With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here’s Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World.
Huge thanks in the making of the video to the talented trio of Emm Gryner, Joe Corcoran and Andrew Tidby, plus Evan Hadfield and all at the CSA.
This is beautiful.
NEWSFLASH: Mars is Toxic
Mars One founder Bas Lansdorp announced this week that 78,000 people internationally have applied to become the first colonists on a one-way mission to Mars. Although I have serious reservations about the Mars One business plan, I am humbled by the tens of thousands of people that share the excitement and pioneering spirit for a Mars mission. At least Mars One has become a catalyst for mainstream interest in the enduring motivation for getting boots on the Mars regolith.
But, with the knowledge that even the dust beneath their boots would be out to kill them, I wonder how many applicants might drop out?
11 of the Weirdest Solutions to the Fermi Paradox
Most people take it for granted that we have yet to make contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. Trouble is, the numbers don’t add up. Our Galaxy is so old that every corner of it should have been visited many, many times over by now. No theory to date has satisfactorily explained away this Great Silence, so it’s time to think outside the box. Here are eleven of the weirdest solutions to the Fermi Paradox.
In 2015, NASA will, for the first time, fly a space mission utilizing a radically different propellant — one which has reduced toxicity and is environmentally benign. This energetic ionic liquid, or EIL, is quite different from the historically employed hydrazine-based propellant, which was first…
If you fly in space, this a great group to be with, surrounded by talent: Pavel, Tom, Chris, Roman & Alexander.
Astronauts! In space!
It’s time to chart the future directions of astrobiology research and you can participate. During the month of May, NASA will be hosting a series of on-line hangouts and discussions focusing on broad themes in astrobiology: Planetary Conditions for Life, Prebiotic Evolution, Early Evolution of Life and the Biosphere, Evolution of Advanced Life, and Astrobiology for Solar Systems Exploration. The online conversations will then be used as the starting point for an in-person/virtual meeting to draft an outline for the Roadmap. After registering here at http://www.astrobiologyfuture.org/, you will be receiving updates about the coming events. Thank you for joining us and making your unique voice heard in this important conversation!
Mars colony project will begin astro-colonist search in July
Even though colonists will never return to Earth, Mars One is expecting 1 million applications for its colonization project.
Personally i think it is very stupid and even immoral to send people to Mars if you can’t get them back to Earth. You should first find a way to get anything back from Mars. Best to start with unmanned satellites.
Maybe you need more than one flight to do this;
First send a satellite to Mars. It is easy to do. It is done more than once.
Second send a module to mars with a rocket engine and fuel to send the satellite back with it. In this way you don’t need huge rockets. Average size will do.
It may work or not but does only involve machines. A failure won’t harm people. If it works you can send manned flights to Mars. You could test this by computer simulations.
I seriously considered applying for this, but decided not to. The outcome of the project is just too uncertain. What if they run out of funding while you’re up there?
Kepler Team Finds System with Two Potentially Habitable Planets
NOTE: The Kepler spacecraft is able to detect planets that transit or cross the face of their host star. Measuring a transit tells astronomers the size of the planet relative to its star.
image 1: Kepler-62e, in the foreground, is nearer to its star and covered by dense clouds. Closer in orbits a Neptune-size ice giant with another small planet transiting its star. Both habitable-zone planets may be capable of supporting life. credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA)
image 2: Masses and sizes for selected planets. The curves show the mass-radius-relation (average density) for different types of planets: The blue line indicates the loci of planets made mostly (75%) of water, the black line that of planets like our Earth that consist almost exclusively of rock (represented here by the mineral Enstatite, MgSiO3, a member of the pyroxite silicate mineral series that makes up most of the Earth’s mantle), and so on. The measured radii of Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f plus an estimate of their mass places them in a region (blue areas) where it is highly probable for them to be earth-like planets, that is: planets with a solid (if possibly covered in water) surface. Kepler-11f, on the other hand, is a Mini-Neptune, showing clearly that a comparatively low mass does not necessarily make for a solid planet. credit: L. Kaltenegger (MPIA)
image 3: The habitable zone (in which liquid water on a planet’s surface can exist) for different types of stars. The inner planets of our Solar System are shown on top, with Earth and Mars in the habitable zone. Kepler-62 is a notably cooler star, and Kepler-62e and -62f are in its habitable zone. For Kepler-69c, another planet announced today by NASA, the error bars for the star’s radiation are such that it could possibly in the habitable zone as well. Kepler-22b, the smallest planet found in a habitable zone before the recent discoveries, is very likely a Mini-Neptune, and not a solid planet. In what is denoted the empirical habitable zone, liquid water can exist on the surface of a planet if that planet has sufficient cloud cover. In the narrow habitable zone, liquid water can exist on the surface even without the presence of a cloud cover. credit: L. Kaltenegger (MPIA)
image 4: Kepler-62 system. Five planets, two of which are in the Habitable Zone. credit: NASA
The newly discovered planets named Kepler-62e and -f are super-Earths in the habitable zone of a distant sun-like star. The largest planet in the image, Kepler-62f, is farthest from its star and covered by ice. Kepler-62 resides in the constellation Lyra, and is about 1,200 light-years from Earth.
This might be the most exciting exoplanet news yet. An international team of scientists analyzing data from NASA’s Kepler mission has found a planetary system with two small, potentially rocky planets that lie within the habitable zone of their star. The star, Kepler-62, is a bit smaller and cooler than our Sun, and is home to a five-planet system. Two of the worlds, Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f are the smallest exoplanets yet found in a habitable zone, and they might both be covered in water or ice, depending on what kind of atmosphere they might have.
“Imagine looking through a telescope to see another world with life just a few million miles from your own. Or, having the capability to travel between them on a regular basis. I can’t think of a more powerful motivation to become a space-faring society,” said Harvard astronomer Dimitar Sasselov, who is co-author of a new paper describing the discovery.
62e is 1.61 times Earth’s size, circles the star in 122.4 (Earth) days. 62f is 1.4 times the size of Earth, and orbits its star in 267.3 days. Previously, the smallest planet with known radius inside a habitable zone was Kepler-22b, with a radius of 2.4 times that of the Earth.
A third planet in another star system was also announced at a press briefing today. Kepler-69c is 70 percent larger than the size of Earth, and orbits in the habitable zone of a star similar to our Sun. Researchers are uncertain about the composition of Kepler-69c, but astronomer Thomas Barclay from the BAER Institute said its closer orbit of 242 days around a Sun-like star means it is likely more like a super-Venus rather than a super-Earth.
The team says that while the sizes of Kepler 62e and 62f are known, their mass and densities are not. However, every planet found in their size range so far has been rocky, like Earth.
“These planets are unlike anything in our solar system. They have endless oceans,” said lead author Lisa Kaltenegger of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “There may be life there, but could it be technology-based like ours? Life on these worlds would be under water with no easy access to metals, to electricity, or fire for metallurgy. Nonetheless, these worlds will still be beautiful blue planets circling an orange star — and maybe life’s inventiveness to get to a technology stage will surprise us.”
As the warmer of the two worlds, Kepler-62e would have a bit more clouds than Earth according to computer models. More distant Kepler-62f would need the greenhouse effect from plenty of carbon dioxide to warm it enough to host an ocean. Otherwise, it might become an ice-covered snowball.
“Kepler-62e probably has a very cloudy sky and is warm and humid all the way to the polar regions. Kepler-62f would be cooler, but still potentially life-friendly,” said Harvard astronomer and co-author Dimitar Sasselov. “The good news is — the two would exhibit distinctly different colors and make our search for signatures of life easier on such planets in the near future.“
“All of the other interesting planets in the habitable zone were until now discovered by what is known as the radial velocity method,” said Kaltenegger. “This method gives you a lower limit for the planet’s mass, but no information about its radius. This makes it difficult to assess whether or not a planet is rocky, like the Earth. A small radius (less than 2 Earth radii), on the other hand, is a strong indicator that a planet around is indeed rocky – unless we are talking about a planet around a very young star.”
“What makes Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f so exciting is a combination of two factors,” Kaltenegger added. “We know their radius, which indicates that these are indeed rocky planets, and they orbit their star in the habitable zone. That makes them our best candidates for habitable planets out there yet.”
Kaltenegger provides more details on these exoplanets in this video.
Sources: Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, CfA, UniverseToday
NGC 3314: When Galaxies Overlap
NGC 3314 is actually two large spiral galaxies which just happen to almost exactly line up. The foreground spiral is viewed nearly face-on, its pinwheel shape defined by young bright star clusters. But against the glow of the background galaxy, dark swirling lanes of interstellar dust appear to dominate the face-on spiral’s structure. The dust lanes are surprisingly pervasive, and this remarkable pair of overlapping galaxies is one of a small number of systems in which absorption of light from beyond a galaxy’s own stars can be used to directly explore its distribution of dust. NGC 3314 is about 140 million light-years (background galaxy) and 117 million light-years (foreground galaxy) away in the multi-headed constellation Hydra. The background galaxy would span nearly 70,000 light-years at its estimated distance. A synthetic third channel was created to construct this dramatic new composite of the overlapping galaxies from two color image data in the Hubble Legacy Archive.
Building MAVEN, the NASA probe that will try to figure out why Mars’ magnetic field—and thus its atmosphere—disappeared.
Sweet, I know the guy in charge of this endeavor - good to see it is still happening.
INTERNET, DO YOUR JOB!
The Sequester’s recent cuts on NASA’s spending in public outreach and its STEM programs must not be allowed. These cuts would end the many programs NASA has for educating the children of our society, as well as many other forms of public outreach held by NASA.
In an internal memo issued on the evening of Friday, March 22, the Administration notes that “effective immediately, all education and public outreach activities should be suspended, pending further review. In terms of scope, this includes all public engagement and outreach events, programs, activities, and products developed and implemented by Headquarters, Mission Directorates, and Centers across the Agency, including all education and public outreach efforts conducted by programs and projects.”
Please take 5 minutes to sign this petition; the world needs education, and to continue being excited about the universe.
Amazon CEO Recovers Apollo Engines from Atlantic
Rusted pieces of two Apollo-era rocket engines that helped boost astronauts to the moon have been fished out of the murky depths of the Atlantic, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos and NASA say.
A privately funded expedition led by Bezos raised the main engine parts during three weeks at sea and was headed back to Cape Canaveral, Florida, the launch pad for the manned lunar missions. “We’ve seen an underwater wonderland — an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 engines that tells the story of a fiery and violent end,” Bezos writes in an online posting.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/amazon-ceo-recovers-apollo-engines-atlantic
Sun Will Upset Mars Missions in April
The positions of the planets next month will mean diminished communications between Earth and NASA’s spacecraft on Mars.
Mars will be passing almost directly behind the sun, from Earth’s perspective. The sun can easily disrupt radio transmissions between the two planets during that near-alignment. To prevent an impaired command from reaching an orbiter or rover, mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are preparing to suspend sending any commands to spacecraft at Mars for weeks in April. Transmissions from Mars to Earth will also be reduced.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/videos/2013/03/sun-will-upset-mars-missions-april
This is real; this is happening.
I am fucking outraged.
The way the resources are being allocated in this country is completely backwards.
Getting people to understand/be excited about the universe is critical for the survival and development of humanity.
