38 Comments

1. Bill on April 19, 2017 at 12:02

   I know you won’t be attending this year but wondered if you could point us towards a forum that might provide a summary of the more interesting discussions. Or will you be summarizing based on someone else’s notes?

   • Paul Gilster on April 19, 2017 at 20:50

     Sorry, but I don’t know who will be covering what from the scene. If I find a good source, I’ll post it here — please do the same if you find someone reporting from the site. Otherwise, I’d check into the online options mentioned above.

     • Alexander Tolley on April 21, 2017 at 22:27

       The sessions videos are being posted on the FB page.

       • Angelle on April 22, 2017 at 16:26

         They might post the recorded sessions on their main page. We should make sure they do. Right now they are archived on FB.

2. djlactin on April 19, 2017 at 13:11

   I think a few missions to our outer planets and other round things might be useful to iron out the kinks in the system.

3. Harry R Ray on April 19, 2017 at 13:40

   Dittman, Charbonneau, et al should be ADDED to this list PRONTO, in light of their BRAND NEW DISCOVERY with the MEarth and Harps planet detectors!!! LHS 1140b is a 1.4 Re, 6.6Me planet with a 25 day orbital period orbiting a star almost identical to Gliese 1214(i.e. 0.2Rs) without the extreme flaring activity of Proxima b and TRAPPIST-1! From this, it appears that the GENERALLY ACCEPTED THRESHOLD of 1.6 Re is a (much?)more reliable rocky-gassius threshold than the Kipping-Chen “low-end” threshold of 1.2Re, and makes it IMPERATIVE that ESPRESSO(which IS transportable) be used to determine the mass of the much maligned Kepler 452b at the facility that now houses HARPS North ASAP

4. Allen G Taylor on April 19, 2017 at 18:09

   Will there be any discussion of LHS 1140b?

5. Michael Fidler on April 20, 2017 at 5:20

   Water worlds? Updated masses for TRAPPIST-1 planets.
   http://planetaria.ca/2017/04/18/water-worlds-updated-masses-trappist-1-planets/
   https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.04290.pdf

   Very interesting reading, but the most interesting part is the comment by Harry R Ray below the Planetaria article!
   “Planet h is now UNQUESTIONABLY the most bizarre planet discovered to date. with a most likely mass of LESS THAN ONE TENTH THAT OF EARTH, and a radius exactly halfway between Mars and Earth, It CANNOT be the spherical “iceball” with little to no atmosphere as it is usually potrayed in artistd renditions. Neither can it be a MINI “mini-neptune” with a predominantly Hydrogen atmosphere. With a surface gravity THAT LOW combined with the ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL FLARING going on(extreme NOW according to Kepler data, and PROBABLY MUCH WORSE 3 billion years ago in its infancy, ALL OF ITS HYDROGEN MUST HAVE ESCAPES LONG AGO! What remains is something out of science fiction(LITERALLY: Robert Forward’s “Rocheworld”)! Due to its ridiculously LOW surface gravity(less than the MOON’s), TRAPPIST-1’s gravity pulls the starward hemosphere of TRAPPIST-1h TOWARD IT, forming a Fabrege egg-shaped “Eau Lobe”. Despite its 167K frigid temperature, the majority of its atmosphere would MIGRATE to the stellar point, providing an “insulating blanket” sufficient to keep the stellar point water in a permanently liquid form. The atmospheric surface pressure would be something akin to the surface pressure at the bottom of Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean. However, the surface pressure would be more akin to that of Venus at the terminator, and similarto our own at the anti-stellar point. If the atmosphere consists primarily of Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, and Water vapor, there could even be an ice sheet at the anti-stellar point! SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS: GO NUTS!!!”

   Now with several of these planets water worlds what would happen when they all line up? Could major tides occur or even water being transferred between planets! I have been fascinated by Total Solar Eclipse here on Earth but what surprised me was how large earthquakes and volcanic eruptions happen afterwords. Examples, when my wife and I watched the total solar eclipse in Davao, Philippines in March 18, 1988 over the next 3 years 3 large earthquakes went up the Philippine islands with a magnitude 7.8 earthquake striking Luzon on July 16, 1990. Then the second-largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century, and by far the largest eruption to affect a densely populated area, occurred at Mount Pinatubo Philippines on June 15, 1991.

   A total solar eclipse occurred on February 26, 1979 in the pacific northwest states of Oregon and Washington, the following year on March 20, 1980, Mt St. Helens experienced a magnitude 4.2 earthquake and, on March 27, steam venting started. The eclipse had past directly over Mount St. Helens the year before and on May 18, 1980 the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event happened in the history of the United States.

   A total solar eclipse occurred on July 20, 1963 crossed just north of Anchorage, Alaska and the Great Alaskan earthquake, occurred at 5:36 P.M. AST on Good Friday, March 27, 1964. Lasting four minutes and thirty-eight seconds, the magnitude 9.2 megathrust earthquake was the most powerful recorded in North American history, and the second most powerful recorded in world history!

   So what will happen after the Great American Total Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017 is anyone’s guess. Getting back to Trappist 1 and its tightly packed group of 7 planets, just what would happen when all of them line up? A beautiful solar eclipse of grand proportions, maybe planets switching positions in there orbits or changing mass between the different water worlds. So could the changing size and mass of these 7 planets be caused by you guessed it, a giant planetary alignment causing worlds in collision!!! Binary water world, volcanic explosions creating new Moons! Use your imagination, you might be surprised!!!

   • Harry R Ray on April 20, 2017 at 13:32

     A fascinating concept, but; alas, if water WERE to escape one planet because of the proximity of another, the other planet would be traveling WAY TOO FAST for the water to reach it.

     • Michael Fidler on April 20, 2017 at 17:35

       There is another reason they have such low density, artificial construction as in hollow Dyson spheres.

       • Michael Fidler on April 21, 2017 at 10:52

         Harry my wife liked the Fabrege egg-shaped “Eau Lobe”, but how do we know what the actual shape of the transits are? Just as the drawings of Saturn when the rings where not well resolved, could these odd discrepancy in measurements be caused by rings or binary planets or even ringworlds? http://galileo.rice.edu/images/things/huygens_phases1.gif
         Since the shape of the object cannot be discerned in the transits it seems that higher resolution is needed in the curves of the individual transits.

         Watched a good SciFi tonight that makes a good point, a Russian update on the Day the Earth Stood Still.
         Attraction (2017)
         http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4731148/
         http://www.art-pictures.ru/en/studio/films/gravity.php

         • Harry R Ray on April 23, 2017 at 13:27

           The “lobe” points TOWARD the star AT ALL TIMES! We ALWAYS see transits PERPENDICULAR to the stellar and anti-stellar points, so we are ALWAYS looking at the TERMINATOR, which would be PERFECTLY CIRCULAR AT ALL TIMES. That is why no professional astronomer has claimed that the planet is indeed egg-shaped. That may come in June when the Kepler data has been FULLY PROCESSED and(hpoefully)ENHANCED! If a PHASE-CURVE of the planet is visable in the data, the egg shape would show up then.

           • Michael on April 24, 2017 at 9:34

             This is unlikely as even Io or any of the other large moons of Jupiter show this feature, and they are in the grip of a powerful gravitation field gradient.

             • Harry R Ray on April 24, 2017 at 17:55

               TRAPPIST-1 is 70 times more massive than Jupiter. Jupiter raises “tides” 0f 70 meters on the SOLID surface of Io. I was making my projections on ONE: A thick envelope of GAS EQUIVALENT TO THAT OF VENUS being pulled toward TRAPPIST-1 so that the TROPOSPHERE would be close to 1000 Km deeper at the stellar point than at the anti-stellar point! This would be POSSIBLE because the GRAVITY at the top of the atmosphere is MUCH LESS THAN AT THE SOLID SURFACE OF IO! Once this happens, the thick “thermal envelope” at the stellar point would liquify ANY ICE surface at the stellar point, allowing the water to bulge, pushing the atmosphere even CLOSER to TRAPPIST-1. forcing it closer and closer to the planet’s Hill radius. Then, as Michael Fidler stated, certain interactions with the OTHER PLANETS COULD EVEN PRODUCE EXPULSION OF MATERIAL FROM THE PLANET, anthouhg it would probably ONLY be water Vapor that is expelled, and NOT liquid water itself.

               • Michael on April 25, 2017 at 9:39

                 Although the star is 70 times more massive than Jupiter these worlds are further away so the tidal bulge will be not as pronounced, plus the worlds are much more massive than Io and so hold their shape much better.

6. john walker on April 20, 2017 at 17:22

   While I’m thankful for the webcast and especially to Dr.Milner for his inspiring support, why were TED level presentations (a couple were actual TED presentations) made here to a room full of academics? That was weird. Do we really need the rv method illustrated with a star and a hoola hoop? Hope that next year the level is pushed up a notch.

7. DJ Kaplan on April 20, 2017 at 19:03

   We are still finding stars smaller than our sun, with planets larger than our earth, at orbits closer than our own. That is, science has not found “Earth 2.0” and that’s not the realm of science. The realm of science is to find out what is out there, whatever it is.

   So if we practice analyzing distant atmospheres, whether the exoplanet is hostile to life as we know it or not, it’s still science vital.

8. Joe on April 20, 2017 at 19:36

   I have a job that allows me to telecommute. Therefore I have had the privilege of watching much of the Breakthrough Discuss Conference on Facebook Live today. It is quite interesting.

   What is equally remarkable is the technology that allows me to “attend” this conference online. I am old enough to remember when teleconferences were a joke and my co-workers and I would bet on how many technical problems would occur, or whether the teleconference would come off at all. Those of us of a certain age would compare teleconferences to the “cone of silence” on the old “Get Smart” TV series. So it is really incredible to experience crisp, clear images, well chosen camera angles, and excellent sound quality at this teleconference.

   If the Breakthrough Initiative displays the same level of competence with their starchip scheme as they have with this conference, they might well achieve their goal.

9. Sean Robert Meaney on April 21, 2017 at 5:36

   There are no ‘habitable’ planets around red dwarf stars simply because the ones in habitable zones are taking thousands of times the radiation we take on earth with a one watt bulb for light.
   Can we drop gold in proxima centauri and get it burning brighter?

   • Adam on April 21, 2017 at 19:51

     Please unpack that statement a bit. The stellar wind might be higher, but the cosmic rays are actually less – thanks to all that stellar wind. There’s “radiation” and there’s “radiation”. Some are more potent and some less. As for the insolation, even the coolest Main Sequence stars look white hot to human eyes. The visual environment wouldn’t be noticeably different at the same total insolation level.

10. Ronald on April 21, 2017 at 8:12

    Just in, related to Breakthrough Listen:

    Searching for ET: Breakthrough Listen initiative publishes initial results:
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170420114816.htm
    https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/News/10

    And the data themselves, 692 stars:
    http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/OpenDataSearch

    • Michael Fidler on April 21, 2017 at 10:25

      Interesting the signals on 1381 mhz is GPS and FAA long range radar, but they should be running the Canceler?

      http://www.astron.nl/rfi/presentations/RFI2010.session.7.3.Nigra.pdf

11. Robin Datta on April 21, 2017 at 9:31

    A more inclusive and open system than Facebook would be a better choice.

    • Patient Observer on April 21, 2017 at 11:27

      Agreed.

    • Antonio on April 22, 2017 at 3:04

      Totally agree. And also I would prefer text over video, since me (and many other people) can’t barely understand spoken English but can read or at least machine-translate English text.

12. john walker on April 21, 2017 at 12:58

    Many thanks to Yuri Milner for his inspired support of this conference and the various Breakthrough endeavors.

13. David on April 21, 2017 at 20:32

    Thanks so much for this information Paul.

14. Alexander Tolley on April 21, 2017 at 22:31

    Lubin’s presentation was very slick, a real sales job. Watching it you would think that the project is difficult, but very doable, even the sail.

    The list of upcoming chip-based sensors was very impressive. Seems like we should be making cubesats and nanosats with these instruments in a few years.

    Lubin also mentioned the use of the technology for solar system exploration and commercialization. Jim Benford also emphasized this point in the last panel discussion.

    • Michael on April 24, 2017 at 9:59

      Commercialization is absolutely required, without this support it will take much, much longer to launch these probes.

15. ljk on April 23, 2017 at 15:46

    Odd and Baffling Behavior? Gathering Evidence for ET Civilizations

    By Leonard David

    April 22, 2017

    Unexplained phenomena, strange behavior, and what kinds of signals might extraterrestrials generate?

    Day Two of Breakthrough Discuss was held at Stanford University ending a ground-breaking conference that brought together the world’s leading astronomers, engineers, astrobiologists, and astrophysicists.

    Full article here:

    https://www.leonarddavid.com/odd-and-baffling-behavior-gathering-evidence-for-et-civilizations/

    For more information, go to:

    https://breakthroughinitiatives.org

    Note: All videos from the two-day event are available to view on the Breakthrough Facebook page. You can view by following this link:

    https://m.facebook.com/pg/BreakthroughPrize/videos/

16. ljk on April 23, 2017 at 18:15

    Suddenly, Alpha Centauri is a Popular Destination

    Groups small and large set their sights on our neighboring star system.

    By Elizabeth Howell

    April 21, 2017

    The launch of Breakthrough Starshot a year ago, backed by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, has re-opened the idea of exploring nearby stars—first by telescope, and eventually by spacecraft. While the group is holding a second “Breakthrough Discuss” conference this week to highlight its progress so far, other groups, large and small, are getting in on the action.

    Starshot proposes sending a nano-spacecraft to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, at 20 percent of the speed of light within 20 years. Last summer scientists reported finding a rocky planet in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, one of the stars in the system. Meanwhile, scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany were so inspired by the Starshot idea that they came up with a way to slow down the spacecraft once it reaches its destination, using stellar pressure. Such braking would be critical if the spacecraft is to take pictures or collect science data.

    Full article here:

    http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/suddenly-alpha-centauri-popular-destination-180962996/

    To quote:

    Not every interstellar wannabe is funded by a billionaire or government agency. A project to find potentially habitable planets in the Alpha Centauri system plans a new try at Kickstarter crowdfunding, after an initial round raised just a third of the requested $1 million last year.

    The money would be used for preliminary design of a 50-centimeter Earth-orbiting telescope, dubbed Project Blue, and planned for launch in 2020 on a two-year mission. The primary goal is to gaze at the triple-star Alpha Centauri system, which is roughly four light-years from Earth. Project Blue is also considering sponsorships and other ways to raise funds for the project, which is expected to cost between $25 million and $50 million.

    Leader John Morse says that even though $1 million is only a fraction of what his BoldlyGo Institute needs to make Project Blue viable, crowdfunding would generate excitement and investment in the project from the outset.

    “Crowdfunding is only one arrow in the quiver, but a crucial one as we seek to provide novel opportunities for the public to be engaged,” he says. A former NASA director of astrophysics, Morse says the institute’s goal is to raise money to augment NASA’s work in space science and flight research.

17. Andrew Palfreyman on April 25, 2017 at 0:21

    As an engineer who watched all of this two day event, I was most impressed with the way the project is developing. However, the level of detail is unsatisfactorily low to really bite down on. Take for example Zak Manchester’s noodlings with sail and beam shapes. Is there any way to access his research?

    • Alexander Tolley on April 25, 2017 at 12:01

      I agree. I think there was still a lot of hand waving with the sail technology. I also think that Lubin’s talk conflated beamed sails with his photonic propulsion ideas when talking about very rapid transit times to Mars.

      Arguably, the Jim Benford’s experiments on microwave beamed sails is further advanced than these simulations.

18. ljk on April 25, 2017 at 10:00

    To Sirius in just 69 years?

    http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-think-the-brightest-star-in-the-sky-could-be-the-quickest-interstellar-voyage

    The paper here:

    https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.03871

19. ljk on May 3, 2017 at 16:41

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmFzbbHlT9w

    How to Build a Biological Starship | Angelo VERMEULEN | TEDxBrussels

    Published on May 2, 2017

    Biological concepts could be used to make interstellar travel a reality. Allowing a starship to grow and evolve – using 3D printing for example – could be a solution to deal with the highly unpredictable nature of interstellar space. As a space systems researcher and developmental biologist, Angelo Vermeulen explains how he fuses both fields to come up with a new approach for space exploration. He concludes that embracing evolution and adaptability is the natural way forward to face uncertain futures, both in space and on Earth.

    Angelo Vermeulen is a space systems researcher, biologist, community artist, and TED Senior Fellow.

    In 2009 he initiated SEAD (Space Ecologies Art and Design), an international network of individuals working in art, science, engineering and advocacy. Its goal is to reshape the future through critical reflection and hands-on experimentation.

    Biomodd and Seeker are the two most well-known SEAD projects. In 2013 he was crew commander of the NASA funded HI-SEAS Mars simulation in Hawaii.

    Currently he is in the final stage of his PHD studies at TU Delft creating new concepts for starship development.

    The guiding question here is: how can we reinvent space exploration in a more open and participatory way?

    This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

20. ljk on May 11, 2017 at 8:44

    Life Among the Stars? Tiny Interstellar Probes May Test ‘Panspermia’ Idea

    By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | May 10, 2017 06:30 am ET

    Some of the first spacecraft that humanity sends to other solar systems may carry microscopic ambassadors from Earth.

    The $100 million Breakthrough Starshot initiative is working to develop the technology required to accelerate tiny, sail-equipped probes to 20 percent the speed of light, using powerful lasers.

    If everything goes well, large fleets of these 1-gram spacecraft could begin launching toward Proxima b and other nearby alien worlds within 20 years or so, project representatives have said. The probes would characterize these planets in detail and search for signs of life, but some could perform other work as well.

    Full article here:

    http://www.space.com/36783-interstellar-spaceflight-breakthrough-starshot-panspermia.html

    To quote:

    For example, Breakthrough Starshot adviser Jeff Kuhn, a physicist at the University of Hawaii, said that the project offers a great opportunity to investigate the feasibility of interstellar panspermia — the idea that life might have spread from place to place throughout the Milky Way galaxy, and perhaps even the larger universe.

    During a panel discussion on April 21 at the Breakthrough Discuss conference in Stanford, California, Kuhn noted that spores of the bacteria species Bacillus subtilis can survive for at least six years when exposed to the space environment.

    “I think it would be fun, on one of these disposable chips, to put a little colony of Bacillus, send it for 20 years, turn it on, give it some nutrients and see if it’s still alive, just to experimentally decide whether or not panspermia works over interstellar distances,” Kuhn said.

    That comment elicited a response from audience member Philip Lubin, a physics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who’s a key player in the development of Breakthrough Starshot’s laser-propulsion system.

    “A part of our program — at least on the NASA side, because we haven’t cleared this with Breakthrough yet — is actually to put organisms to sleep, in stasis mode,” Lubin said at the conference. (Lubin and his group are also developing projects with the aid of NASA grant money.)

    “And there are certain organisms known as C. elegans, which we’re going to embed human DNA into and send them out and then awaken them on arrival,” Lubin added, referring to a tiny roundworm species that’s a common study animal for biologists. “However, I expect that will be a highly controversial thing to do.”

    And…

    All of the above speculation assumes naturally occurring “accidental” panspermia. But it’s also possible that intelligent aliens could set panspermia in motion, either unintentionally (via contaminated spacecraft) or intentionally (in an effort to seed other worlds), some scientists have said.

    Breakthrough Starshot, and projects like it, could give humanity this ability as well.

    “We can be the panspermia which actually seeds other planets if we want,” Lubin said. “And it’s something to think about for the future.”

    • Alexander Tolley on May 11, 2017 at 10:48

      Why are Lubin’s team considering sending C. elegans with inserted human DNA? I’d like to know the purpose of that experiment.

21. ljk on July 26, 2017 at 15:27

    http://spaceref.com/breakthrough/in-quest-to-reach-alpha-centauri-breakthrough-starshot-launches-worlds-smallest-spacecraft.html

    In Quest to Reach Alpha Centauri, Breakthrough Starshot Launches World’s Smallest Spacecraft

    Press Release – Source: Breakthrough Starshot

    Posted July 26, 2017 10:31 AM

    Breakthrough Starshot, a multi-faceted program to develop and launch practical interstellar space missions, successfully flew its first spacecraft — the smallest ever launched.

    On June 23, a number of prototype “Sprites” – the world’s smallest fully functional space probes, built on a single circuit board — achieved Low Earth Orbit, piggybacking on OHB System AG’s ‘Max Valier’ and ‘Venta’ satellites. The 3.5-by-3.5 centimeter chips weigh just four grams but contain solar panels, computers, sensors, and radios. These vehicles are the next step of a revolution in spacecraft miniaturization that can contribute to the development of centimeter- and gram-scale “StarChips” envisioned by the Breakthrough Starshot project.

    The Sprite is the brainchild of Breakthrough Starshot’s Zac Manchester, whose 2011 Kickstarter campaign, “KickSat,” raised the first funds to develop the concept. The Sprites were constructed by researchers at Cornell University and transported into space as secondary payloads by the Max Valier and Venta satellites, the latter built by the Bremen-based OHB System AG, whose generous assistance made the mission possible.

    The Sprites remain attached to the satellites. Communications received from the mission show the Sprite system performing as designed. The spacecraft are in radio communication with ground stations in California and New York, as well as with amateur radio enthusiasts around the world. This mission is designed to test how well the Sprites’ electronics perform in orbit, and demonstrates their novel radio communication architecture.

    Breakthrough Initiatives – including most notably, Breakthrough Starshot and Breakthrough Listen — are a set of long-term astronomical programs exploring the Universe, seeking scientific evidence of life beyond Earth, and encouraging public debate from a planetary perspective.

    Breakthrough Starshot, announced on April 12, 2016, by Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking, is a $100 million research and engineering program aiming to demonstrate proof of concept for light-propelled spacecraft that could fly at 20 percent of light speed and, in just over 20 years after their launch, capture images and other measurements of the exoplanet Proxima b and other planets in our nearest star system, Alpha Centauri.

    Breakthrough Starshot | Project Leadership

    – Pete Worden, Executive Director, Breakthrough Initiatives
    – Avi Loeb, Chairman, Breakthrough Starshot Advisory Committee; Harvard University
    – Harry Atwater, Caltech
    – Jim Benford, Microwave Sciences
    – Steven Chu, Nobel Prize winner, Stanford University.
    – Bruce Draine, Princeton University
    – Ann Druyan, Cosmos Studios
    – Freeman Dyson, Princeton Institute of Advanced Study
    – Lou Friedman, Planetary Society, JPL
    – Robert Fugate, Arctelum, LLC, New Mexico Tech
    – Giancarlo Genta, Polytechnic University of Turin
    – Olivier Guyon, University of Arizona
    – Mae Jemison, 100 Year Starship
    – Pete Klupar, Director of Engineering, Breakthrough Starshot
    – Lawrence Krauss, Arizona State University
    – Geoff Landis, SA Glenn Research Center
    – Kelvin Long, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society
    – Philip Lubin, University of California, Santa Barbara
    – Greg Matloff, New York City College of Technology
    – Claire Max, University of California, Santa Cruz
    – Kaya Nobuyuki, Kobe University
    – Kevin Parkin, Parkin Research
    – Mason Peck, Cornell University
    – Saul Perlmutter, Nobel Prize winner, Breakthrough Prize winner, UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    – Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal
    – Roald Sagdeev, University of Maryland
    – Ed Turner, Princeton University, NAOJ

    For media inquiries: media@breakthroughprize.org

    OR

    Rubenstein Communications, Inc.
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