Space news and Exploration II

[ScienceRocks]

Mars Space Colony Rockets Could Be Ready In 10 Years: SpaceX CEO

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is a huge fan of Mars exploration and Mars colonies, and in a new interview he says a launch system to send people to the Red Planet could be available in 10 to 12 years. Requirements: it has to be big, and it has to be launched frequently to send millions of people and tons of cargo spaceward.

Mars Space Colony Rockets Could Be Ready In 10 Years: SpaceX CEO

yeah, lets send humans in a small Apollo like module for over a year. lol me, I'd build the rocket but to send pieces of a bigger renewable planetary ship that can be used hundreds of times. This ship would be able to take dozens of humans, supplies back and forth from mars. Anything else is laughable.

 

[FA_Q2]

The first one was getting long so I made a second one I hope you all enjoy.

Link back to the first one
http://www.usmessageboard.com/science-and-technology/251426-space-exploration-thread-37.html


Star next door may host a 'superhabitable' world
15:58 31 January 2014 by Jeff Hecht
For similar stories, visit the Astrobiology Topic Guide

Star next door may host a 'superhabitable' world - space - 31 January 2014 - New Scientist

You'd think that even with a modified Drake equation and 300 billion stars in our galaxy there would be thousands of civilizations more advanced than ours. Fermi's Question; Where is everybody"

For the longest time, even we here were unaware of all the other people on the planet. Yet not being aware of them didn't mean they didn't exist.

Could simply be (and this is one of the things that really bums me out,) that our knowledge pf physics is correct, and there's no easy way to get around ala warp drive. So everyone's bound to sub-light velocities making interstellar travel impractical. If that's the case, 'everyone' may simply be staying at home and improving things for themselves where ever they started instead of expanding and colonizing.

This is a very real possibility.

There is the other possibility as well – life is out there but it is rare enough that it requires a massive amount of searching to bump into one another. Sure there are a LOT of planets out there and there sheer numbers mean that there is likely intelligent life BUT if it is one in a million or one in a billion that means we are still not likely to contact one another until we are BOTH appropriately advanced.

 

[MDiver]

If all the major space players and private enterprise got involved, we could probably create a craft to go to the nearest star, but, more likely, we will just continue being the parasites we are on this planet and eventually kill it off and us along with it.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Bacterial explanation for Europa's rosy glow

The red tinge of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, could be caused by frozen bits of bacteria. Their presence would also help explain Europa's mysterious infrared signal.

Europa is mostly frozen water, but it absorbs infrared radiation differently to how normal ice does. Researchers think this is because something is binding the water molecules together. Salts of magnesium sulphate frozen within the ice, for example, would make the molecules vibrate at different frequencies. But no one has managed to come up with the perfect mix of salts to explain all of Europa's spectrum.

Astrogeophysicist Brad Dalton of NASA's Ames Resarch Center wondered if something else was bound up with the water molecules. "Just on a lark, I asked a colleague of mine at Yellowstone if he had any IR spectra of extremophile bacteria," he says, and he was shocked by how well they matched Europa's mysterious spectrum.

Bacterial explanation for Europa's rosy glow - 11 December 2001 - New Scientist

 

[ScienceRocks]

NASA's revived exoplanet-hunter sees its first world
23:00 06 February 2014 by Lisa Grossman
NASA's revived exoplanet-hunter sees its first world - space - 06 February 2014 - New Scientist

It's alive! After suffering a critical injury last year, NASA's Kepler space telescope has just observed an exoplanet for the first time in months. The Jupiter-sized world is not a new discovery – it was found by another telescope – but spotting it again with Kepler is solid evidence that, following a few modifications, the famed planet-hunter is ready to get back to work.

Launched in 2009, Kepler was designed to see planetary transits – the tiny dips in starlight when a planet passes in front of its star, from Earth's perspective. Over four years the mission collected almost 250 confirmed planets and thousands more candidates, boosting our confidence that the galaxy is brimming with alien worlds.

But observations ground to a halt last year, when mechanical failures killed Kepler's precision steering system and ruined its ability to hold steady enough to see transits. At least, until now. At a meeting in November last year, the Kepler team announced the K2 mission, which would use the radiation pressure from sunlight to hold the craft steady for up to 75 days at a time.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Massive asteroid impacts Mars, leaves stunning crater [PHOTO]
Massive asteroid impacts Mars, leaves stunning crater [PHOTO] | Science Recorder

A new crater is discovered on Mars.

What a difference four years makes. Where there was just another barren patch of Martian soil in July 2010, there is now an illustrious starburst imprint left by a meteor. NASA released images of it this week that it had obtained in November through the high-resolution camera array aboard the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite, which has been circling the red planet and conveying data of its atmosphere and terrain over the last few years.

The crater is 100 feet wide and is unusually eye-catching for a crater. Myriad “rays” emanating from a concentrated center. The researchers estimate that the meteor impact that created it occurred at some time between July 2010 and May 2012.

While the crater is remarkable, though, the meteor from which it originated really was not. Based on the blast site’s size and shape, NASA estimates that the rock was a modest 10 or so feet across. For a comparison, the meteor that caused several injuries and building damage in Chelyabinsk, Russia, last year measured 65 feet across. In fact, if a 10-feet-wide meteor were to fall through Earth’s atmosphere, it would probably burn up in the atmosphere and not make any crater at all.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Stunning: Curiosity rover takes first ever photo of Earth from surface of Mars

Stunning: Curiosity rover takes first ever photo of Earth from surface of Mars | Science Recorder

Curiosity snaps a stunning photo of Earth from Mars.

The world is being treated to a sight no creature on Earth, living or dead, has ever seen before: our planet as it would appear to a Martian looking up into the night sky.

This unprecedented perspective of our home planet comes courtesy of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, which snapped the picture last week about an hour after sunset from the surface of the Red Planet.

“A human observer with normal vision, if standing on Mars, could easily see Earth and the moon as two distinct, bright ‘evening stars,’” a NASA spokesperson said.

NASA tweeted the incredible photo, which shows Earth as the brightest light in the night sky and, amazingly, just below it a vanishingly small dot that is our moon.

“Look back in wonder,” read the tweet from Curiosity’s official Twitter feed. “My 1st picture of Earth from the surface of Mars.”

 

[Politico]

Well you definitely wouldn't remove your helmet to take a whiff of the atmosphere.
And all advanced civilizations must at some point develop the technological capacity to self destruct.

And extinction-level cataclysmic events are probably relatively common. Until we have the ability to intercept sizable asteroids we'll be continuously at risk.

And maybe a StarTrek like "Prime Directive" exists in some quadrants.


Still with up to 500 billion galaxies in our universe, and with up to 17 billion earth sized planets in the milky way alone (just try to wrap your head around those staggering numbers, I can't) I think the question is valid, "Where is Everyone?"

Out there. Where we have no chance of getting to them. Thank God.

 

[FA_Q2]

Well you definitely wouldn't remove your helmet to take a whiff of the atmosphere.
And all advanced civilizations must at some point develop the technological capacity to self destruct.

And extinction-level cataclysmic events are probably relatively common. Until we have the ability to intercept sizable asteroids we'll be continuously at risk.

And maybe a StarTrek like "Prime Directive" exists in some quadrants.


Still with up to 500 billion galaxies in our universe, and with up to 17 billion earth sized planets in the milky way alone (just try to wrap your head around those staggering numbers, I can't) I think the question is valid, "Where is Everyone?"

Out there. Where we have no chance of getting to them. Thank God.

You know, a good question to really ask yourself if you are one of those that believes we should have run into one of those races by now is how far away do you really think would be detectable from space?

I would doubt that anything outside our solar system would be completely oblivious to our presence. Nothing sufficiently advanced to travel the start would be using radio or other communications equipment that utilizes the same things we do. Nor would anything in our star pop out as something worth looking at. Really, I don’t see why we would think that we should be able to see anything that resembles other life even if the universe were absolutely teeming with it.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Space-Grown Vegetables Are Safe To Eat, Scientists Announce

Their safety was likely verified by labs on Earth, not by adventurous diners in space

Potluck time! Russian scientists have verified that several plants grown aboard the International Space Station are safe to eat, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reports.

The space-grown edibles include peas, dwarf wheat and Japanese leafy greens. They look great and not at all weird, one of the scientists working on the project, Margarita Levinskikh of the Institute of Biological Problems, assured The Voice of Russia. "The plants have been very developed, absolutely normal and did not differ a lot from the plants grown on Earth," she told the radio station.

And yes, cosmonauts have given them a munch. "We have also gotten experience with the astronauts and cosmonauts eating the fresh food they grow and not having problems," crop scientist Bruce Bugbee wrote to Popular Science in an email. Bugbee is a professor at Utah State University and has worked on studies of food grown in space.

Space-Grown Vegetables Are Safe To Eat, Scientists Announce | Popular Science

 

[ScienceRocks]

NASAs Mars orbiter sees signs of seasonal water flow on Mars surface

NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars have returned clues for understanding seasonal features that are the strongest indication of possible liquid water that may exist today on the Red Planet.

The features are dark, finger-like markings that advance down some Martian slopes when temperatures rise. The new clues include corresponding seasonal changes in iron minerals on the same slopes and a survey of ground temperatures and other traits at active sites. These support a suggestion that brines with an iron-mineral antifreeze, such as ferric sulfate, may flow seasonally, though there are still other possible explanations.

NASAs Mars orbiter sees signs of seasonal water flow on Mars surface | Space Industry News

 

[ScienceRocks]

New Evidence For Ancient Ocean on Mars
New Evidence For Ancient Ocean on Mars

The idea has been hotly debated among scientists for the past 20 years, ever since Viking Orbiter images revealed possible ancient shorelines near the pole. Later findings even suggested that the primordial ocean--dubbed Oceanus Borealis--could have covered a third of the planet.

But even if the evidence has mounted steadily, fostering our hopes of finding signs of past life on the Red Planet, the case for an ancient Martian ocean remains unsettled.

Now a new study by Lorena Moscardelli, a geologist at the University of Texas, Austin, puts forward yet another line of evidence.

Today, large fields of boulder-size rocks blanket parts of Mars' northern plains. By pointing to analogue geological features on our Earth, Moscardelli suggests that the boulders were delivered to their current locations by catastrophic underwater landslides--bolstering evidence for an ancient Martian ocean.

 

[ScienceRocks]

European Space Agency picks Plato planet-hunting mission


BBC News - European Space Agency picks Plato planet-hunting mission

A telescope to find rocky worlds around other stars has been selected for launch by the European Space Agency's (Esa) Science Policy Committee.

Known as Plato, the mission should launch on a Soyuz rocket in 2024.

The observatory concept was chosen following several years of assessment in competition with other ideas.

It is expected to cost Esa just over 600 million euros, although hardware contributions from member states will take this closer to a billion (£800m).

The EU and China are starting to kick our ass. Thanks a lot conserilosers!

 

[ScienceRocks]

NASA plans to go fishing for asteroids with harpoon-like spacecraft

NASA plans to go fishing for asteroids with harpoon-like spacecraft | DVICE

Landing spacecraft on asteroids is a delicate, precise process that takes a lot of planning. Harpooning a fish, on the other hand, is the work of an instant. A new plan put forth by University of Washington professor Robert Winglee aims to marry these two wildly different actions. The idea is to fire harpoon-like sampling rockets right into the surface of asteroids in order to take mineral samples.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Giant Magellan Telescope Poised to Enter Construction Phase

Giant Magellan Telescope Poised to Enter Construction Phase

AUSTIN, TX — The upcoming world’s largest telescope has passed two critical milestones, according to founding partner The University of Texas at Austin. The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) has passed major reviews on its design and cost estimates and is ready to proceed to construction.

“We’re delighted — but unsurprised — to hear that GMT has passed these critical tests and can move ahead,” said Dr. David L. Lambert, director of the university’s McDonald Observatory and member of the GMT Board of Directors. “UT’s partnership in the GMT will give our faculty, scientists, and graduate students access to a major telescope at one of the world’s best observing sites far into the future, and enable our astronomy program to maintain its standing as one of the best in the world.”

 

[ScienceRocks]

NASA scientists create first geological map of Ganymede

NASA scientists have produced the first global geological map of Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede by combining images from over twenty years of observation by the Voyager spacecraft and the Galileo orbiter.

Ganymede, which as the largest moon in the Solar System is bigger than the planet Mercury, hosts a thick mantle of ice roughly 800km (497 mi) thick. The moon has two major terrain types, dark cratered areas and younger regions characterized by a plethora of grooves and ridges. The map, published by the US Geological Survey exhibits three distinct geological periods demarcated by cratering, tectonic disturbances and finally by a drop in geologic activity.

“This map illustrates the incredible variety of geological features on Ganymede and helps to make order from the apparent chaos of its complex surface,” says Robert Pappalardo of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA scientists create first geological map of Ganymede

 

[ScienceRocks]

Water found on alien world unlike any in our solar system

Water found on alien world unlike any in our solar system | DVICE

In the far away Boötes constellation, there exists a massive planet known as tau Boötis b. It’s a world unlike anything that exists in our solar system. The closest comparison we have is Jupiter, but tau Boötis b is thought to weigh in at eight and a half times the mass of our solar system’s largest planet. Termed a “hot-Jupiter”, it also exists in an aptly-named “torch orbit,” seven times closer to its star than Mercury is to our Sun.

Yet it is here that astronomers from Penn State University have detected the presence of water. Using a new technique, the team was able to detect water in the planet’s atmosphere, likely in the form of water vapor. Penn State research associate Chad Bender believes the importance of the discovery is two-fold:


"Our detection of water in the atmosphere of tau Boötes b is important because it helps us understand how these exotic hot-Jupiter planets form and evolve. It also demonstrates the effectiveness of our new technique, which detects the infrared radiation in the atmospheres of these planets."

 

[william the wie]

Just tagging in.

 

[ScienceRocks]

715 Newly Verified Planets More Than Triples the Number of Confirmed Kepler Planets

Kepler: 715 Newly Verified Planets More Than Triples the Number of Confirmed Kepler Planets

02.26.2014

"NASA's Kepler Mission Announces a Planet Bonanza, 715 New Worlds"

Excerpts:

...715 new planets... orbit 305 stars, revealing multiple-planet systems much like our own solar system. Nearly 95 percent of these planets are smaller than Neptune, which is almost four times the size of Earth. ...To verify this bounty of planets, a research team co-led by Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif...used a technique called verification by multiplicity, which relies in part on the logic of probability. ...Kepler observed hundreds of stars that have multiple planet candidates. Through a careful study of this sample, these 715 new planets were verified. This method can be likened to the behavior we know of lions and lionesses. In our imaginary savannah, the lions are the Kepler stars and the lionesses are the planet candidates. The lionesses would sometimes be observed grouped together whereas lions tend to roam on their own. If you see two lions it could be a lion and a lioness or it could be two lions. But if more than two large felines are gathered, then it is very likely to be a lion and his pride. Thus, through multiplicity the lioness can be reliably identified in much the same way multiple planet candidates can be found around the same star.

"Four years ago, Kepler began a string of announcements of first hundreds, then thousands, of planet candidates --but they were only candidate worlds," said Lissauer. "We've now developed a process to verify multiple planet candidates in bulk to deliver planets wholesale, and have used it to unveil a veritable bonanza of new worlds."

...Four of these new planets are less than 2.5 times the size of Earth and orbit in their sun's habitable zone, defined as the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet may be suitable for life-giving liquid water.

...This latest discovery brings the confirmed count of planets outside our solar system to nearly 1,700. As we continue to reach toward the stars, each discovery brings us one step closer to a more accurate understanding of our place in the galaxy.

The findings papers will be published March 10 in The Astrophysical Journal and are available for download at:

http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/digital-press-kit-kepler-planet-bonanza.

Damn cool Worth every fucking penny. Time to send a fleet up!

 

[william the wie]

Time for Larry Niven's probes and follow up slowboats or at least harvesting He3?