2008-10-29

Nearby Solar System Looks Like Our Own at Time Life Formed

A nearby solar system bears a striking similarity to our own solar system, raising the possibility it could harbor Earth-like planets.

Epsilon Eridani, located about 10.5 light-years from our sun, is surrounded by two asteroid belts that are shaped by planets, astronomers at SETI Institute and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced today.

But it's the possibility that currently undetected smaller planets could lie within the innermost asteroid belt that make the solar system intriguing to astrobiologists.

"This system probably looks a lot like ours did when life first took root on Earth," said SETI's Dana Backman, lead author of a paper on the 850-million-year-old star that will appear next year in The Astrophysical Journal, in a release.

Back then, the Kuiper Belt of space objects beyond Neptune was much larger. Over time, many of those objects fell into the inner solar system during a period about four billion years ago known as the Late Heavy Bombardment. The barrage of large asteroids pockmarked the rocky planets and possibly created our moon when a large object collided with Earth, expelling a huge amount of material into space.

Epsilon Eridani's evolution could provide insight into how universal these processes are. That's important because our solar system contains a planet — Earth — just far enough from the sun not to be fried but close enough to capture enough energy to support life as we know it. Similar systems
could end up with planets orbiting in the same biological sweet spot.

"Epsilon Eridani looks a lot like the young solar system, so it's conceivable that it will evolve similarly," said astronomer Massimo Marengo of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a co-author of the paper.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/nearby-solar-sy.html

Nearby Solar System Looks Like Our Own at Time Life Formed

A nearby solar system bears a striking similarity to our own solar
system, raising the possibility it could harbor Earth-like planets.



Epsilon Eridani, located about 10.5 light-years from our sun, is surrounded by two asteroid belts that are shaped by planets, astronomers at SETI Institute and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced today.


But it's the possibility that currently undetected smaller planets could lie
within the innermost asteroid belt that make the solar system intriguing to astrobiologists.





"This system probably looks a lot like ours did when life first took root on Earth," said SETI's Dana Backman, lead author of a paper on the 850-million-year-old star that will appear next year in The Astrophysical Journal, in a release.


Back then, the Kuiper Belt
of space objects beyond Neptune was much larger. Over time, many of
those objects fell into the inner solar system during a period about
four billion years ago known as the Late Heavy Bombardment.
The barrage of large asteroids pockmarked the rocky planets and
possibly created our moon when a large object collided with Earth,
expelling a huge amount of material into space.






Epsilon Eridani's evolution could provide insight into how universal these processes are.
That's important because our solar system contains a planet — Earth —
just far enough from the sun not to be fried but close enough to
capture enough energy to support life as we know it. Similar systems
could end up with planets orbiting in the same biological sweet spot.






"Epsilon Eridani looks a lot like the young solar system, so it's conceivable that it will evolve similarly," said astronomer Massimo Marengo of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a co-author of the paper.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/nearby-solar-sy.html

2008-10-07

Holographic Television Coming Soon

We use high-definition television, dark rooms, and surround sound to create an immersive media experience. But for those who want television that more closely resembles the holodeck, there’s good news. A University of Arizona research team has made a significant breakthrough in 3-D displays that could put holographic sets on the market in five to ten years.

A team at the university’s Optical Sciences department, headed by photonics and lasers chair Dr. Nasser Peyghambarian, has created the first rewritable holographic displays that operate from memory:

"This is a prerequisite for any type of moving holographic technology. The way it works presently is not suitable for 3-D images," he said.

The researchers produced displays that can be erased and rewritten in a matter of minutes.

These holographic television would offer multiple types of 3-dimensional viewing experiences:

According to Peyghambarian, they could be constructed as a screen on the wall (like flat panel displays) that shows 3-D images, with all the image writing lasers behind the wall; or it could be like a horizontal panel on a table with holographic writing apparatus underneath.

So, if this project is realized, you really could have a football match on your coffee table, or horror-movie villains jumping out of your wall.

It’s still a long way away from the multisensory experience of the holodeck, but it could mean that next decade’s first person shooters will have you sniping aliens from behind your sofa.

http://io9.com/5059828/holographic-television-coming-soon