Most of us think of the Planck Mission as either an extension of the WMAP, or as the answer to (and correction of) the WMAP.  It’s not used to unseat WMAP, but to serve as the next step.

The Planck satellite - NASA image

Launched in May of 2009, Planck resides in the Earth’s second Lagrange point (yes, you do TOO know what a Lagrange point is).  That’s about 930,000 miles out.  More sensitive than WMAP, Planck images the oldest radiation in the universe; the cosmic microwave background.  This radiation was created 13 billion years ago (plus or minus) in the Big Bang, and has existed every since – traveling away from its point of origin in all directions.

NASA image - The CMB as imaged by Planck

To really understand what Planck is viewing, you have to spend some time reading up on the cosmic microwave background — but I’ll give you a quick review.  When the universe was very young, it was uniformly filled with a “fog” of glowing hydrogen plasma and radiation.  As the universe aged and expanded, this “fog” became thinner and cooler, and eventually formed matter.  The radiation remained equally distributed as the universe expanded, and exactly the same amount of photons filled a larger and larger universe.  That’s “relic radiation”, and that’s the cosmic microwave background.

Didn’t catch it?  Okay; picture hair mousse.  Spray some in your hand and it will begin to expand.  Same mass of hair mousse, larger blob filling your hand.

Now, what Planck is doing is sending information on this radiation (which it “images”) to supercomputers around the world.  In the United States, that’s the Franklin computer in Berkeley (primarily).  The information is analyzed by ESA, NASA, and JPL, among others.

NASA image - Another view of the CMB from Planck

As our understanding of the early universe increases through the data from Planck, we will know more about the size, shape, mass, age, and fate of our universe.  Will it expand forever, or someday collapse back upon itself?  Planck may give us the answer.  Don’t forget, also, that Planck may very well help us solve the dark matter/dark energy mystery.

We will never reach a place where we know everything about the universe.  Not only is it much too vast and complicated, it appears possible that there are infinite universes with infinite mystery.  Doesn’t that just give you goose bumps?

Let’s turn our attention today to our nearest neighbor, Mars.  We talk about objects in the universe, so distant, as if they were within our reach.  While Mars is within  our reach, sort of, it’s also still distant and mysterious.

NASA image, from my files. Mars with Phobos and Deimos

Roughly one-half the size of Earth, Mars shares the gravitational pull of Mercury (smaller than Mars but denser).  Mars appears uniquely ruddy.  This is because its surface is rusting.  Its surface is covered with a fine dust of iron(III) oxide.

Possessing two captured moons, Phobos and Deimos, Mars is also home to the highest known mountain in the solar system (Olympus Mons), and the largest canyon (Valles Marineris).  Water ice has been discovered at the poles and at mid-latitudes, and there is evidence to suggest that Mars was quite wet in the distant past.  Although it no longer has a global magnetic field, it did at one time.  Its atmosphere is now thin and cold, blown away by the solar winds, but at one time Mars had a thick atmosphere and was much warmer.  Something happened on Mars to shut the planet down, and we think we know what it was; Mars lost its liquid core.  It cooled and solidified, and this was a disaster.

Victora Crater by NASA/The Rover Opportunity

Mars not only has a tragic past, it has a violent past.  During the late heavy bombardment, Mars was likely struck by a Pluto-sized body, creating the North Polar Basin (also called the Borealis Basin).  This is the largest impact basin yet discovered in the solar system; it covers 40% of the planet.  The Tharsis Bulge sits on the rim of the North Polar Basin, with its huge, sagging weight (the size of Ceres) and tremendous volcanoes.

The Tharsis Region, NASA/JPL-CalTech, Olympus Mons is in the upper left corner

Although we know a lot about Mars now, it’s still shrouded in mystery.  Was there life on Mars before the catastrophic cooling of its core?  Could there have been liquid water on its surface as early as a few million years ago, as evidence seems to suggest due to the formation of some of its younger canals?  Could there still be microscopic life on Mars?  Could Mars be terraformed?

When we look at Mars now, many of us wonder if we are seeing the future of Earth.

As we make incredible discoveries in distant corners of the vast universe, don’t forget our mysterious neighbor.  With its fantastic surface features, evocative red color, and its violent, tragic past, Mars has earned its association with the god of war.  Spare a moment to ponder the magic and mystery of this beautiful, ancient planet.

Every life form that has evolved on Earth, as far as we know, is a carbon-based life form.  You know this, of course.  Carbon is ideal for forming long chains in an oxygen/liquid water environment.

We say carbon "likes" to form bonds because it readily bonds in this type of environment. This is the simplest organic compound, methane.

I’m not much of a carbon chauvinist, but I would expect some type of carbon-based life form in any similar environment.  Why?  Because although I do think it’s possible to have other-based life, like silicon, they probably wouldn’t evolve in our type of environment.  They probably couldn’t.

Take silicon, for example.  In an extremely cold environment, devoid of oxygen and liquid water, with another liquid solvent (like liquid methane – sound familiar?), silicon readily bonds and forms chains, as opposed to the lattice-shape it forms here.  Chains are important; you’ll just have to trust me on that for now.

This represents a molecule of silicon in this atmosphere. It forms a lattice structure that's not useful for organic compounds.

Anyway, the silicon chains are called silane polymers, and they react violently when in contact with liquid water or oxygen.  It produces an explosive immolation (it burns suddenly and fiercely).  You certainly wouldn’t want to touch anything walking around that’s based on silicon.  Star Trek’s “Horta”, a silicon-based life form that looked like a rock, would have erupted violently immediately in contact with the artificial oxygen atmosphere.  Of course, the Horta supposedly had some kind of protective layer (which wouldn’t have evolved in the atmosphere the Horta evolved in, but oh well).

This is silane, which will form bonds in chains (silane polymers) which are useful when forming organic compounds.

Now, who can tell me a place fairly close to the Earth that is cold, devoid of oxygen, and has liquid methane?  I’ll give you a hint; it’s a moon in this solar system.

Mankind has a rich history of looking up at the stars and telling stories about them.  One of the best “story lines” is the existence of other worlds, and speculation about the possible inhabitants of those worlds.

It’s hard to believe that the existence of exoplanets has only been confirmed since 1992, with the detection of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting a pulsar (PSR B1257+12).  The first planet found orbiting a main-sequence star was 51 Pegasi b (in 1995).  You remember 51 Pegasi b, don’t you?  Bellerophon?

Image from NASA - super-Earth size comparison with "default" Earth

Some of you are out there right now bouncing off the walls.  No, I haven’t forgotten Campbell, Walker, and Yang and their 1988 discovery.  It was there in 1988, it just wasn’t confirmed until 2002.

Given that our current detection methods are so primitive, and that we’ve really only been looking for a short time, we might find that planets are very common throughout the Cosmos.  We’ve already found that planets come in more variety than imagined, and we have fun speculating on what type of life might be found on them.

NASA - artist's impression of Chthonian planet

The way we now discuss finding exoplanets now, you’d think all we had to do was pick a star, any star, and start counting.  That’s not at all how it works.  Planets are extremely difficult little critters to locate.  They’re very poor light sources, for one thing, emitting only one millionth the light of their parent stars.  They also tend to get “washed away” in the glare of the parent star.

So, exoplanets are extremely difficult to locate.  Even more difficult would be locating the “signature” of biological life.  In astronomy (as in all things) it’s helpful to know what you’re looking for before you start looking.  As we’re not sure what kinds of life might be “out there”, we’re uncertain yet as to what we should be looking for.

NASA/GSFC/Marc Kuchner - size comparison of different exoplanet types

In the short amount of time we’ve been looking since 51 Pegasi b, an amazing array of planet types has been discovered.  Bellerophon itself is a “Hot Jupiter”, just one type in a crowd; and that’s a pretty interesting crowd.  Check it out:  Super-Earth, Hot Neptune, Hot Jupiter (said that), helium planet, coreless planet, Chthonian planet, carbon planet, iron planet, ocean planet, terrestrial planet, Goldilocks planet, gas giant, eccentric Jupiter, and pulsar planet.

Amazing.  The diversity alone is staggering.  Who know what life forms have evolved to fill these niches.

When we think about dwarf planets, the first one that comes to mind is Pluto.  Following that, we think about Makemake, Eris, Haumea, and Ceres.  We get this mental image of Pluto, followed by a cluster of little planets out in the Kuiper Belt.  That mental diagram is wrong for many reasons, but it’s mostly wrong because of Ceres.  Ceres is not in a cluster out in the Kuiper Belt; it’s in our own back yard.

From NASA, comparison of the Earth, Moon, and Ceres

Ceres, the largest object within the Asteroid Belt, is the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system.  Discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi on January 1st, 1801, Piazzi thought at first that he had found a comet.  After watching it for a while, Piazzi announced his discovery January 24th.  He did note that the “comet” was moving in such a slow and uniform manner that it might be something more interesting.  Indeed it was.

Ceres is named for the Roman goddess of the harvest, and was called “Hera” for a while in Germany, and “Demeter” in Greece.  Its astronomical symbol is the sickle – that looks like the universal symbol for “female” with a chunk missing from it in the 6:00 to 9:00 position.  Remember, the astronomical symbol for Venus is the female symbol.

NASA/ESA HST, images of Ceres - nature of the white spot unknown

For a long time Ceres was listed as a planet, along with 2 Pallas, 3 Juno, and 4 Vesta.  Its final designation, that of a dwarf planet, came about in 2006.  The largest object in the Asteroid Belt, Ceres is responsible for a full third of its mass.  Mostly spherical, its surface is probably a mixture of water ices and gooey carbonates and clays.

Modern observation has shown that Ceres appears to have differentiated into a rocky core with an icy mantle.  There may even be a sub-surface ocean of liquid water.  The Dawn space probe will visit Ceres in 2015.  That should prove exciting, so mark it on your calendars; only four more years to go!  It’s been estimated that Ceres contains more fresh frozen water than what we find on Earth.

NASA/ESA, A. Field - possible layers of Ceres

There has been some talk that Ceres may have captured biologically active ejecta from the young Earth, and with a warm, sub-surface (possibly salty) ocean, it could have been colonized.  While all discoveries of possible sub-surface liquid water leads to talk of extra-terrestrial life, Ceres is definitely in a better position to study than, say, Europa.

Ceres is certainly an interesting object to study.  With exceptional viewing conditions, a very sharp-sighted person can see Ceres (very dimly), but it mostly requires some sort of viewing aid.  Ceres will next be at perihelion December 18, 2012, so get those binoculars ready.

NASA/ESA HST enhanced (to show detail) image of Ceres

On Saturday’s riddle, I featured M64, the Sleeping Beauty Galaxy.  Now, take a look at why this is called the Beauty:

NASA/Hubble ST - The Sleeping Beauty/M64

Can you believe that?  She doesn’t look real, does she?  It’s almost as if this incredible sight was deliberately painted, then stuck out 24 million light years away, waiting for someone to happen upon her.

You are seeing the result of two galaxies colliding about a billion years ago.  The center, where you see white blaze, is rotating clockwise.  In the outer portion of the galaxy you see this black, gaseous area.  This area is rotating counter-clockwise.  Now, where the two regions meet, the “shear”, there is this incredible explosion of new, hot, blue stars.  That’s the result of the tremendous forces involved pushing and moving against each other.  Around those gorgeous blue stars, you’ll see pink emission nebulae.  This is where the light from the stars is shining into the interstellar gasses and dust, and reflecting this glorious pink color (which our Hubble picked up).

The Beauty lies in the Coma Berenices constellation.  This is a fascinating region of the cosmos.  The Coma Berenices was named after an historical figure, one of the few constellations to do so.  In this case, the honor went to Queen Berenices II of Egypt.  Although Coma Berenices isn’t a very large constellation, she contains the Northern portion of the Virgo Cluster, along with several globular clusters.  She boasts eight Messier objects; one of which is the Beauty.  You will find a tremendous number of galaxies here, assorted nebulae, quasars, and the Northern Galactic Pole.

Enjoy.