UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

As telescopes get stronger and detection techniques get more sophisticated, especially with the assistance of artificial intelligence, astronomers are finding more exoplanets every day – including the first to be seen orbiting a star in another galaxy. However, contrary to other fields, it seems the more exoplanets we find, the less we know about them. Astronomers assumed other stars would have planets like those in our own solar system – especially the rocky ones with thick outer layers. Instead, a new study shows that many should be called “eggshell” exoplanets because their outer layers are so thin and brittle. Will future astronauts need to practice walking on eggshells?

“Understanding whether you’ve got the possibility of plate tectonics is a really important thing to know about a world, because plate tectonics may be required for a large rocky planet to be habitable. It’s therefore especially important when we’re talking about looking for Earth-like worlds around other stars and when we’re characterizing planetary habitability generally.”

Botched landing on an eggshell planet?

Planetary geologist Paul Byrne, an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is the first author of the study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, led the development of the model used to prove the existence of these so-called “eggshell” planets. As he explains in the press release, Byrne and his collaborators focused on the outer layer – called the lithosphere – of exoplanets to determine their topography (do they have mountains?), thickness (can they be excavated?), temperature (are they habitable) and other features not visible to telescopes.

“This thickness helps determine whether, for example, a planet can support high topography such as mountains, or has the right balance between rigidity and flexibility for one part of the surface to dive down, or subduct, beneath another — the hallmark of plate tectonics. It is this process that helps Earth regulate its temperature over geological timescales, and the reason why plate tectonics is thought to be an important component of planetary habitability. By adjusting an exoplanet’s size, distance from its star, age and other factors, the researchers found that extremes created unusual planets … including three predicted to have eggshell-like lithospheres.”

They discovered the biggest factor in creating eggshells is surface temperature. (Isn’t that the same with chicken eggs?) Manipulating size, age and distance from their star had less effect in creating these brittle eggshell layers which Byrne says may be only a few kilometers thick. The only planet in our solar system with a similar topography is Venus, although it may not be eggshell thin across its entire surface.

Eggshell planets solar system model?

“Ultimately we want to help contribute to identifying the properties that make a world habitable. And not just temporarily, but habitable for a long time, because we think life probably needs a while to get going and become sustainable.”

Are eggshell planets habitable? Byrne isn’t sure – his goal is to figure out how Earth formed and then search for stars and exoplanets with similar circumstances or histories.

Is he looking for a new place to live? Does he knows something we don’t? Now WE’RE walking on eggshells.

With the latest and unequivocally best movie version of “Dune” in the theaters, most reviews make note that novelist Frenk Herbert was a fan of psilocybin ‘magic’ mushrooms and may have been inspired by the psychedelic ‘shrooms when he came up with the idea for mélange or ‘spice’ – the key reason for the fight over the planet Arrakis. Interest in real space travel has been stimulated by the progress of private space companies and the desire of SpaceX founder Elon Musk and NASA to travel to Mars and eventually colonize Mars, progress has been severely restricted by the challenge of protecting astronauts from cosmic radiation. While the mushrooms used may not be ‘magic’, researchers recently discovered a fungus that not only thrives in high cosmic radiation in space but feeds on it and could be used to grow radiation shields in space. Magic or science?

Future Mars base?

“Certain fungi thrive in high-radiation environments on Earth, such as the contamination radius of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Analogous to photosynthesis, these organisms appear to perform radiosynthesis, utilizing ionizing radiation to generate chemical energy. It has been postulated that the absorption of radiation is attributable to the pigment melanin. It is further hypothesized that this phenomenon translates to radiation-shielding properties.”

Cladosporium sphaerospermum, a radiotrophic fungus, could act as a radiation shield on deep space missions.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Medmyco.

Something good has finally come from the Chernobyl disaster – a study published in the preprint journal bioRxiv announces the discovery that Cladosporium sphaerospermum, found thriving in the contamination zone, also enjoy space radiation. A shipment of them was sent to the International Space Station in 2019 where they spent 30 days next to a control bed with no fungus. When returned to Earth, it was found that the radiation levels underneath the fungus were 2.17% lower than the control bed. Even more exciting, the fungi grew 21% faster than on Earth. In other words, when it comes to cosmic radiation … they like it! Are Cladosporium sphaerospermum the ‘spice’ of real space travel?

“To increase density and thus the LAC, fungal biomass or melanin itself could be integrated with in-situ resources that are abundant at destination, such as regolith. In a case study we estimated that a ~ 2.3 m layer of melanized fungal biomass (8.6% [wmelanin/wCWW] melanin-content) would be needed to lower Martian radiation levels to those on Earth (from 234 mSv/a to 6.2 mSv/a, whereas an equimolar composite of melanin and Martian regolith would only require a layer of ~ 1 m for the same reduction of radiation.”

In simple terms, the thicker the fungus, the better the radiation protection. To grow a suitable radiation shield (LAC is linear attenuation coefficient — a measure for the fungus’ capacity to shield against ionizing radiation) on the surface of Mars to protect astronauts underneath it would require a layer 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) thick. For comparison, the same protection could be achieved by building structures under 3 meters of regolith (Martian surface dirt and rocks). The benefits to growing a renewable shield on the surface versus living underground are obvious – the problem is that the fungi shield hasn’t been tested yet.

Future Martians?

The study researchers, led by Graham K. Shunk of the Physics Department at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, tip their hats to nature for providing what may be an excellent and elegant solution to the problem of space travel radiation.

“Often nature has already developed surprisingly effective solutions to engineering and design problems faced as humankind evolves – biotechnology could thus prove to be an invaluable asset for life support and protection of explorers on future missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.”

Cladosporium sphaerospermum may not be ‘spice’ but it could be just as beneficial to space travel … and it’s right here on Earth. However, leaving Earth means leaving one of our best sources of innovation — nature — behind. Would we be better off staying here?