As one of the most ancient and venereal venerable editors at Your Favourite Weekly Scientific Journal Beginning With N, I have accumulated what seems to be a very strange portfolio. I started as a news reporter, until they threw me some bones, so I handled manuscripts in palaeontology and, by degrees, lots more bits and pieces of organismal biology. Entirely unconnected with the fact that I also run Futures, the SF column at the aforesaid YFWSJBWN, is the fact that I also get to see what manuscripts we receive on the subject of Aliens from Outer Space.
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I, Editor by Henry Gee
This is the Nature Network and therefore Terribly Extremely Very Serious foothold for Nature Senior Editor Henry Gee. If you want fun and games, visit http://cromercrox.blogspot.com/
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Long, Long Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away
- Date:
- Tuesday, 31 Mar ch 2009 - 10:56 UTC
Back in the Ulyssean Year of 2001, I commissioned a special supplement on Astrobiology, and as a direct result we got a very nice manuscript from a reputable laboratory explaining the Fermi Paradox in terms of ecological dispersal (the referees trashed it, sadly). As a result of all these experiences I now sometimes refer to myself as the Long, Long Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away Editor of Nature.
As a result of all this eclecticism I still receive all sorts of obscure press releases, some of which I pass on to our news reporters, the rest of which hit the circular file. One, though, made me pause. It’s an announcement from an astronomical observatory of which I have never heard, in the Himalayas, the offshoot of a collaborative project between the European Union and Nepal. I think (it’s hard to make out) that it was (or maybe still is) part of a Near-Earth Asteroid monitoring project, for it consists of a small-ish optical telescope currently hooked up an instrument called the Pan-European-Nepalese Imaging Spectrograph.
They’ve been looking at nearby stars for signs of earthlike planets, which was a surprise, as if it succeeded it would steal a march on projects that have attracted more publicity. To do this they have been looking at very dim, nearby stars whose light can be blocked out by a coronograph.
Anyway, these results come from Lac 9352, a dim, red-dwarf star, about half the mass of our Sun but very much dimmer, not quite a dozen light years away from us. At first sight this seems an odd target as early searches with the Hubble Space Telescope had not revealed any Jupiter-sized planets orbiting this star. That does not in itself preclude smaller planets, however. The imaging spectrograph reveals a planet, between one and two Earth masses, orbiting the star at a distance that approximates to the distance between Mercury and our own Sun.
The spectrograph shows that the body is reddish, (rather like Saturn’s moon, Titan – and preliminary results indicated abundant methane and smaller amounts of other simple hydrocarbons such as ethane. However, further analysis revealed peaks indicative of rather more complex hydrocarbons, some based on hexose rings, a few of these in the form of oligomers complexed with water (as revealed by the strong hydroxyl signal).
However, these hydrocarbons on their own wouldn’t be responsible for the redness of the planet. That, it appears, is caused by a hydrocarbon with the following structural formula
This is carminic acid, exactly the same as the active ingredient in cochineal, a well-known food dye. These results are set to flummox planetary scientists. Used to terrestrial planets, frozen iceballs and now ‘hot Jupiters’, the planetary science community will now have to accommodate a class of substellar object whose principal surface constituent appears to be pink icing sugar.
Last updated: Tuesday, 31 Mar 2009 - 10:56 UTC
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Comments
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I for one welcome our cockroach overlords.
Planet Clare has pink air
All the trees are red
Isn’t this a bit early?
Not in New Zealand
Pan-European-Nepalese Imaging Spectrograph?
Yeah, what Frank said.
I prefer planets that are naturally red, like Mars, rather than those that have to resort to food dye to achieve the same effect. Buy local
I would like to tag this blog post.
There’s a heavy fire zone on this side! Red Five, where are you?
I don’t find this funny at all, Henry. There are people here who are allergic to red food dye. Are you now telling me that the universe is unsafe for them? I think we need legislation immediately.
Brilliant Sir!
@ Amy: spoilsport.
@ Ian: nice of you to drop in. I was beginning to wonder where you’d got to.
Incidentally, is there an email barrage that led up to the eviction of fun & games to cromercrox?
I know not. What is this email barrage of which you speak, Earth Woman?
I’ve been away at conferences being a
dissolute drunkyoung professional networker