Tag: Planets

Nukes On The Moon

A familiar scenario?  Back in 1975 TV was graced with a new scifi show, Space 1999, and its story line went something like this….

The premise of Space: 1999 centers on the plight of the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, a scientific research center on the Moon. Humanity had been storing its nuclear waste in vast disposal sites on the far side of the Moon, but when an unknown form of magnetic radiation is detected, the accumulated waste reaches critical mass and causes a massive thermonuclear explosion on 13 September 1999. The force of the blast propels the Moon like an enormous booster rocket, hurling it out of Earth orbit and into deep space at colossal speed, thus stranding the 311 personnel stationed on Alpha

I know what does this have to do with this particular post?

You guys know me I like to give some background before I leap into the post……and there you have it.

There seems to be a problem with nuclear waste here on planet Earth…..and the Moon looks like a good place to store the excess…..as soon as we set up our station…..our Lunar Base…….

Not content to desecrate our terrestrial landscape with hundreds of thousands of tons of nuclear waste — much piled up with nowhere to go, the rest released to contaminate our air, water and soil — humankind, in all its folly, now plans to do the same to the Moon. And, eventually to Mars.

…

NASA, the US Department of Energy and assorted nuclear labs are pushing the small modular reactor for nuclear projects on the Moon and Mars. Desperate to stay relevant and to continue gobbling up taxpayer dollars, this is music to the failing nuclear industry’s ears. Financially disastrous and technically unresolved on Earth, the SMR, say these “experts”, is ideally suited to the needs of humans living for extensive periods in space.

…

Needless to say, so far there is no certified design, no test reactor, no actual reactor, and no fool-proof way to send such a reactor to the Moon. (Rockets have an unfortunate habit of sometimes blowing up on — or shortly after — launch.) Nevertheless, the year 2026 is the ambitious target date for all systems go. In keeping with the theme, “pie in the sky” springs to mind.

Nukes on the Moon?

Can you see why this story made me think of a TV show?

I have been asked why I find the Space stuff so compelling…..easy answer….we have fucked up this planet and we are making plans to do the same to others in our spacial neighborhood.

For those interested…..I believe that this story violates Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty…

Article IV
States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.
The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on celestial bodies shall be forbidden. The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited. The use of any equipment or facility necessary for peaceful exploration of the moon and other celestial bodies shall also not be prohibited

https://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/1967treaty.html

Granted the Article is talking about nuke weapons….but I suggest that waste is a weapon and weaponized fairly easy and quickly.

Commercializing space will do more damage than good (my opinion)…..greed will replace scientific curiosity….and look where greed has brought this world to and do we truly want it happening again?  And again?

For further reading:

https://lobotero.com/2020/09/02/legal-black-holes-of-outer-space/

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Up, Up And Away!

Finally!  Some much needed rain and cooler temps…..and those damn squirrels are eating up my satsuma crop…….

The weekend and I would like to talk about space, a subject that I frequently post……..

Soon we will be going to the stars….not in my life time but soon…..but how will we fuel the ship that takes us to the next world we will screw up?

Will we use some sort of FTL (Faster Than Light) propulsion?  Or maybe solar winds?  How about  a nuke powered space craft?  Then there is the old reliable the “wrap drive”……

First will FTL mean time travel as well?

Time-traveling through space might still sound like a common plot in sci-fi movies today but now some scientists actually believe that the theory is very possible in real life. 

According to a report, a wormhole could make space traveling to very distant regions of the universe happen in an instant. This theory discussing how the anomalies of physics could make time traveling real was recently discussed in a scientific paper authored by physicists from Princeton University. 

The study titled “Traversable wormholes in four dimensions,” discussed how physicists Juan Maldacena, Alexey Milekhin and Fedor Popov have “constructed a traversable wormhole solution in four dimensions.” 

https://www.ibtimes.com/time-traveling-possible-scientists-discover-how-move-through-space-seconds-2837116

How close are we to FTL?

New Scientist is reporting that NASA engineer David Burns is making some bold claims about a conceptual new spaceship thruster he calls the “helical engine” — a concept the magazine admits “may violate the laws of physics.”

“The engine itself would be able to get to 99 per cent the speed of light if you had enough time and power,” Burns told New Scientist.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-thruster-99-speed-light

A page out of a Star Trek script…..wrap drive……

It’s hard living in a relativistic Universe, where even the nearest stars are so far away and the speed of light is absolute. It is little wonder then why science fiction franchises routinely employ FTL (Faster-than-Light) as a plot device.

Push a button, press a petal, and that fancy drive system – whose workings no one can explain – will send us to another location in space-time.

However, in recent years, the scientific community has become understandably excited and skeptical about claims that a particular concept – the Alcubierre Warp Drive – might actually be feasible.

This was the subject of a presentation made at this year’s American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Propulsion and Energy Forum, which took place from August 19th to 22nd in Indianapolis.

https://www.sciencealert.com/how-feasible-is-a-warp-drive-here-s-the-science

How about those solar winds we hear about…..if it can power a satellite then why not a space craft?

LightSail 2, The Planetary Society’s solar sailing spacecraft, has spent more than two months in orbit.

During that time, the bread-box-sized spacecraft deployed a set of silver Mylar sails and began to climb, proving that the small satellite can raise its orbit without a drop of conventional fuel. Propelled solely by the power of the sun, the spacecraft has shown that solar sailing may be a viable means of propulsion. 

With LightSail 2’s primary mission complete, the rest of the spacecraft’s time in orbit — about a year, all told — provides a great chance for folks around the world to glimpse the spacecraft for themselves. According to Bill Nye “The Science Guy” and his team at The Planetary Society, skywatchers around the world can spot the spacecraft as it glides above Earth — if the conditions are just right. 

https://www.space.com/how-to-see-lightsail-2-skywatching.html

That leaves the possibility of using a nuke to power a space craft……

The War Zone has been reporting on a set of bizarre patents assigned to the U.S. Navy that describe radical new technologies that could absolutely revolutionize the aerospace field, and frankly, the very way we live our lives. These include high-energy electromagnetic fields used to create force fields and outlandish new methods of aerospace propulsion and vehicle design that basically read as UFO-like technology. You can learn all about these patents, their viability, and the issues surrounding them in these exclusive features of ours. Now, the same mysterious Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division engineer behind those patents has produced another patent—one for a compact fusion reactor that could pump out absolutely incredible amounts of power in a small space—maybe even in a craft. 

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30256/scientist-behind-the-navys-ufo-patents-has-now-filed-one-for-a-compact-fusion-reactor

How will we get from Earth to some a waiting craft?

How about an elevator?

A growing number of scientists and space-technology enthusiasts are looking into ways to construct a huge elevator, either on Earth or the moon, that could transport cargo to and from space.

In a study published in September, which has not been peer-reviewed, two graduate students proposed a version of a space elevator that would stretch from the moon to Earth’s satellite-level orbit. They said the structure could be built with current technology.

https://www.businessinsider.com/space-elevator-on-earth-moon-2019-9

We left out “worm holes” and “Ion Drives”……

But now you have an idea/s of how this will work……

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Martian Chronicles–Part 2

My Sunday and I continue my look out in space……

Like the story written by Bradbury…I am chronicling the Mars situation for my readers…..

One of the main problems for any trip to Mars is….where will the people live?

New York-based design agency AI SpaceFactory took the top prize in a NASA competition to 3D print a habitat that could be used on the moon or Mars.

AI SpaceFactory won $500,000 for its efforts, while the second-place recipient, Penn State, got $200,000.

The winning habitat, called Marsha, is tall and slim, to reduce the need for construction rovers on unfamiliar terrain, according to AI SpaceFactory. It is designed to be built on a vertically telescoping arm attached to a rover, which stays still during construction. AI SpaceFactory plans to adapt Marsha’s design for an eco-friendly Earth habitat called Tera; a crowdfunding campaign will begin shortly, the design agency said in a statement.

https://www.space.com/nasa-3d-printed-habitat-competition-winners.html

There has been a discovery of water vapor on Mars…….

A team of scientists say they’ve discovered the unusual way in which water cycles on Mars.

The findings could illuminate how hydrogen from water vapor could be making its way into space on the Red Planet — a potential explanation as to why Mars has turned from a water-rich planet into a dry and desolate one over the course of billions of years.

According to the researchers’ results, water can only rise from the lower into the upper atmosphere during a tiny time window: approximately every two Earth years, when it’s summer on the southern hemisphere and Mars is at its closest to the Sun.

The team of researchers, who hail from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, used a computer simulation and data gathered by space telescopes and space probes to probe the Red Planet’s weather dynamics.

“When it is summer in the southern hemisphere, at certain times of day water vapor can rise locally with warmer air masses and reach the upper atmosphere,” Paul Hartogh from MPS said in a statement.

The water vapor then gets carried to the North Pole where it condenses into liquid and falls out of the sky. During that process, some of the water particles disintegrate and leak hydrogen atoms into the emptiness of space.

With the water vapor thing…could there be life there today?

The search for life on Mars shouldn’t focus exclusively on the distant past, some researchers say.

Four billion years ago, the Martian surface was apparently quite habitable, featuring rivers, lakes and even a deep ocean. Indeed, some astrobiologists view ancient Mars as an even better cradle for life than Earth was, and they suspect that life on our planet may have come here long ago aboard Mars rocks blasted into space by a powerful impact.

Things changed when Mars lost its global magnetic field. Charged particles streaming from the sun were then free to strip away the once-thick Martian atmosphere, and strip it they did. This process had transformed Mars into the cold, dry world we know today by about 3.7 billion years ago, observations by NASA’s MAVEN orbiter suggest. (Earth still has its global magnetic field, explaining how our planet remains so livable.)

https://www.space.com/could-mars-support-life-today.html

As long as we are talking about water in space…..could it be everywhere?

The findings, published this week in Nature, confirm the existence of “superionic ice,” a new phase of water with bizarre properties. Unlike the familiar ice found in your freezer or at the north pole, superionic ice is black and hot. A cube of it would weigh four times as much as a normal one. It was first theoretically predicted more than 30 years ago, and although it has never been seen until now, scientists think it might be among the most abundant forms of water in the universe.

Across the solar system, at least, more water probably exists as superionic ice—filling the interiors of Uranus and Neptune—than in any other phase, including the liquid form sloshing in oceans on Earth, Europa and Enceladus. The discovery of superionic ice potentially solves decades-old puzzles about the composition of these “ice giant” worlds.

https://www.wired.com/story/a-bizarre-form-of-water-may-exist-all-over-the-universe/

Then there is the Moon….the Trump story is that we will return to the Moon as a jumping off point to Mars……that program will be called Artemis, who was the sister of Apollo…

NASA’s next mission to the moon is appropriately named, considering efforts to include the first female lunar walk. The mission is dubbed Artemis, after the Greek goddess of the moon and twin sister of the god Apollo, whose namesake mission propelled 12 US astronauts to the moon from 1969 to 1972. “I have a daughter who is 11 years old, and I want her to be able to see herself in the same role as the next women that go to the moon,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said during Monday’s announcement. But “there’s still a long way to go before Artemis can actually deliver,” per the Verge.

Indeed, Bridenstine said NASA would need an extra $1.6 billion on top of the $21 billion already requested in order to meet the accelerated 2024 deadline the Trump administration proposed in March for the new mission. Ars Technica cites three sources as saying the White House plans to cut the Pell Grant reserve fund, which helps low-income students pay for college, to make up the necessary funds, $1 billion of which is to be spent on development of a two- or three-stage lunar lander. “In the coming years, we will need additional funds,” but “this is a good amount that gets us out of the gate,” Bridenstine said.

Fascinating!  Hopefully the Trump admin will consider the Space Treaty that was signed some years ago….Hahahahaha….sorry cannot see that as an obstacle to the domination of space…do you?

I have always looked to space since my early years……it fascinates me although I realize that we need that cash here on this planet…..but the thought of walking on another planet makes me smile.

My problem with this is that Pell Grants will be tapped to pay for this  ….I say why not end a war or two and have all the cash they will need.

Howe many “space scientist” will not get an education if the grants are stopped?  Just a thought.

Stay tuned…more space stuff on the way……

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

Updates From Space

A Spring day….cool temps and sun…..the garden loves it and MoMo is busy……

Yes I know….but I have been fascinated with all things space since my early years…..I watch because few others do……

The new planet hunter scores big……

The signals collected by TESS were followed up by the Planet Finder Spectrograph (PFS) on the Magellan II telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. PFS has the ability to provide astronomers with estimates for the mass of exoplanets. As revealed in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the sub-Neptune HD 21749b weighs around 23 Earths and has 20 times the volume of our planet.

This warm giant planet orbits its star every 36 days. While this is a small number compared to the planets in the Solar System (Mercury, for example, orbits the Sun in 88 days), HD 21749b’s is the longest orbital period among the planets detected by TESS. Most of the planets found by this mission are expected to have orbital periods of fewer than 10 days, so the analysis of this object was actually more complex than expected.

https://www.iflscience.com/space/nasas-new-planet-hunter-has-found-its-first-earthsized-world/

Star Wars fans have had their dream come true (well maybe a small one)

“Tatooine” found!

The only known multiplanet “Tatooine” system just got even more interesting.

A third world lurks in the two-star Kepler-47 system, and it’s bigger than its two previously discovered siblings, a new study reports.

“We certainly didn’t expect it to be the largest planet in the system,” study co-author William Welsh, an astronomer at San Diego State University (SDSU), said in a statement. “This was almost shocking.”

https://www.space.com/third-alien-planet-in-tatooine-system-kepler-47.html

BTW,,,Tatooine is a place in Tunisia……FYI

Saturn’s moon Titan is a popular place in astronomy…….

It’s been well over a year since NASA’s incredibly trusty Cassini probe performed its final act, plunging into Saturn’s atmosphere where it was obliterated by the intense friction. It was a bittersweet day for the astronomy community, but the wealth of information Cassini gathered during its over 13 years orbiting Saturn is still yielding new discoveries.

\In a new paper published in Nature Astronomy, researchers on the Cassini project reveal that the spacecraft’s bounty of radar data now shows that Saturn’s moon Titan are even more special than scientists already realized. The moon’s lakes, which were observed by Cassini during its final pass in 2017, are far deeper than anyone thought.

https://bgr.com/2019/04/16/saturn-titan-lakes-moon-methane/

https://www.space.com/saturn-moon-titan-phantom-lakes-caves.html

Space is not the final frontier but it is getting a lot more crowded.  I watch because so many do not.

My day is full of yard work and to MoMo’s whims…..have a great Saturday.

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?



Water, Water Everywhere!

The weekend begins with more news about the discovery of water in the universe……some believe that water is necessary for life to be present….recently I reported on a lake of water found on Mars…..https://lobotero.com/2018/08/05/waters-of-mars/

Well Mars is not the only location of water……the Moon seems to have an amount of water in the form of ancient ice…..

Future lunar colonists shouldn’t have too much trouble finding water: In a first, astronomers have discovered ice—specifically patches of frost—on the moon’s north and south poles, in areas permanently shaded from the sun. Found by observing how molecules absorb infrared light, the ice is particularly concentrated in surface craters or “cold traps” around the south pole, where temperatures are a chilly -250 degrees Fahrenheit, Live Science reports via a PNAS study. It notes this is the first “direct and definitive evidence” of ice exposed on the moon’s surface. Though water molecules were previously found, the ice deposits “might be utilized as an in-situ resource in future exploration of the moon,” the study authors write, per the Guardian.

The ice could theoretically be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen needed for rocket fuel and to allow colonists to breathe, reports the BBC. Yet the ice isn’t widespread, even at the poles. Just 3.5% of the shadowy areas scientists observed were found to contain ice, and none of the more recently formed craters had any. It’s possible craters were exposed to sunlight as the moon’s axis shifted more frequently over time than the axes of Mercury and the dwarf planet Ceres, where surface ice is more abundant, reports Space.com. It’s also possible that impacts from meteorites disrupted the moon’s ice supplies. Either way, the suggestion is that any lunar ice present is “very old, and is likely not replenished quickly,” per Live Science. (Humans might live in a lunar lava tube.)

At the rate we are finding water it gives more hope that intelligent life can be possible in our little universe.

I’ll drink to that.

The day is set…… go out and enjoy some time to yourself…..I will….chuq

Waters Of Mars

Always good to see life imitating art……As a Doctor Who fan I found it interesting that an episode of the 11th Doctor (David Tennet) (Waters Of Mars) is about a massive reservoir of water found on Mars…..and presto chango…..news from scientific world……

Italian scientists searching for evidence of water on Mars—even signs that it was there billions of years ago—believe they’ve found a lake filled with the liquid just a mile beneath the Red Planet’s southern polar ice cap. Though outside experts have yet to confirm the finding, the body is thought to be 12 miles wide and potentially saturated with salts like sodium, magnesium, and calcium that would lower the water’s melting point and allow it to stay in liquid form despite the cold temperatures, Popular Mechanics reports via the study published in Science. Per CNN, it’s based on 29 observations of Mars’ Planum Australe region during a 3.5-year radar survey, completed in 2015 by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft.

A mile below the ice-covered surface, variations in radar signals revealed what appeared to be a lake similar to those found beneath Earth’s ice sheets. The AP notes the researchers weren’t able to establish the depth of the lake, which it reports prevents them from specifying “whether it’s an underground pool, an aquifer-like body, or just a layer of sludge.” Still, the scientists say they “interpret this feature as a stable body of liquid water on Mars,” and they’re already imagining a connecting system of waterways. There’s a major caveat, though: Subsequent radar scans, including by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, have failed to find the same signs. They remained elusive “even when we recently summed together [thousands] of observations to create CATSCAN-like 3D views of both polar caps,” a scientist tells CNN. That said, the research team claims it, too, had difficulty establishing the lake’s presence until it fixed a data processing issue.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/underground-lake-liquid-salt-water-mars-180725154222214.html

There is more news from Mars…..water was a great find….and then there was news that other efforts might have been sabotaged…..

Don’t you hate it when you travel millions of miles from Earth, only to accidentally destroy the thing you were looking for?

That’s what may have happened with NASA’s Viking landers on Mars in 1976, which were looking for life. While this theory has been touted before, a new paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets adds more evidence to the idea.

http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-may-have-accidentally-destroyed-previous-evidence-for-life-on-mars/

Let’s hope that the discovery does not have the disastrous results as the Doctor Who episode…….and let’s hope that they, NASA, will be more careful with the finds and the analysis.

It’s A Factory!

Continuing along the lines started with the first post….astronomy…..this science seems to adding to our knowledge of the universe daily…..the possibilities that some of the worlds circling distant stars are inhabited…..and then there is the search for dark matter, dark energy and those elusive black holes.

The science knows it is there just that we have not been able to find them….that may have changed…..

The center of our galaxy is teeming with black holes, sort of like a Times Square for strange super-gravity objects, astronomers have discovered. For decades, scientists theorized that circling in the center of galaxies, including ours, were lots of stellar black holes, collapsed giant stars where the gravity is so strong even light doesn’t get out. But they hadn’t seen evidence of them in the Milky Way core until now, the AP reports. Astronomers poring over old x-ray observations have found signs of a dozen black holes in the inner circle of the Milky Way. And since most black holes can’t even be spotted that way, they calculate that there are likely thousands of them there. They estimate it could be about 10,000, maybe more, according to a study in the journal Nature .

“There’s lots of action going on there,” says study lead author Chuck Hailey, a Columbia University astrophysicist. “The galactic center is a strange place. That’s why people like to study it.” The stellar black holes are in addition to—and essentially circling—the already known supermassive black hole, called Sagittarius A, that’s parked at the center of the Milky Way. There are good reasons the Milky Way’s black holes tend to be in the center of the galaxy, Hailey says. First, their mass tends to pull them to the center. But mostly the center of the galaxy is the perfect “hot house” for black hole formation, with lots of dust and gas. Hailey says it is “sort of like a little farm where you have all the right conditions to produce and hold on to a large number of black holes.” (Another galaxy mysteriously seems to have no dark matter.)

I find all this just fascinating……any thing you guys would like to add?

Us Coast residents are watching that small hurricane headed for the Gulf…..we are always watching these storms……I will not be caught with my pants down…..not by any storm.

I shall take my leave…..do whatever it is the better half has planned….I will be back to form tomorrow…..be well, be safe……chuq

Is Terra Forming Possible?

I continue with my posts on space, the final frontier……we all have seen the old scifi movies about Mars, right?

It is a lifeless dead planet without atmosphere, water or life……is that about the extent of your knowledge?

Science is a wonderful thing…..looks like they may have found a way to terra form Mars to make in habitable….

The bacteria that 3.5 billion years ago were largely responsible for the creation of a breathable atmosphere on Earth could be press-ganged into terraforming other planets, research suggests.

A team of biologists and chemists from Australia, the UK, France and Italy has been investigating the ability of cyanobacteria – also known as blue-green algae – to photosynthesise in low-light conditions.

Cyanobacteria are some of the most ancient organisms around, and were responsible, though photosynthesis, for converting the Earth’s early atmosphere of methane, ammonia and other gases into the composition it sustains today.

The photochemistry used by the microbes is pretty much the same as that used by the legion of multicellular plants that subsequently evolved. The process involves the use of red light. Most plants are green because chlorophyll is bad at absorbing energy from that part of the visible light spectrum, and thus reflects it.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/pushing-the-limit-could-cyanobacteria-terraform-mars

Gotta admit this is just damn interesting……changing the face of a “dead” world…..

Making Mars safe for our new breed of “Space Marines” we will have if Fearless Leader gets his wish……”Starship Troopers” comes to mind….a look into the future?

There is your look into the possibilities that science has offered mankind…..now that I have given hope then I suggest that you go out and enjoy your Saturday….I shall do what I can to enjoy mine…..see you guys tomorrow….chuq