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So you're into sci fi? But what about sci fact? Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction...

Each month our very own Voyager Science Queen* will bring you interesting, quirky and downright bizarre tasty morsels from the world of science. And its all completely, totally, 100% true!

Science Page October 2010

Making friends with the Neighbours

One of the reasons I became interested in Science was through my interest in Science Fiction. I was lucky enough to come across a copy of Isaac Asimov’s ‘I, Robot’ at the age of eight. I moved schools several times over the next few years, and I pretty much read my way though each school’s entire range of Science Fiction and Fantasy books. This became problematical at high school, when I ran out of books to read because I remained in the same school (with Anna Bligh, the Queensland Premier, who I have absolutely no recollection of ever meeting – however, we weren’t in the same grade).

What to do? The Librarian came to my rescue. She pointed me in the direction of the science FACT books written by Asimov. As they say ... the rest is history. I became very keen on Science. However, there were things I never thought to see in my lifetime. Flying cars – but there are cars that can park themselves and global navigation devices. Teleportation – and as I get older, I think I am glad not to be disassembled on a molecular level, because does that mean one has to die over and over again? Contact with aliens – after all, space is so immeasurably large and we don’t even know if life exists anywhere else in the universe.

BUT WAIT!

Recently in the news, it was announced that Mazlan Binti Othman, an astrophysicist, had been named as the Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. Doesn’t that sound exciting? However, this isn’t as exciting as it first appears. Othman has held that position on and off since 1999. This is more a position about discussing strategies for dealing with space debris, space junk and other near-Earth objects; chatting to aliens isn’t on the agenda. It is, in fact, old news.

But not the recent news has been so lacking in real interest to us science geeks. The red dwarf star, Gliese 581, sits in the constellation of Libra, and is a close neighbour at a distance of 20 lights years. What makes this star interesting is that is has a planet that falls within the theoretical ‘habitable zone’ for Gliese 581.

The habitable zone is the area where a planet would have some areas of its surface within the freezing and boiling points of water. It is generally considered that the presence of liquid water greatly improves the chances for life to develop.

This planet is one-and-a-half to three times bigger than Earth, so the gravity on its surface will be different than what we experience. It has a very short year – one source says 13 days, another states 37 days – due to being much closer to its sun. However, to balance out this short distance, please note that a red dwarf is much cooler than our own sun, and so closer is better. As well, it only ever shows once face to Gliese 581, so the liveable zone will exist in the transitional area between the light and dark halves.

The planet was found by Swiss, French and Portuguese astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's 3.6m telescope at La Silla in Chile. It is hoped that by 2020, astronomers will have developed telescopes that will allow observations of actual features on the planet.

As yet, the planet is unnamed. If it were up to me, I would call it ‘Hope’.

*The Voyager Science Queen is also known as Lynne Lumsden Green

So, who is this woman who attempts to entertain us with Science?

Lynne Lumsden Green lives on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, and attends the University of the Sunshine Coast. Ever the perpetual student, she is adding a B.A. in Creative Writing to her B.SC. in Zoology (Jennifer Fallon is her role model). As one of the founding members of Scriber Space, the site for USC creative writers, she hopes to create a writing community as lively and as close as the Voyager writing community. She spends her non-study hours volunteering for writing-related events, writing, reading, and – oh yes – looking after her family. She is still passionately interested in anything and everything, and enjoys the opportunity to share this passion via the Science Page. Terry Pratchett, Isaac Asimov, Neil Gaiman, and all the Voyager authors are her favourite people on the planet...and one of her goals is to meet all of those authors, well, at least those authors still in the land of the living. Recently, her own writing efforts have been meeting with better success. She is putting this down to her excellent lecturers and persistence, and to the fact that you can eat chocolate while typing.

Read previous Sci-Facts

Looking for more scientific oddities? Have you checked out Dr Steven Juan's website? He is, quite literally, the wizard of odds!