Random Thoughts On Space

As usual I am going to post on space news for it gets so little coverage in the Age Of Trump when we go from one crisis to another.

For decades we have been on the hunt for our ET brethren out there…SETI….other tries to find our relatives (according to some)…..but instead of finding the perfect planet for life as we know it maybe we should look elsewhere as well…..

Assuming that alien life will be similar to what evolved here on Earth could severely limit the potential for big discoveries, researchers said.

On Friday (Aug. 2) at the first annual TESS Science Conference here at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a panel of scientists discussed what’s next in the search for signs of life on other worlds — and just how close we might be to finding such signs. (TESS is NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which just marked one year of planet hunting in Earth orbit.)

https://www.space.com/alien-life-hunt-not-limited-earth-like-life.html

After reading that….I saw that a “super Earth” has been found…..

What was once considered pure fantasy in movies like “Avatar,” is now looking a little more plausible. Earlier this week, NASA announced the discovery of a possible Earth-like planet, located just 31 light years away – a hop, skip and a jump in cosmic terms – that may be able to support life.

“I think it’s an amazing discovery,” Lisa Kaltenegger, from the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell, said. “We have a small mission called ‘Tess’ that’s scanning the whole sky, where the brightest and closest objects are, to find planets like ours and this is the first one.”

The planet named GJ 357 d, is six times larger than Earth. It orbits a dwarf star with two other previously unknown planets.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/planet-gj357-d-potentially-habitable-super-earth-discovered/

It appears that NASA is finally getting serious about a trip and colonization of Mars…..the biggest problem other than the trip there is the habitat that will be needed to house our colonists……

If humans hope to colonize Mars someday, we’ll need to figure how to survive and grow crops on a large scale in an inhospitable environment. A new study in Nature Astronomy suggests a potential part of the solution: Build greenhouses and other structures out of an extremely light insulating material called aerogel, per NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This material, made mostly of silica and similar to Styrofoam, is nicknamed “frozen smoke” for its appearance, notes CNET. In their study, researchers mimicked the environment on Mars to show that the aerogel structures would allow in light for photosynthesis but block harmful UV radiation, all while raising temperatures beneath them to levels that would melt frozen water beneath the surface.

That, crucially, would allow habitats to be built in wide swaths of otherwise inhabitable parts of the planet. “Mars is warmer around the equator, but most of the water ice is located at higher latitudes,” says co-author Laura Kerber of NASA. “Building with silica aerogel would allow us to artificially create warm environments where there is already water ice available.” The next step is to test the concept on a larger scale in areas such as the Atacama Desert in South America and the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, reports Wired. “This regional approach to making Mars habitable is much more achievable than global atmospheric modification,” says researcher Robin Wordsworth. “Unlike the previous ideas to make Mars habitable, this is something that can be developed and tested systematically with materials and technology we already have.”

But before we build habitats……Nukes the planet…..Mars that is…

This is a private businessman that wants to nuke Mars to make it ready for humans…..Elon Musk…..

Musk believes that by hitting Mars with nuclear weapons, the planet’s polar ice caps could melt and release vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which would essentially create a greenhouse effect that raises the temperature and air pressure of the planet — like a really quick version of climate change.

Musk has shared this opinion for years, dating back to interviews with the billionaire from 2015. He even went on Stephen Colbert’s late-night talk show to discuss his idea of bombing Mars

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-wants-to-nuke-mars-plans-t-shirts-2019-8

He should check the Outer Space Treaty before he goes off half cocked (pun intended)…..

Finally I have been a critic of Trump’s proposal for a Space Force…..but apparently some in the EU do not want to be upstaged by Trump…..

Emmanuel Macron’s race into space makes Germans nervous.

The French government is poised to lay out details on Thursday of a plan to staff up a “space high command” in Toulouse, as it expands the remit of its air force to cover orbital defense and ward off potential threats to infrastructure in space from big powers including China, Russia and India.

https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-wary-emmanuel-macron-space-force/

Now you can see why I am concerned about these space force units….they will violate treaties signed in the 1960s….let me help…..https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/isn/5181.htm

Please read the treaty and tell me that we are NOT violating it….but in case there is any confusion…..

The treaty’s key arms control provisions are in Article IV. States-parties commit not to:

Place in orbit around the Earth or other celestial bodies any nuclear weapons or objects carrying WMD.
Install WMD on celestial bodies or station WMD in outer space in any other manner.
Establish military bases or installations, test “any type of weapons,” or conduct military exercises on the moon and other celestial bodies.

When I post on the space stuff I reference the Outer Space Treaty a lot…..so I feel I need to dedicate a post to this document so my readers can better understand where I come from….Date TBA…..

But if space is not your thing….12,000 lies, many many golf trips costing millions each and but Obama was ruining the country…..missiles in the Sea of Japan…..Afghans walk…..playing tanker bingo……255 mass shootings in 2019……the race is on.

My day is begins.

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Kill Or Be Killed!

For decades we have been sending messages into space and hopefully watch for some reply…..so far little has returned.

First ever considered that those aliens out there may not want to talk to us or even acknowledge our existence?

But that aside….say we get a message in return saying “We are on our way”…..what then?

There have been many many movies that deal with this conundrum….one of my favorites was a Twilight Zone episode, “To Serve Man”…..

If and when they, ET, shows up will we have to fight? (As most SciFi movies would have us believe)

Or will we treat them as we treat most animals?

Scientists often kill animals — that’s just a grisly fact of biological research.

But it’s a bit more complicated in the theoretical future where we’ve made first contact with extraterrestrial life. At that point, science author Guy Harrison argues in a Psychology Today op-ed that biologists may have to come to terms with killing alien life in the name of scientific progress — which raises a difficult question: at what point does scientific inquiry outweigh the value of life?

Harrison suggests guidelines that future biologists may find helpful. For instance, any extraterrestrial life that shows signs of intelligence ought to be spared. In that case, we may be able to learn about the alien lifeform by using our words instead of our scalpels.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/kill-aliens-science

Could we be the lower form of life?

The larger questions of science……and now I leave them for “experts” to answer….if they can.

But the old professor will try……

When considering the prospect of alien life, humankind should prepare for the worst, according to a new study: Either we’re alone, or any aliens out there are acquisitive and resource-hungry, just like us.

These two unpalatable options are pretty much the only possibilities, according to the new study. That’s because evolution is predictable, and alien biospheres should thus produce intelligent creatures much like us, with technological prowess and an ever-increasing need for resources.

But the fact that we haven’t run across E.T. yet argues strongly for the latter possibility — that we are alone in the universe’s howling void, the study suggests.

https://www.space.com/10578-study-fear-aliens-dangerous-extraterrestrials.html

Can we possibly predict the temperament of our alien pals?

Possibly…..

Given the current state of our home planet, and indeed our species, it can seem a bit surplus to needs to speculate on whether extraterrestrials are going to one day come and eat us (or, well, you know, do anything equally unpleasant).

Nonetheless, the question of whether there’s anyone or anything ‘out there’ that might ever show up to cause trouble does seem to come around again, and again, and again. For example, it’s become a bit of a perennial topic for Stephen Hawking to mention, and he’s not alone among serious scientists in speculating on the outcome of any such encounter.

As with any effort to decode the likely thought processes or intents of entirely hypothetical lifeforms, the options are – shall we say – fairly loosely constrained.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/how-to-predict-a-hostile-alien-invasion/

I still like the Twilight Zone episode the best…….maybe with some roasted asparagus and a nice Bordeaux.

Any thoughts on this or anything else…maybe the failing dam in the UK?

More later.

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

More Alien Ammo!

The weekend and I would like to talk about something that has me concerned…..UFOs and the resurgent alien thingy…..

I am sure by now most everyone knows about the “Ancient Alien” theory that was started by von Daniken back in the 60s…..and now a whole new “interest” in the theory and they even have a “AlienCon”…….I want the “tin foil hat” concession.

The news has come out about the Pentagon and the AATIP…….a study that investigates ‘aerial” sightings…….

Every once in a while, a news item surfaces that prompts you to throw up your hands, sink back into your chair and begrudgingly welcome the impending apocalypse. The most recent item on this docket: A New York Times report confirming that between 2014 and 2015, Navy pilots reported “almost daily” sightings of unidentified flying objects lurking in the air, including one that resembled a “spinning top moving against the wind.”

Well, we had a good run, everyone! Time to pack it in.

According to the Times report, the sightings began in the summer of 2014, with Navy pilots reporting that they spotted the vessels nearly 30,000 feet in the sky while they were conducting training maneuvers between Virginia and Florida. Sometimes, they reported, the vessels reached seemingly hypersonic speeds. One of the Navy pilots even almost collided with one of the objects, which apparently (and justifiably) freaked him out so much that he issued an official incident report about it to the Navy. The sightings apparently grew so frequent that earlier this year, the Navy issued official guidelines for how to report “unexplained aerial phenomena.” To date, no official explanation exists for the sightings, though a Navy spokesperson did say that a few of them could have been unlicensed drones.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/ufo-navy-pilots-840902/

But please do not assume the Aliens are coming……

UFOs are very real, as we have recently seen — but that doesn’t mean E.T. has been violating our airspace.

“UFO” refers to any flying object an observer cannot readily identify. And pilots with the U.S. Navy saw fast-moving UFOs repeatedly off the East Coast throughout 2014 and 2015, in one case apparently nearly colliding with one of the mysterious objects, The New York Times reported earlier this week.

Those incidents were reported to the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), whose existence the Times and Politico revealed in December 2017. (Interestingly, those 2017 stories cited Pentagon officials as saying that AATIP had been shut down in 2012.)

https://www.space.com/ufos-real-but-not-alien-spaceships.html

On the other side of this debate……UFOs are real…now time to consider aliens……

A decade ago, two scientists published a paper on “the authoritative taboo on taking UFOs seriously.” Essentially, Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall put the issue down to a failure to accept a scenario—say, that aliens are visiting us on the regular—that would injure our anthropocentric view. But as Tufts University international politics professor Daniel W. Drezner writes at the Washington Post, our view of UFOs is slowly changing. “Official organs of the state are now acknowledging that UFOs exist”—the US Navy issued new guidelines about sightings earlier this month—”even if they are not literally using the term. They are doing so because enough pilots are reporting UFOs and near-air collisions so as to warrant better record-keeping.”

Indeed, Navy pilots reported numerous UFOs off the US east coast in 2014 and 2015. Several pilots have now spoken out to the New York Times, describing objects hitting hypersonic speeds from sea level to 30,000 feet with “no jet engine, no exhaust plume,” then making instantaneous stops and turns. “No one in the Defense Department is saying that the objects were extraterrestrial, and experts emphasize that earthly explanations can generally be found for such incidents,” reports the Times. For Drezner, that’s an indication that authorities are still unwilling to seriously consider extraterrestrial activity, no matter how unlikely. They’ll need to do that to fully debunk Wendt and Duvall’s theory, Drezner writes. If they do, “what happens to our understanding of the universe?” (Read his full piece here.)

This just adds to the ancient alien craze……

I will allow the “experts” debate this one….I just wanted to let my readers know…..an FYI post……

But what about a new ‘religion’ as it were?

Last week, the New York Times published a viral article about reports of UFOs off the East Coast in 2014 and 2015. It included an interview with five Navy pilots who witnessed, and in some cases recorded, mysterious flying objects with “no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes” that appeared to “reach 30,000 feet and hypersonic speeds.”

No one is quite sure what they saw, but the sightings are striking. And they’re part of a growing fascination with the possibility of intelligent alien life.

According to Diana Pasulka, a professor at the University of North Carolina and author of the new book American Cosmic, belief in UFOs and extraterrestrials is becoming a kind of religion — and it isn’t nearly as fringe as you might think.

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/6/4/18632778/ufo-aliens-american-cosmic-diana-pasulka

This is all so 1950s…….

Have a day.

Space: No One Hears You Scream!

Another weekend and the beginning of another Summer.

This weekend I will touch on a subject that few people care anything about…..even though we are approaching the 50th anniversary of the Moon Landing…most Americans could care less…..

Speaking of the Moon……VP Pence has stated that we will be back on the Moon by 2024 and this time to stay……but the plans have been leaked……

An extraordinary scoop from Ars Technica: senior space editor Eric Berger has obtained an internal NASA plan for the next 37 rocket launches to the Moon — and it includes sending human astronauts in 2024 and establishing a permanent lunar base in 2028.

In sum, the schedule for Artemis is ambitious, and the program’s goal isn’t just sending Americans back to the Moon, but moving toward a permanent presence there that could signal a new era in the exploration of the solar system.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-lunar-outpost

But the plans have been made and now the loss of the leader of Artemis…….

A NASA executive who was appointed just six weeks ago to lead the strategy for future missions to the Moon has resigned, The Hill reports.

Mark Sirangelo was hired in April as special assistant to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. It’s a sudden departure that looks especially odd considering the White House’s focus on getting Americans back to the Moon — but Congress’s refusal to grant extra funds is forcing NASA to re-evaluate the ambitious plans.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-executive-moon-mission-sirangelo-quit

Now let’s expand our vision beyond our proposed Moon Base…….how about our other objective….Mars?

The building blocks of life….water has been discovered on Mars……

Scientists think they’ve stumbled on a new cache of water ice on Mars — and not just any ice but a layered mix of ice and sand representing the last traces of long-lost polar ice caps.

That’s according to new research based on data gathered by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling the Red Planet since 2006 and has just marked its 60,000th trip around Mars. On board the spacecraft is a radar instrument that can see about 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) below the planet’s surface — and in that data, scientists see lots and lots of ice.

“We didn’t expect to find this much water ice here,” lead author Stefano Nerozzi, a doctoral student in geology at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, said in a statement released by the American Geophysical Union, which published the new research. “That likely makes it the third largest water reservoir on Mars after the polar ice caps.”

https://www.space.com/ancient-water-icecaps-discovered-on-mars.html

Once we set up our “settlement” on Mars the mutations will begin……

Scientists have set their sights on getting humans to Mars — and maybe even terraforming the Red Planet. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s goal is to send humans to Mars by 2024, and NASA plans to launch astronauts there after the Moon.

But despite the resources being funneled into technology to transport us to the Red Planet, we don’t yet understand the evolutionary implications the move will have on the human body. In a new interview with Inverse, evolutionary biologist and Rice University professor Scott Solomon thinks it’s worth asking what will happen to Mars colonists in the long term — as mutations start to cascade through the gene pool.

https://futurism.com/mars-colonists-mutation-evolution

The Moon and Mars have taken up so much of the scientific research but what about our other “neighbor”….Venus?

Did life exist on Venus in the distant past?

While today Venus is a very inhospitable place with surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead, geological evidence, supported by computer model simulations, indicate it may have been much cooler billions of years ago and had an ocean, and so have been very similar to Earth.

It is not only the temperature and highly corrosive atmosphere of the present day Venus that makes it different from the Earth. Venus also rotates very slowly, taking 243 Earth days to complete a Venusian day. However, billions of years in the past it may have spun faster, which would have helped make the planet more habitable.

https://m.phys.org/news/2019-05-possibility-life-venus.html

From the distant past into the distant future…..when our Sun starts to die it will take the Earth with it….maybe not……

In about five billion years, the Sun will begin to die, rapidly expanding and incinerating the Earth in its death throes. That’s not for a while, but any humans left will need to plan well in advance if they want to escape cosmic obliteration.

Humanity’s best bet is migrating to another planet, according to an essay by Glasgow space engineer Matteo Ceriotti in The Conversation. But with enough planning, he argues, it could be possible to push Earth’s orbit around the Sun to a safe distance where the explosion won’t reach us.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/space-engineer-earth-orbit-escape-sun

A short trip around the world of space exploration…..space is our future……

Humans Have Reached The Pinnacle

It is Sunday and as usual I will try to be anything but a analyst for the next couple of days….. ut that does not mean that stupid is any less prevalent…..

Humans fell out of the trees then we walked up-right then weapons were made then fire was used we then set about creating civilizations and now we humans may have hit our zenith and started the downward spiral…..

I have made light of those Ancient Alien people for spread psuedo-science………one of the most outrageous claims, in my opinion, is that little grey dudes are breeding with us humans…

Now a Oxford professor has joined the land of the whack-a-doodles……

An Oxford University academic says aliens are breeding with humans to produce a hyrid species capable of saving the planet from major disasters like climate change and nuclear war.

Young-hae Chi, an instructor in Korean at Oxford’s Oriental Institute, said the primary aim of the aliens was to ensure their own survival, but in doing so could protect the human race.

He first made the claims in a lecture in 2012 when he cited an “abduction researcher” from the US who believes the hybrids are already walking among us, the Oxford Student newspaper reported.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/oxford-university-professor-says-aliens-are-already-breeding-with-humans-on-earth-a4128116.html

And more on his claim……

https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/an-oxford-professor-has-the-wildest-claim-about-climate-change-weve-ever-heard/

Did I mention that he, the professor, thinks that aliens are invisible?

In an interview with The Oxford Student, Chi shared some of the highlights from the book — including his belief that, because these invisible extraterrestrials live among us, they have a stake in avoiding planetary destruction due to climate change.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/oxford-invisible-aliens-breeding-humans

Just what makes a professor at a prestigious university like Oxford drink the “ancient alien” kool-aid?

This will do nothing to tamp down the alien ancestor conspiracy…….did I mention he says these aliens are invisible?

Time to move on as MoMo tells me that there is something “doing” in the back 40……probably that damn squirrel that is irritating the crap out of her. IT had better stay sharp or his days are numbered.

May The Fourth Be With You–2019

Saturday….MoMo has hunted down a mole, dug it up and is now playing with it….

Apparently it just pissed her off….now she is just pissed at me for spoiling her fun……

Onward……

Since today is May the Fourth I feel compelled to post on space and a galaxy far far away ………..it is only a matter of time until we discover life on another planet….

Extraterrestrial life, that familiar science-fiction trope, that kitschy fantasy, that CGI nightmare, has become a matter of serious discussion, a “risk factor”, a “scenario”.

How has ET gone from sci-fi fairytale to a serious scientific endeavour modelled by macroeconomists, funded by fiscal conservatives and discussed by theologians?

Because, following a string of remarkable discoveries over the past two decades, the idea of alien life is not as far-fetched as it used to seem.

Discovery now seems inevitable and possibly imminent.

https://theconversation.com/why-the-idea-of-alien-life-now-seems-inevitable-and-possibly-imminent-115643

This seems to be the consensus among planet scientists…..they are trying desperately to find that life and to justify the money spent in that pursuit.

Of course we could all just sit back and buy into the “Ancient Alien” BS….for me I prefer a more scientific approach than some silly leap of faith from a bunch of deluded and washed up pundits.

Then there is Mars……I read a piece about human life on Mars after colonization…..

A city on Mars could provide the first-ever truly blank slate to organize a new kind of economy.

While attempts to re-organize the means of production are as old as humankind itself, these experiments have always been limited to some extent by the economic systems that came before. People can only change so much so fast. Space exploration, and the establishment of new colonies, may be humanity’s first shot at creating an economy from the ground up. Its first settlers could opt for pure socialism — where all ownership was shared — just as easily as they could establish a city that enshrines property rights so much there are no other laws at all. The dusty red surface, in other words, will provide us with what could be the first history-free moment to start anew.

“To an economist, this is perhaps the most exciting thing about space settlement!” Matt Weinzierl, a professor at Harvard Business School who has written about the economics of space, tells Inverse. With Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk possibly on the verge of opening up space to society, a prospect that has venture capitalists excited, this developing area of research has started to grapple with how economics may shift as humans explore beyond Earth.

https://www.inverse.com/article/55060-a-mars-colony-could-be-humanity-s-best-shot-at-a-purely-designed-economy

That is an ambitious and glowing prospect for a Mars colony…….and then it may not happen as quickly as some have predicted…..

An independent report concluded that NASA has no chance of sending humans to Mars by 2033, with the earliest such a mission could be flown being the late 2030s.

The report, while completed prior to the March 26 speech where Vice President Mike Pence directed NASA to return humans to the moon by 2024, does offer insights into how much a lunar return might cost and how it fits into long-term plans to send humans to Mars.

NASA contracted with the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) to prepare the report, which Congress directed NASA to perform in the 2017 NASA authorization act. That bill called specifically for a technical and financial assessment of “a Mars human space flight mission to be launched in 2033.”

https://www.space.com/human-mars-mission-is-not-feasible.html

It is possible that a Mars colony will have to wait awhile longer.

There is my round-up from a galaxy far far away……

May the Fourth be with you!

By The Way….MoMo is now onto a new adventure.

Have a good day and see you later….chuq

Space For A Saturday

There seem to be a bunch of stuff happening in space these days……so I feel I must let my readers know the stuff they may have missed……

Since my younger days watching the serials “Flash Gordon”, “Rocky Jones” and “Buck Rogers” I have been fascinated with space and the exploration of planets……

Mars is getting more attention these days…..so maybe a quick history of the many missions to Mars would help…..

Since 1960, humankind has launched dozens of missions to Mars in an effort to get to know our planetary neighbor better. Some of the missions were flybys, gathering information in brief bursts. Others were long-standing orbiters that lasted years as they traveled around the Red Planet.

Since the first successful flyby in 1965, four space agencies have successfully made it to Mars: NASA, the former Soviet Union space program, the European Space Agency and the Indian Space Research Organization, while others, including the space agencies in Japan and China, have tried.

https://www.space.com/13558-historic-mars-missions.html

A report came out that life may be developing close (a relative term) to home…..

A few decades ago, we didn’t know if there were any planets outside our solar system. Thanks to advances in astronomy like Hubble and the Kepler Telescope, we now know there are uncountable planets in the universe, including at least one in the solar system next door. Researchers from Cornell University are taking a closer look at that planet, known as Proxima-b to determine if it might harbor life. They believe that it very well may, and the proof they cite is Earth.

Proxima-b orbits the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, a mere 4.24 light years away from Earth. Scientists announced the discovery of Proxima-b in 2016. It orbits its parent star every 11.2 Earth days and has a mass at least 1.3 times that of Earth, suggesting that it has a rocky surface. As a red dwarf, Proxima Centauri is smaller and cooler than the sun, so liquid water might exist on Proxima-b even though it orbits very close to the star.

Life May Be Evolving on the Closest Alien Planet to Earth

Venus at one time could have been as water rich as the Earth……

Venus may have once been a water-rich, Earth-like world whose raging volcanism morphed it into the overheated planet it is today. But it didn’t become a nightmarish planet overnight. The fingerprints of its gradual shift may be present in some of the oldest surface features, hidden in plain sight.

To understand what happened on the neighboring world billions of years in the past, researchers are turning to tesserae, complex geologic features on the Venusian surface whose origins remain a mystery. Tesserae are broad plains where rocks have been folded and broken by geologic activity.

https://www.space.com/venus-transformation-evidence-on-surface.html

Speaking of life on other worlds…….There have been many years to debate on whether we should be sending invites out in space…..think Independence Day movie……

Today, scientists around the world are trying to phone, well, whatever‘s out there — and fighting over whether it could spell our doom.

Nearly seven in 10 Americans think there’s intelligent life out there. Will they be cute and sweet like “E.T.”? Or ruthless like the “Independence Day” creatures in giant spaceships blowing us to smithereens?

It’s not just theoretical. It’s a giant debate raging in the scientific community. Stephen Hawking, the renowned astrophysicist, fell into the “Independence Day” camp, warning: “Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach. Who knows what the limits would be?”

https://www.newsy.com/stories/the-facts-on-extraterrestrial-life/

I have been asked what I think……and I usually ask people if they remember a Twilight Zone episode (the original not some cheesy knock-off)…

https://youtu.be/MW9upuIp1Ek

Does that answer any questions?

Finally….help name a planet……

A dwarf planet discovered over a decade ago is the largest body we know of in our solar system without a proper name – but that’s about to change.

Meg Schwamb, an astronomer at Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, and her colleagues have opened a public vote to name the distant world, which is currently known only as 2007 OR10. They have selected three potential names that fit the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) rules on official names for minor planets, and will recommend the winner to the IAU, which will then select the formal name.

So why now, instead of when the researchers discovered OR10 in 2007? “You can’t name something when you don’t know anything about it,” says Schwamb. “When we found it, I knew the orbit and generally the size.” Now, after lots of follow-up observations, we know more than just that it is about 1250 kilometres across and orbits beyond Pluto in the Kuiper belt.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2199230-you-can-help-name-the-largest-unnamed-world-in-the-solar-system/

I gave them two names……Tango U-Rella and Klandathu…….what are your choices?

First Contact

Just like in Star Trek…..we are always looking to make first contact with an alien civilization….

Now ask…is it possible we missed that first contact with all the UFO sightings?

NASA and Harvard physicists claimed that the hunt for other forms of life outside Earth may require entertaining extreme possibilities because we may have missed alien signals from UFO sightings.

According to Avi Loeb from Harvard, “Aliens are not science fiction.” He added that not discussing aliens is a crime as it is not just speculation much like extra dimensions and dark matter.

Silvano P. Colombano of NASA’s Ames Research Center, on the other hand, suggested that there is a chance that the world may have missed alien signals in its hunt for UFOs. He claimed that intelligence and form of life on Earth might just be the first step in continuous evolution. This means that there could be superior forms of intelligence, considerably more advanced than that of Earth, and that they may not be based on the same carbon “machinery.”

https://www.ibtimes.com/nasa-experts-say-we-may-have-missed-alien-signals-ufo-sightings-2779029

What if aliens are not ignoring us but rather spending their time observing us……

Why hasn’t Earth received any messages from extraterrestrials yet? Perhaps because we’re already unwitting inhabitants in a so-called galactic zoo.

This was one of the scenarios a group of international researchers explored on March 18 at a meeting organized by the nonprofit organization Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI). The gathering, which took place at the City of Science and Industry museum in Paris (Cité), brought together about 60 scientists who research the possibility of communication with hypothetical intelligent extraterrestrials.

There, they debated “The Great Silence” — why aliens haven’t contacted us — exploring one possibility known as the “zoo hypothesis.” First proposed in the 1970s, it describes Earth as a planet that is already under observation by “galactic zookeepers” who are deliberately concealing themselves from human detection,

https://www.space.com/meti-galactic-zoo-aliens.html

You know kinda like when we go to the local zoo and make fun of the primates flinging their poop around…..personally I think there is a sign out there saying avoid at all costs…kinda like taking the wrong off ramp and finding oneself in a gang infested neighborhood….or a sign saying “Keep moving No intelligent life here”….

This next part is something I can see…..I have watched the OCD individuals approach to “Ancient Alien” stuff…….

One last thought……could the belief in alien life be the next religion?

Belief in the little green men (or tall, suspiciously Nordic, hyper-enlightened space brethren, depending on whose accounts you believe) has long been a one-way ticket to social disrepute. It belongs to the chainsmoking Nevada diner waitress, the virginal malcontent reading anti-Semitic lizard people websites in his mother’s basement, the aunt whose minivan is littered with pamphlets on lesser-known Marian apparitions and dire end-times prophecies, the bearded ’70s peace-and-love guru who later turned out to be a sex criminal. It is precisely three steps above joining the Black Hebrew Israelites.

But that seems to be changing. A new book by D.W. Pasulka — professor and chair of the department of philosophy and religion at the University of North Carolina Wilmington — American Cosmic: UFOs Religion, and Technology, focuses not on grassroots investigative societies or marginal cults, but on UFO believers in the halls of power.

https://theoutline.com/post/7215/american-cosmic-review-aliens-are-extremely-real

That brings me to a stopping point for the day……

Thanx everyone for your visits and hope to see everyone tomorrow…..chuq

Martian Chronicles

Not the mini-series or the book by Bradbury….my “Chronicles” are about the findings on the “Angry Red Planet” (a B movie from the 50s)…..

There have many that believe that Mars had an atmosphere way before the Earth…

Asteroid impacts may have helped make Mars a more life-friendly place — and not just by delivering water and the carbon-based building blocks of life as we know it to the Red Planet.

Incoming space rocks may also have helped seed Mars with biologically usable forms of nitrogen long ago, if the planet’s atmosphere were rich in hydrogen (H2) back then, a new study reports.

In 2015, NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity discovered nitrate (NO3) in the rocks of Gale Crater, the 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) hole in the ground the six-wheeled robot has been exploring since 2012. Nitrate is a “fixed” form of nitrogen; life-forms, at least as we know them on Earth, can nab NO3’s nitrogen and incorporate it into biomolecules like amino acids. That’s in contrast with “unfixed” gaseous nitrogen (N2), which features two tightly bonded, inert and relatively inaccessible nitrogen atoms. (This inaccessibility helps explain why farmers fertilize their fields, even though Earth’s air is nearly 80 percent N2.)

https://www.space.com/asteroid-strikes-life-on-mars.html

Even to the point of having huge flowing rivers……

Huge rivers seem to have been flowing across Mars relatively recently, scientists said.

The flowing water came in rivers much bigger and more powerful than those seen on Earth, they said. And they seem to have stuck around far longer than we had realised.

The raging water courses carved deep channels into the Martian surface at “hundreds of locations”, said scientists.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/mars-water-rivers-alien-proof-life-red-planet-a8842771.html

Actually that water may still be there just a lot deeper than we thought…..

Researchers at the University of Southern California dropped a bold claim Thursday: based on a new analysis, Mars likely harbors a “deep groundwater” system that probably extends far beyond the planet’s poles and bubbles to the surface through cracks in craters.

“We have seen the same mechanisms in the North African Sahara and in the Arabian Peninsula, and it helped us explore the same mechanism on Mars,” researcher Abotalib Abotalib said in a press release.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/deep-martian-groundwater

Did Mars and Venus have a atmosphere that could be said to be “livable”…..

If you could travel back in time to the early stages of the Solar System, some 4.5 billion years ago, you wouldn’t find one life-friendly world, but three. Venus, Earth, and Mars all looked very similar from a planetary perspective, as they all had substantial surface gravity and atmospheres similar to Earth’s in thickness. There were volcanoes, watery oceans, and complex interactions that enabled these worlds to retain the heat they absorbed from the Sun.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/03/27/what-was-it-like-when-venus-and-mars-became-uninhabitable-planets/amp/

The Rovers carry out scientific experiments and readings…..and one of the readings was seismic activity……

Since NASA’s InSight lander touched down on Mars at the end of last year, the plucky little surface probe has spent months getting carefully situated so that its special seismometer could carefully listen for “marsquakes” — a neologism for earthquakes that occur on Mars, rather than Earth, as you probably guessed. Observations of marsquakes will help determine just what’s going on inside Mars, and to what extent it is still a geologically active world. We know Mars was very geologically active in the past; notably, it has the tallest mountain of any planet in the solar system.

While InSight hasn’t heard earth-shaking marsquakes yet, a Science Magazine interview with Philippe Lognonné, a planetary seismologist at Paris Diderot University who manages the team that runs the seismometer, revealed that the lander’s instrument has detected a different kind of rumbling known as microseisms. They are the first of their kind to be detected on another planet.

https://www.salon.com/2019/03/24/tremors-on-mars-detected-for-first-time-but-theyre-not-caused-by-geologic-activity/

Life is where you find it……does that include Mars?

The NASA Mars Rover Curiosity has been going around the Red Planet in search of new areas for drilling after encountering some technical problems early this month. During one of its excursions, it was able to take a snapshot of some really nice pebbles with some odd yet interesting details.

In a photo released on the NASA website, one can see what looks like normal pebbles from a stream bed. But upon closer inspection and with some enhancement from Kevin M. Gill, a NASA software engineer who does processing of space images, a picture of perfectly round gray pebbles can also be seen.

According to CNET, the pebbles, which are now being studied by the space agency’s rover team, look very similar to rocks found in another area of the planet. These rocks were discovered by the now-deceased NASA rover Opportunity and were labeled as “blueberries.”

https://www.ibtimes.com/nasa-mars-rover-curiosity-detects-odd-pebbles-red-planet-hints-alien-life-2779542

Mushrooms in the Martian story?

From NASA’s rovers and landers to David Bowie, one question about the Red Planet remains sadly unanswered. Is there life on Mars? Now a controversial review paper has claimed that the answer is a resounding yes. And it’s definitely going to start a big debate.

The paper includes images taken by Curiosity and Opportunity of what the researchers are calling fungi, lichens, and algae growing on Mars. So, are there really mushrooms growing on Mars, like some are reporting?

The paper, titled Evidence of Life on Mars? is published in the first edition of a brand new journal, the Journal of Astrobiology and Space Science Reviews, and looks at almost 200 peer-reviewed studies debating curious structures, seasonal changes in methane, and the possibility that life has traveled between planets. The journal itself calls the evidence controversial and had six independent scientists and eight senior editors peer review it, three of which rejected it.

https://www.iflscience.com/space/mushrooms-on-mars-controversial-paper-claims-evidence-fungi-and-microbes-live-on-mars-today/

In The 50s a bad SciFi movie, The Angry Red Planet” had this big spider-like creature tormenting the astronauts…..but in real life the Martian spider is “Blue”…..

David Bowie sang about his sci-fi persona Ziggy Stardust performing with the Spiders from Mars, and now it turns out there’s a “spider” on Mars after all.

An image captured by a European Space Agency (ESA) orbiter recently showed what appears to be a very hairy, blue spider extending its “legs” across the Martian landscape.

But in reality, the so-called spider is a sprawling pattern left behind on a ridge by a frenzy of dust devils, when hundreds or even thousands of whirling tornadoes formed in the area, ESA representatives said yesterday (March 14) in a statement.

The “Chronicles” continue and the news is made and man waits for his chance to step onto the “Angry Red Planet”…….

Where Are Those Aliens?

It is a Sunday and warmer temps have returned….my friend MoMo will be happier that the rain has stopped long enough for her romp through the yard…..

I could go on some rant about all those aliens streaming across our Southern border and stealing our jobs along the way……but that would be worthless since the aliens I am referring to are those from Planet X…the ones that that ridiculous TV show, Ancient Aliens, keeps telling us that we were visited and shown the way to civilization but have since decided to not show up and lead us to a better future……why?

As usual the Old Professor has an answer to the “why”……..

We must be the only fledgling fliers in the cosmic neighborhood, as various astrophysicists have suggested for decades. But a new analysis from a team led by University of Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank suggests a more nuanced resolution to the old paradox. Sweeping across the Milky Way and establishing a unified galactic empire might be inevitable for a monolithic super-civilization, but most cultures are neither monolithic nor super—at least if our experience is any guide. Spaceships break down. Overactive stars roast otherwise desirable targets. Economic crises and government shutdowns kill nascent starships before they get off the ground.

Using a blend of theory and simulation posted last week to the paper database arXiv, currently under peer review, Frank and his colleagues explore the substantial middle ground between a barren and brimming galaxy—one where some civilizations may succeed in going multi-stellar, but without any establishing a spatial and temporal stranglehold on the entire Milky Way. https://www.popsci.com/where-are-aliens-new-model

For 50 years we have been sending stuff into space telling anyone that finds the stuff who we are and how to get here from there……is that a good idea…think about it.

I do enjoy these stories……”The truth is out there”……where have I heard that before?

Time for me say bye-bye…..be well, be safe….chuq

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Tag: Extraterrestrial