The Second Earth !

The search for a second Earth has long enthralled readers of science fiction. What rich and varied life could it contain? What would such a discovery mean for humanity's own place in the Universe? How many similar planets are out there? The question is more than a philosophical puzzle, and it comes with a hard scientific edge that should be considered sooner rather than later. As the search for planets beyond the Solar System widens and public interest in the quest grows, at which point should astronomers declare the hunt for another Earth a success?

Hundreds of candidate planets have been identified, and some have been profiled, if not as a second Earth, then as signs that the search is heading in the right direction. Last month, NASA announced the discovery of the smallest extrasolar planet yet: Kepler-10b, which has 1.4 times the diameter and 4.6 times the mass of Earth, and was discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Although the planet orbits too close to its star to support life, the news was heralded by some media outlets as a landmark in the search for a new Earth, particularly because Kepler-10b is the first exoplanet with a dense and rocky core.
Attention on Kepler's mission will intensify again this week, as NASA publicly releases a batch of its data. The satellite focuses on a single point in the sky, where it can keep track of some 150,000 stars. Kepler observes the decrease in the brightness of these stars as planets pass in front of, or 'transit', them, and the findings are used to target telescopes on the ground.
It takes three to four such confirmed transits before astronomers are confident that they have found a planet, which makes it too soon to be sure whether Kepler has found a world truly similar to Earth. (By definition, Earth-like planets orbiting a star similar to the Sun pass in front of their stars about once a year, and Kepler has only been in place for about 18 months). All exoplanets confirmed to date orbit much closer to their stars than does Earth; they are too close for conditions to allow the existence of liquid water, which is what defines a star's 'habitable zone'.
As more data are analysed, they will probably produce a string of reports of ever-smaller planets, until we get an Earth-sized example. Many of these small planets are likely to orbit M-dwarfs, by far the most numerous type of star in the Universe. The habitable zone around these stars is very narrow, but Kepler may find a rocky planet there. Would that be the first Earth-like planet? Probably not if, as seems likely, it were to be tidally locked, so that one side faced permanently towards the star.
What about planets that orbit larger stars? Does a first Earth-like planet have to orbit in the habitable zone of a G2-type star, similar to the Sun? If so, must the planet be Earth-sized? And is the focus on a habitable zone defined in terms of liquid water appropriate? As the Universe reveals its secrets, we discover it to be a more diverse and stranger place than we had anticipated. Would it be so odd to conceive of life on a dry or frozen world? Must the first Earth-like planet be capable of supporting life, or human life in particular?
The answers to these questions are important because the public-relations rewards of planet-hunting — and planet-finding — are great. The temptation to hype each discovery is equally large, but so is the scope for confusion and public scorn, especially given the rabid response on some blogs to NASA announcements. Set the bar for 'Earth-like' planets too low, and a string of repeated discoveries could be overwhelming. Set the bar too high, and a planet that meets the strict criteria may not emerge at all. If that were to happen, the Kepler mission would risk being viewed as a failure — which it most certainly is not.
Amid the excitement of exploring a new frontier, astronomers should pause to consider the public reaction to their work. Then they should decide how a standard should be set. Perhaps a reasonable starting point would be to define an Earth-like planet as one of similar size to Earth, orbiting in the habitable zone of any star, and not tidally locked. More important than the details of the definition is that the relevant criteria are established before the claims start to pile up. To announce the discovery of the first Earth-like planet would be a stunning success. To announce it more than once could look like carelessness.

Hunting for Earth-like Alien Planets- Q & A with Astronomer Geoff Marcy

Since astronomers discovered the first planet beyond our own solar system back in 1992, they've been on somewhat of a roll — the tally now tops 500.And the finds are about to ramp up dramatically. NASA's planet-hunting Kepler mission will make much of its data public. A press conference will follow tomorrow, during which researchers are expected to announce intriguing new information about many more possible alien planets.Humanity thus appears poised to enter a productive new era in the study of alien worlds. One man leading the charge is Geoff Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Kepler co-investigator.
Marcy has had a hand in finding more alien planets than anyone else. He helped spot 70 of the first 100. He also found the first multi-planet system around a sun-like star, and he discovered the first planet that transits — or passes in front of — its star from our perspective on Earth.SPACE.com caught up with Marcy last month in Seattle, at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society, to chat about the accelerating pace of planet discovery, what we still don't know about alien worlds and whether there might be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
SPACE.com: What has led to the recent explosion in alien planet discoveries? Is it primarily better instrumentation, or better techniques?
Marcy: Well, let me give you a different vantage point. There is a bunch of astronomers who've been working really hard, and they're really innovative, pushing on the frontier technically, pushing on the frontier in terms of the science. And basically burning the midnight oil, essentially literally. I'm giving you the human component of all of this, because sometimes you don't get to see it.
What sometimes gets lost in the shuffle when a nice result shows up on all of the Web pages and the newspapers around the world — what you don't realize is to get that result meant that five or 10 people were burning that midnight oil, trimming the errors down to the point that the Earth-size planets are detectable.
It's easy to dismiss the discoveries as, "Oh, it's new computers, or it's new optics." These things happen because amazing people dream and then put their dreams into perspiration-dripping action.
SPACE.com: So if we were to have this conversation in 20 years, where do you think the total exoplanet count would stand?
Marcy: Honestly, Kepler's so good that it's hard to beat it. It gets the numbers. Kepler's going to find thousands. There's going to be another follow-up to Kepler, either from Europe or the U.S. or both. They'll find thousands. I bet by 2020, there'll be 10,000 planets, and by 2030 there might be another 20,000 or 30,000 more planets.
SPACE.com: Will this discovery arc we're on now continue to go up exponentially, or will it plateau?
Marcy: It'll plateau, because you can't do much better than Kepler. But let's be fair here. It's not the number of planets we care about; it's the quality. We want the Earth-size. We want planets in the habitable zone, and ultimately planets that are sending little radio signals to us for some reason or another.
SPACE.com: You've said that, with exoplanets, theory has really struck out. What are some of the things that we thought we knew, but it turns out were totally wrong about?
Marcy: Well, the first thing — I go back to 1996. No one wants to talk about this, because it's so embarrassing. The reason that as a community we struggled to find the first hot Jupiters isn't because we didn't have the technology. It's because the theorists led us astray. I'm speaking slightly jokingly, but not really.
There were theorists who said, "Look at our solar system. Of course the small, rocky planets are close in. The host star burned off the gases, so you're left with rocky planets. And look at the giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn — they had to form farther out, because it's colder, and the gases can gravitationally stick to the planets. Therefore, all planetary systems will have the following architecture: There will be an inner planet. The second planet out will be named Venus. The third planet out will have great lattes." I mean, it was just silly.
SPACE.com: And that's based on a sample size of one.
Marcy: It would be like trying to characterize human psychology by going to one distant Indonesian island and interviewing one person, and thinking that that gave you the full range of human psychology. And in 1996, there were papers where they said, Jupiter-sized planets, Saturn-sized planets, will all orbit far from their host star. Well, that of course tells you what to look for. If you write a proposal to try to find anything else, you're flying in the face of wisdom. And we know now, of course, how near-sighted that was, how parochial that was.
SPACE.com: So do you think we are starting to get a handle on exoplanets now?
Marcy: I think so. We're always a little too confident, so I would hate to say, "Go home, we're all done." We do have these planets we're finding with Doppler work, and now with Kepler, that are five times the size of Earth, three times the size of Earth, 1.4 times the size of the Earth. And I don't think we really know how they formed.
Even the one we announced [the rocky, nearly Earth-size Kepler-10b], there are two main ways it might've formed. It might've formed like the Earth, or it might have formed like Uranus but it got so close to the host star that the gases and the water got evaporated away and left a bare, rocky core remnant.
SPACE.com: What are some of the biggest mysteries that are left?
Marcy: There's one huge one that nobody really wants to talk about. It's the age-old question: Are Earth-like planets common? We know they're out there for sure. I mean, there's too many stars. But there's two parts to the question. What do you mean by "Earth-like?" And then, how common are they?
Basically, we know what we want for Earth-like, so we shouldn't beat around the bush: We would love to know whether there are planets suitable for life as we know it.
And those Earth-like properties are a little bit mysterious, but we have some ideas. You want water in liquid form, you want stable temperatures over the course of millions, preferably billions, of years so that Darwinian evolution can get a good toehold.
You probably want a moon to stabilize the spin axis. You probably want a Jupiter to sweep up the debris. You probably want a stable ocean for a long enough time that it can serve as the solvent for biochemistry.
So that's probably what we mean by "Earth-like." But how common they are, we just don't know.
SPACE.com: Your research suggests that smaller planets may be pretty common — that nearly one in four nearby sun-like stars could host a roughly Earth-size planet.
Marcy: Yeah. But here's the sleeper idea that no one wants to talk about: Because Earth-size planets are so much smaller than the Jupiters, Saturns, Uranuses and Neptunes, and we now know that planets often get thrust into eccentric and misaligned orbits, the Earths are like the Volkswagens on a highway full of 18-wheelers.
The vulnerable planets are the small ones. And so to the extent that planetary systems undergo a billiards era — the Earth would be like putting a small marble on a pool table of 15 billiard balls. As you break, the little planets are going to be the ones slingshot right out of the solar system pool table.
SPACE.com: It's one thing to say they can form. But to say that they'll actually stick around long enough — that's a totally different question.
Marcy: Yeah. And I think they'll form. It's hard to imagine they wouldn't. If you make Jupiters, why wouldn't you make Earth-size planets? But the Earths — and maybe the Volkswagen is giving it too much credit. It's an 18-wheeler and a tricycle. Earth is a tricycle on Highway 5 running up and down the Pacific Coast.
And you don't even have to hit the tricycle. You just have to come close enough that gravity slingshots the poor tricycle right out of the system. So it's possible that Earth-like planets form, they get thrown out into the cold darkness of the galaxy and they have no chance of starting — never mind sustaining — life, because it's too cold out there. And that's possible. We might be rare.
And by the way: Where are the SETI [search for extraterrestrial intelligence] signals? There is a non-detection that's like the elephant in the room. Forty years of Frank Drake and Carl Sagan looking for SETI signals, and we have precisely zero to show for it. So there's an indication — not definitive — that maybe the Earth is more precious than we had thought.
SPACE.com: Our solar system is so young, compared to the universe. And the universe is so big. So there's been lots of time and opportunity for advanced civilizations to get started, and to try to contact us. Some people think that the fact that we seemingly haven't been contacted means that we may well be alone in the universe.
Marcy: Well, you have to fold it in. The absence of an intelligent radio or television wave from any advanced civilization represents one indication, not a proof, that maybe habitable planets that sustain Darwinian evolution for a billion years —maybe they're rare. Maybe.
SPACE.com: What do you reckon? Do you have a gut feeling about this?
Marcy: I do. If I had to bet — and this is now beyond science — I would say that intelligent, technological critters are rare in the Milky Way galaxy. The evidence mounts. We Homo sapiens didn't arise until some quirk of environment on the East African savannah — so quirky that the hominid paleontologists still can't tell us why the australopithecines somehow evolved big brains and had dexterity that could play piano concertos, and things that make no real honest sense in terms of Darwinian evolution.
Why the high chaparral on the East African savannah would've led to a Tchaikovsky piano concerto, never mind the ability to build rocket ships — there's no evolutionary driver that the australopithecines suffered from that leads to rocket ships. And so that — and the fact that we had to wait four billion years without humans. Four billion years?
SPACE.com: Yes, it took four billion years to get there.
Marcy: Since the Cambrian explosion, we had hundreds of millions of years of multi-cellular, advanced life in which, guess what happened with brain size? Nothing.
You know the greatest species ever to roam the Earth? The dinosaurs — every kid knows this. And why? Well, because for 100 million years, the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. There were big ones, there were small ones. Every generation of baby dinosaurs had to outcompete all of the other dinosaurs. And you would think after 100 million years, each generation of baby dinosaur that was a little smarter would have out-survived the others and thereby slowly but surely increased dinosaur cranial size.
The reality from the paleontological record? Dinosaurs had the brains of chickens, and never got bigger. It shows that braininess is not a primary driver in evolution. We humans came across braininess because of something weird that happened on the East African savannah. And we can't imagine whether that's a common or rare thing.
SPACE.com: People assume evolution is directed, and it's always leading toward higher complexity and greater intelligence, but it's not.
Marcy: It's not. Dinosaurs show this in spades.
SPACE.com: You've said that we're about to enter a golden age of direct exoplanet imaging. Is that what the future holds — getting good, direct looks at alien planets to try to gauge their potential to support life?
Marcy: It is. There's two great things that we should be doing. One is that we should, as a species — and this means ESA [the European Space Agency], Japan, China, India, the United States, Canada — work together internationally to fund a space-borne telescope, probably interferometric, that can take pictures of Earth-size and Earth-like planets. We know how to do it.
Yes, it'll be expensive, but we do expensive things in science, and this is a great quest for humanity: Are there Earth-like and, indeed, habitable planets out there? But the other thing to do — we should say it right away. We should have a full-fledged, Apollo-like SETI search. Why haven't we coherently gathered our resources and done SETI right?
SPACE.com: Finding alien intelligent life would be such a huge deal. It would change the way we think about ourselves and our place in the universe.
Marcy: Exactly. So why aren't we putting together our resources, nationally and internationally, and constructing a major radio telescope facility — and maybe, if there's money left over, an infrared facility — and sampling the universe for signals?
We know what to look for. That would be the rat-a-tat-tat of a radio signal. We don't know exactly what the code would be, but we'd be looking for pulses in the radio, in the infrared maybe, in the X-ray or UV. We'd have to think broadly. But this is a great quest for humanity.
It's the Armstrong, it's the Columbus of our time, essentially reaching out with radio waves and hunting for alien intelligent life. It would be a marvelous, inspirational effort. And right now we don't have enough going on, in my opinion.
Because it would mean — all 7 billion people on planet Earth would get up in the morning wondering, "Did they find the signal last night?"
SPACE.com: It makes you wonder why nations haven't joined together to do something like this. Economically, it would be a drop in the bucket.
Marcy: It's a drop in the bucket. Frankly, $1 billion would be good. It sounds like $1 billion is a lot of money. But not really. NASA's budget is $19 billion. Nineteen billion dollars every single year. So how about a billion of that for a SETI search? How about one year — 5 percent — to do SETI in a historic, Apollo-like way? I mean, Wow!
It puts Armstrong and the invention of fire sort of on a par. So it's worth one-nineteenth of one year's NASA budget. I think it's a great idea, and we know how to do it.
Yeah, it's a luxury. We need to feed the people on the planet Earth, we need to provide health care, we need to provide better education, we need to make sure that human beings are living. But we're doing that. And a billion is really a teeny fraction of many countries' annual budget.

Courtesy - space.com

Good News from Keplar

Sitting for an interview in his office at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CFA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the normally voluble astronomer Dimitar Sasselov looks nervous. Asked for his favourite among the many potential planets discovered by NASA's Kepler planet-finding mission, for which he is a co-investigator, he hesitates, then sidesteps the question entirely. "Personally, I'm already beyond that point. It's not one. It's not a single planet. It's a whole family."
NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of smaller, cooler stars than our sun. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets. Kepler also found six confirmed planets orbiting a sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of transiting planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our solar system.
Most of the Kepler scientists continue to be cautious. By watching the light from some 150,000 stars for the dimming that could signal a planet crossing in front of them, Kepler is extraordinarily efficient at finding possible planets. But Kepler has yet to find another Earth — a small, rocky planet with an orbit of a few hundred days and well inside the habitable zone in which water can exist and life can arise. That is for a fundamental reason; the blips that Kepler detects show only the radius, and not the mass, of an observed planet, which means that the density and composition generally remain unknown.
"In one generation we have gone from extraterrestrial planets being a mainstay of science fiction, to the present, where Kepler has helped turn science fiction into today's reality," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "These discoveries underscore the importance of NASA's science missions, which consistently increase understanding of our place in the cosmos."
The discoveries are part of several hundred new planet candidates identified in new Kepler mission science data, released on Tuesday, Feb. 1. The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to-date to 1,235. Of these, 68 are approximately Earth-size; 288 are super-Earth-size; 662 are Neptune-size; 165 are the size of Jupiter and 19 are larger than Jupiter.
Of the 54 new planet candidates found in the habitable zone, five are near Earth-sized. The remaining 49 habitable zone candidates range from super-Earth size - up to twice the size of Earth - to larger than Jupiter.
The findings are based on the results of observations conducted May 12 to Sept. 17, 2009, of more than 156,000 stars in Kepler's field of view, which covers approximately one four-hundredth of the sky.
"The fact that we've found so many planet candidates in such a tiny fraction of the sky suggests there are countless planets orbiting sun-like stars in our galaxy," said William Borucki of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., the mission's science principal investigator.
"We went from zero to 68 Earth-sized planet candidates and zero to 54 candidates in the habitable zone, some of which could have moons with liquid water." Among the stars with planetary candidates, 170 show evidence of multiple planetary candidates. Kepler-11, located approximately 2,000 light years from Earth, is the most tightly packed planetary system yet discovered.
All six of its confirmed planets have orbits smaller than Venus, and five of the six have orbits smaller than Mercury's. The only other star with more than one confirmed transiting planet is Kepler-9, which has three. The Kepler-11 findings will be published in the Feb. 3 issue of the journal Nature.
"Kepler-11 is a remarkable system whose architecture and dynamics provide clues about its formation," said Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist and Kepler science team member at Ames.
"These six planets are mixtures of rock and gases, possibly including water. The rocky material accounts for most of the planets' mass, while the gas takes up most of their volume. By measuring the sizes and masses of the five inner planets, we determined they are among the lowest-mass confirmed planets beyond our solar system."
All of the planets orbiting Kepler-11 are larger than Earth, with the largest ones being comparable in size to Uranus and Neptune. The innermost planet, Kepler-11b, is 10 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun.
Moving outward, the other planets are Kepler-11c, Kepler-11d, Kepler-11e, Kepler-11f, and the outermost planet, Kepler-11g, which is half as far from its star as Earth is from the sun.
The planets Kepler-11d, Kepler-11e and Kepler-11f have a significant amount of light gas, which indicates that they formed within a few million years of the system's formation.
"The historic milestones Kepler makes with each new discovery will determine the course of every exoplanet mission to follow," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Kepler, a space telescope, looks for planet signatures by measuring tiny decreases in the brightness of stars caused by planets crossing in front of them. This is known as a transit. Since transits of planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars occur about once a year and require three transits for verification, it is expected to take three years to locate and verify Earth-size planets orbiting sun-like stars.
The Kepler science team uses ground-based telescopes and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to review observations on planetary candidates and other objects of interest the spacecraft finds. The star field that Kepler observes in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra can only be seen from ground-based observatories in spring through early fall. The data from these other observations help determine which candidates can be validated as planets.

NASA's Hubble Finds Most Distant Galaxy Candidate Ever Seen in Universe

Astronomers have pushed NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to its limits by finding what is likely to be the most distant object ever seen in the universe. The object's light traveled 13.2 billion years to reach Hubble, roughly 150 million years longer than the previous record holder. The age of the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years.
The tiny, dim object is a compact galaxy of blue stars that existed 480 million years after the big bang. More than 100 such mini-galaxies would be needed to make up our Milky Way. The new research offers surprising evidence that the rate of star birth in the early universe grew dramatically, increasing by about a factor of 10 from 480 million years to 650 million years after the big bang.
"NASA continues to reach for new heights, and this latest Hubble discovery will deepen our understanding of the universe and benefit generations to come,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who was the pilot of the space shuttle mission that carried Hubble to orbit. “We could only dream when we launched Hubble more than 20 years ago that it would have the ability to make these types of groundbreaking discoveries and rewrite textbooks.”

Astronomers don't know exactly when the first stars appeared in the universe, but every step farther from Earth takes them deeper into the early formative years when stars and galaxies began to emerge in the aftermath of the big bang.
"These observations provide us with our best insights yet into the earlier primeval objects that have yet to be found," said Rychard Bouwens of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. Bouwens and Illingworth report the discovery in the Jan. 27 issue of the British science journal Nature.
This observation was made with the Wide Field Camera 3 starting just a few months after it was installed in the observatory in May 2009, during the last NASA space shuttle servicing mission to Hubble. After more than a year of detailed observations and analysis, the object was positively identified in the camera's Hubble Ultra Deep Field-Infrared data taken in the late summers of 2009 and 2010.
The object appears as a faint dot of starlight in the Hubble exposures. It is too young and too small to have the familiar spiral shape that is characteristic of galaxies in the local universe. Although its individual stars can't be resolved by Hubble, the evidence suggests this is a compact galaxy of hot stars formed more than 100-to-200 million years earlier from gas trapped in a pocket of dark matter.
"We're peering into an era where big changes are afoot," said Garth Illingworth of the University of California at Santa Cruz. "The rapid rate at which the star birth is changing tells us if we go a little further back in time we're going to see even more dramatic changes, closer to when the first galaxies were just starting to form."
The proto-galaxy is only visible at the farthest infrared wavelengths observable by Hubble. Observations of earlier times, when the first stars and galaxies were forming, will require Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
The hypothesized hierarchical growth of galaxies -- from stellar clumps to majestic spirals and ellipticals -- didn't become evident until the Hubble deep field exposures. The first 500 million years of the universe's existence, from a z of 1000 to 10, is the missing chapter in the hierarchical growth of galaxies. It's not clear how the universe assembled structure out of a darkening, cooling fireball of the big bang. As with a developing embryo, astronomers know there must have been an early period of rapid changes that would set the initial conditions to make the universe of galaxies what it is today.
"After 20 years of opening our eyes to the universe around us, Hubble continues to awe and surprise astronomers," said Jon Morse, NASA's Astrophysics Division director at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "It now offers a tantalizing look at the very edge of the known universe -- a frontier NASA strives to explore."
Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington.

Sex On Mars : Pregnancy, Fetal Development and Sex in Outer Space

1. SEX IN SPACE

Performance of the sex act during a journey to Mars, may require potentially complex sexual gymnastics. On the other hand, any difficulties associated with sexual intercourse in space may turn out to be an easily solved problem of docking and entry as human are notorious for inventing ways of having sex despite all manner of logistical impediments (Joseph 2000a). However, what impact will sexual activity have on team dynamics and morale? And what if an astronaut became pregnant during the journey? Would the fetus be viable? How would this impact the crew?
NASA has no policy regarding sex in space and its repercussions (Office of Audits, 2010), other than to request, in 2008, that astronauts voluntarily abide by an "Astronaut Code of Professional Responsibility" and maintain "a constant commitment to honourable behaviour." As summed up by the NASA Astronaut Health Care System Review Committee (NASA 2007), "the absence of a code of conduct and its enforcement, and the lack of management action to limit inappropriate activity increases the likelihood of aberrant behaviour occurring and decreases the likelihood of such behaviour being reported."
According to NASA's review committee (NASA 2007), and a panel of experts assembled by the National Academy of Science (Longnecker and Molins 2006), this is a serious oversight: if male and female astronauts share a cramped space ship for years, surrounded by stars blazing in the blackness of night, thoughts are bound to turn to sex and romance. Thus, "ignoring the potential consequences of human sexuality is not appropriate when considering extended-duration missions" (Longnecker and Molins 2006), and this includes a human mission to Mars.

2. BIOLOGICAL DESTINY: SEX AND PREGNANCY

Biologically, females serve one purpose: to get pregnant (Joseph 2000a, 2001a,b, 2002). However, the human female is also the only female regardless of species, who is sexually receptive at all times and who has evolved secondary sexual characteristics, e.g. the enlarged breasts and derriere, which signal to males and females alike, her sexual availability (Joseph 2000a,b). Almost all non-human primate species that exhibit genital and breast swelling live in multi-male groups and they only develop these secondary sexual characteristic when sexually receptive (Clutton-Brock and Harvey, 1976; Fedigan, 1992; Wallis, 1992). These swellings serve to attract males and to arouse male sexual interest when the female is in estrus (Carpenter, 1942; Chevalier-Skolnikoff, 1974; Fedigan, 1992; Ford & Beach, 1951; Zuckerman, 1932) and the same can be said of the female human derriere and breasts which have evolved and increased in size over the course of human evolution so as to signal continual sexual availability (Joseph 1985, 2000a,b). Moreover, the human female has evolved the cognitive and intellectual capacity to employ cosmetics, perfumes, colorful clothing, push up bras, high heels, and so on, which draw attention to her breasts and derriere, and which emphasize and exaggerate her sexual availability by mimicking the signs of estrus common in other social primates (Joseph 2000a,b). And just as female primates and other female mammals seek sex with high status males whom they most prefer (Allen & Lemmon, 1981; Carpenter, 1942; Chevalier-Skolnikoff, 1974; Fedigan, 1992; Ford & Beach, 1951; Zuckerman, 1932), the same can be said of the human female (Joseph 2000a,b).

3. ASTRONAUTS HAVE SEX: THE CASE OF LISA NOWAK AND WILLIAM OEFELIEN


The frequency of sex between male and female astronauts is unknown, due in part to NASA's unofficial "mind your own business" policy (Mullane 2007) and its failure to mandate an enforceable code of responsibility which "decreases the likelihood of such behaviour being reported" (NASA 2007; Office of Audits, 2010). Inadvertently, NASA encourages sexual behavior by not restricting it, or training for it; and this could be disastrous for a human mission to Mars.
Michael Collins, whose second spaceflight was as commander and pilot for Apollo 11, is one of only 24 humans to have flown to the Moon. In his book Mission to Mars (Collins, 1990), he points out that the crew of a future mission to Mars will likely be multinational and consist of both males and females from different professional backgrounds. He believed that the presence of women on a long duration mission to Mars, would create tremendous sexual tensions and a "singles bar atmosphere...a charged mixture of sexually unattached competitors, would be a disaster."
Consider the well publicized case of female astronaut Navy Captain Lisa Nowak, and Shuttle pilot Cmdr. William Oefelein who flew together on the space shuttle and engaged in an adulterous relationship which allegedly almost led to the kidnapping and murder of Nowak's rival, Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman.
Nowak, a married mother of three, was a highly regarded professional who had logged more than 1,500 hours in different aircraft, had received a BS in aerospace engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1985; an MS degree in aeronautical engineering and a degree of aeronautical and astronautical engineer from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and who was qualified as Mission Commander and an Electronic Warfare lead in her flight squadron (NASA 2006).
She subsequently underwent astronaut training, was qualified as a mission specialist, worked at Mission Control as prime communicator with on-orbit crews, subsequently flew on the Space Shuttle and performed complicated manuevers on a 13-day mission on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2006 (NASA 2006). The Shuttle pilot was Cmdr. William Oefelein (the father of two children and a former "Top Gun" Navy pilot) with whom she was having an adulterous sexual affair.
According to Orlando Police Department investigators (2007a,b), unknown to Nowak, Oefelein was also having sex with Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman who he had met while training for the Shuttle Mission which would carry him and Nowak to the ISS. Subsequently, when Nowak logged onto Oefelein's computer at his home one evening, and discovered emails to and from Oefelein and Shipman which made explicit their sexual activities, Nowak allegedly decided to kidnap and kill her rival. Nowak drove 900-miles from Houston to Orlando, dressed in a trench coat and a wig to disguise her identity, and then attacked Shipman in the parking lot of the Orlando International Airport (Doukopil 2007; Hauser 2007, Kluger, 2007). Detectives found 30 unused diapers in her car, and a rope and a knife which she'd packed for her confrontation with Shipman.
The exact nature of Oefelein's feelings toward Nowak when he turned his attentions to Shipman is unknown. According to Orlando Police Department investigators (2007b), Nowak thought the affair was ongoing. According to Shipman, Oefelein once called Shipman by Nowak's first name when they were in bed (Orlando Police Department investigators 2007b). What we know for a fact is that Nowak and Shipman were willingly having sex with Oefelein while Nowak and Oefelein worked together as astronauts and these affairs were ongoing before and after Oefelein and Nowak flew on a 13 day mission together. We should ask: what would have happened if commander Oefelein, captain Nowak, and captain Shipman, were flying together on a 9 month mission to Mars where they would be together for over 2 years?
One answer comes from studies of female primates. Primate females will compete for access to preferred males, and will fight and threaten one another for the privilege of having sex with these males (Fedigan, 1992). However, primate males also try to monopolize females, and high status males tend to attack and drive off low status males (Goodall, 1971, 1986; Nishida, 1990; Sade, 1967). Male primates will also rape high status estrus female primates who resist.

4. ROMANCE AND SIMULATED MISSIONS TO MARS

If a crew of 3 males and 3 females were sent on a journey to Mars, it can be predicted that males would experience sexual interest in the female astronauts, and female astronauts may or may not always reciprocate depending on their hormonal status, and the status and attractiveness of the males vying for their attention. Male astronauts may not always take "no" for an answer.
Consider for example, the case of 32-year-old Dr. Judith Lapierre, a Ph.D. health sciences specialist, sponsored by the Canadian Space Agency, who participated in a 110-day isolation experiment designed to simulate a long duration space mission (Oberg 2000; Warren, 2000). According to Dr. Lapierre, two of her Russian international crew mates became embroiled in a 10 minute violent blood splattering fight, immediately after which she was physically accosted and manhandled by the team commander, a Russian, who began forcibly kissing her and sticking his tongue in her mouth (Oberg, 2000; Warren, 2000).
Dr. Lapierre forcefully protested immediately before, during, and after the assault, and was so frightened of additional sexual attacks that locks were placed on the doors to the passageway linking her test module with the Russian module. She and her crew mates also hid all the knives as they feared more violent outbursts and physical assaults. The experiment, called Sphinx-99, was designed to observe group dynamics under both routine and emergency conditions.
In the case of Dr. Lapierre, it was the commander in charge of the mission who assaulted her and she appealed to outside supervisory personnel for help. On a human mission to Mars, there will be no doors which can lock out sexual predators, and no one from Mission Control who can come to a female astronaut's rescue.
If women accompany men on a human Mission to Mars, are they at risk for rape? Or is the greater risk, falling in love and then pregnancy?
Dr. Judith Lapierre, was the only woman in a crew of eight and who were confined to a replica of the Mir space station. In another simulation, which included more females, romantic relations developed between willing partners. According to Pletser (2010), during the EuroGeoMars project designed to simulate a mission to Mars, in the Utah desert, two crew members engaged in a romantic relationship which involved open displays of affection and physical intimacy such as holding hands, spending exclusive time together in the evenings and while performing chores and various duties. Although privacy prevailed behind closed doors, these romantic activities were not welcome by other team members, and it was felt this behavior was detrimental to the unity of the group and team social activities.
According to an analysis of NASA's (2005) "Bioastronautics Roadmap: a risk reduction strategy for human exploration of space" (Longnecker and Molins 2006), not only are male and female astronauts on extended missions or a mission to Mars likely to have sex, but failing to plan for and ignoring the likelihood of sexual activity could have profound and even life threatening consequences: "Areas of concern for the 30-month Mars mission include the potential psychological and physiological consequences of sexual activity, consequences that could endanger life, crew cohesion, performance, and mission success."
What are some possible consequences? Rape, murder, the monopolization of female astronauts by one or two high ranking males?

5. SEX IN THE ANTARCTIC

The polar environment has been viewed by numerous scientists, and NASA, as an excellent analog for long-duration space missions. The findings are unequivocal: men and women have sex and form temporary romantic and sexual relationships (Leon 2005; Palinkas 2002; Rosnet et al., 2004; Stuster 1996): "One cannot send unmarried men and women" to the Arctic "and not expect them to form bonds" (Leon 2005); bonds which often lead to pregnancies (Ayton 2006; Bowden 1999).
For example, on Australian stations in the Antarctic seven pregnancies were recorded between 1989 and 2006 (Ayton 2006), although "no one wants to become pregnant down there, no one wishes a baby to be born down there" (Bowden 1999). The general belief is that pregnancy in the Antarctic poses increased risk to the mother, to her unborn child, to the team, and to the success of the expedition program (Ayton 2006). Nevertheless, women team members, regardless of nationality, become pregnant.
The Antarctic has long been viewed as an excellent analog for long-duration space missions and the same preference for high ranking males has been observed (Stuster 1996). Female crew members seek sexual intimacies with senior, high status personnel to the exclusion of the other men.
In fact, just having women as members of the team in the Antarctic can cause significant sexual tension and stress for both men and women (Palinkas 2002; Rosnet et al., 2004; Stuster 1996). Some men harass females for sex, women will behave seductively, sexual frustrations increase, and romantic rivalries develop (Rosnet et al., 2004; Palinkas 2002; Stuster 1996). Moreover, women in these settings are perceived by men and women alike as having tremendous sexual power over men, and thus have greater control over men, as it is the female's choice as to which of the men will receive their sexual favors (Palinkas 2002). Although this "choosiness" can certainly enhance the morale of the male she chooses, group cohesion can be negatively impacted (Suster 1996).
alinkas (2002) provides an illustrative case, involving "John" who had left a wife and two children back home, was profoundly depressed, and then became embroiled in a sexual relationship with a female crew member, which resulted in an elevation of his mood and increased productivity. Although, temporary sexual relationships between male and female crew members are common in the Antarctic (Palinkas 2000; Stuster 1996), "John's" sexual relationship met with group disapproval.
When a woman chooses to have a sexual relationship during her sojourn in the Antarctic, it is often with senior (rather than junior) personnel, including the station leader who is usually seen as having the most status by the women, as well as an unfair advantage by the other men, thereby creating considerable tension and conflict (Stuster 1996).
On the other hand, most studies report that including women as team members has a very positive effect on morale (Rosnet et al., 2004; Leon 2005), especially if they are married and accompanied by their spouse (Leon 2005; Leon et al., 2003). For example, in a study of three married couples from different countries icelocked on a boat in the High Arctic for a 9 month period, partners provided each other with significant emotional support. Married partners were also instrumental in alleviating interpersonal and group tensions, and contributed to the effective functioning of the team (Leon et al., 2003).
Women also tend to provide emotional support to other team members and try to help solve interpersonal problems, behaviors which are not common in all-male groups (Leon 2005; Leon et al., 2003; Palinkas 2002; Rosnet et al., 2004). Women also serve as "peacemakers" reducing non-sexual competition, tensions, and arguments among the men, and the men often turn to women to share their emotional and personal concerns--though these same men have little interest in listening to these women share their feelings.

6. SEX AND OUTER SPACE

Like other female mammals, the human female is most likely to actively seek sex when she is ovulating and most likely to get pregnant (e.g., Gold & Burt, 1978; Matteo & Rissman, 1984; Udry & Morris, 1968, 1970; Wolfe, 1991). Hence, women become pregnant in the hostile conditions of the Antarctic; and there is no reason to suspect they may not become pregnant on Mars.
According to the Bioastronautics Roadmap (Longnecker and Molins 2006), "the risk of pregnancy might be mitigated by crew selection" and the use of contraceptive medications. Unfortunately, the many "questions about the efficacy, safety, and side effects of contraceptive medications may require that studies to answer these questions be completed prior to crew selection or that other measures be used to mitigate the risk of pregnancy."
But would these pregnancies lead to the first babies born in space, or on Mars?
Reproductive medical issues that pertain to astronauts have generally received scant clinical scientific attention, and there is little information on 1) the effect of long duration spaceflight and gravity on normal menstrual functioning including menstrual efflux and retrograde (intra-abdominal) menstruation, 2), the impact of microgravity on normal hypothalamic and pituitary functioning which in turn impacts and influences gender-specific hormone production and ovarian function, and 3) the effect of space radiation on fertility, reproductive success, and the future childbearing capacity of both men and women.
Of concern is the effect of microgravity (in space) and reduced gravity (once on Mars), on testosterone and estrogen secretions, the menstrual cycle, ovulation, and sperm production and viability. For example, if ovulation ceases the female astronaut may be continuously exposed to high levels of estrogen. By contrast, if the hypothalamus is impacted testosterone and estrogen levels may significantly decrease or increase, all of which would effect sexual and reproductive success. One concern is that "the exercise necessary for long-term cardiovascular and musculoskeletal fitness may be so strenuous enough that it may cause hypothalamic-induced hypogonadism with reduced serum estrogen levels" (Harm et al., 2001).

6. MOTHERS AND BABIES IN SPACE

There is now considerable evidence that biologically meaningful interactions between mothers and offspring are changed in the weightlessness of space (Crawford-Young 2006; Ronca 2003). Studies of young rat litters launched at 9 days of postnatal age or earlier, have been characterized by compromised maternal–offspring interactions and behavioral abnormalities (Ronca 2003). Although alterations in gravity would have a profound impact on the maternal-infant relationship, the stress of space flight would also be a factor. Prolonged and chronic stress would effect the mother, fetus, infant and child and disturbances in the mother-infant relationship would have severe effects on the brain and mind of the child (Joseph 1982, 1998, 1999a,b, 2000a,c). In addition, prenatal stress is a direct cause of fetal mortality, abnormal brain functioning, abnormal nursing behavior, and increased postnatal mortality.
However, a major concern must be the effects of pregnancy on the crew of a craft journeying to Mars. It can be surmised that all aspects of the mission would be put in jeopardy. Crew mates would unlikely to be supportive as their ability to perform their duties or to live comfortably would be impacted. Stress levels would rise, as would irritability, resulting in considerable hostility and anger directed toward the mother and father unless, perhaps, she had sex with multiple astronauts and the identity of the father was unknown.

7. SEX ON MARS: THE FIRST MARTIANS

Humans have sex and pregnancies result. If a baby is born on Mars, what predictions can be made?
 From the moment of conception on Mars, the developing embryo-fetus-neonate-child, and its genome, will be subjected to a Martian environment markedly different from Earth, the most obvious distinctions being gravity, sunlight, radiation, temperature, and the biosphere. It is now well established that environmental influences early in life profoundly effects intelligence, learning, memory, vision, language, social-emotional functioning and the development, size, functioning, and interconnections of neurons and the brain (Casagrande & Joseph, 1978, 1980; Joseph 1979, 1982, 1998a,b, 2003; 1999a,b; Joseph, & Casagrande, 1978,1980; Joseph & Gallagher 1980); a function of the environment acting on gene activation vs suppression.
It has also been demonstrated "that populations contain a surprising amount of unexpressed genetic variation that is capable of affecting certain typically invariant traits" (Rutherford & Lindquist, 1998). There are thousands of "silent" genes within the human genome and the genome of other species, which code for or express functions which are as yet unknown (IHGSC 2001). However, fluctuations in temperature, oxygen levels, and diet can activate these "silent genes" (e.g., de Jong & Scharloo, 1976; Dykhuizen & Hart, 1980; Gibson & Hogness, 1996; Polaczyk et al., 1998; Rutherford 2003; Wade et al., 1997) which may express novel traits (Joseph 2009; Rutherford, 2003).
Environmental influences on gene expression are mediated through regulatory proteins such as Hsp90 (Feder and Hofmann 1999; Rutherford 2003; Sangster et al., 2004). Hsp90, for example, is a highly conserved multifunctional protein which targets multiple signal transducers and act as "molecular switches" which control gene expression in eukaryotes ranging from yeast to humans (Feder and Hofmann 1999; Rutherford 2003; Sangster et al., 2004). Hsp90 does not act alone but is part of a networks that includes other proteins such as Hsp70, and p23 (Pratt and Toft 2003). These proteins "normally suppress the expression of genetic variation affecting many developmental pathways" (Rutherford & Lindquist, 1998). These proteins prevent DNA expression by acting as a buffer between silent genes and the environment. However, changes in the environment can directly impact regulatory genes and change the configuration of these proteins thereby removing their buffering influences, such that silent genes are then activated which triggers the expression of silent characteristics (Joseph 2009). As demonstrated by Rutherford and Lindquist (1998, p. 341) Hsp90 acts as an "explicit molecular mechanism that assists the process of evolutionary change in response to the environment" and it accomplishes this through the "conditional release of stores of hidden morphological variation.... perhaps allowing for the rapid morphological radiations that are found in the fossil record."
As a variety of genes will be effected by the environment of Mars, then the genome and the development of a fetus conceived on Mars will be differentially effected as compared to the genome and the development of a fetus on Earth.
It must also be recognized that the testes, ovaries, and genome of the parents will have been subjected to markedly adverse environmental conditions as they traversed space to reach Mars (cf Crawford-Young 2006; Ma et al., 2008; Ronca 2003; Straume et al., 2010), and again once on Mars. It is also highly likely subsequent genetic alterations will be passed on to offspring born on Mars (cf NRC 1990, 2006b; Straume et al., 2010). As the environment acts on gene selection in parents and offspring, and as alterations in the environment and the genome effect evolutionary innovation and extinction (Joseph 1993, 2000b; 2009), then not just development but the evolution of humans on Mars will also be differentially effected as compared to humans of Earth.
Hence, if a child is conceived and born on Mars, we can predict at least three possible outcomes:
1) The child may suffer from mild to gross genetic, physical, and intellectual abnormalities (cf Serova et al., 1982, 1984; Ma et al., 2008; Otake et al., 1996; Reyners et al., 1992; Ronca 2003; Wong and DeSantis 1997).
2) The child will be completely healthy (cf Santy et al. 1982; Tao, et al., 2002).
3) Due to environmental influences on gene activation and differential and adaptive gene selection, although the child is completely healthy and normal it will be so different from children born on Earth, that it may appear abnormal simply because it is adapted, to varying degrees, to the Martian environment. The child will not be defective. Nor will it represent a new "race". Rather, it may represent a new species of humanity: The first Martian.
Naturally, all prospective parents will have to be counseled, before embarking to Mars, on these possible eventualities.

8. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Women have been an integral part of United States space crews since 1983, and world wide over 50 women have been selected as astronauts thereby providing considerable data on menstruation control and hygiene, contraception, and urination. As summed up by Jennings and Baker (2000) "there are no operational gynecological or reproductive constraints for women that would preclude their successful participation in the exploration of our nearby solar system." Perhaps the age of the female astronaut is the only major limiting factor (women of child bearing age only), if the goal is the colonization of Mars.
Women and men are sexual beings. The likelihood is male and female astronauts, traveling in the same space craft, will have sex during the long duration space-flight to Mars and after they arrive on Mars, even if substantial rules and steps are taken to prevent it. Therefore, training and preparations must be taken to anticipate all possible consequences and to regulate, guide, and modulate sexual activity; not for the purpose of preventing sex, but to prevent catastrophe.
Consider, for example, the possibility that the commander of the space craft may monopolize the female astronauts who prefer to mate with him because of his higher status relative to those he commands. Estrus female chimps may copulate up to 50 times in a day but only with a few of the available males who generally tend to be of high status (Goodall, 1986; Tutin, 1975). In one colony of free ranging rhesus monkeys, consisting of 150 adult females and 52 males, most of the estrus females actively sought out and mated with the same three dominant males (Carpenter, 1942). In some colonies, only about 20% of the males were responsible for 80% of the matings (Freedman, 1979). In one study of 25 male and 25 female captive baboons, five of the males possessed all the females (Zuckerman, 1932). In the military, one case came to light where a major general was having sexual relations with the wives of four of his subordinates (Burns, 1999). In studies of humans in long duration Antarctic analogue (Mars-like) conditions, females also prefer high ranking senior personnel, including station chiefs, often to the exclusion of those with a junior status (Stuster 1996).
Female primates will also attack and fight among themselves for the opportunity to have sex with a high ranking male (Fedigan, 1992). In 2007, captain Lisa Nowak allegedly planned to kidnapped and murder captain Colleen Shipman, her rival for the affections of space shuttle commander Oefelein.
Naturally, if a few males monopolize the available females, the other male astronauts will respond negatively and this may lead to violence. This can be avoided by a rule which relieves the monopolizer of command in cases of sexual monopolization, thereby stripping any male of the high status which made female astronauts prefer him to the other male astronauts.
Astronaut Michael Collins (1990), advocates sending only married couples on these voyages to better be able to survive the hardships of space. "An element of stability, of old-shoe comfort, would be introduced by having one's husband or wife to fall back on." Studies of married couples in the Antarctic support this view. Married couples are a source of stability and married females have a very positive effect on morale not just on their spouse but on the emotional stability of the group (Rosnetet al., 2004; Leon 2005; Leon et al., 2003). Married partners have been reported to have a calming effect and help to reduce interpersonal and group tensions thereby contributing to the effective functioning of the team (Leon et al., 2003).
However, the reality is: divorces are common and relationships often come to an end, and if either or both the male and female astronaut decided to change partners during the course of a voyage to Mars there may be conflict. The changing of partners could be a frequent occurrence during the mission to Mars and once on the Mars surface. Naturally feelings of jealousy, betrayal, and emotional upset would be expected. Therefore, if married couples are to be selected for a mission to Mars, the focus should be on those with very strong emotional bonds.
If the long term goal is the colonization of Mars, then it must be recognized that many older female astronauts are no longer capable of becoming pregnant or having children (Jennings and Baker 2008). This may be due to age or factors associated with exposure to the conditions of space travel. Therefore it is important to send younger versus older female astronauts; i.e. women who are in their early child-bearing years.
Although male and female astronauts could be trained to "share and share alike" so that sexual favors are provided equally to one and all, perhaps a better solution might be to send two space craft, one with an all male crew and another with an all female crew. Not only does this solve the problems which may arise from male-female sexual couplings in space, but it would prevent any possibility of pregnancy.
Naturally, humans are going to have sex and women are going to get pregnant. Pregnancies during a mission to Mars must be avoided. Pregnancies may lead to the death or abnormal development of the fetus. Pregnancy coupled with muscle atrophy, bone mineral loss, radiation, and cardiovascular activity may put the mother's life and the entire mission to Mars at risk.
Therefore, if issues of human sexuality are not addressed, and if necessary precautions are not taken, sex in space could lead to pregnancies, conflict, violence, and catastrophe. By contrast, once safely on the Red Planet, sex on Mars and the subsequent birth of the first Martian, would truly make humans a two planet species, and would be the first step to human colonization of the cosmos.

COURTESY -
Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D.
Emeritus, Brain Research Laboratory, Northern California

2011- New Challenges and Hope

The discovery of the first Earth twin, the rise of robot avatars and major leaps forward for commercial space flight are just some of the developments that will define 2011 - or will they?
 Last year, we used this slot to preview the stories we were most looking forward to in 2010. Some happened: the first cells with synthetic genomes were created and there is now a rough draft of the Neanderthal genome. Others... not so much. Even the first of NASA's shuttles to be scheduled for retirement failed to make its final flight.

This year we decided to take prediction science a step further, by enlisting the powers of Samuel Arbesman, who works on computational approaches to the study of science at Harvard Medical School in Boston. He is pioneering ways to employ scientometrics - a field that attempts to measure scientific progress - to make predictions about when new discoveries will occur. In September, he famously used the properties of known alien worlds to predict that the first life-friendly exoplanet had a 50 per cent chance of being found before May 2011; such a planet showed up a few weeks later.
We asked Arbesman to apply similar methods to a list of breakthroughs we thought might happen in 2011. He whittled this down to four that lent themselves to his methods, and attempted to calculate the probability of each one occurring in the next 12 months.
In the articles below you can gauge these predictions for yourself, along with four more stories that we reckon have a good chance of defining 2011.

Earth's doppelganger

Like meeting an estranged twin you didn't know you had, Earthlings will thrill at finding their planetary double. To predict the timing of this momentous occasion, we turned to a measure of "Earth-like-ness" devised earlier this year by one of us (Arbesman), along with Greg Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz. This "habitability index" is based on estimates of a planet's average temperature and size. "Hot Jupiters", searingly hot worlds that orbit their hosts in just days, score close to zero, while one with similar properties to Earth would get a value of 1.
In September, plotting the index of each planet against the date of its discovery and extrapolating the resulting curves predicted that an Earth-like planet would be found by May 2011. Two weeks later, such a planet - Gliese 581 g - was spotted although the detection is awaiting further confirmation.Exoplanet-hunting may get a boost in February, when NASA's Kepler telescope is set to release a flood of data. Even if Earth's twin doesn't emerge then, there are plenty of other exoplanet searches that could spot it too. Samuel Arbesman and Rachel Courtland

The internet Boom

The internet will be weaving its way around the world for decades, but will there be fewer new users in 2011 than there were in 2010? The internet is already considered so important in Finland, Spain and Estonia that access is a legal right. And the list of online possibilities keeps on growing. In 2010, the launch of Apple's iPad and other touchscreen computers made surfing more fun and intuitive, while several smartphone operating systems, especially Google's Android, took off, extending the mobile net's reach.

The Electric car

Gentlemen - and women - plug in your engines. This will be the year of the electric car. No, seriously. After seemingly endless testing, technical hiccups and plain reluctance on the part of manufacturers to move electric vehicles from the concept phase to the showroom, it's finally happening. A fleet of new cars powered by the plug instead of the pump will take to the road in 2011.
Leading the charge is the Chevy Volt. With a 16-kilowatt-hour battery and a 110-kilowatt (149-horsepower) electric motor, it can go 60 kilometres on a single charge, plenty for commuting and weekend grocery runs. Critics point out that a 1.4-litre gasoline engine kicks in when the battery runs down, making the Volt a mere hybrid rather than a fully fledged electric car.

A new Hope Stem Cell

Human embryonic stem cells have inspired hope and loathing in almost equal measure. Next year hESCs could prove their worth, thanks to trials of two very different treatments.HESCs are unique in their ability to form all 200 tissues of the human body. In principle, cells derived from them could regenerate almost any tissue or organ. But because they come from embryos that are later destroyed, their use is controversial. To pacify the opposition the stem cells need to live up to expectation.
Within weeks, surgeons will inject retinal cells derived from hESCs into the eye of an individual with Stargardt's macular dystrophy, in the hope of delaying or preventing blindness, says Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) in Worcester, Massachusetts, which is developing the treatment. Eleven more patients are due to be injected in 2011. Any improvements in vision should be obvious and could take as little as six weeks to emerge.
The eye, however, is something of a special case. Insulated from the immune system, cells there are less likely to be rejected than in other parts of the body. To find out whether hESCs have broader therapeutic potential, we need to look to another, more ambitious trial.In October, a paralysed person received a spinal injection of hESC-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. Ten more patients are due to receive cells in 2011. The stem cells should repair damaged nerves and prompt the growth of new ones, says Geron of Menlo Park, California, which is developing this treatment.
Unlike the ACT trial, the benefits may take longer to show themselves. If the spinal cells do no more than show they are safe, this will be an important milestone. Also in the pipeline are therapies to restore sight in people with age-related macular degeneration and blood cells for use in transfusions.

Private Space Taxies

PRIVATE companies have been promising for years that they can slash the cost of space travel, breaking the government monopoly on space flight and opening up the final frontier to the rest of us. At long last these efforts may be bearing fruit.On 8 December, the California-based firm SpaceX launched its Dragon capsule into orbit and safely parachuted it into the ocean - the first time a private company has achieved the feat.
Under a contract signed with NASA in 2008, the Dragon capsule will carry cargo to the International Space Station. SpaceX founder Elon Musk hopes it will eventually be permitted to carry astronauts as well.
NASA, facing the retirement of the shuttle fleet in 2011, is actively encouraging the development of private space taxis. In 2010 alone it distributed $50 million to private space firms, including SpaceX, and Congress is considering spending hundreds of millions more in 2011.
So what do we have to look forward to in 2011? SpaceX plans two more demonstration flights, the first of which will likely blast off mid-year and is expected to fly within a few kilometres of the ISS. The second would actually dock with the station, marking another first for a non-governmental spacecraft.
Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company founded by airline mogul Richard Branson, is also set to take some giant leaps forward in 2011

Astronomy Events and Space Launches in 2011

2 January – Conjunction between Jupiter and Uranus at 13:41 UTC, with Jupiter 34 minutes of arc to the south; the third conjunction of a triple Conjunction.
4 January – Partial Solar Eclipse visible over most of Europe, the Arabian peninsula, North Africa, and Western Asia.
3 February - Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-133 Launch, Lunch Time-1:37 am EDT
18 March – NASA's MESSENGER Spaceraft is scheduled to arrive in orbit around Mercury.
18 March – NASA's Pluto probe New Horions will cross the orbit of Uranus, after a five-year journey. This will be faster than Voyager-2, which took eight years.
01 April – Space shuttle Endeavour mission STS-134 Launch. Launch Time 3:15 am EDT . The Space Shuttle will undertake its final mission before retirement.
Pakistan will launch its first space satellite.
May - Jupiter, Venus, Mercury and Mars all visible within a roughly 6° area of sky.
1 June – Partial solar eclipse in the Arctic.
15 June – Total Lunar Eclipse, mainly visible in Africa, India, and the Middle East.
July - The Dawn Spaceraft is scheduled to arrive at the dwarf planet Vesta during July. The exact date remains uncertain.
1 July – Partial Solar Eclipse off the coast of Antarctica.
10 July – Neptune completes its first full orbit since its discovery in 1846
15 July – The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the second Dragon spacecraft, called Dragon C2. The mission will demonstrate proximity operations during an approach within 6 miles of the International Space Station.
05 August – First Mission to Jupiter NASA's Juno spacecraft will launch at 12:10 pm to 1:40 pm EDT. Juno will investigate the giant planet's formation, evolution and structure from an elliptical orbit. Mission Juno will reach Jupiter in 2016
15 August – The comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova will pass within 0.0601AU about 8,995,100 km of Earth
08 September – NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission will launch at 8:35 am - 9:14 am EDT. GRAIL includes two spacecraft in lunar orbit to study the moon's interior and thermal evolution.
08 October – The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the third Dragon spacecraft, called Dragon C3 to resupply missions to the International Space Station.
25 November – Partial Solar Eclipse in Antarctica.
25 November – NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission will launch at 10:21 am from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Mars Science Laboratory mission is the Curiosity rover, which will assess whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support microbial life and to determine the planet's habitability.
07 December – Dragon C4 will be the fourth rocket launched by SpaceX. This mission will be the first operational cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station
10 December – Total Lunar Eclipse, visible mainly in Asia, Australia and Alaska.
25 December - Russia's flagship planetary mission, Phobos-Grunt will launch. Phobos-Grunt Mission's key goal is landing on the surface of the Martian moon Phobos and returning its soil samples back to Earth.
- Predicted Solar Maximum also predicted by other research groups for 2012
- China’s permanent space station, will be launched anytime this year. The craft, an orbiting laboratory known in Mandarin as Tiangong-1, would initially serve as a docking station for other spacecraft.

A water world 40 Light Year away !

The extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, GJ 1214b was discovered last year orbiting a dim, red star about 40 light-years from Earth. The planet is about 2.7 times larger than Earth and about 6.5 times more massive.
Based on the planet's density, astronomers estimate that GJ 1214b would be about three-quarters water with a solid core and an atmosphere—not unlike Earth. But it seems the similarities stop there. The planet is so close to its star that any water would be turned to vapor, and the atmosphere should be so thick that the pressure would be immense.
Now new measurements show that GJ 1214b's atmosphere is made of either dense, ultrahot steam or a noxious, cloudy haze of hydrogen. "Either way, it would be unpleasant if you were there," said Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the study.

Starlight Carries Chemical Imprints
Astronomers were able to "sample" the planet's atmosphere by watching the world pass in front of its host star, as seen from Earth.Using the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope in Chile, the team captured the light filtered around the edges of the planet when the world was blocking the star."That light has imprinted on it the signature of chemicals in the atmosphere," said study leader Jacob Bean of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Similar measurements have revealed gases such as hydrogen and sodium in the atmospheres of so-called hot Jupiters, exoplanets that are more massive than our gas giants but that orbit very close to their host stars.This is the first time, however, that astronomers have been able to analyze the atmosphere of an Earth-size planet.

Planet Has "Noxious Soup" or Steamy Blanket?
The data show that GJ 1214b's atmosphere isn't, as previously theorized, a puffy, cloud-free layer of mainly hydrogen gas. Instead the atmosphere appears to block a significant amount of light, the team reports in this week's issue of the journal Nature. For such an atmosphere to be made mostly of hydrogen, it must be topped by a thick layer of clouds like the atmosphere of Venus.
If that's the scenario, "it would make the atmospheres around the worst oil refineries look absolutely pristine," UC Santa Cruz's Laughlin said. Light that does filter through the haze would trigger chemical reactions in the hydrogen gas, creating a "noxious soup of stuff" near the planet's surface.
However, based on the new data, it's also possible that GJ 1214b's atmosphere is a dense blanket of hot water vapor, aka steam. In that case, "it would be the most unique exoplanet we've found so far," study leader Bean said. "We have nothing like that in our solar system."