AstroTalk Episode December 29, 2016

A New Home On Mars and Hubble Spies a Megmaser

3:06pm - 3:32pm

NASA ran a contest for scientists to design a futuristic home on Mars for astronauts to live in. Instead of digging a hole in the ground and living beneath the surface, a revolutionary design, called a Ice Home, took home the prize. When astronauts do eventually set foot on Mars, one of the most important considerations will be, where will they live? A novel, new design of an ice home is now being talked about. Guarding against space radiation will be critical, because Mars' atmosphere is practically non-existent. To guard against space radiation, which Earth's atmosphere does for us here on Earth, astronauts must live in a radiative protective environment. The Ice Home can provide this environment. The Ice Home is envisioned as a large inflatable torus, that would be surrounded by a shell of water ice. Another shell of carbon dioxide gas would be placed inside the layer of water ice, to provide the necessary heat. The water ice shell would serve as a good protector against space radiation, because water, naturally, contains hydrogen, and hydrogen does an excellent job of protecting against cosmic rays. And both water and carbon dioxide are readily available on Mars. The Ice Home has several advantages. Water can be let out, so it can be easily deflated, and then moved. Water that is extracted from the Ice Home can then be converted to rocket fuel. The Ice Home therefore looks promising.
Hubble also keeps doing its magnificent work by letting us look at a Cosmic Megamaser, in a galaxy that is 370 million light years away. Instead of the typical visible laser light that we know here on Earth, the Galaxy IRAS 16399 is emitting microwave type light, hence the name maser. The galaxy has a double nucleus, and one of the nuclei sport a black hole that weighs in at 100 million times the mass of the Sun. The megamaser galaxy is extremely bright, so the galaxy is essentially acting as an astronomical laser that beams out microwave emission. Lasers are set so that a majority of the excited radiation exists above its ground state energy, and can thus be made to oscillate in unison, and then be amplified. The gas clouds in this galaxy are essentially replicating this process, but with microwave radiation, rather than visible light. Hence the name maser, or megamaser.