LIGHT IS SEEN FROM SUPER-EARTH FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Before we get started: no, the "Super-Earth" is not a habitable world. The planet I'm talking about is 55 Cancri e, which was discovered in 2004. Its only called a super-Earth because of its size and mass. It's mass is about 8 times greater than Earths and its about double in width.

Light was detected from 55 Cancri e for the first time this past week, and was detected by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Many astronomers are calling this a historic achievement because it's the first time light from a rocky super-earth has been seen. Because the side that faces the parent star reaches up to 1,726 degrees Celsius (3,140 degrees Fahrenheit) water cannot exist on the planet in a state that most humans are common with. It can however exist in a "supercritical fluid" state which can be thought of as a gas in a liquid state. Sometimes this happens on Earth in steam engines.

Spitzer found light from another planet in 2005, but it was a gas giant in an orbit extremely close to it's parent star. The alien solar system 55 Cancri e is a part of includes another four exoplanets. The star the exoplanets circle around is called 55 Cancri and the system is found in the constellation Cancer.

SUPERMOON THIS SATURDAY

You should look at the moon on the 5th of May. More precisely, at 11:34 P.M. Eastern Time. Why? Well the moon is set to be about 16 times brighter and bigger than usual. This is because it will be at it's closest to the Earth. This point on the moon's orbit is called the perigee. The moon is 221,802 miles away from the Earth at this point, and while it may seem like that is a lot of miles, it's almost nothing on the astronomical scale. 

So, the moon reaches it's perigee at 11:34 P.M.. What else is special about Saturday? Well, the moon is also going to be full. So the view will be even more spectacular. An interesting thing that will happen is that the full moon will happen at around 11:34 P.M. while the perigee is reached at 11:35 P.M., which rarely happens.

The photo below is the moon at its perigee in 2011. It is rising over the Cascade Mountains in Seattle.

NEW PARTICLE DISCOVERED BY THE LHC

Scientists at CERN have discovered a new particle through the use of the Large Hadron Collider. They announced last Friday that the new particle is actually called "neutral Xi_b^star" and is in fact a baryon.

The baryon is made up of three quarks and exists for an incredibly short amount of time. "It lives for less time than you or me can imagine," Carlos Lourenco, a lead scientist at CERN said in an interview. The particle can only exist on earth in the LHC, and sometimes in space. An example of when it could exist in space is when a huge cosmic ray hits the moon. 

As for the Higgs Boson, scientists hope that they will finally find the particle be the end of the year. 

ANTARCTIC ICE IS MELTING FROM BELOW

NASA has found that the western shores of Antarctica have been melting from below instead of above. This is because the ocean is getting warmer and warmer faster than the air above it. In the video below, please note that the shelf thickness (how thick the ice is) is indicated by color. Red would be thick (550 meters or thicker) and blue would be thinner (200 meters or thinner).


The information in this graphic was gathered by NASA's ICESat, which was launched in January of 2003. It stand for Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation. It is located in orbit around Antarctica, and scientists collected data on how ice was melting from October of 2005 to 2008. They concluded that nearly half of all ice shelves were melting from below.

MYSTERIOUS OBJECTS DEFORMING SATURN'S RING

Saturn has always had a ring that was the odd ball, and this ring is called the F ring. Now, it seems that half a mile objects are punching holes through this ring, leaving some pretty cool trails that scientists describe as "mini jets". Now, scientists have an idea of what might be causing these weird smears on Saturn's F ring. Here's what Carl Murray, a Cassini imaging team member based at London's Queen Mary University had to say about the ring:"I think the F ring is Saturn's weirdest ring, and these latest Cassini results go to show how the F ring is even more dynamic than we ever thought. These findings show us that the F ring region is like a bustling zoo of objects from a half mile in size to moons like Prometheus a hundred miles in size, creating a spectacular show."

From this we can conclude that these objects are "snowballs" left by Prometheus and Saturn's other moon that keeps the F ring in check, Pandora. These "snowballs" are created when the moons pass through the ring. The snowballs are created and then also collide with the F ring. The video below will show what I'm talkinga bout and put everything into perspective.

POLAR BEAR ANCESTRY DECODED

We used to believe that polar bears branched off from brown bears about 150,000 years ago to be able to live  on the Arctic Sea. This hypothesis might soon be disputed, for new DNA evidence says differently.

The new study looked at the mitochondrial DNA of black bears, polar bears, and brown bears. They found that brown and polar bears have a common ancestor and split up about 600,000 years ago. During the study it was found that polar bears are much more genetically unique than previously thought.

The new find does not only challenge the idea that polar bears branched off from brown bears, but also that polar bears adapted quickly to their new environment. One thing the study confirms is that polar bears have made it through warm periods on Earth in the past.

This makes me wonder, because while we now know that they've made it through warming periods on Earth without dying off that doesn't mean that the Earth warmed up at such an accelerated pace like it is today. Will polar bears manage to tough this one out like before? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

PLANETARY RESOURCES: BACKED BY JAMES CAMERON

James Cameron has been in the news a lot lately. After visiting one of the deepest points in the ocean, he now wants to explore space. A private company named Planetary Resources is being backed by him to "explore space and find natural resources" Now, the company isn't Cameron's, but is backed by him along with Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. Not much is known about the company as of yet, but it sure does hold promise.

As for what I think of this, I have already mentioned that in my opinion private companies are the future of space exploration. First it was SpaceX and now Planetary Resources. While I am glad that so many rich people around the world show interest in space, it still saddens me to know that NASA isn't getting all the funding it needs. We as a nation need to be able to explore space, not just private companies. Other than that, I'll be keeping an eye on Planetary Resources and anything else that James Cameron is up to.