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Tag: final frontier

  • Virgin Galactic Accepting Bitcoin for Ticket to Space

    Virgin Galactic Accepting Bitcoin for Ticket to Space

    CNBC reported on Friday that Sir Richard Branson has permitted his space startup, Virgin Galactic, to accept Bitcoin as fare for a flight to space.

    Branson made the announcement in a blog post at Virgin. “The virtual currency has really captured the imagination recently as one of the world’s most innovative businesses looking to the future. So we think it is about time Virgin Galactic customers can choose to pay with Bitcoins.”

    “I have invested in some Bitcoins myself, and find it fascinating how a whole new global currency has been created,” Branson added.

    As popular as Bitcoins are now, Branson observed that their evolution followed a similar path as his company. “A few years ago many people had doubts about whether Virgin Galactic would ever get off the ground. Now we have gone supersonic,” he said. “The days of carrying cash and coins could soon be over.”

    The first Bitcoin purchase of space tickets was by a flight attendant in Hawaii. As a Bitcoin enthusiast, Branson noted the woman is a successful investor in the Bitcoin market. “[She made] quite a lot of money getting into Bitcoin early on,” he said.

    As a forward-looking company, Virgin seeks to embrace Bitcoin as a new form of payment and perhaps as the future of currency exchange. “Sometime in the future, innovative payment models such as Square, Clinkle and Bitcoin will become serious challengers to traditional banks, which will spur more competition and give customers even more options,” Branson wrote. “We would be delighted to welcome more of the Bitcoin community as future astronauts.”

    Branson sent a tweet out before he joined CNBC anchors to discuss the change:

    In the interview, Branson said, “Virgin Galactic is a bold entrepreneurial technology. It’s driving a revolution. And Bitcoin is doing just the same when it comes to inventing a new currency.”

    [Image via YouTube]

  • Black Beauty Meteorite from Mars Found in Africa

    Black Beauty Meteorite from Mars Found in Africa

    CNN reports a mysterious meteorite has been discovered in the northern part of Africa, and scientists are dating it at 4.4 billion years. The study was published in the journal Nature.

    Nicknamed “Black Beauty,” the authors of the study believe that this object is the first identifiable example of ancient Martian crust, which would have formed in the first 100 million years that Mars was around. As Florida State University professor and lead author Munir Humayun said, “It’s just pressing its nose against the creation of Mars.”

    The meteorite contained zircon crystals that formed roughly 100 million years after the condensation of dust within the solar system. Humayun said “Since it takes time to build up a crust, and to allow that crust to process itself until it can start growing zircons, it’s pretty amazing that we have such ancient zircon.”

    Here’s a closer image of the 4-billion-year-old rock:


    [YouTube]

    Black Beauty was also found to contain between 10 and 30 times more water than any previously discovered Martian meteorite. Although the scientists are unsure about the living conditions, they are continuing to study the rock in search for Martian fossils or the chemical waste left by primitive lifeforms. Either would leave a trace that scientists could latch onto.

    Carl Agee, a University of New Mexico professor who was not involved in the research, said “If I were going to start looking [for evidence of past life on Mars], this would be the first place I would go, to this meteorite, because it is a sample from the surface.”

    Scientists still aren’t sure if Mars could have supported life, but if there was ever a time that it could, it would have been 4.4 billion years ago. Volcanic processes, similar to those on Earth, would have released massive quantities of Carbon dioxide, Nitrogen gases, and water vapors that could have created an atmosphere or maybe even an ocean.

    Unfortunately for Martian lifeforms, the planet underwent a heavy bombardment by comets and asteroids that may have decimated the biosphere. Earth, meanwhile, underwent a similar bombardment that actually permitted the formation of our biosphere. Mars may be currently inhospitable, but if there was life, Black Beauty would be able to tell us.

    [Main image via YouTube]

  • 8.8 Billion Earth-Like Planets Inhabit the Milky Way

    8.8 Billion Earth-Like Planets Inhabit the Milky Way

    The AP via NBC News took notice of a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: apparently, Earth is one of 8.8 billion similar planets in the Milky Way that fall inside the “Goldilocks zone,” the area around a sun where a planet’s orbit is neither too hot nor too cold for life.

    A NASA press release cites Kepler Telescope data as ushering in a new era of astronomy. Data from Kepler was used in the recent study; that data helped to conclude that 22 percent (+/- 8 percent) of the stars in the Milky Way have Earth-like planets.

    Kepler examined only a fraction of our galaxy (42,000 stars), and the 8.8 billion figure is just an extrapolation, but the findings are revolutionary. If there are 8.8 billion stars in the Milky Way, then that means there are at least 8.8 billion Earth-like planets. Geoff Marcy, a University of California-Berkeley planet hunter and a co-author of the study, said “Just in our Milky Way galaxy alone, that’s 8.8 billion throws of the biological dice.”

    William Borucki, an Ames/Kepler science principal investigator, said “The impact of the Kepler mission results on exoplanet research and stellar astrophysics is illustrated by the attendance of nearly 400 scientists from 30 different countries at the Kepler Science Conference… We gather to celebrate and expand our collective success at the opening of a new era of astronomy.”

    William Chaplin, professor of astrophysics for the University of Birmingham in the UK, said “Kepler has revolutionized asteroseismology by giving us observations of unprecedented quality, duration and continuity for thousands of stars. These are data we could only have dreamt of a few years ago.”

    The next step in the search for extraterrestrial civilizations involves atmospheric observations. Kepler’s total count for “Goldilocks” worlds comes out to 3538, but most of those would not be capable of holding carbon-based life. Since hundreds of Earth-like worlds are missed for every one Kepler spots, the 22 percent figure is considered final and accurate. MIT astronomer Sara Seager concurred, saying “Everything they’ve done looks legitimate.”

    [Image via NASA.gov]