Tag: NASA

Is It Out There?

My final day of smiles and granddaughter giving me crap about my ignorance of ‘puters…..12 years old and I use her for tech support…..

A few years ago the astronomical world made a decision that Pluto was not a planet….and the world went batcrap crazy…..everyone was concerned that Pluto had lost it’s standing as planet 9 in our solar system……

Then a NASA probe beamed back photos of the planet and a new interest was found……these were amazing photos….check them out……

Source: New Horizons | NASA

Now we have more news from Pluto……it seems there is another really large planet in our solar system……

Pluto is gonna be PO’d. While the dwarf planet tries to fight its way back into the good graces of Those Who Deem What Counts as a Planet, another icy orb even further out may snatch that designation first. Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology say a giant celestial body “lurking at the end of our solar system,” as the Washington Post puts it, may actually be a planet, and they’re even already calling it “Planet Nine.” In their research published in the Astronomical Journal, the sky-watching scientists—one of whom is known as the “Pluto killer” for his role in getting Pluto demoted—think their find is five to 10 times as massive as Earth, and per the AP, almost as big as Neptune and orbiting billions of miles past that planet’s orbit. Michael “Pluto Killer” Brown and Konstantin Batygin haven’t seen the supposed planet directly, but say they can infer the “massive perturber” exists by how the orbits of smaller bodies nearby are affected by its gravitational pull, the Post notes.

What’s interesting is that Brown and Batygin originally set out to disprove the existence of Planet Nine. “We thought their idea was crazy,” Brown says of the scientists who originally floated the idea of a large, hidden planet. But as they did their own research, they soon came to their own conclusion in what Brown calls a “jaw-dropping moment” that Planet Nine could be the real deal. Now they’re simply hoping more astronomers join in to actually try to spot the alleged planet—and they’re not concerned it will face Pluto’s fate. “That’s not even a question—it’s definitely a planet,” Brown says. Not everyone’s convinced. “I have seen many, many such claims in my career,” a planetary scientist at Colorado’s Southwest Research Institute tells Nature. “And all of them have been wrong.” (The Washington Post caught up with Brown for a Q&A on the latest Pluto-killing endeavor.)

Let me see….we have the Hubble and others that can reach out and study planets 100s of light years away…..and yet they missed a really large planet that is in our solar system…..how is that?

Anyway….more info that is trying to crap on this “discovery”……

Source: Is there really a mysterious new planet out there? NASA is still skeptical. – Vox

Well guys…what do you think about this news?

 

News From The “Final Frontier”

Sunday and the latest spacey stuff news……I always enjoy reading the new stuff about space……and it seems to be a continuing saga…..

For instance…….

Saturn’s moon Titan, which happens to be larger than the planet Mercury, is cold. Very cold. As in -290 degrees Fahrenheit is not out of the ordinary. These super low temps, combined with an atmosphere roughly 1.5 times as dense as Earth’s, have resulted in a few extraordinary bodies of liquid methane and ethane, reports Extreme Tech, and scientists are anxious to explore their depths. (In fact, Titan is the only body aside from Earth to boast liquid lakes on its surface.) So NASA is working up a (very early) model of a submarine drone that could do just that—one that CNET reports will likely be nuclear-powered, weigh a ton, and come equipped with a seafloor camera, sampling system, and other fancy futuristic robotic accoutrements.

But don’t get too excited just yet. First, this is a fully automated mission: “Even if it were possible for humans to go swimming in Titan’s seas,” notes CNET, it “would be something like swimming in a freezing ocean of liquefied natural gas.” Hence, NASA‘s goal of sending the “highly capable science craft” to Titan’s largest sea, Kraken Mare, around the year 2040, in what it calls “an unprecedented planetary exploration mission.” Many details remain to be sorted out, including how to get the craft to Titan (Boeing’s X-37 is a possibility), how to land it (parachute drop), and while there, how to communicate with Earthlings (planar phased-array antenna). (Something else on Titan has been stumping NASA.)

There is always something new about Mars…….

Amateur astronomers have made an unexpected discovery: massive plumes spouting up at least 125 miles from the surface of Mars. Two plumes, up to 620 miles wide, were spotted over the Terra Cimmeria area in the red planet’s Southern Hemisphere by at least 18 people over two 10-day periods in March and April 2012, Discovery News reports. A witness tells the BBC one plume looked like a “projection sticking out of the side of the planet.” They appeared to form during cold mornings and changed “from double blob protrusions to pillars or finger-plume-like morphologies,” according to a study in Nature. As to what’s causing them, “Frankly, I’m puzzled,” says a lead scientist. Clouds made of carbon dioxide and ice crystals have been spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope in the past, but they only reached 62 miles from the planet’s surface, CBS News reports. Clouds of dust reached just 37 miles high.

Scientists have two theories, but “both explanations defy our current understanding of Mars’ upper atmosphere,” they say. The plumes could be caused by “a reflective cloud of water-ice, carbon dioxide-ice, or dust particles,” the study author explains, but clouds shouldn’t be able to form at such altitudes where the atmosphere is so thin. Others note the plumes may be bright auroras “1,000 times stronger than the strongest aurora” on Earth, but that, too, is “highly unrealistic.” Whatever the cause, “this type of feature must be very rare, to have been observed only once out of all of the time that telescopic observers and spacecraft have been observing Mars,” a scientist says. NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, now in Mars’ orbit, may be able to shed light on the mystery, researchers say.

Then there is the manned mission to Mars…..unfortunately it will most likely be a one way trip……who the Hell would choose to die on Mars?  Right?

From 202,586 to about 1,000 and now winnowed down to 100. That’s how many finalists are left competing for a one-way ticket to Mars in the highly publicized Mars One project. The finalists will now compete for one of 24 crew member spots, with the goal of sending those 24 to Mars to set up a settlement by as early as 2024, NBC News reports; the Dutch nonprofit hopes to make the competition into a reality-TV show. Fifty men and 50 women (hopefuls can check names on the finalists’ list here) have been selected after undergoing personal online interviews with Norbert Kraft, the project’s chief medical officer.

The remaining competitors will next be placed onto teams to see how well they handle group situations. “Being one of the best individual candidates does not automatically make you the greatest team player,” Kraft says, per a Mars One news release. Meanwhile, Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp applauds the elite new group, saying, “The large cut in candidates is an important step towards finding out who has the right stuff to go to Mars.” But is the mission even really going to happen? As NBC notes, a 2014 MIT press release called some of the logistics “overly optimistic.”

There you have it…news from the edge of the cosmos……

Now go and enjoy thew rest of your weekend!

Space: The Final Frontier

Thank you…it is the weekend and I can step away from the Trolls and the mental midgets and five my readers something a little different……Space Stuff!

My granddaughter’s name got put on the Orien Mission and sent into space…… I gave it to her because she is such a space geek…..she was speechless…..made my day because she is NEVER speechless.

Anyway on to the space stuff….

Since our Rovers on Mars have started working them have sent back volumes of info……and the trend continues…..

(Newser) – There’s still no proof there was ever life on Mars, but evidence is starting to pile up that conditions were once ripe for life to begin, NASA scientists say. The Curiosity rover’s exploration of the Gale Crater has found signs that liquid water flowed on the planet’s surface for tens of millions of years, CNET reports, giving life (of the microbial kind at least) much longer to get going than researchers had previously believed. The rover had already determined that the planet once had the right chemical ingredients for life, reports the Guardian, and sediment deposits have now revealed that lakes and rivers were once common on its surface, with large amounts of water remaining underground even after those dried up.

Curiosity team members say the new findings suggest that early Mars was much like early Earth. “What I get excited about is imagining a Mars 3.5 to 4 billion years ago, a planet with a thick atmosphere, maybe a blue sky with puffy clouds and mountains and lakes and rivers,” John M. Grunsfeld, a NASA science administrator, tells the New York Times. Grunsfeld, who’s also a former astronaut, says the Curiosity mission has given vital clues to how and where to search for evidence of Martian life. “We don’t know if life ever started on Mars, but if it did, we now have a better chance of discovering it,” he says.

On another note…….we launched a probe known as New Horizon……it was sent to explore deep space as it nears Pluto the device has awakened to continue its mission……

Newser) – New Horizons just got what’s probably the earliest wakeup call ever. Even though it’s not supposed to fly by Pluto—the destination of its nine-year, 3-billion-mile journey—until July, the NASA craft roused itself from its “hibernation” slumber and is fully awake for the last leg of its mission, Space.com reports. Russell Watson’s “Where My Heart Will Take Me” blasted NH out of its somnambulant state with a personal message from Watson himself before crooning the appropriate lyrics, “It’s been a long road/Getting from there to here.” About 20 scientists waiting back home in Maryland at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory got the confirmation signals on Saturday evening that New Horizons was up and at ’em, just over 162 million miles from Pluto.

The piano-sized craft, which was launched in 2006, had been “asleep” since August to conserve energy and reduce wear and tear on its systems. It’s been asleep before (18 other times, to be exact) during its long trip, but this was the last sleep before it makes it to the Kuiper Belt, the icy “disc-shaped region” that harbors Pluto and other dwarf worlds, NASA notes. “This is the place that this spacecraft was built to operate, and these are the operations that this team has waited a decade to actually go and execute,” New Horizons’ principle investigator says. “So it’s game time.” (New Horizons got some great pics of Jupiter during its flyby nearly eight years ago.)

We keep piling up data and eventually we will go to space and the future will arrive.

Why Rocket Go Boom?!

Recently a private company rocket was attempting to re-supply the International Space Station but things did not go as planned….

A rocket that was supposed to deliver supplies to the crew aboard the International Space Station exploded in spectacular fashion just six seconds after liftoff this evening, reports CNN. The good news is that nobody was aboard, and NASA says nobody appears to have been killed on the ground at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. (“No indicated loss of life,” in NASA-speak.) The rocket’s cargo ship held about 5,000 pounds of supplies and science equipment for the six people now on the space station, reports AP.

The Anteres rocket was launched by Orbital Sciences Corp., one of the two companies (along with SpaceX) hired by NASA to make supply runs to the space station. No word yet on what went wrong. NASA reported “100% favorable weather” and “no technical concerns” just prior to liftoff.

Truthfully, I was going to let this disaster go but…..I cannot now….the media is spending so much time covering it that I just have to interject my thoughts…….

The media reports are speculating on just what went wrong with the launch……the first culprit according to the media is the motor……..

The cause of yesterday’s rocket explosion over Wallops Island, Va., remains under investigation: While a tweet from Orbital Sciences refers to a “vehicle anomaly,” other reports have focused on aging rocket engines. They were built in the 1960s and 1970s to send Soviet cosmonauts to the moon, the Guardian reports.

The  ‘experts’ are speculating that it could have been a biol;d-up of pressure….then there is the possibility of something mechanical or even electrical……

I can save them a lot of time investigating……could it be as simple as the rocket was a piece of CRAP?

Think about it…..thanx to the damn silly program of privatization the space program is being out sourced to corporations that are in it for the profit.  Now how do corporations turn a profit?  by making the product as cheaply as possible.  ERGO….a piece of CRAP!

As far as the engine thing….it is old…okay…. but is not the Russian program using old technology to re-supply the ISS?

You truly want to know what happened?  Putting the future of our space program in the hands of profit seeking companies….this will not be the last problem they will face.

Would You Volunteer?

The weekend and time to lighten up a bit….we have all had enough gut wrenching reports and we need to think of stuff on the lighter side…..

You could volunteer for the Peace Corps or Americorps or for some charity but these people have volunteered for a one of a kind mission……..from Salon.com…..

Mars colony

Mars One

Only a few dozen will be chosen for the 2023 mission to colonize the red planet.

Five months after the Netherlands-based private spaceflight project Mars One announced it would begin accepting applications for a one-way trip to the red planet, 202,586 people from more than 140 countries have submitted videos explaining why they should be chosen for the mission.

The first of four selection rounds ended August 31. Now, the Mars One selection committee will spend the next several months narrowing down the applicants. There are even plans to launch a reality TV show to choose the final candidates. The goal is for 24 to 40 people to begin a seven-year training program in 2015. Then, working with the private space flight company SpaceX, Mars One hopes to send the prospective Martian settlers to the red planet in teams of four, beginning in 2023.

Okay my question is…..would you volunteer for a one way mission?  If so….why?

Sex To Die For……..

Keeping with a theme for this weekend……I will give you yet more of what we all craave…..SEX!

Newser) – One of the week’s most salacious stories got its start in the journal Plos One with this headline: “Cell Wall Assembly and Intracellular Trafficking in Plant Cells Are Directly Affected by Changes in the Magnitude of Gravitational Acceleration.” Of course, it wasn’t until the Daily Mail got hold of it that the story took off, with this slightly revised headline: “Bad news for 220-mile high club: Researchers find sex in space could lead to life-threatening illnesses.” This led to a spate of sex-in-space-can-kill-you stories. So what gives? It turns out that amorous space travelers probably don’t have to worry—unless they’re having sex for the specific purpose of producing offspring, explains Daily Kos.

Essentially, the researchers studied plant sex in zero gravity and found big problems in the reproduction process related to how cells communicate with each other. They did not draw any conclusions about human sex, but the possibility of similar problems affecting people can’t be ruled out yet, says LiveScience. “What does this mean?” asks Daily Kos. “It means we may not be able to colonize the Moon or Mars anytime soon, not until we lick many, many problems.” But at least the couple who might be blasting off to Mars should be able to … unwind.

What can I say?  At least this is more entertaining than the speeches out of CPAC.

To Mars And Beyond!

The weekend and the sciencey stuff that we all carve but are afraid to post…….It appears inevitable that we, as humans, will eventually make it to Mars……but there are many calculations that must be made because if there is a problem there will be NO rescue and out terra nauts will be stranded on the red planet……

I have seen many programs about the trip to Mars and the best guess is that we should make an attempt in about 25 or so years……..that would make it in my lifetime, considering I take care of myself……..

But wait!  There is news on a trip to Mars……

Newser) – While NASA concentrates on sending unmanned probes to Mars, a private space enthusiast plans to raise the ante—with a manned flight to Mars within the next five years, reports Wired. Most of the details are under wraps until Wednesday, but the Inspiration Mars Foundation has announced it intends to launch the 501-day round-trip journey in January 2018, sending a person or people around the red planet and back to Earth.

“This ‘Mission for America’ will generate new knowledge, experience and momentum for the next great era of space exploration,” said the press release. The Inspiration Mars Foundation was founded by Dennis Tito, who paid $20 million in 2001 to become the world’s first space tourist. But if you cannot wait until 2018 for your Mars fix, India confirmed yesterday that it will be launching its first probe to Mars this October, reports the Wall Street Journal. It follows up an an announcement India made last year.

So, will it be in the next 5 years or 25?  What ya think?

Does Space Smell?

The weekend again and the GOP convention lurks just east of Issac….so let us lighten the atmosphere a bit….

I have often wondered if there is any odors in space….I mean after all it is a vacuum.  If there are smells….what are they?

Just when I thought I had a question with no adequate answer….I find this……

(Newser) – Outer space may be soundless, but it’s apparently not odorless. Life’s Little Mysteries recently stumbled upon a 2009 interview with a NASA astronaut that’s too good to not resurrect. In it, Kevin Ford spoke of picking up the weird odor while undertaking spacewalks. It’s not something he could smell while embarking on them (the plastic odor of the spacesuit delights the nose then), but once back in the International Space Station, the smell is there: a metallic odor that Life’s Little Mysteries describes as having the “aroma of seared steak, hot metal, and welding fumes.”

Now with that I have another question…..what in space would smell like seared meat?  Your thoughts?

Titan, The Fart Joke

It is my last day of non-political fun…..I am sticking with my sciencey stuff…..

I have heard some blame global warming/climate change on methane…..well methane created by cows farting….while I enjoy a good fart joke this one is not that funny…..it seems that NASA has found a a large lake of this substance on the Saturn’s  moon of Titan…….

(Newser) – University of Arizona researchers have discovered a massive methane lake in the arid tropics of Titan, they announced today, suggesting that Saturn’s biggest moon may have subterranean channels of the liquid. Titan has long been known to contain liquid methane, which forms pools, clouds, and rains much as water does on Earth, but until now it’s always been concentrated at the poles, Space.comexplains. Scientists assumed its tropics were too hot for anything similar.

The findings were based on readings from the Cassini spacecraft. “This discovery was absolutely not expected,” the lead researcher says. “Lakes at the poles are easy to explain, but lakes in the tropics are not.” She says the lake is roughly the size of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. “Our work also suggests the existence of a handful of smaller and shallower ponds similar to marshes on Earth with knee- to ankle-level depths.”

This is all too cool…but if I am not mistaken is not methane a gas that is created by the decomposition of organic material (if I recall my high school chem class)…..so does that mean that at some point there was organic material of some sort on Titan?  Just thinking!

Will 2012 Be The End?

Time for a couple days without the musings Mitt and Newt and to talk about a few things that are in the news that may not be common knowledge……..crap!  Mitt wins Nevada!

Like most people I am fascinated by all things Maya…….I am amazed that the people that did not use the wheel and had no machination built pyramids and whole cities with the use of a stick and string….so with that I was shocked to read a post about the discovery of a new Maya city………

Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of an ancient Mayan city in the mountains of North Georgia believed to be at least 1,100 years old. According to Richard Thornton at Examiner.com, the ruins are reportedly what remains of a city built by Mayans fleeing wars, volcanic eruptions, droughts and famine.

In 1999, University of Georgia archeologist Mark Williams led an expedition to investigate the Kenimer Mound, a large, five-sided pyramid built in approximately 900 A.D. in the foothills of Georgia’s tallest mountain, Brasstown Bald. Many local residents has assumed for years that the pyramid was just another wooded hill, but in fact it was a structure built on an existing hill in a method common to Mayans living in Central America as well as to Southeastern Native American tribes.

Speculation has abounded for years as to what could have happened to the people who lived in the great Meso-American societies of the first century. Some historians believed that they simply died out in plagues and food shortages, but others have long speculated about the possibility of mass migration to other regions.

Read More…

Speaking of the Maya………

We all have heard the doomsday predictions from just about everyone who fancies his/her self as a sage…..our buddy the minister that cannot seem to get it right, good old reliable Nostradamus, the Chinese, I-Ching, and a whole host of others to include the Maya, who are pretty specific in the date, 21 December 2012….but with all this hocus pocus is there any proof that the end is near?  Or is it just a whole bunch of wishful thinking and bravado?

NASA is reporting……that the earth could be hit by the effects of a massive solar storm….

In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.

Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.

large swathes of the world could face being without power for several months, although he admitted that was unlikely.

A more likely scenario was that large areas, including northern Europe and Britain which have “fragile” power grids, would be without power and access to electronic devices for hours, possibly even days.

He said preparations were similar to those in a hurricane season, where authorities knew a problem was imminent but did not know how serious it would be.

Oh my God……without the use of cels, Ipods and pads….the world will truly end for those 20 somethings that cannot exist without a electronic device of some sort shoved up their butts….I think us old farts will be fine, we lived without the gadgets of today and we can live without them again (at least for awhile)….thoughts?