SpaceX-8. Samples are kept on dry ice as they are delivered to science team members. Image Credit: NASA.

“SpaceX provides our primary capability for sample return, allowing us to bring home freezer bags and powered freezers containing samples,” said chief scientist for the space station, Julie Robinson, who holds a doctorate in Biology.

After splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, the Dragon capsule was loaded onto a ship and taken to shore in Long Beach, California. Members of NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) Cold Stowage team transferred the samples to a charter aircraft, where portable, powered freezers awaited. While some investigators were on hand in California to retrieve their samples directly from the Cold Stowage team aboard the aircraft, most of the precious cargo was flown back to Houston for distribution at JSC.

“Samples coming home on Space-X include samples from a variety of human experiments,” said Robinson. “Most notably blood, urine and saliva collected from the crew for the One-Year Mission and Twins Study.”

Studies supported by the samples coming back in this batch include Biochemical Profile, Cardio Ox, Fluid Shifts, Microbiome, Salivary Markers and the Twins Study. A point of contact for each study was on hand to receive the samples from JSC’s Cold Stowage team.

“The inventory process is actually pretty intense,” said Smith.

Members of the Cold Stowage team hand samples off to researchers, who are assigned time slots for retrieving their precious cargo.

“We inventory and check every tube serial number against what we expected,” said Smith. “Once we have all of [our samples], and are sure we don’t have anything we’re not supposed to, official documents are signed, and we bag them up to carry back to the lab.”

Once back in their lab, also onsite at JSC, Smith’s team will unpack and re-inventory everything once again, to ensure nothing was lost in the dry ice or during the return to the Nutritional Biochemistry Lab. From there, the samples will be packed in laboratory minus eighty-degree freezers until further preparation for analysis.

Image above: Scott M. Smith and members of the Nutritional Biochemistry Laboratory inventory samples returned on SpaceX-8. Image Credit: NASA.

Stuart Lee, who holds a doctorate in Kinesiology, and is the principal investigator for the Cardio Ox and Cardio Ox Twins investigations, said many of the samples will be shared between his and Smith’s biochemical profiles investigation. Lee said that seven subjects have completed their mission for cardio ox, but samples for only three of those have been previously returned to Earth.

“Given that, we will more than double the amount of data that we have for Cardio Ox with this sample return,” said Lee. “Of course, we also get the excitement of starting to receive the data from the One-Year Mission.”

Lee said that up until now, scientists’ data have described the effects of spaceflight from the typical six-month missions to the space station, but data from the One-Year Mission samples will change that.

“This will be NASA’s first glimpse at the effects of space travel which start to approach that which we might expect from a Mars mission,” said Lee. “These data may provide clues as to whether we can expect more, or more extreme, changes as mission duration increases.”

Samples for the Twins Study, in which Kelly and his identical twin brother, retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, participated, also returned on SpaceX-8. The blood and urine components of those studies offer new molecular analyses for investigators.

Image above: The SpaceX Dragon splashed down at 11:51 a.m. PT in the Pacific Ocean on May 11, returning 1,300 pounds of science. Image Credit: SpaceX.

“With these samples,” said Lee. “we will have pilot data to understand spaceflight effects on and linkages between genetic expression, protein expression, and physiology, improving our understanding of the cardiovascular system in space as well as astronauts’ ophthalmologic issues.”

This batch of samples includes the final collection returning from space for the One-Year Mission investigations. While some of the investigations include several data collections in the year – or longer – beyond the crew’s return to Earth, analysis of the returning samples can begin, in most cases, when they reach the scientists’ laboratories. The Twins Study investigators have agreed to wait until after the return plus six-month data collection completes in September 2016, Smith said.

Smith said organization, tracking and careful planning is critical to successful analysis. Thought has to be given to samples that can only be thawed one time, and samples that need to be run at the same time as those collected before and after flight, to reduce variability.

“We analyze over 100 chemicals in each blood sample, and over 30 in each urine sample,” said Smith. “We try to have samples available for the folks analyzing them as quickly as possible. Nonetheless, depending on the type of test, and number of samples – it can take quite a bit of time.”

With samples being delivered to investigators across the country, Smith remains optimistic that the bulk of testing on these samples will be completed by the end of the year.

“[The research is] very carefully plotted out and planned, reviewed, documented and then executed,” said Smith. “We only get one shot at this.”

Related links:

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/overview.html

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

One-Year Crew: https://www.nasa.gov/content/one-year-crew/index.html

Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer for ISS (MELFI): http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/58.html

Biochemical Profile: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1008.html

Cardio Ox: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/heart_health_cardio_ox

Fluid Shifts: http://www.nasa.gov/content/fluid-shifts-study-advances-journey-to-mars

Microbiome: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1010.html

Salivary Markers: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1009.html

Twins Study: https://www.nasa.gov/twins-study

Commercial Resupply: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/index.html

One-Year Crew: https://www.nasa.gov/content/one-year-crew/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA’s Johnson Space Center/Kristine Rainey/International Space Station Program Science Office/Rachel Hobson.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA: Solar Storms May Have Been Key to Life on Earth

NASA - Kepler Space Telescope logo.

May 23, 2016

Our sun's adolescence was stormy—and new evidence shows that these tempests may have been just the key to seeding life as we know it.

Some 4 billion years ago, the sun shone with only about three-quarters the brightness we see today, but its surface roiled with giant eruptions spewing enormous amounts of solar material and radiation out into space. These powerful solar explosions may have provided the crucial energy needed to warm Earth, despite the sun's faintness. The eruptions also may have furnished the energy needed to turn simple molecules into the complex molecules such as RNA and DNA that were necessary for life. The research was published in Nature Geoscience on May 23, 2016, by a team of scientists from NASA.

The Faint Young Star Paradox: Solar Storms May Have Been Key to Life on Earth

Video above: Watch this movie to see how energy from our young sun – 4 billion years ago -- aided in creating molecules in Earth's atmosphere that allowed it to warm up enough to incubate life. Video Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Genna Duberstein.

Understanding what conditions were necessary for life on our planet helps us both trace the origins of life on Earth and guide the search for life on other planets. Until now, however, fully mapping Earth's evolution has been hindered by the simple fact that the young sun wasn't luminous enough to warm Earth.

"Back then, Earth received only about 70 percent of the energy from the sun than it does today," said Vladimir Airapetian, lead author of the paper and a solar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "That means Earth should have been an icy ball. Instead, geological evidence says it was a warm globe with liquid water. We call this the Faint Young Sun Paradox. Our new research shows that solar storms could have been central to warming Earth."

Scientists are able to piece together the history of the sun by searching for similar stars in our galaxy. By placing these sun-like stars in order according to their age, the stars appear as a functional timeline of how our own sun evolved. It is from this kind of data that scientists know the sun was fainter 4 billion years ago. Such studies also show that young stars frequently produce powerful flares – giant bursts of light and radiation -- similar to the flares we see on our own sun today. Such flares are often accompanied by huge clouds of solar material, called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, which erupt out into space.

NASA's Kepler mission found stars that resemble our sun about a few million years after its birth. The Kepler data showed many examples of what are called "superflares" – enormous explosions so rare today that we only experience them once every 100 years or so. Yet the Kepler data also show these youngsters producing as many as ten superflares a day.

Solar superflares

While our sun still produces flares and CMEs, they are not so frequent or intense. What's more, Earth today has a strong magnetic field that helps keep the bulk of the energy from such space weather from reaching Earth. Space weather can, however, significantly disturb a magnetic bubble around our planet, the magnetosphere, a phenomenon referred to as geomagnetic storms that can affect radio communications and our satellites in space. It also creates auroras – most often in a narrow region near the poles where Earth's magnetic fields bow down to touch the planet.

Our young Earth, however, had a weaker magnetic field, with a much wider footprint near the poles.

"Our calculations show that you would have regularly seen auroras all the way down in South Carolina," says Airapetian. "And as the particles from the space weather traveled down the magnetic field lines, they would have slammed into abundant nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere. Changing the atmosphere's chemistry turns out to have made all the difference for life on Earth."

The atmosphere of early Earth was also different than it is now: Molecular nitrogen – that is, two nitrogen atoms bound together into a molecule – made up 90 percent of the atmosphere, compared to only 78 percent today. As energetic particles slammed into these nitrogen molecules, the impact broke them up into individual nitrogen atoms. They, in turn, collided with carbon dioxide, separating those molecules into carbon monoxide and oxygen.

The free-floating nitrogen and oxygen combined into nitrous oxide, which is a powerful greenhouse gas. When it comes to warming the atmosphere, nitrous oxide is some 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The teams’ calculations show that if the early atmosphere housed less than one percent as much nitrous oxide as it did carbon dioxide, it would warm the planet enough for liquid water to exist.

This newly discovered constant influx of solar particles to early Earth may have done more than just warm the atmosphere, it may also have provided the energy needed to make complex chemicals. In a planet scattered evenly with simple molecules, it takes a huge amount of incoming energy to create the complex molecules such as RNA and DNA that eventually seeded life.

Kepler Space Telescope

While enough energy appears to be hugely important for a growing planet, too much would also be an issue -- a constant chain of solar eruptions producing showers of particle radiation can be quite detrimental. Such an onslaught of magnetic clouds can rip off a planet's atmosphere if the magnetosphere is too weak. Understanding these kinds of balances help scientists determine what kinds of stars and what kinds of planets could be hospitable for life.

"We want to gather all this information together, how close a planet is to the star, how energetic the star is, how strong the planet's magnetosphere is in order to help search for habitable planets around stars near our own and throughout the galaxy," said William Danchi, principal investigator of the project at Goddard and a co-author on the paper. "This work includes scientists from many fields -- those who study the sun, the stars, the planets, chemistry and biology. Working together we can create a robust description of what the early days of our home planet looked like – and where life might exist elsewhere."

For more information about the Kepler mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

Images, Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Karen C. Fox/Rob Garner.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch