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Friday, April 11, 2008

How to design your own planet ? : Virtual Planet Laboratory (VPL) & Astroventure

Well, then you have to visit AstroVenture Website and let hear to AstroFerrt to show how to design planet. The condition is you have to create a planet which is habitable by humans and different than the earth. Then follow one of this:
  1. Design a Planet Tutorial.
  2. Design a planet Lite
  3. Design a Planet Regular
Isn't it a fun ...and feel like all powerful. Thanks to NASA we can experience that.

How ? Why ? Where? ... Ok,,,one question at a time...:D)

Virtualization technologies is one of the realization of abstraction and promise of personas on the top of the existing one. Since my awareness of virtualization, I always try to see if we are using this methdology anywhere else. My quest has drawn me to virtual Planet Laboratory.

Here I am looking to play with a "micro" hypervisor to emulate an Operating System inside another OS on some hardware. And scientist from VPL are building computer simulated planets from the ground up. What a cool concept. It keeps getting better and better. :D).

The VPL website is divided into three parts : Main Site, Educators' Site,Researchers' Site.

What is Virtual Planet laboratory?
The Virtual Planet Laboratory (VPL) is a team of scientists who are building computer simulated Earth-sized planets to discover the likely range of planetary environments for planets around other stars. These simulated environments allow us to visualize what these planets look like from space to help future missions recognize signs of possible life in the spectra of planetary atmospheres and surfaces. VPL findings will directly influence the development of future space missions designed to look for habitable planets around other stars by allowing them to distinguish between planets with and without life. The scientists are using the best supercomputers available to simulate Earth-sized (terrestrial) planets.

Curiously colors reflected by plants,Oxygen (O2) plus water (H2O),Methane (CH4) plus oxygen or seasonal cycles,Methyl chloride (CH3Cl),Nitrous oxide (N2O) etc could be signs of life.
Goals and Objectives

  • Goal 1:Habitable Planets

  • Goal 2:Life in our Solar System

  • Goal 3:Origins of Life

  • Goal 4:Earth's Early Biosphere and its Environment

  • Goal 5 : Evolution, Environment, and Limits of LIfe

  • Goal 6 :Life's Future on Earth and Beyond

  • Goal 7 :Signatures of Life


Some of the Objectives this futuristic lab are:


  • to discover the likely range of habitable planets around other stars and to find out how these planets might appear to future planet-finding missions.

  • To date over one hundred and thirty planets have been discovered orbiting other stars. This has motivated NASA to plan space-based observatories designed to search for life on other worlds and to look for planets which are similar to Earth. The VPL will help determine what the signatures of life on an extrasolar terrestrial planet will look like and directly influence these future space missions.

  • to learn how to recognize "false positives" -- planets that may appear to have life, but don't.


Educational Resources
There are some interesting educational resources I have found on VPL website.


  • Here is a amazing educational video of habitable planet model.

  • Alien Safari shows some of the most bizzare and extreme organisms ever discovered on the earth.

  • This link is for astrobiology gallery.

  • VPL is providing budget and scientist support to develop the "Create a Planet" module of the AstroVenture interactive website for middle school students. AstroVenture highlights NASA careers and astrobiology research.

  • There is a big list of educational links available for a scientist, an adventurer and a visionary human being. It has all sorts of links - Astrobiology , General Astronomy, Astronomy For Kids and so on.

Definitions

  • Astrobiology is the study of the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe.

  • More terms and their definitions could be found in glossary.

Enjoy...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It´s a good idea to share this information with us. I love the astronomy, the life in anothers planets and the posibility of the scientists opening new worlds!.Thanks!!