A new observatory to be built and sent into deep-space to search out habitable planets has been approved by the European Space Agency.

Dubbed PLATO, the mission may fundamentally change what humanity believes of its place in the universe.

PLATO is going to "address fundamental questions such as 'how common are Earth-like planets?' and 'is our solar system unusual or even unique?'," according to the University of Warwick, whose scientists are involved in the project.

It "could eventually even lead to the detection of extra-terrestrial life," the university added.

Following a meeting of the European Space Agency's committee in Madrid, the mission has now received the official green light, meaning it will now move from the blueprint phase into proper construction.

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It is expected to cost €600m (£536m).

Image: An artist's impression of a habitable exoplanet

The spacecraft is going to have 26 telescopes and will join NASA's Kepler observatory as a spacecraft dedicated to finding exoplanets, planets revolving around stars other than our Sun.

Kepler was launched in 2009 and has found more than 3,400 exoplanets to-date.

NASA recently stated that Kepler had discovered 10 potentially habitable exoplanets.

PLATO will be launched nearly one million miles away from Earth in 2026, more than four times further away than the moon.

It will scan a huge area of the sky, searching for the slight dips in light that takes place when a planet "transits" between the star and the telescope observing it.</s>Brexit, data protection and electric vehicles will command the majority of headlines following the Queen’s Speech, delivered today to Parliament. However, it is what the Queen said about the space industry which will reassure many that there remains a focus for the UK to be at the forefront of innovation among all the Brexit talk.

In the speech delivered by Her Majesty the Queen to both houses of Parliament, a government plan to secure growth in the UK’s £13.7bn space industry was revealed. The idea behind the new bill being proposed is to make the UK a more attractive destination for commercial space. This will include, excitingly, potential launches from British soil.

Currently, rockets and other launch systems developed elsewhere are not able to operate out of the UK. The Bill however hopes to change this by “enabling [scientists] to launch from UK soil]”. The legislation, according to the government, would “offer the UK’s world-leading small satellite companies new options for low-cost, reliable access to space”.

However, many may be quick to state that these plans are a little ‘out-of-this-world’, excuse the pun, but in reality the legislation would bring many benefits extending past the UK having a greater share in the space economy.

“Critics may prefer the UK Government to look closer to home, but investments in space quickly return commercial applications,” said Neil Fraser, Head of Space and Comms at ViaSat

“By looking to the stars, we bring innovation, employment and business growth back to the UK economy. Indeed, space is one of the eight great technologies for UK. It is a dynamic, fast growing sector which employs some of the country’s top talent, as well as contributing to economic growth and other important national needs, such as Earth observation and satellite communications.”

If the plans materialise, the Bill could help increase the UK share of the global space economy to 10% by 2030. Currently the UK only boasts a meagre 6.5% share in the space market.

Currently, the UK is a member of the European Space Agency, which is largely funded by the EU. However, despite Brexit and the UK government’s plans to grab a share of the space economy via British soil, Mr Fraser argues the ESA will be key in the government achieving its ambitious targets.

“The UK is one of the largest contributors to the European Space Agency, which will be key towards meeting the objectives outlined in the Queen’s speech. To compete on a global scale, it takes a larger investment than any single European country has an appetite. With the combined investments from major European powers, ESA has the resources to do projects on a global scale. This drives further innovation and employment back into the British economy. Not to mention national heroes like Tim Peake.”

There are also benefits to what the launch technology can do when it leaves British Soil and is orbiting above us in space. For example, ViaSat launched the world’s highest capacity communications satellite earlier this month from French Guyana – providing high speed broadband from LA to Istanbul. Broadband is a key technology in enabling the digital future – in fact, broadband is a pivotal in enabling enterprise and growth, both of which are fundamental to the economy.

“Whilst the UK has made progress in fibre and terrestrial roll out to pass more homes over recent years, fibre and 4G/5G cannot affordable meet all the needs of the UK’s population at home or when mobile. Satellite broadband has a role to play in meeting these needs and it is hoped the Government can do more to encourage a hybrid technology and business approach to ensuring the Universal Service Obligation (USO) is both realistic, has growth for the future and can be delivered,” said Mr Fraser.</s>Erectile dysfunction affects more than three million people per year in the United States alone. The Cleveland Clinic says that over half of all men will experience it in their lifetime, especially as they age. There are a number of other conditions that can contribute to it as well: heart disease and diabetes can cause glucose to build up and damage the blood vessels that allow the penis to become erect. Obesity can hamper blood flow. Opiate-based painkillers and hormones in food can dampen testosterone. And anxiety – something that many modern humans struggle with – can psychologically hamper arousal. There are all kinds of forces out there conspiring against your penis.

Erectile dysfunction diagnoses are increasing every year. That’s probably at least partially attributable to more men being unafraid to talk to their doctor about the situation down there, but it’s also likely that our way of living is making us less sexually viable. But medical science is working hard (no pun intended) on the problem because if we’re ever going to leave this planet, we need to solve the issue of zero-gravity boners.

The human body’s adaptation to a low-gravity environment is cause for concern. NASA has already discovered a bunch of stuff that happens when we’re in space for too long. Without the pull of the Earth to provide tension, bones, and muscles weaken. Astronauts engage in vigorous exercise for two to three hours a day while off-planet to try and offset some of this. But that’s just the most obvious symptom. Your heart also works less, reducing the production of red blood cells and causing “space anemia.” Pressure changes in the brain and spinal fluid hamper vision. Outer space is hard on the body, and it’s extra hard on hard-ons.

When you get an erection, the brain sends messages of arousal to the corpora cavernosa, the spongy tissue filled with blood vessels inside the penis. Normally these are constricted, but when you get randy they relax and loosen up, paradoxically getting harder as they fill up with blood. That blood is pumped through the body, but it gets a big assist from gravity. On Earth, humans carry much of their blood in the lower half of their body, but in space it redistributes up top more (which is why many astronauts appear red and puffy-faced).

When you combine the reduced blood flow from microgravity with the above, you get a penis that just isn’t getting the necessary juice to sustain an erection. Sure, drugs like Viagra will work the same in space as they do on Earth, but it’s up in the air as to the kind of dosage astronauts would need. The general scientific consensus on getting hard in orbit is that it’s certainly possible, just a lot more difficult.

It’s also tough from a hormonal level. Testosterone is one of the most important chemical messengers in the male body, but NASA has measured T levels that decrease when astronauts are in space. They return to normal when they return to Earth, but it’s very possible that just being up there would naturally make you less horny.

Even if you do manage to get an erection in space, there’s still the question on what to do with it. NASA has never had two astronauts knock boots in orbit before. They certainly had the opportunity – in 1991, we sent newlyweds Mark Lee and Jan Davis into space – but it just wasn’t in the cards. NASA has a very strict policy about hanky-panky on work time. Intercourse in microgravity brings with it a whole host of problems, though. On Earth, gravity is enough to keep you in one place no matter how enthusiastically you thrust. But when that fundamental force is removed, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so you’re likely to go flying away from your partner at high speeds. Think about trying to have sex on ice skates while standing up.

Sex in space would require both parties to be tethered down to immobile objects, drastically reducing the potential for personal injury while also making position changing well-nigh impossible. Either that or a third party might be necessary as a sort of “guide” to keep things going. That’s a whole new area of kink we’re not comfortable exploring.

Even grosser is the sweat situation. In zero gravity, sweat doesn’t fall from your body and evaporate like it does on Earth. Instead, it sticks to you like a film, growing thicker and thicker with exercise. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty serious turn-off.

Finally, all the arousal issues that apply to men would also affect women – they receive a rush of blood to the genitals when they get ready to make love, and secrete lubricating fluid to make it possible. However, without gravity to distribute that fluid along the vagina, it would pool up at the base of it, leaving the rest of the organ ill-suited to do the do.

Some private citizens are trying to investigate this issue further. In 2015, online smut portal Pornhub launched a crowdfunding campaign for “Sexploration,” which would have sent a pair of adult film stars into orbit to see what they could accomplish up there. Unfortunately for science, they didn’t meet their fundraising goal, and the project was scrapped.

No less an authority than Neil DeGrasse Tyson has weighed in on the subject for National Geographic. His prognosis is about as grim as ours, unfortunately.

So what’s the solution to this sticky problem? Obviously, the most logical one is simulated gravity, either through rotating a space station or other methods. The human body evolved over hundreds of thousands of years in the gentle grip of Earth’s gravity, so it’s pretty silly to think we can skip out on it without consequences.

It’s possible that the advent of virtual reality will allow us to have completely mediated sexual experiences without the need for all that sticky biology. Or some technology that hasn’t even been dreamed of, like an orgasm in a pill. Who knows – the future could certainly bring with it men specifically designed to pop a stiffy in zero G, but until then we’re just going to have to do it the hard way.

Let us know what you like about Geek by taking our survey.</s>Taking advantage of a weightless environment onboard the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, Expedition 34 Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency juggles some tomatoes, which he probably considers to be among the more delicious components of a recent "package" that arrived from Earth, in this Handout photo courtesy of NASA, taken March 3, 2013. Hadfield becomes the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station, March 13, 2013. REUTERS/NASA/Handout</s>The California company Made In Space, known for providing the first 3D printer on the International Space Station, has big goals for space-borne manufacturing - for both people in space and those back on Earth. Made In Space's Matt Napoli took the floor at the Dawn of Private Space Science conference here at Columbia University earlier this month to discuss the company's progress toward several goals: 3D printing useful experiments and tools on the space station, preparing to print fiber-optic cable to sell on Earth and designing a 3D-printing spacecraft to assemble large structures in the void.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Space.com.</s>A powerful planet-finding space telescope capable of discovering twin Earths is to be launched by the European Space Agency in 2026. Plato will search several hundreds of thousands of stars looking for rocky planets orbiting sun-like stars, including those that could be habitable.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Oxford Times.</s>Ten of the planets are potentially rocky, close to the size of Earth and within the habitable zone of the stars they orbit — meaning they could support liquid water on their surface, Perez explained.

“The Kepler data set is unique, as it is the only one containing a population of these near-Earth analogs: planets with roughly the same size and orbit as Earth,” he said.

With the addition of this latest release, Kepler has now identified 4,034 planet candidates, and 2,335 of them have been confirmed as exoplanets. The mission has also found 50 candidates similar in size to Earth, with more than 30 of them confirmed.

Of the 10 newly discovered Earth-size planets, one is the closest to Earth in size and the distance to its host star. But researchers don’t know much more than that.

In comparison, our solar system looks like it has three planets in the habitable zone of the sun: Mars, Venus and Earth. “I would only want to live on one of those,” said Susan Thompson, a Kepler research scientist.

This new data from the Kepler mission also suggest that within the “family tree” of exoplanets found, the smaller ones fall into two distinct sizes: Earth-like planets and super-Earths, and gaseous mini-Neptunes.

This sharpens the dividing line between potentially habitable planets and those that are inhospitable to life as we know it, the researchers said. Before Kepler, the population of exoplanets was largely expected to be full of Jupiter-size planets. Now, we know that exoplanets can be cold gas giants, hot Jupiters, ocean worlds, ice giants, lava worlds and rocky planets.

The final catalog of planet candidates will help researchers discover how many planets in the galaxy are Earth-like.

With this new data, the catalog suggests that about half of the exoplanets in our galaxy are either gaseous, with no surface, or have such a heavy atmosphere that life as we know it would not be possible. But Kepler’s ability to find and confirm exoplanets and rocky Earth-size planets also provides candidates for future observation by space telescopes.

This is the final catalog detailing exoplanet candidates and confirmations from Kepler’s survey taken during the first four years observing part of the constellation Cygnus. The researchers also believe it to be the most detailed catalog of exoplanet candidates.

“It feels like a bit like the end of an era, but actually, I see it as a new beginning,” Thompson said. “It’s amazing, the things that Kepler has found. It has shown us these terrestrial worlds, and we still have all of this work to do to really understand how common Earths are in the galaxy. I am really excited to see what people are going to do with this catalog.”

The news comes during the Kepler Science Conference and NASA’s Kepler exoplanet week, to celebrate the successes of these missions and the scientists who have made exoplanet discoveries possible.

Since launching in 2009, Kepler has been watching more than 200,000 stars in one part of the sky to determine exoplanet candidates, based on the slight dimming of light emitted by stars when potential planets pass across them.

For the first four years, Kepler observed part of the constellation Cygnus. Like other missions that have outlived their expected lifespan, Kepler broadened its search in 2014 to include other parts of our galaxy and has been taking in data ever since. This turned into the K2 mission.

The goal has been to discover more Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of a star, where water can pool on the surface of a planet and potentially support life.

These planets are usually 1.6 times the size of Earth, with rocky terrain.

Although the Kepler mission has yet to fulfill one of its goals, which is determining the fraction of sun-like stars hosting Earth-like planets in our galaxy, these data will help astronomers determine that number in the next few years, the researchers said.

And the researchers are ecstatic that the survey produced 50 exoplanet candidates similar in size to Earth.

The Kepler mission will end in October, but the team will leave data measurements for the scientific community as a way to pass the baton to future missions.

These other missions — such as TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, in 2018 and the James Webb Space Telescope later on — will continue the search for life beyond Earth.

Like Kepler, TESS will use a transit method for observing planets as they pass in front of their parent stars. But while Kepler looked at one portion of the sky for stars that were farther away for a longer time, TESS will observe the entire sky and focus on the brightest and closest stars. Each star will be observed for 30 days.

The James Webb Space Telescope, however, is capable of observing large exoplanets and detecting starlight filtered through their atmosphere, which will enable scientists to determine the atmospheric composition of the planets and analyze them for the presence of gases that can create a biological ecosystem.

The K2 mission, which began in 2014, is extending Kepler’s legacy to new parts of the sky and new fields of study, adding to NASA’s “arc of discovery.”

It has enough fuel to keep identifying candidates until summer 2018 and is helping bridge the gap between Kepler and TESS by identifying targets for the James Webb Space Telescope to observe.

The James Webb Space Telescope will be able to look at targets discovered by K2 in some detail, and it will be able to focus on at least 10 exoplanets in great detail. In about a decade, NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, or WFIRST, will be able to image these planets for the first time.

“I’m looking forward to 2030s,” said Courtney Dressing, NASA Sagan Fellow. “We can imagine the day where we actually take direct images of planets like the Earth in the habitable zone of sun-like stars.”</s>NASA astronaut Terry Virts has spoken with RT at the Starmus festival in Norway about the importance of virtual reality projects both for the people who have never been in space, and also for those aboard the ISS to feel connected with Earth.

READ MORE: Space 360: RT reveals first-ever 4K panoramic view of Earth from aboard ISS

“There is a huge potential. Yesterday, I did a VR rock concert, and it was so cool! My first thought was, 'They should send this to guys in space, they would enjoy it, that will be fun!' Or one could go to your house and film your family in virtual reality, and you could be with your family,” Virts told RT at the Starmus IV festival, now under way in Trondheim, Norway.

“The psychological component of space flight is the most important component, and Russian psychologists really understood this. They would send us sounds from Earth, like birds or rain or a crowded cafe, and those little things were really important,” the US astronaut explained.

360 videos are best viewed in desktop browsers or in the YouTube app.

At the festival, hosted by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology which aims to popularize science, with RT being one of the official information partners of the event, the American astronaut was shown 360-degree video footage from space, filmed by RT in cooperation with Roscosmos and the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation.

READ MORE: RT Space 360: Getting ready for zero gravity’s sickening side effects

“This is great! I feel like I'm back in space, except there is gravity,” Virts said, excited.

“People around the world love space, and they want to experience it, and I wish more people could go, but so far only a few hundred have, ever since Yuriy Gagarin,” he told RT.

In cooperation with NASA, the American astronaut himself has been involved with an IMAX project. While aboard the ISS, and in open space, Virts shot some stunning footage of Earth, which was then featured in the 2016 film, ‘A Beautiful Planet.’

“Making a movie to share the experience was one of the most important things I did,” he told RT.</s>Washington-Nasa revealed 10 new rocky, Earth-sized planets that could potentially have liquid water and support life.

The Kepler mission team released a survey of 219 potential exoplanets - planets outside of our solar system - that had been detected by the space observatory launched in 2009 to scan the Milky Way galaxy.

Ten of the new discoveries were orbiting their suns at a distance similar to Earth’s orbit around the sun, the so-called habitable zone that could potentially have liquid water and sustain life. Kepler has already discovered 4,034 potential exoplanets, 2,335 of which have been confirmed by other telescopes as actual planets.

The 10 new Earth-size planets bring the total to 50 that exist in habitable zones around the galaxy.

“This carefully-measured catalog is the foundation for directly answering one of astronomy’s most compelling questions - how many planets like our Earth are in the galaxy?” said Susan Thompson, a Kepler research scientist and lead author of the latest study.

The latest findings were released at the Fourth Kepler and K2 science conference being held this week at Nasa’s Ames research center in California.

The Kepler telescope detects the presence of planets by registering minuscule drops in a star’s brightness that occurs when a planet crosses in front of it, a movement known as a transit. The findings were compiled from data gathered during the first four years of the mission, which scientists processed to determine the size and composition of the planets observed.

The scientists found that the newly discovered planets tended to fall into two distinct categories - smaller, rocky planets that are usually around 75 percent bigger than Earth, and much larger, gaseous planets similar in size to Neptune.

Nasa said the latest catalog is the most complete and detailed survey of potential exoplanets yet compiled. The telescope has studied some 150,000 stars in the Cygnus constellation, a survey which Nasa said is now complete.

“The Kepler data set is unique, as it is the only one containing a population of these near Earth-analogs - planets with roughly the same size and orbit as Earth,” said Mario Perez of Nasa’s Astrophysics Division. “Understanding their frequency in the galaxy will help inform the design of future NASA missions to directly image another Earth.”

The mission ran into technical problems in 2013 when mechanisms used to turn the spacecraft failed, but the telescope has continued searching for potentially habitable planets as part of its K2 project.

As of next year, Nasa will continue its scan of the galaxy using Kepler’s successor, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, which will spend two years observing the 200,000 brightest nearby stars for Earth-like worlds.

Scientists also hope the James Webb Space telescope, which will replace the Hubble telescope in 2018, will be able to detect the molecular make-up of atmospheres of exoplanets, including the possibility of finding signatures of potential life forms.</s>Named after a Norse mythological city of the skies, Asgardia is open to all residents on planet earth and it doesn't cost anything to join.

Russian scientist Dr Igor Ashurbeyli announced his plans to form the world's first independent nation that operates in outer space in October 2016. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have signed up to be citizens.

Ashurbeyli says the project's mission is to provide a "peaceful society", offer easier access to space technologies, and protect Earth from space threats, such as asteroids and man-made debris in space.

Rather than residing in outer space, Asgardians citizens will -- for the time being -- remain based on earth.

Getting it off the ground

Within 40 hours of the project being announced, over 100,000 people applied for citizenship on Asgardia's website.

After three weeks, Asgardia had 500,000 applicants.

Anyone over 18 and with an email address, regardless of gender, nationality, race, religion, and financial standing was able to sign up -- including ex-convicts, provided they are clear of charges at the time of application.

Deluged, Ashurbeyli introduced a stronger verification process asking for additional details such as date of birth and address. Subsequently, the number of citizens has reduced.

Today there are about 211,000 members from 217 countries with the majority being aged between 18 and 35 years old.

There are over 130,000 English speakers, but China has the largest number of Asgardians with 28,000 of its citizens having signed up.

The gender balance -- or imbalance -- is 83% male to 16% female with the remaining people identifying as "other".

Rayven Sin, an artist based in Hong Kong, told CNN that she signed up to become an Asgardian in November 2016 after hearing about it on a Chinese radio show while she was in Toronto.

"I really want to be able to see if human beings are able to have more opportunity to express their opinions," she told CNN. "The society we live in now -- everything seems to be either capitalism or communism -- there's a lot of conflict.

"As a human being, I would hope (to see) if we could have other ways (of living). For a better life, and for more options."

John Spiro, a digital marketing specialist who organizes a monthly meet-up for Hong Kong-based Asgardians, told CNN it was the possibility of sending personal data into space that excited him.

"I help translate and preserve Buddhist sutras as a hobby and the symbolism of sending one of those religious texts in electronic form 'up to the heavens' seemed very nice."

Out of this world idea

Asgardia will establish a physical presence in space via a series of satellites, the first of which, the Asgardia-1, will be launched into orbit around the Earth on September 12, 2017, Ashurbeyli revealed at a press conference in Hong Kong this month.

It will travel aboard Orbital ATK's mission to the International Space Station (ISS), and be released from the American aerospace firm's ship once it docks at the ISS.

The nano satellite, or "nanosat", is small -- about the size of a loaf of bread -- and weighs just 6 pounds (2.8 kilograms), but it packs a punch in terms of storage, holding 300 kilobytes of data per person for the first 100,000 citizens who signed up.

After that, 200 kilobytes will be offered to the next 400,000 people, and 100 kilobytes thereafter for one million citizens.

The data will include things like family photos, Ashurbeyli explained.

Going forward, the Asgardia team hopes to create habitable platforms in low-earth orbits -- the first 100 to 200 miles (161 to 321 kilometers) from space, which is also where the ISS is located.

The first human flight to this location is projected to take place in eight years' time.

"We want to give equal opportunities to everyone who has a mind, who can do something, for their protection," Ashurbeyli told CNN.

"Our real home is not the house or the city where we were born. (Our) home is planet Earth, (and) we want to protect it.

"(It's) not a fantasy. Going to Mars, the galactics, so on -- that's just fake. I intend something more real."

A 53-year-old rocket scientist, Ashurbeyli says he is single-handedly bankrolling the project -- for a sum that's undisclosed.

After moving to Moscow in the 1990s, he became a heavyweight in the science industry and, in 2010, was awarded the Russian State Science and Technology Prize. Three years later, he founded the Aerospace International Research Center (AIRC) in Vienna, and today he is chairman of UNESCO's Science of Space committee.

In short, Ashurbeyli is no beginner when it comes to space.

At the conference in Hong Kong, Ashurbeyli explained that Asgardia is a project he has been dreaming of since childhood.

"I was interested in doing something unusual that nobody else was doing," Ashurbeyli told CNN. "It was my dream to create an independent country."

That ambition became more concrete after Ashurbeyli gave a speech at a conference on space law at McGill University in Montreal in 2016, where he was inspired by a discussion about the laws governing murder, marriage and divorce in space.

"I thought: 'Why not organize a country?' Not only for lawyers. But for technicians, for engineers, for every human ... because he's currently restricted by the laws of the country he was born in."

Asgardia advocates for the creation of a new legal platform in space.

Ashurbeyli says Asgardia will apply for UN recognition as a nation in 2018.

If the Security Council approves the application, then two-thirds of members of the General Assembly must vote for its admission.

But whether Asgardia will get that far is uncertain.

"A state has to have these characteristics: a permanent population; a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. And it must be recognized as a state by other states," Joanne Gabrynowicz, a space law expert and professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology's School of Law, told CNN.

"So the premise that Asgardia is a 'nation' is debatable."

Ashurbeyli says Asgardia will form a democratic government in the next six months, and then a Court, Prosecutors Office, National Audit Office and the other governmental bodies.

When asked by CNN how Asgardia intends to provide peace to its citizens without a physical settlement, Ashurbeyli says the nation's citizens can take advantage of their "dual citizenship".

"If I have problems on Earth, I'll have my embassy from Asgardia. (It's as if) you are a tourist, you can go to your embassy and they'll try to help you."

Governmental departments will be run by Asgardians in the locations they represent, while the administrative center will be in Vienna.

Ashurbeyli does, however, recognize the multitude of issues that come with forming his own nation -- let alone one based in space.

"We have to be like a normal country. All countries have problems, and soon we will have the same problems," he tells CNN.

"But we will have more than normal countries because we are not on earth."
The European Space Agency (ESA) approves the PLATO space observatory which will seek out Earth-like exoplanets.