The Special Ingredients of Earth   
       
   March 18, 2016:  With its blue skies, puffy white clouds, warm beaches and   
   abundant life, planet Earth is a pretty special place.  A quick survey of the   
   solar system reveals . nothing else like it.   
       
   But how special is Earth, really?   
       
   One way to find out is to look for other worlds like ours elsewhere in the   
   galaxy.  Astronomers using NASA's Kepler space telescope and other   
   observatories have been doing just that.  In recent years they have been   
   finding other planets increasingly similar to Earth-but still none that appear   
   as hospitable as our home world.  For those researchers, the search goes on.   
       
   http://tinyurl.com/hf5g4e6   
       
   Another group of researchers have taken an entirely different approach.   
   Instead of looking for Earth-like planets, they have been looking for   
   Earth-like ingredients.  Consider the following:   
       
   Our planet is rich in elements such as carbon, oxygen, iron, magnesium,   
   silicon and sulfur-the stuff of rocks, air, oceans... and life.   
       
   Are these elements widespread elsewhere in the universe? To find out, a team   
   of astronomers led by Aurora Simionescu, an astrophysicist at the Japan   
   Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Sagamihara, Japan, used Suzaku, a   
   Japanese X-ray satellite with NASA participation, to survey a cluster of   
   galaxies located in the direction of the constellation Virgo.   
       
   The Virgo cluster is a massive swarm of more than 2000 galaxies, many similar   
   in appearance to our own Milky Way, located about 54 million light-years   
   away.  The space between the member galaxies is filled with a diffuse gas so   
   hot that it glows in X-rays. Instruments onboard Suzaku were able to look at   
   that gas and determine which elements it is made of.   
       
   Reporting their findings in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, Simionescu and   
   her colleagues reported findings of iron, magnesium, silicon and sulfur   
   throughout the Virgo galaxy cluster.   
       
   Simionescu says "The elemental ratios are constant throughout the entire   
   volume of the cluster and roughly consistent with the composition of the sun   
   and most of the stars in our own galaxy."   
       
   When the Universe was born in the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, elements   
   heavier than carbon were rare.  These elements are present today mainly   
   because of supernova explosions.  Massive stars cook elements such as carbon,   
   oxygen, iron, magnesium, silicon and sulfur in their hot cores and then spew   
   them far and wide when the stars explode. According to the observations of   
   Suzaku, the ingredients for making sun-like stars and Earth-like planets have   
   been scattered far and wide by these explosions.  Indeed, they appear to be   
   widespread in the cosmos.   
       
   "The elements so important to life on Earth are available, on average, in   
   similar relative proportions throughout the bulk of the universe," adds   
   Simionescu. "In other words, the chemical requirements for life are common."   
       
   Earth is still special.  But according to Suzaku, there might be other special   
   places, too.  Suzaku recently completed its highly successful mission.  On   
   February 17, 2016, JAXA launched a follow-up mission to continue the survey:   
   Hitomi, previously named ASTRO-H before launch, is a Japanese-led observatory   
   carrying a key NASA instrument. The observatory will extend such studies to   
   clusters of galaxies far beyond Virgo.   
       
   For more news from the distant corners of the cosmos, stay tuned to   
   science.nasa.gov.   
       
       
   Regards,   
       
   Roger   
      
   --- DB 3.99 + Windows 10   
    * Origin: NCS BBS - Houma, LoUiSiAna (1:3828/7)