Hey ET, Are You Out There? Kepler Helps SETI Tune In

From AOL News.

The needle-in-a-haystack search for extraterrestrial signals has narrowed a bit, thanks to NASA's Kepler spacecraft.

Scientists announced that, of the 1,235 candidate planets discovered by Kepler, 54 of them were in what's known as the Goldilocks zone, a region close enough to its home sun where a planet may harbor life.

When NASA informed the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) of these possibilities, the California-based institute turned the Allen Telescope Array in the location of those planets and began listening for any signs or signals of intelligent life.

NASA / Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images

This picture released Oct. 4, 2006, by the European Space Agency shows half of the Hubble Space Telescope field of view revealing millions of stars, including nine that are orbited by planets with periods of a few days. Planets so close to their stars with such short orbital periods are called "hot Jupiters." These are considered "candidate" exoplanets -- planets that orbit stars other than our own.

SETI senior astronomer Seth Shostak says he and his colleagues were thrilled about the prospect of 54 possible habitable planets.

"Well, that is obviously great! Although we've known about planets, the big question is always how many of those planets are, in fact, possibly cousins of Earth, that could support life?

"It's nice to know that they're not extraordinarily rare. If you'd asked this question 50 years ago -- and it was asked -- they had to sort of guess at whether planets like Earth were common or otherwise," Shostak told AOL News.

All of the data gathered from the Kepler mission suggests that Earth-like planets are not as rare as once thought. Shostak explains that the candidate numbers are pretty huge.

"It's the percentage of star systems that might have a world something like Earth. It's not one in a million, it's not one in 100,000, it's not even one in 1,000. Every 100 star systems are going to have a couple of these guys, and maybe more."

NASA

This artist's composite shows the Kepler spacecraft in a star field with the sun, moon and Earth. For those of us who are eager to learn about the discovery of life on another planet, Shostak reminds us that, even though Kepler has given us an initial 54 to consider, there's no guarantee of finding an alien civilization on any of them.

"All it means is that maybe a lot of them have life, but how much of that life is at the stage of being technically able to get in touch with you?" he pointed out.

"Of course, we will look at every planet that they find that has any chance of having some sort of complex life on it. But to me, the big picture is something else: Since these sorts of worlds occur on the percent level, that means there are literally billions of candidates for being Earth's cousins in the Milky Way. And billions is a big number!"

So far, after their initial telescopic survey of the planets found by Kepler, SETI scientists haven't yet detected that smoking-gun alien signal.

"It could've turned out that planets were rare -- well, that's not true. It could've turned out that Earth-like planets are rare -- there's no indication that's true, either," said Shostak.

"For 50 years, we've been saying intelligent life might be reasonably common. It might not be a miracle, and we might not be the only kids on the block."

Snow, Again

Hello Troops,
My glance at the weather put me in a foul mood, and that's not a good way to start a day. Snow, yes it's more snow headed our way just in time for the weekend.

The only way to rescue the good mood I had is to see what's happening in the Imaginarium.

The first step in feeling much better about the coming snow is to treat yourself to a cupcake or two. Take these for instance from Dr. Who.


Let's not forget germs. With the winter comes the flu, bronchitis and the common cold. It is recommended you wash your hands regularly, or use hand sanitizer. If neither is available there is always a third option.
(and in the interest if safety, do not try this at home. Boiling water will burn you and then your hand will fall off. Just a note for those of you that suffer from a serious lack of common sense).

And finally, the best way to walk through mountains of newly fallen snow. Take this lesson from the Imperial Forces and the planet Hoth.


Have a Great Day Troops and don't let the snow get you down.

Mr. W.

It's Engineering Week. News from Utah's Top Engineering School

Hello Troops,
It's Engineering Week nationwide. Engineering students from coast to coast are celebrating the only way engineering students can - creatively.

Julie Anna is a volunteer at the Space Center and an engineering student at USU in Logan. I asked Julie to send regular updates for The Troubadour, realizing many of you may choose engineering as your career choice, and might like a glimpse into the world of an engineering student. Please take a moment to read and appreciate the field of engineering. Engineering is an expanding field that needs bright students like you.

Thanks Julie for taking the time to keep our readers updated on USU's activities.

Mr. W.

Report on Engineering Week. Utah State University

By
~Julie of the North

This is Julie of the North, special on site reporter for the Troubadour, reporting live from Utah State University. Today marks the opening day of Engineering Week, and it has been fabulous so far. Free breakfast consisting of muffins, bananas and milk was provided for all the brave souls willing to venture up to the third floor of the Engineering Building.

Throughout the day, massive amounts of ferrous fluid were found in the engineering atrium for all the engineers to experiment with, examine, and play with. Ferrous fluid is liquid that is magnetic. When it is introduced to a magnetic field the density of the liquid changes. The surface of the ferrous fluid provides an almost frictionless surface for magnets, so it is possible to sling magnets across a table incredibly fast. When I squirted ferrous fluid onto a magnet it formed spikes and interesting patterns. It is also possible to gather the ferrous fluid together and form a sort of gel with it due to the magnetic properties. When I touched these gel masses, they felt like gummy candies. The one bad thing about ferrous liquids is that they stain really badly, so there are many engineers wandering through the halls with brown spots on their hands and arms. I feel like I got turned into a Dalmatian.

The next stop for the day was going to my engineering class. I am taking Thermodynamics and we started learning about what happens when a gas or liquid is pushed through a chamber with inlets and outlets, like a nozzle or a turbine. Although classes aren’t always as much fun as some of the more social activities of an engineer, they teach us the building blocks in order to do what we do best, create and imagine. My classes remind me that engineering is a way of life, not just something fun every now and then. After class, I was treated to free Aggie ice cream, once again provided by the College of Engineering, and I got my favorite flavor, Aggie Blue Mint! For all of you down in Utah County who have never had Aggie Blue Mint, it is worth the trip to Logan just to eat it.

The day continued with club competitions. Today the competitions were Paper Tower sponsored by ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) and the Edible Car sponsored by ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers). My roommate and I participated in both of them. The rules for the Paper Tower are that you get two Statesmans (the on-campus newspaper) and a yard of tape and you get to build for 10 minutes. There are prizes for the tallest tower and the most aesthetically pleasing. We made a pyramid shaped tower, but we ran out of paper before we could complete the pyramid, so our tower didn’t really support itself. Later, there were some engineers on the floor who were analyzing the structure of our tower, and they decided that if we had more paper, then it would have been an awesome structure.

We were going to make our car out of rice crispies, but we didn’t make it to the store, so we made it out of materials provided by ASME. We made the body of our car out of a carrot. We also carved axels out of carrots, but they were incredibly flimsy and started bending so we switched to pasta noodles instead. We used cookies for the wheels, life savers for supports, and gummy strawberries for the wheel caps. Our car completed the race in 3 seconds (which is somewhere between 3^rd and 4^th place), but we were most excited that our car actually survived the race to the finish line! Another cool feature about our carrot car, lovingly named Han Solo II (Han Solo I was made during last year’s engineering week, and didn’t survive out of the freezer), is that it is equally good upside down as it is right side up.

Tonight will be the first episode of nerds vs. zombies, an epic battle taking place inside the engineering buildings on campus. I will be sure to let you know all about it.

Happy Engineering Week! Make sure that you all do something nerdy to celebrate!