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.

GIANT DINOSAUR EGGS FOUND IN CHECHNYA?

Scientists at a university in Chechnya have discovered giant dinosaur eggs in a remote part of south Chechnya and have uploaded pictures to the university's website on Tuesday.

The eggs have been met with very high skepticism and Valentina Nazarova, a paleontologist at Moscow State University said that there is no way these are dinosaur eggs. She explained that dinosaur eggs are know to be a lot smaller, and that "Dinosaurs didn't lay eggs while jumping around like mountain goats."

Nonetheless, a lot of buzz has already been created from the news story as many news stations in Russia have covered it. Russia's NTV headlined the story as "Giant eggs set to lure tourists to Chechnya" and I couldn't agree more. Whether the eggs are really eggs or just round rocks, this will surely attract a lot of tourists from around the region and maybe even some from around the world. This is essential for Chechnya, for it has been a war torn republic for years now and needs a way to move on from it's dark and bloody past. While I'm not really sure that those really are giant dinosaur eggs, I'm sure that nothing bad can come from this find. If the eggs are just rocks, then Chechnya still got its attention and maybe a few surplus tourists. If the eggs really are eggs, then not only will Chechnya have a boost in its tourism, but another amazing scientific find would have been made. 

LIFE ON MARS FOUND 36 YEARS AGO?

Here's the thing. Mars has water. It's frozen at it's poles, but we know very well that it does have water. We also know that Mars has a gas named methane, which (as far as we know) can only come from two things: Microbial life that releases it or active volcanoes erupting. As far as we know, there are no active volcanoes on Mars. That being said, the only logical thing that could be producing the methane are tiny microbes that might live on the planet. Another thing that further reinforces the theory that there are microbes on Mars is that methane percentage in Mars' atmosphere is higher in the day than during the night.

Now, why do scientists suddenly think that there is life on Mars? Well 36 years ago, we sent the Viking spacecrafts to Mars. When the rover landed, there is a high chance that any microbial life that could have been in the soil could have been melted at temperatures of about 160 degrees.

NASA has commented that there is still a lot of uncertainty on whether there really is life on Mars or not, but followed up by saying that Curiosity (which will be landing on mars in August) has instruments that will allow NASA to "discover the nature of oxidants in the Martian soil".

Now all this being said, this is great! In my opinion there definitely is microbial life on Mars, we just haven't found it yet. If and when we do discover concrete evidence that there is life on Mars (Martian microbes in a petri dish, anyone?) a lot will change.

NASA HAS TO REMAKE PLANS FOR MARS

Yet again, NASA is forced to redraw it's plans for landing people on the Mars. Obama slashed NASA's budget by around 20% during his term, and so scientists have calculated landing a man on Mars would happen in the 2030's. Because of the budget cut, NASA has already cancelled two missions with the European Space Agency that were planned for 2016 and 2018, with the one in 2018 set to bring back actual rocks from Mars.

Now, Obama cutting down NASA's funding is the worst possible thing he can do. Not only is the space program very important to rebuilding our economy, but America and NASA were once known for innovation and setting new frontiers in Space. The budget cuts will only destroy and chance we have at being in the lead in the space race.

It's sad to say that from now on a large amount of space exploration will only come from private companies like SpaceX, which are actually meeting up with NASA to talk about the first private flight to the ISS.

NASA TRYING TO RESOLVE ARTIFACT OWNERSHIP

Over the last couple of weeks, NASA and James Lovell, an astronaut that was on the Apollo 13 mission, have been in a small dispute about a checklist that James had during the Apollo 13 mission and whether he had the right to sell it for $388,000.

Now, while NASA specifically said that astronauts can keep personal items that went to space and anything from the lunar landing module that was abandoned as keepsakes, they never said that they could sell them and that that right is only available to NASA

In my opinion, if the astronauts can keep the items, then they might as well be able to also sell them. After all, it is technically theirs, especially when it's something like a checklist. What isn't fair though is that they got such a large amount of money from just selling something as small as that. Now, I'm not saying they don't deserve the money, but $388,000 is a lot of money from just a checklist.