Tag Archives: discovery

A New Deadly Virus has been Discovered

As of May 30th, this SARS-like virus has caused the deaths of 49 people. It first started in Saudi Arabia, but now has been spotted in other areas as well. It spread when individuals started visiting affected areas and later flying back to their native place, unaware that they were infected. It is related to SARS because it acts like a cold virus and attacks the respiratory system, but scientists have decided to name it Middle East Respiratory Symptom Coronavirus, or MERS-CoV. Symptoms include things such as a fever and a cough, but can take up to 9 to 12 days to show. This disease is more serious than the bird flu, and is spreading rapidly. The number of deaths has almost doubled in only one day.

Although this disease might never reach the U.S., it is still very alarming to me. It is killing people rapidly, and only taking less than 24 hours to kill them. I believe people should have stricter rules when allowing possible infected travellers to travel. They can’t take any chances when other countries might get infected as well. I think that this new disease is horrible, and that scientists should start finding a cure right away. At this rate, how many people do you think will be gone in a month? Too many, that’s for sure.

-Catie Schaffer

Earth’s Twin

Have you ever thought about what would happen if life on Earth ceased to exist? If so, have you thought about where we would move, to start all over again? Well, NASA recently discovered “Earth’s twin”, Kepler-22b.This planet is found in the constellation Lyra, but still has some of the same characteristics as earth, that helps scientists assume that Kepler-22b can sustain life. For example, the distance Kepler-22b is from its heat source or host star, is 15% less than Earth is from the Sun. Kepler-22b is an extrasolar planet, which means its a planet outside of our solar system. It is the first planet in the habitable zone, which is a region in space where liquid water can exist. The planet is 2.4 times the size greater than Earth, so it would be a lot harder to rebuild, discover, and learn about. But, that could mean it can last 2.4 times longer than Earth, a lot less crowded, and a lot less polluted.

Now, this may all seem great, and might make you want to go there, but the distance it is from Earth may not be worth the travel. Kepler-22b is approximately 587 light years away. That means even if we could travel at the speed of light, which is highly improbable, it will still take 587 years to arrive. The size of the fuel take alone would weigh millions of tons, the amount of fuel would cost trillions and trillions of dollars, and the whole ship would have to be the size of the Earth. Even if the ship has enough acceleration to get off the ground, the ship could not travel as fast as the speed of light. Let’s just say if the space ship manages to start its voyage, three generations would have to be made on the ship in order for life to exist. Overall, going to Kepler-22b soon, is highly unlikely.

~Peter Bellantonio

A New Home

In one of NASA’s latest projects, the Kepler Project, scientists have found a new solar system 600 light-years away with planets possibly capable of sustaining life. One of the planets in the system, Kepler-22b, has a similar orbit to the one of Earth. However, the scientists at NASA aren’t quite sure if Kepler-22b has a predominately rocky, gaseous, or liquid composure.

If Kepler-22b was sustainable for inhabitants, then one of the many problems that our world faces today will be solved. As you can see in the picture (left), Kepler-22b is almost two and a half times the size of Earth. This means that our ever-growing population will have a place to send all of the people who are homeless, etc. It might mean starting over for many, but it will benefit millions of lives. Also, wouldn’t it be exciting to be on a different planet? There would be so much to see once the planet is civilized.

Overall, I think that continuing the work on the Kepler project is a necessity because it will provoke the lives of millions of people an continue to establish the human race.

~Alex Kavadas

Beware Aliens…We’re Coming.

We can all probably admit that we as humans don’t take very good care of our planet.  It’s quite depressing actually, how wasteful we are.  I mean, yeah it’s enjoyable once in a while to purchase a bunch of junk that we don’t really need.  We all would agree that cars, computers, phones, iPods, etc.. make our life better for sure, but they also guzzle tons of energy that is destroying our planet. Not to mention how lazy we’ve gotten with putting trash in actual trash cans and recycling bins.  Having said that, I believe we do try to reverse, if not at least try to stop this process with recycling being easier than ever.  Organizations dedicated their time to physically cleaning up this Earth, solar powered items are available, and there is new smarter technology to conserve as much energy as possible.  But has anyone ever thought that maybe we’re too late? That the damage is done?  Earth will eventually perish and where are those future generations supposed to go to?

Fortunately, scientists have discovered a new planet that seems to be the most Earth-like yet!  It’s got an incredibly snazzy new name- HD85512b.  Gotta love those scientists’ creativity.  Research shows that it’s about 36 light years away and 3.6 times the mass of Earth.  It was spotted when a star’s light twinkled slightly, suggesting the gravitational pull of a nearby planet.  However, the best news for us is that it is the perfect distance from its parent star (its sun) to have liquid water exist on its surface.  More good news suggests that since it is less than 10 times the size of Earth’s mass, it is likely to have an atmosphere similar to it.  This planet also has a circular orbit, meaning that it will have a stable climate like Earth’s.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I think that sounds super promising and I’m really excited for more research to be done.  However, there was an identical discovery like this in 2010 that implies that the planet found then was simply a data glitch, and indeed ceased to ever exist.  Hopefully, our technology has improved in the last year because if this really turns out to be an error, the human race is kind of screwed if we don’t clean up our act.  After all, where are the 2012 survivors going to go? Just kidding…but still.  Can’t wait until some new data arrives! Keep you posted!

~Esha Bhandari