Type at least 3 characters

5 news posts in Moon and planets

Why understanding human evolution on Earth will be absolutely essential for any future deep-space colonies to survive and thrive

By Lee G Irons, Norfolk Institute, and Morgan A Irons, Cornell University Photo of Lee and Morgan, Credit: Lee Irons and Morgan Irons Is human migration into space inevitable? Is it based on facts, or is it based upon a belief in human exceptionalism? These are some of the questions explored by Lee and Morgan Irons in a recent article published in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, asking whether humans’ evolutionary connection to Earth requires us to inhabit space the same way we do here. Lee is a physicist, engineer, and the executive director of Norfolk Institute. Morgan is an astro-ecologist and PhD candidate at Cornell University, a Carl Sagan Institute Fellow, a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, and a Norfolk Institute Fellow. In this latest guest editorial, they explain why – and why not – space settlement might be possible. How can such a feat be accomplished? Is it just a matter of leveraging the resources of a billionaire and the capital power of the economically developed Earth to ship the materials to Mars to build a city with a dome, followed by pressurizing the dome with an Earth-like atmosphere, and spreading biosolids (ie, sterilized human […]

Sedimentary, my dear Johnson: is NASA looking at the wrong type of rock for clues to Martian life?

Scientists at the Swedish Museum of Natural History have begun compiling an atlas of fossils in volcanic rock, to guide where and what to look for in the search for Martian life; Frontiers in Earth Science

An image of asteroids close to the Earth. Detection of small asteroids temporarily captured in orbit around Earth will provide an opportunity to increase our knowledge of asteroids and test space-faring technology: Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Science

Earth mini-moons: Potential for exciting scientific and commercial opportunities

Detection of small asteroids temporarily captured in Earth’s orbit will increase our knowledge of asteroids and allow testing of space-faring technology: Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Science

Space sciences and astronomy

24 Feb 2017

Future space missions and the Earth-Moon system

How the complex dynamics of the Earth-Moon system and its applied and fundamental physics may play a crucial role in the future of space exploration – by Claudio Bogazzi, PhD, frontiersin.org In what has been an incredible week for astronomy and space science a group of seven planets, all close in size to the Earth, was discovered around the dwarf star Trappist-1, in the constellation of Aquarius, only 39 light years away from us. It is the first time that so many Earth-sized planets have been found in orbit around the same star, perhaps warm enough for water and the life it can sustain. Whilst we won’t be visiting Trappist-1’s planets any time soon, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences has just launched an exciting Research Topic focusing on the complex dynamics of the Earth-Moon system and the applied and fundamental physics that will play a crucial role in the future of space exploration. At distance from Earth of approximately 385,000 km, the Moon has always fascinated humans. For scientists, the historic landing in 1969 represented an important step towards a full understanding of the Moon’s secrets, the Earth-Moon system and the challenges and opportunities for the farther exploration of […]

Health

06 May 2016

Does the moon affect our mood or actions?

By Fernando Bolaños, Frontiersin.org Always surrounded by an aura of mystery, the moon and its possible influence over human behavior has been object of ancestral fascination and mythical speculation for centuries. While the full moon cannot turn people into werewolves, some people do accuse it of causing a bad night’s sleep or creating physical and mental alterations. But is there any science behind these myths? To establish if lunar phases somehow do affect humans, an international group of researchers studied children to see if their sleeping patterns changed or if there were any differences in their daily activities. The results were published in Frontiers in Pediatrics. “We considered that performing this research on children would be particularly more relevant because they are more amenable to behavior changes than adults and their sleep needs are greater than adults,” said Dr. Jean-Philippe Chaput, from the Eastern Ontario Research Institute. The study was completed on a total of 5,812 children from five continents. The children came from a wide range of economic and sociocultural levels, and variables such as age, sex, highest parental education, day of measurement, body mass index score, nocturnal sleep duration, level of physical activity and total sedentary time were […]