LIFE ON VENUS? THE REAL HINT!

Astronomers seem to have found traces (about 20 parts per billion) of a toxic gas called phosphine (PH₃) in Venus' atmosphere (P).

"What's the big deal?", you asks, dear hard-to-impress reader?

Weeell, it's all 'bout chemistry stuff! See, the "presence of PH₃ is unexplained after exhaustive study of steady-state chemistry and photochemical pathways, with no currently known abiotic production routes in Venus’s atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery. [Therefore] PH₃ could originate from unknown photochemistry or geochemistry, or, by analogy with biological production of PH₃ on Earth, [- and that's the treat, dear reader -] from the presence of life [and, in that case, of a bug's life (hehe, see what I did? Eh?), most probably...]" (P)

The astro brains, for their study, used data collected by the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in 2017 and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in 2019, which revealed the spectral signature of phosphine.

This dumb blog, right below, provides you, dear reader, a snapshot of Venus and a transcription of its comment on the matter.

Life on Venus (by @sciencemug)

[Venus pic by NASA is a Public Domain image (source: Wikimedia Commons); adapted by @sciencemug]

The paper this post is about (P)
-  Greaves, J.S., Richards, A.M.S., Bains, W., Rimmer, P.B., Sagawa, H., Clements, D.L., Seager, S., Petkowski, J.J., Sousa-Silva, C., Ranjan, S., et al. (2020). Phosphine gas in the cloud decks of Venus. Nature Astronomy 1–10.

THE TRUE REASON WHY PLANETS FORM AROUND BLACK HOLES!

Hello dear reader, three Japanese astronomers/astrophysicists just discovered that as "a natural consequence of the elementary processes of dust growth, [...] a new class of planets can be formed around supermassive black holes" (P). 

Basically science just stated that planets, and therefore planetary systems, in theory can naturally form around black holes. 

But this dumb blog has a different story to tell 'bout this...

That's how a planetary system really comes to exist around a black hole according to @sciencemug

[The black hole pic by Event Horizon Telescope is under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (source: Wikimedia Commons); planets pics are Public Domain images (source: NASA via Picryl); golf flag pic is under Creative Commons Zero - CC0/Public Domain License (source: Peakpx); golf club pic is under Creative Commons 4.0 BY-NC License (source: Pngimg). All images adapted by @sciencemug]

NOTE

A "Type III Civilization" is the most advanced type of civilization according to the I to III Kardashev scale.

Nikolai Kardashev was a Russian astrophysicist (1932-2019) author of the paper "Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations" (1) published on Soviet Astronomy AJ in 1964. In the paper Mr. K writes about the "distinguishing properties of artificial sources of cosmic radio-frequency emission" (1): basically the guy describes what are the characteristics needed, in terms of energy availability and type of transmissions, for successful communications to happen between galaxies (and their civilizations).

In his paper Mr. K comes up with a classification of civilizations that goes like this:

- Type I civilization has "a technological level close to the level presently attained on the Earth" (1).

- Type II civilization is "capable of harnessing the energy radiated by its own star (for example, the stage of successful construction of a "Dyson sphere" * (2)) (1).

- Type III civilization is "in possession of energy on the scale of its own galaxy" (1) (but apparently it's not in possession of a decent swing, hence, it sucks at cosmic golf...).

* Dude, if you don't know what a Dyson sphere be, well, you definitely don't like Star Trek or sci-fi in general... Anyway, Freeman J Dyson (born in 1923) is a British-American physicist who, in a paper published in 1960 on Science, writes that if "extraterrestrial intelligent beings exist and have reached a high level of technical development, one by-product of their energy metabolism is likely to be the large-scale conversion of starlight into far-infrared radiation" (2) and that it is reasonable to suppose that "within a few thousand years of its entering the stage of industrial development, any intelligent species should be found occupying an artificial biosphere which completely surrounds its parent star" (2). Finally dude Dyson concludes that the "most likely habitat for such beings would be a dark object, having a size comparable with the Earth's orbit, and a surface temperature of 200 deg. to 300 deg. Kelvin [(T-Kelvin=T-Celsius + 273.15... Oooh for The Mighty SI System Sake! Ok, ok, T-Kelvin=(T-Fahrenheit + 459,67) / 1,8 )]. Such a dark object would be radiating as copiously as the star which is hidden inside it, but the radiation would be in the far infrared, around 10 microns wavelength."(2).

There you go pal, that's the Dyson sphere.

Bibliography

P- Wada, K., Tsukamoto, Y., and Kokubo, E. (2019). Planet Formation around Supermassive Black Holes in the Active Galactic Nuclei. ApJ 886, 107.

1- Kardashev, N.S. (1964). Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations. SvA 8, 217.

2- Dyson, F.J. (1960). Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation. Science 131, 1667–1668.

THE ROGUE PLANET

The rogue planet: a short science "crime" story 

(written in Eng?ish)  

Listen to the podcast episode
on Itunes
on Podcast Machine

The place: Sheriff Cosmo's office. 

The characters: cop1 (Sheriff Cosmo); cop2 (Agent McSpace); cop3 (Agent 'CSI' Stern); the rogue planet (CFBDSIRJ214947.2-040308.9); the gang (AB Doradus moving group). 

The background: a group of concerned good citizens – a bunch of astronomers from France and Canada - has reported to the authorities the presence of a suspicious planet which is roaming alone in the interstellar space something like 80-160 light years from Earth. The international group of geeks has snitched last september when its members published a research paper on the journal 'Astronomy&Astrophysics'.
After a long chase, Scheriff Cosmo's men have apprehended the rogue planet, the charge being vagrancy and possession of a false ID card. 
The scene: Agent McSpace and Agent 'CSI' Stern are reporting to Sheriff Cosmo.

The rogue planet (by sciencemug)

[The picture is adapted from a Public Domain image by sciencemug (source: Wikimedia Commons)]

Agent McSpace- ... It was wandering as reported, besides the suspect had an ID card which stated that it is a brown dwarf, but that's false... 
Sheriff Cosmo- If it's not a brown little cosmic body – I think they prefer to be called like this, McRude – what is it our prisoner? 
Agent 'CSI' Stern- It is probably a 4−7 Jupiter mass free-floating planet with a temperature of about 700 K and a log g of about 4.0, Sheriff. 
SC- Translate for the non-brains, please... 

CSI- Essentially it's not a brown dw... little cosmic body, Sir, but a ball of gass 4 to 7 times more massive than Jupiter, thus 1300 to 2200 times more massive than the Earth, but anyway 4200 to 7300 times less massive than the Sun. 
SC- Ok, in short a big guy among planets and a loser among stars. 
CSI- More or less Sir. 
SC- Go on, what about all those strange parameters you mentioned. 
CSI- What, the temperature and the log g? 
SC- Yeah, that stuff. 
CSI- Well, Sir, the surface temperature of the prisoner is about 700 Kelvin... 
SC- Hey CSI, I'm a Fahrenheit guy... 
CSI- Sorry Sir, it means a bit more than 800 °F. 
McS- Ahem... 
SC- Yes Agent McSpace? 
McS- I'm european on my mother's side, Sir... 
SC- So? 
McS- Well, Sir, I was born and raised according to the SI system... 
SC- Oh for Newton's sake... ok, Stern, convert that Kelvin thing into... what is it McSI? 
McS- Celsius Sir, thank you Sir. 
Stern looks at McSpace and, with a hint of condescension, says- It's a bit less than 430 °C, McEuropean. This means that our prisoner's surface temperature is 8 times lower than our Sun's one, while it's similar to that of Mercury and about 5 times higher then the Jupiter's one. 
SC- What about the log g 4 matter? 
CSI- Oh, right Sir. Log g 4 means that the prisoner's surface gravity is about 10 times higher than Earth's gravity, Sir. 
SC- Gotcha. Anyway, how come that we made acquaintance with this hobo full of gas?

McS- We were 'introduced' each other by Doc Delorme...

SC- Who?

McS- You know him Sir, remember? He's the guy who organized the surveillance initiative we authorized a while ago, the 'Canada-France Brown Dwarfs Survey which searches the sky also in the infra-red wavelenght (CFBDIR)'. He and his pals full of good will contacted us because, during one of the patrols in their space-block, they spotted a cosmic body that was floating alone.

SC- Aah right, right... So our prisoner was, is that body. I see... Well, nothing like a fistful of zealous astronomers to keep our asses informed about the sky, don't you think?

McSpace and Stern smile while nodding.

SC- Anything else gentlemen?

McS- Yes Sir. The prisoner could be affiliated with a gang, the 'AB Doradus moving group'.

CSI- Actually there's an 87% probability of such an affiliation, Sir – points out Stern pretending not to notice McSpace's eye-rolling.

McS- The gang is formed by about thirty co-moving stars. Its leader's a physco, it's been diagnosed with a personality disorder, it's infact a trinary star* (1)... Full name's 'AB Doranus' but everybody calls it 'AB Dor'. It and its other fellas have been spotted for the first time in 2004.

SC- By who, still nosy civilians?

McS- Yes Sir, three space-voyeurs from USA and Australia... They gave us the information in exchange of a one-year free supply of donuts, a pile of autographed pictures of Stephen Hawking and a paper published on 'The Astrophysical Journal'**.

SC- Uhm, fair deal, I'd say... Ok then, these gangsta-moving stars, where do they usually hang out?

CSI- Many of the AB Dor's group members can be found in the northern hemisphere. They are about 15-20 parsec (48-65 light years) away from us, Sir, partially surrounding our Sun (1-2).

SC- Do you think they can become a problem?

McS- No Sir, they're just some random 50-120 million years old youngsters (1). Basically it's only a small flock of star-kids who waste their time loitering around together in the universe.

SC- And our prisoner, how old is it?

CSI- Well, its ID card says it's 20-200 million years old. Anyway it must be 50-120 million years old too, since it's most probably one of the AB Dor's affiliates and they accept only people of their age. 
Sheriff Cosmo stops swinging on his chair and stands up- Alright gentlemen, take the spectral fingerprints of this spherical cosmic little fart, take its mugshot too and file it as 'CFBDSIRJ214947.2-040308.9'. Once the paper work's done, kick the tramp out of here with a warning, there's no point in keeping it in at the expense of the state.

McS- Yes Sir.

CSI- Indeed Sir...