Mars, the new frontier. The blue planet. The only planet in the whole universe known to man which has the potential to sustain some kind of life-form. It is planet that has an atmosphere that remotely resembles planet Earth. Scientist have long dreamed to capitalise on this remote resemblance and exploit it enough to make it self sustainable to humans. They envisioned a day when humans will populate the entire planet without any artificial life supporting system, thriving on their own on Mars, just like they are thriving healthily here.

The mission to Mars, still in it’s infancy even though it has been a few decades, has made startling discoveries in recent years. Much due to the improvement of latest space technology, samples of soil sent back by the space probe has indeed revealed that life did existed on Mars before it became barren today. This amazing new discovery has risen the hopes of scientists and space researchers to new heights. Further encouraging finds are signs that water, the basic need of all life-form, is present on Mars, frozen beneath the surface of the planet.

Scientist and space researchers now are faced with a new mission. To unfreeze the water beds beneath the crust of Mars and bring it to the surface. They opined that if there is water, plants will grow, and with green plants growing in abundance, the effect of photosynthesis will take effect, providing the life giving gas called oxygen to oxygen inhaling lifeforms. Like humans, for example.

They might already have that technology and the expertise. What with all the drilling and extracting of petroleum and gasses happening on this planet. There will be two major obstacles though. One is transportation and the other, the setting up of the heavy equipments used for major drilling works.

The perilous journey to Mars took the tiny space probe more than a few good months an it was lucky to survived a few good knocks before landing on Mars. To transport equipments and structures the size of an off shore drilling platform will probably see the need to built a space ship the size of the USS Enterprise. Okay, I may be exaggerating a little bit, one tenth the size of the USS Enterprise will be more than enough. And it don’t need to be able to travel at warp speed even.

I certainly will not live to see the day when someone lands on Mars on a successful mission and proclaims yet another “bigger leap for mankind”, but I am hopeful. I truly believe there will be that day. When it comes, I hope Planet Earth still existed. I hope my off springs will still be around. I hope they get to witness the first successful man-ed mission to Mars. I hope it’s a man and not a monkey though.

In a startling discovery, no less than astronomical, Astronomers from Britain’s Keele University has reportedly discovered a brand new planet 1000 light years away from Earth which is twice the size of Jupiter. What made this discovery so special is due to the fact that this planet, unlike all other planets in the Universe, orbit backwards. Scientist has named this planet WASP-17, reasons unknown.

The discovery has been widely reported and has stirred up considerable interest for Astronomers around the world. Trying to reason out why this planet goes against nature in it’s orbiting habits, experts are banking on the theory that this unusual phenomena might be due to a

“A near collision during the early, violent stage of this planetary system could well have caused a gravitational slingshot, flinging WASP-17 into its backwards orbit.” As quoted, Astronomer David Anderson of Britain’s Keele University during a press release, announcing the discovery.

Astrophysicist Sara Seager from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology agrees that this is indeed “one of the strangest planets we know about” reports the New York Daily News.

The National Post gave a more detailed explanation of WASP-17 but it would take a learned astronomy enthusiast to understand what they are trying to say. Try to understand this if you can.

Giant planet WASP-17b, the least-dense planet currently known. It is 1.6 Saturn masses but 1.5-2 Jupiter radii, giving a density of 6-14 per cent that of Jupiter. WASP-17b is in a 3.7-day orbit around a sub-solar metallicity, V = 11.6, F6 star.

In a related report, The Planetary Society gave a better prospective in plainer English, though it might still be alien to most of us. Describing the technique used to discover WASP-17 in this article by Amir Alexander, it states,

WASP-17 was first detected through the transit photometry technique by the Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) consortium of British universities, using the WASP-South camera array in South Africa. But in order to detect its retrograde motion the WASP team needed an assist from planet hunters at the Geneva Observatory, who specialize in radial velocity measurements.

In further elaboration,

According to Darin Ragozzine of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astronomers can identify the direction of a planet’s orbit because of slight discrepancies in the radial velocity data when a planet transits a star. Because a star is rotating, one side of it is moving towards (or away) from Earth faster than the other side. During a transit, the planet covers first one side of the star and then the other, causing a slight but measurable shift in the radial velocity readings. If during the transit the star first appears to be moving relatively slowly towards the Earth, but then faster as the transit progresses, then the planet is orbiting in the same direction as the star’s rotation. But if the reverse is the case – as it is for WASP-17 – then the planet is in a retrograde orbit.

The full report of this discovery can be found at http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1553

New Planet WASP-17….I know…I know…The first thing I thought of when I heard the news was Mork calling Orson or perhaps an old Ed Wood reel had been found and we were in for a cinematic treat. I even checked the calender to make sure that it wasn’t some kind of Orson Wells “War Of The Worlds” blunder but sure enough a new planet called WASP-17 has been discovered. This new planet is 1,000 light years away from Earth and is about 2 times as colossal as the giant Jupiter. I suppose it’s like losing one friend and making another because so many folks were heartbroken at the loss of little Pluto most likely because of the Walt Disney namesake and the affection he brings to the hearts of people.

Not only do we get a replacement for the defunct neglected planet Pluto but the new planet WASP-17 is also a lot more fun in a funky warped kind of way. You see, WASP-17 orbits backwards like the teenage kid who dyes his hair to be different and he is baffling the heck out of scientists. The best they could come up with was that the planet must have had some kind of a gravitational “close Encounter” which pretty much doesn’t explain too much at all. I suppose it’s like the planet that got in with the wrong crowd!

Scientists have admitted that WASP-17 is among the oddest planets that they have ever discovered. This planet drawn by an artist from what he perceived it to look was like a small orange ball in the foreground of a bigger sun-like fiery ball of molten flames. I suppose a new funky planet has to look spectacular in order to be accepted. The team of scientists who discovered WASP-17 were taking pictures with an array of cameras which look for changes in light in order to discover new planets by observing stars and watching for any masses their cross their paths.

But seriously, any such new scientific discovery like WASP-17 is bound to cause joy among all mankind because it shows us that we have only touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to discovering the mysteries and content of our vast universe. The fact the we are still discovering new planets is amazing but we must also remember that our own little blue planet still has much to offer in the way of new discoveries and although WASP-17 is a highly significant find it still remains a million miles away for regular inhabitants of planet Earth.