From The Great Attractor To The Fountains of Enceladus

This is the closest thing to a cosmic xmas wreath, so...merry festive !

Apparently dark shadows in craters on Ceres conceal frozen water ice, something which the Dawn explorer is looking into (no pun intended) - the famous  highly reflective white patches are salt , and the craters conceal what could be ice water from which the salt has come; more evidence of a briny, subsurface ocean .
Given the sheer amount of subsumed salt on the surface, I'd wager it wasn't far beneath the surface.
It's almost a given that our solar system is full of worlds with hidden oceans.

A recent trend seems to be the coupling of serious information with crude humour , and the headline of this article continues the tradition.
Anyway, Uranus exhibits unusual rotation in the southern latitudes , rotating some 15% faster than the rest of the gas giant.
This seems to be the result of an unusual object deep inside the planet.
Very little is known about the gas giants , so this, along with the current Juno explorer , could help greatly increase our knowledge.

Scientists have measured the smallest sliver of time ever , so brief (850 zaptoseconds*) , that they can see an electron emerge from an atom which got me thinking ; how can they create a ' sliver ' of time?
Can they therefore stop time ?

A new Antarctic exploration has begun with an attempt to drill  down deep and uncover the oldest ice on Earth, yielding evidence from millions of years ago.
From the microscopic to the macrocosmic - the discovery of galactic infrastructure
(we are part of a supercluster called Laniakea) means that we  are potentially the tiny building blocks of an even greater universe .
This has implcations for many things, including our understanding of time; speaking of which, go see  Arrival...

Enceladus water plumes     image NASA / Cassini

The next journeys to Saturns moons Enceladus and Titan, will be to find evidence of life.
Nasa have an explorer lined up called Enceladus Life Finder, or ELF, to be funny.
Not to be outdone, ESA will be exploring with a craft named E2T , which isn't quite so snappy, but it will be amazing to see two flybys intent on uncovering evidence of life.
The focus will be on the jets of water seen emitting from the southern polar area of Enceladus. Coupled with a low altitude camera survey of the surface, it is hoped that enough information will be gleaned to establish for once and for all the possibility that even microbial life does or did exist in those subsurface oceans.

Meanwhile, on Mars...

Slightly closer to home - well, Mars anyway, is on target for the 2020 Exomars thing, with the addition of a drill capable of taking samples from a depth of two metres below the surface in the ongoing search for biosignatures...

High above the Earth...

...even closer to home is the ISS, and NASA are mooting a new form of parachute braking system to enable two way journeys of science payloads.
Plans are already afoot for a new space station, with the mooted NASA / Roskosmos collaboration scheduled for 2024 . By this time, such operations should be quite commercialised , and a joint exploration of Mars is also planned - to which end, the new Orion is being put through its paces.

Out there, somewhere...

Apparently,the Great Attractor is our destiny .
Whats going to happen is a secret though-
It's 200 million light years away, so we won't be getting spoilers for a long time.
No one knows what the great attractor is, except that it has the mass of 200 billion suns, and is drawing us inexorably towards it
So it's pretty irresistible
Pun was not intended

I am posting this as we approach the end of  2016, for better or worse.
Personally, I think it's for the better, as this year has been relentless and miserable .
I do intend to write a couple more blogposts by the end of this year, but they may be more 'Earthbound' than recent posts.
I'm scratching my head though - perhaps I should just get a new blog.
Decisions, eh ?

Until soon, take care !





* Apparently its very short. I trust New Scientist not to prank me.

All Quiet on Sol , Saturns Rings Await and Orion begins the Hunt.

Almost spotless

THE SUN

Our Sun is approaching its lowest activity cycle, with precious little sunspot activity , as above.
This picture is very appropriate in its blankness, as I managed to lose my draft notes this morning* for this very blog.
Yes there was no backup, as there is no plan.
Please bear with me as I attempt to recall the newsworthy moments using good old fashioned grey matter - ahem.
The sun is not scheduled to reach its lowest point of activity until 2021- it generally means fewer power outages and possibly a wider sense of 'calm' if soothsayers are to be believed.
On the other hand it could be a bad omen.

THIRD PLANET FROM THE SUN...

IBM have created a molecule that could kill all known viruses , says the headline of this article - a strong claim, but something that could be a game changer.
It also puts IBM at the potential forefront of genetic adaptions ... which leads us to the report that scientists have successfully combined organic material with silicon.
What purpose this serves is yet to be seen, but it has never been done in nature ( to our knowledge) , so it's a first. Possibly.
Certainly the oldest 'fossils' found must be the ancient bacteria from some 2 .5 billion years ago - be warned, that link contains some heavyweight geology stuff...
After an upgrade, the LIGO gravitational waves detector is ready for another session of detection of space/time ripples ( shock-waves from black holes, basically ) - don't forget that it was only until recently that such waves remained undetected, languishing in the realms of  theoretical science.

 NASA will soon be testing their new Orion craft in advance of manned missions to Mars ( hey, no queue jumping - I know things are tough , but there won't be a manned Mars lift - off until 2021)

MEANWHILE, ON MARS...

Current thinking is that Mars once had sufficient water to cover its entire surface..
Waterworld ?- We hope not. Let's move on from that cinematic debacle...
This has inevitably led  to the question of potential fossils, but the timeline would appear to dash any such hopes.
Following from Octobers ill-fated ExoMars mission, all is not lost -
First images back from the Trace Gas Orbiter are good.


AT THE RINGS OF SATURN...

 Cassini orbit    NASA/ JPL / Caltech

NASA explorer craft Cassini is about to begin a spectacular flyby of Saturns rings, weaving in between and above and below, it will be the prelude to Cassinis farewell when it plunges into the atmosphere of Saturn on September 15 2017 ( at 5.07 pm PDT ).





* last Wednesday actually, the first in a series of odd little technical mishaps . . . which is why this post never happened. I find these things increasingly frustrating. If someone has it in for my micro blog, then I'm flattered for the attention, but seriously, what's the point ?

Impossible Drives, Missing Nukes and Balloons in Space

The 'impossible'  em - drive

Perhaps the biggest news is the publication of a paper by NASA following their exhaustive testing of the enigmatic EM drive.
I mentioned this in a post some time ago, as it holds incredible potential for space travel at near light speed - it also makes flying cars a possibility.
The fact that it negates part of Einsteins Theory of Relativity is a minor hurdle , but one which it seems to have overcome.
After all , rules were made to be broken.
The ramifications of this news are truly amazing - Earth to Mars in 70 days - making a swift visit to those distant relatives a very real possibility...

MEANWHILE, UP IN SPACE...

bloostar

With the recent comet-landing , and Bennu sample mission underway, much of the current space activity seems to be aimed at future near - world asteroid mining which has potential already identified by at least two companies ; Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries.
With Blue Origin and SpaceX both offering commercial rocket flights and bloostar offering a balloon - assisted launch for smaller payloads , including spacecraft, it will soon be quite a busy place up there - so if you want to take advantage of the serene view of Earth from the edge of space, you'd better quickly book a balloon flight with zero2infinity.com  ( I love the slogan 'purveyors of elevation')

There seems to be an upsurge of interest in off-world stuff, so have a tour of the ISS in 4K .
The leisurely pace of the film also provides a relaxing 'chill-out' factor, just the thing to take your mind off all that Earthbound stress...
Today the crew known as expedition 50 sucessfully boarded the ISS to begin their six - month stint of experiments and living in the confined space.
Plans are being made for a joint space station orbiting the moon , when the ISS has been decommisioned. The projected date for the new facility is 2028 or thereabouts, just to be unscientific...

We learn that there is a huge chasm on Mercury big enough to rival the Deep Rift valley in Africa, and the Grand Canyon, at 600 miles long and 250 miles wide.
Whilst its dimensions are impressive, the main thing is that it indicates active geology on Mercury - and the little planet is shrinking - hardly surprising being so close to the sun ,...but this also tells us that both Mercury and Pluto appear to have an unknown internal heat source.
In other news, Mars has a funnel which could potentially support  microbial life , being a depression from an old volcano atop a glacier.

MEANWHILE BACK ON EARTH...

A long lost 'nuke' may have been found off the Canadian coast , where it has lain since 1950 when it was abandoned following a plane crash .
Phew, one less cause for sleepless nights among Canadians...

Only dedicated applicants need apply to see Marie Curies notes ; they have a radioactive half-life of 1500 years.
In fairness you should probably wear a hazmat suit, which makes page-turning difficult, too.


                               

Touchdown , Smackdown , Saturn and Giant Wombats

16 sunrises every day on the ISS

It is now 21 years since the discovery of  the first exoplanet , 51Pegasi B, in the constellation of Pegasus.
Following this find , the number of exoplanets has rocketed ( no pun intended) , and now stands at  approximately 3500 
Whilst many exoplanets are woefully unsuitable for Earth comparisons - 51Pegasi B is a 'hot Jupiter', a tidally locked world that orbits its sun every four days with an average surface temperature of 1200°c .
The figure of 3500 exoplanets gives only a tiny fraction of potentially Earth - like worlds - personally, I think we're wasting precious resources looking for our own reflections.
Are we a world of Narcissists ?
Actually...

NASA celebrates 16 years of the ISS in orbit with the release of an amazing selection of  gifs charting the development of the little 'space colony '.
 A recent touchdown of returning crew from the ISS in Kazakhastan  generated some great photos courtesy of  Bill Ingalls

Returning Soyuz capsule    pic NASA/ Bill Ingalls

Saturn pic Cassini   NASA

The mysterious hexagon , which is bigger than Earth at Saturn's north pole has changed color,
shifting from blue to gold...speculation abounds online that the planet is the solar systems mood-ring.
Meanwhile, it is revealed that Saturns moon Titan is littered with steep- walled canyons filled with liquid methane .
Stunning views and fine sailing for anyone brave enough...seriously though, when Cassini reaches the end of its tenure, there is a proposed submarine mission 

Giovanni Cassini's journals.
He discovered four of  Saturn's moons
between 1671-1684

 Meanwhile on Mars...

The dauntless explorer Curiosity is still roving over the rugged martian landscape.
Its latest find is a meteorite ( known as egg-rock) composed of a nickel / iron mixture .
Whilst it's not exactly big news, I include it here as evidence that NASA are scanning images for even such small oddities - although they obviously missed the squirrel , witchy woman and alien -crab -thingy amongst other uncanny similes.
For those who wish to conduct a post -mortem , the wreckage of the ill- fated Schiaparelli has been imaged by the Mars Orbiter.
I hope that someday the wreckage can be displayed alongside Beagle II and remnants of the many other ill- fated expeditions to the ' Red Planet'.
No doubt the Curiosity rover will be first in line to mock its failed predecessors / rivals in an understated , robotic way

Following the revelation that there are huge amounts of galaxies ( at least two trillion ) in the observable universe, it's the brain- melting number -crunch time again.
Apparently dark matter ( the theoretical crazy-glue of the cosmos) is comprised of trillions of axion particles.
Trillions of axions in every cubic centimeter of the universe.
Ponder.
Feel incredibly small.
Then get annoyed at all the ' ifs' and ' possiblies' associated with what is undoubtedly impressive but almost totally conjectural work.
Personally, I was initially impressed, but increasingly angered by the vagueness of the piece ( see above link).
Perhaps.


MEANWHILE, BACK ON EARTH...

A mysterious 'ping' sound emanating from the seabed in the Arctic is being investigated by the Canadian military .
Early reports dismiss industrial exploration and international subterfuge .
Apparently this ping is pretty serious then , or we're involved in a publicity scam for a new X-files movie....

In the last post, I mentioned the discovery of a hybrid cattle / bison species depicted in cave paintings - now we hear of a discovery indicating that Australia was populated 10 000 years earlier than previously thought.
Evidence has emerged with the discovery of bone fragments, weapons and egg shells in the Australian outback.
The media spin tells us that a man made the discovery when he was caught short and decided to answer the call of nature in a rocky shelter .

Other ancient discoveries recently include what may or may not be a dinosaur brain.
Found some 50 miles from London , ( for the politically inclined, there are dinosaur brains in London , in the Palace of Westminster, which are still functioning in a rudimentary fashion) it is currently being studied as a rare anomaly  (soft tissue tends to degenerate quickly , leaving no trace)  by a Paleobiologist - blimey - first I knew of such a profession !

Finally , a tip of the hat to the tireless writers of  Gizmodo , ( particularly the excellent work of Maddie Stone) , the Planetary org , NASA and  also thanks to you for indulging this weird little micro -blog 
Until next time

G Alias Me

Mars Malfunction , Jovian Jollies , Red Rocks and Missing Links

Huge slab of ice found on Mars...        Image : American Geophysical Unit

Mars continues to reveal wonders , with the alleged discovery of a huge slab of ice beneath the surface.
It's actually been quite the week in space. I was planning to create this blog last Wednesday 19th October , in celebration of Exomars arriving at its destination , but - oops , that didn't happen.
Exomars, a two-pronged exploration mission by ESA had only partial success.
The Trace Gas Orbiter is in place, but apparently the Schiaparelli lander had issues with a parachute jettisoning too early. Given that the parachute failed, and the probe entered a freefall reaching a speed of 186mph, the expression ' touch down ' is an understatement.
Further understatement in the BBC report - ' The mood is not positive ' ...

My first response was to wonder why they didn't just aim it at one of the ice caps, letting the heat melt the ice and hopefully absorb some impact that way, but that ignores the Space Treaty and potentially endangers any as yet undiscovered life, I suppose..
That being the case, though, what about the unsuspecting martian who may have been struck by Schiaparelli?
How do we know our puported martian victim is okay ?
There he / she / it  is walking along, minding their own martian business when ka-ding! a lump of hot metal from space...and this one doesn't even have a golden disc with details of where it's from.

Identifying disc from Voyager...

Anyway , the whole Exo-mars thing was really a ' tech demo' , being a dry run for the next mission from ESA , which involves a Curiosity - style rover.
Let's just hope that goes to plan...

Staying with the idea of malfunctioning space probes, earlier in the week , Juno had an issue when two valves opened very slowly , with a resultant loss of a crucial 'window' for a closer orbit (14 days instead of  53.5) around Jupiter .
This means that Juno won't really ' science ' until  Dec 14th, almost two months from now.
If those pesky valves open fast enough.
It makes you realise just how time - sensitive these things are.

Media also tell us of the approach as New Horizons now heads out to Kuiper Belt Object MU 69. The rendezvous is not until 2019 , but we now know that the object appears to be very red.
It seems amazing that we have reached a point in our history where we look for news from an event in the future , rather than now...and quite incredibly , we already know that MU69, a rock drifting a billion miles away in space, is red.
We're not quite advanced enough to determine which particular shade of red, but ...patience is a virtue.
Speaking of space events - I almost missed the news of the two Chinese astronauts reaching their space station.
Pause for a moment - China has a space station ?
Well . yes, but it seems to have happened ' under the radar '. Hmmm
I recall the coverage of the ' Jade Rabbit' moonshot , but a space station ?
Tiangong 1 , known as the ' heavenly palace' is the station.
Anyway, well done China , and a shame on our media bias

Meanwhile back on Earth 

 Palaeontologists have discovered a cave painting that shows some form of ' missing link '- a hybrid between European cattle and the bison.
Again, I must express a little concern - since when did a cave painting become empirical evidence of a species?
I can see it now - deep in a dark cavern in the shadow of retreating glaciers, the neolithic man and his companion are daubing the walls
Hey - I'm drawing a white horse with a horn on its nose. That'll confuse them'
I'm extrapolating of course, but it is surely as likely as a new species defined by 18, 000 year old art scrawled in a dark cavern by flickering torchlight.

Mars Landings, Space Utopia, and Nightmare Wasps

Ice on Mars

Simulation of Schiaparelli landing   ©ESA

 We are mere days away from the attempt by ESA / Roskosmos to break the NASA Mars exploration monopoly , with the two- part mission to identify the chemical makeup of the atmosphere.
The attempt will be aided by the orbiting Mars Express, with its instruments that were initially to designed to aid the ill - fated Beagle 2 lander.
Since 2003 , Mars Express has been orbiting and relaying priceless data , and will now help the dual- faceted Exomars mission in its final stages of entry /descent into the Martian atmosphere.
The mission is basically an attempt to prove whether there were conditions once favourable for life on Mars.
The Trace Gas Orbiter will remain in a low orbit around Mars, with Schiaparelli attempting a surface landing.
Schiaparelli is basically a laboratory,  not a  roving explorer, so sadly no companion for Curiosity .
Don't forget though, that Opportunity still roams the martian surface, collecting information.
It's all very functional , reducing the unknown to manageable levels of ' known' and understood - which is very necessary, at least in our own ' backyard ' , especially given the revelation that there are ten times as many galaxies in the heavens than previously thought.
The latest estimates peg the figure at two trillion galaxies.
I laugh at the thought of a team of lab- coated scierntists attempting to count every single one only to reach one trillion , 6 billion, 3million and 457,000 when someone interrupts and they have to start again.
Trivial, but it tickles me.
I'm assured however, that's not how it's done.
Still, let me just say that again-
Two trillion galaxies.
My attempt to rationalise such a huge number led me down another internet  rabbit hole.
A trillion is a milion million.
Which is a lot.
And that's the number of galaxies in the observable universe at least .
Galaxies, not stars.
There are possibly 400 billion stars in our own galaxy.
Which puts our little exploration of our neighbouring world in perspective.

Dione also contains water

In our own tiny corner of space, we have a solar system teeming with watery moons with subsurface oceans.
Recent data from the Saturn system explorer Cassini tells us that the moon Dione may also harbour an underground ocean , up to 40 miles deep: the deepest part of our own oceans is  a mere 7 miles / 9 km, or so.
It joins the growing list of  Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede , and the contentious planet / dwarf planet Pluto which all seem to contain large bodies of water

On another positive note, a new initiative is announced , with the purpose of creating a nation of space - dwellers who will colonise a giant orbiting craft known as Asgardia.
The ultimate goal is to democratise space, which sounds fine, but my concern is why choose a Nordic name then , thus firmly laying claim to a specific nationality and its own mythos ?
Just saying...

Speaking of which, space brain is a potential new danger for future human travellers to the outlying worlds...


On a final, uncomfortable, note:
A prehistoric nightmare wasp* somehow conflated in my mind with the news that a virus has been disovered that contains DNA from a mosquito
Nightmare fuel.

Megalara Garuda -These specimens are dead - phew !

*Obviously I checked further, to find any living descendants of the ancient ' nightmare wasp '.
This foolish internet quest led me to the Megalara Garuda wasp, discovered in Indonesia in 2011.
The fact that no-one lives on the island where it was discovered is not really surprising...

Hell and High Water

© Flickr / SpaceX

Blimey, we've got a unifying theme this week - well , I think so - on Monday last, NASA announced the discovery of water plumes erupting from the surface of Europa
Personally, I wasn't too impressed, as we'd already heard of similar plumes on Enceladus .
Perhaps the most impressive thing is the sheer scale of the water jets - up to 125 miles / 200 km above surface level.
So, pretty darned impressive.
Enough so that we already have an illustration of a SpaceX craft there.
Of course, the elephant in the room is the fatal dose of radiation levels on Europa , courtesy of  Jupiter .
Not much chance of a quick selfie before imminent death...

Likewise, the recently mooted ocean beneath the surface of Pluto may be up to 62 miles / 99 km deep - That's a lot of sea.
The deepest part of our own oceans is a mere 7 miles / 10 km .
On the subject of oceans,  rising sea levels present a very real threat to NASA
Time to find a new launch pad !
Launch pads could be a wise investment, what with the increasing noise about the colonisation of Mars / the Moon / deep space.
The rockets currently being displayed by Elon Musks Space X and Jeff Bezos Blue Origin appear to be engaged in a ' mine is bigger than yours ' routine, with operational capabilities coming a poor second...
Still, healthy competition can only lead to better designs, surely
Speaking of designs (see what I did there?), it appears that ostrich eggs are marked with protein dna strands going back a long time.
I'm not sure what this means in the greater scheme of things , although there's probably a direct link to a Jurassic World - type scenario, where we happily watch dinosaurs with colourful feathers tearing each other apart.

 From Earth, we move inwards towards Mercury where we have been surprised to learn that there is tectonic activity happening there now - and also, it's shrinking - hardly surprising , with an average daytime temperature of 800 degrees farenheit.
Pretty hellish, then - but still active.
I find it somehow comforting knowing that worlds we previously considered geologically dead, are very much active.
We have Mercury, wilting in the sun, and Pluto with its beating heart is far from being the distant ball of windswept ice that my childhood imagination conjured...

Final frames from Rosetta    © ESA

POSTSCRIPT

Rosetta has ended its mission . After an epic 6 billion-mile journey, the Rosetta craft has descended to the surface of Comet 67P . The media is awash with words like crashlanding, and such - but at only 1 mph, it's hardly a spectacular finale.
Personally, I still wonder why it was not simply left to drift in space , perhaps locked into the comets orbit forever ?
After all, surely theft of industrial secrets isn't an issue in space ?
On the other hand, you can never trust those pesky aliens.
Perhaps we should build a Space Wall...

Fungoid Zombies, Teleportation and the Monolith on a Martian Moon...

With what appears to be a slowing of development in VR ,  (it's stalling, frankly)...personally I'm greatly fond of AR (Actual Reality), although I understand the desire to experience extreme sports minus the possibility of actual death. 
It seems that people are not entirely convinced of this ground - breaking stuff.
I suspect that it will go the way of 3D, being a nice optional addition for those who don't mind the weird claustrophobia of the headgear.
Personally, I find the immersion of a good gaming world on a large screen to be more than enough.
It requires a little imagination, but then, so do good books.
Rant over...


We hear that scientists have succeeded in the quantum teleportation of data over a seven mile distance. Okay, it's not  quite ' Beam me down, Scotty' , but even so...teleportation gets closer.


As I write this post at the tail-end of September 2016, we hear tantalising news that NASA will reveal  new images of Europa taken by Hubble today (26  09 2016).
Apparently they hint at activity in a subsurface ocean.
Such an announcement has already stirred the denizens of the online conspirati *, and mutterings of the word 'aliens' are spreading far and wide, despite NASA stating categorically : Not aliens.
Still, to the Conspirati*, denial is complicity, or something like that .

Not to be outdone, word is increasing on the mysterious monolith on Martian moon Phobos.
There is a very 'maybe' Canadian orbiter / lander mooted , called 'Prime' ( Phobos Reconnaissance Imager like Mars Express ) which is to examine the monolith, but exactly when is open to speculation.

 

Given the increasing noise surrounding imminent flights to the Red Planet , I imagine it won't be long until DragonX are offering day trips to Phobos , perhaps with overpriced T - Shirts bearing the legend " I Saw The Monolith ", and on the back, " ...It Sucks "
To be worn by blasé youngsters with glazed eyes...

A recent article postulates that the dimming effect we see on ' Tabbys star', is actually just from random comets .
 In the linked article, Valeri Marakov says that deep space may be full of comets -
 '... dark and cold, and travelling from nowhere to nowhere, basically, forever.”
Just like a journey on the M25, then.

Tracks of moon buggy August 8 1971   NASA

The above image was added to this post apropo of nothing, (I just like it,) but is now almost relevant, as it transpires that Russia are planning to get a manned colony on the moon by 2030.
The slightly worrying extrapolation here is that the USA are claiming Mars, with the Soviets as sole proprietors of the Moon
A new Space Race ?
If nothing else, I suppose it redirects efforts away from the Arms Race...

Whilst we toy with the idea of becoming a multi - world species, the recent developments in genetics tell us that we'd be better off as human / animal hybrids
Why am I even saying all this ?
Surely I should be creating a dystopian fiction in which our future genetically- enhanced selves are quietly colonising the fringes of our solar system when suddenly we are attacked by giant Tardigrades who want their DNA back...



NOT SPACE RELATED...

Finally, back in February this year, I got a signed copy of the Girl With All The Gifts , a lurid dystopian sci-fi  featuring telepathic kids and murderous fungoid zombies - like a British version of ' The Last Of Us', on a budget of twenty quid.
It is filming now in gritty London suburbs like Park Royal.
Which isn't Royal.
Or a Park.
 It is dystopian edginess, though...


Don't forget to like, subscribe, share this blog and stay tuned to Invisible Words - finger on the pulse or something like that !
Cheers !


* conspirati is a word I made up to more easily group those who watch ufos on you tube and believe in mind control and robotic Yetis in a fabled land.
That sort of thing.

Meteorites, Mini Monsters and our Moon

Largest meteorite. Hobart, Namibia      60 tonnes.         

A massive 30 ton meteorite has just been excavated in Argentina , becoming the second largest meteorite in the world.
Personally, I loved the casual nature of the video - just one digger and a smattering of applause.

Staying on the subject of large objects from space, apparently the moon was born as the result of a violent collision between Earth and a wandering planet (about the size of Mars) which resulted in a huge cloud of debris five hundred times the size of Earth which eventually coalesced into the moon as we know it.
This expansion of an old theory has been facilitated by new technology allowing for more precise readings of  moon rocks gathered by the Apollo missions.
I don't want to get bogged down with talk of Nibiru and all that, so let's move on...

What may or may not be a dinosaur 'nursery' has been discovered in the Russian Steppes , but speculation is rife as to whether the little fossil dinosaurs (one metre tall ) are infact a new species of miniature raptor.
Personally, I was most impressed by the fact that the site is only accessible by kayak , being so deep in the Steppes - I doff my cap to the intrepid palaentologists involved  - deep exploration worthy of Indiana Jones.

When ' You Are Here' means nothing...

Intrepid explorers have also ventured inside a cave which has apparently been isolated from the outside world for some 5.5 million years, give or take a few hundred thousand...
The atmosphere in Movile cave, Romania,  is toxic, being very sulphurous , and the permanent darkness and harsh conditions have led to a wealth of strange creatures, proving that life can thrive in the most inhospitable environments
Remaining in the realm of intrepid exploration, a recent survey of an extinct underwater volcano off the coast of Hawaii found  a plethora of oddities...

This lends more hope for the future exploration of places like the ice-bound and possibly waterlogged Saturnian ( is that a word ? ) moon Enceladus.

Enceladus from 30km

As we near the end of Rosettas planned mission , commemorative stuff goes into overdrive , heck you can even buy a plush version of Rosetta / Philae .
The final 'resting place' of Rosetta will be on the opposite side of the asteroid to Philae, so no 'reunited' scenario .
I remain impressed by the fact that I am alive at a time when we landed a probe on a comet - even moreso by the fact that we've been photographing and tracking it in such amazing detail for over a year
Now that the Osiris rex mission to Bennu has been launched, we will soon see the next phase, when an explorer takes a sample from a comet and returns with it...
Yay, go, science !

13 -Unlucky for some....

'Astrology is not science' is a phrase NASA had to use recently following an overly keen journalistic spin on their summary of astrology, its history and origins.
In this online world of assumptions based on half truths and third - hand hearsay, it quickly became reported as fact that NASA had added a new sign to the zodiac.

People, please !


Finally, we hear the sad story of Voyager , which collided with the end of the known universe, and received some damage as a result.
Sad to know that it will become space debris in the bottom right hand corner of the universe...

Exploding Payloads, Hellish Planets, Impossible Drives and The Zombie Plague From Space

It's not a great week for Elon Musk as a Space X  Falcon 9 rocket goes up in flames on the launchpad  .
He quickly moved to quash initial reports of an explosion , saying instead that it was a ' fast flame' , which led to some wag continuing the euphemism, by stating that it was a 'fast flame leading to rapid disassembly' .
No-one was hurt, but I imagine the recruitment drive for a manned flight to Mars might suffer.
Mark Zuckerberg was also dismayed as part of the payload was a satellite aimed at bringing the internet to deprived African areas.
Fortunately, there is a 'plan B' , so all should be well.

Artist impression    Cannae

Meanwhile, that pesky Emdrive just won't go away.
Infact, not only is it still confounding many (breaking laws of physics) but it is being sent into space for a ' test drive '.
The space-bound version is known as the ' Cannae Drive ', which in Scottish slang, means it's a non-starter, but hey - that's just me being facetious - ahem.
Roger Shawyer is the engineer behind this seemingly impossible drive , which is now being crowdfunded...

Even in space, you can find urban legends.
The idea of a careless employee making a gross miscalculation by using metric instead of imperial units , or vice versa, seems to be a familiar trope -
yet even in an area defined by rigorous testing and peer group reporting, myths can take hold - the report of a failed Venus probe reminds me of something I read years ago - or did I ?
Speaking of hellish planets, further pictures emerge from Juno , currently orbiting Jupiter and attempting to survive its toxic atmosphere...

Southern lights of Jupiter  ( infrared image )   NASA

On September 8th 2016, NASA hope to launch Osiris Rex, heading out to asteroid Bennu, returning with a sample in 2023.
It will be the first ever sample return mission from an asteroid, with plenty of nail-biting moments ahead.
Of course, the media angle is the THREAT to EARTH posed by the asteroid, and comparisons are already being drawn with apocalyptic films ( cue Bruce Willis in a vest gazing into the middle distance).
I laugh at such foolishness, of course, because the REAL threat is from the asteroid sample which will contain the zombie plague from space.

Sticking with the asteroid thing, we end on a high, as they found the plucky little comet- lander Philae, our ill - fated explorer !
Sadly, it's too late in the day for any meaningful contact , as the Rosetta mission draws to a close .
A call has gone up for Rosetta to target Philae when the mission ends later this month (September 2016) so they can at least be reunited for eternity, which is almost touching.
Humanising toys and animals seems to be a fairly widespread  thing, but this is way beyond that...

Still, I'll be watching.
I'll definitely say ' goodbye'
And I'll probably say aww

Invisible Words, Exoplanets and our place in Geological history...

Dear Everyone,

Invisible Words has always been about oddities that I find interesting (and I hope that someone else does, too).
Battling with my worsening condition makes it a struggle, and the eternal angst of  'what's the point?' constantly threatens to undermine me.
Today , though, I discovered that someone has unearthed sixty years of extensive notes by Charles Hoy Fort, taken from his tireless research in the New York Library .
This puts it in perspective for me-
it wasn't so long ago that search engines were actually people surrounded by books.
Where there's life there's hope.
Rant over , thank you for listening.


Here is a little news from space...

Artist impression of planet orbiting Proxima Centauri

To be precise all eyes are now focused on the latest exoplanet , ' Proxima b ' , discovered orbiting Proxima Centauri , a mere 20 years distant , if you were travelling at 20 % the speed of light .
Which we can attain using the mooted Project Starshot technology.
The downside is don't pack your bags just yet, the payload on a Starshot is teeny.
Like one camera teeny.
Not even a selfie stick.
Besides, the fact that it's in the 'Goldilocks Zone' doesn't mean it's liveable - or worse yet, it might already be fully occupied .

 Jupiter by Juno                    pic NASA / EPA

Nearer to home, photos were recently posted from the closest approach of  the explorer Juno to the gas giant Jupiter .
Allegedly taken from a mere 2600 miles away.
Except, apparently they weren't.
Which makes me happy, because they looked a bit - meh
Apparently the good pics are yet to be processed, and these are just  ' teasers '.
 Online debate has already opened with interweb 'experts' arguing the pros and cons of Juno cam versus Hubble.
I won't get involved, but one camera I have been impressed with is the one used by Curiosity which has recently sent pictures of rock strata on Mars that makes me wonder whether there could be anything fossiliferous in there...

 Mars - Astronaut for scale !       pic NASA/ JPL / MSSS / Sean Doran

Alien molluscs - the mind boggles.
Meanwhile , in recent news from halfway up a volcano in Hawaii , the NASA  Mars simulation has just ended, with a brave team of six people being released back into the wilds of Hawaii after a year of incarceration (they were only allowed outside if wearing a space suit).
Despite the claustrophobia, no-one has gone on a rampage, so it bodes well...
Elon Musk has announced that a manned Dragon flight will be ready to leave soon , and so that next step of Earth expansion looms closer.
Which is just as well, as geologists are already debating when to add the human Holocene and Anthropocene markers into the strata of our world.
Seriously, we are officially part of geological history.


Speaking of aliens , which we weren't, but did you hear of the new radio signal causing waves (pun intended) amongst the SETI community ?
Emanating from a star some 95 light years distant, it could be hard proof of extraterrestials of a Kardashev I or II civilisation ...

Screenshot by Ella Morton

...or it could be a microlensed piece of galactic background noise; but, like the x-files poster - I want to believe.
On that note, I say farewell until next time  - stay positive !

Mammoths, Moon Express and MOFs

Extensive samples and research by hardy types who don't mind extreme cold, tells us a wealth of detail about former mammoth denizens who populated Wrangel Island , Siberia and St Pauls Island , Alaska, until relatively recent times - well, approximately 5000 years ago.
Isolated island populations with no real predators to worry about, so why the decline ?
It turns out that these isolated populations became extinct through riverbank erosion, and the gradual decline of water sources.
No fiery comet from above, just the everyday depletion of resources.

Wrangel island

All aboard the Moon Express!
For the first time ever, a commercial company has been cleared to fly to the moon . Ticket prices are yet to be finalised, though, and I'm personally concerned about which sunblock to wear.
Obviously factor 10,000 in some places - but on the dark side ?


It has been claimed that the reason we are alone in the universe is that we are too early , and there could be a gap of a few trillion years before we find other intelligent species to show off our snapshots of lunar holidays and such - ahem.
I think this is a defeatist idea, and we should rather devote resources to actively looking for such aliens - for instance - how about a giant ' x ' in space ?
Too obvious ?
Apparently a giant x-shaped structure has been found at the centre of the universe, although for the life of me I can't see it in the photos.
black holes can kill us from a distance - more bad news for those who prefer to impose order on their worldview.
Luckily we are just a tad too far away...allegedly

The strange case of ' Tabbys Star' continues with new measurements from Keppler that seem to confirm that there is indeed unnatural stuff going on.
The excitement is almost palpable , and now that crowdfunding to buy telescope- time is complete, we should soon have further evidence .
Of course, it wouldn't be social media without someone raining on the parade, so it has been mooted that this possibly epic event happened 1500 years ago, and even if we arrived almost immediately, it's quite possible that the advanced race of beings are no more.
Ho-hum, but hey - let's not be defeatist, they could also be heading our way, bearing gifts and the secret of good wi-fi connections, that sort of thing.

Bio - luminescent technology is becoming quite the buzzword.
The idea that we can encode organisms to grow in any form and provide bacteria - based illumination is creeping out from the realms of sci-fi , and into reality.
I think hybrid bio - mechanical forms have the potential to greatly enhance our environment - as long as we resist the Gigeresque mutations...in the same vein (pun intended) , deep in a Siberian mine, they have discovered unique elements which are known as MOFs - metal organic frameworks.
These oddities are very rare, but bursting with potential.
Their appearance would seem to be partly due to thawing permafrost - so it's not all bad...don't forget though, about the recently awakened anthrax from the thawing permafrost - also, in Greenland, we learn that all sorts of debris from Cold War military base ' Camp Century' , and toxic waste from project ' Iceworm' will come to light soon, as relentless thawing ice reveals its secrets.
Oops...
 

Dolly the Sheep, the Great Red Spot, and the outbreak of Ancient Disease...

 Farewell to Philae, the ill fated lander . Philae was the first man - made explorer to land on a comet - still there, but inoperative to all intents and purposes.
The mothercraft, Rosetta is still taking and returning photos of the comet, and in September will crash-land on the surface , bringing an end to the mission - leaving us with a legacy of space debris orbiting the universe forever.
Quite a big deal, when you think of it like that.

Remaining with space, we find the alleged solving of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter - okay, it's a storm system as big as two Earths, but it also generates heat in the upper atmosphere, which may explain the temperature similarity to Earth, despite the greater distance from the Sun.
I imagine further revelations will be due very soon, now that Juno has entered orbit around the gas giant.
Did I mention the fact that Juno was the wife of Jupiter in ancient mythology , and that Galileo named its moons after the mistresses of Zeus ?

the only sheep honoured with a plaque...

In other news, the worlds first cloned sheep Dolly died at only 6.5 years old (half the average life expectancy for a sheep) , which created a new fear that clones were short lived .
Luckly though, clones were made of Dolly, and they are all aging normally.
I remember the huge issue surrounding the whole Dolly thing, the idea of 'meddling with nature '  so the news that there are more clones is not at all comforting.
It begs the question, what are they not telling us ?
But don't worry - only four of the tested thirteen clones were derived from Dolly .
So that's okay, then...
I mean if there are 13 cloned sheep (fourteen, counting Dolly), who knows how many cloned people there are ?
Perhaps we should scan photos of Trump rallies more closely.

The temptation is to write 'wake up, sheeple...'

The Siberian permafrost is thawing, global warming in action - the immediate result is an outbreak of anthrax, supposedly from old reindeer corpses .
That's pretty bad, but of course, what else awaits us, hiding in the distant past ?
The Black Death which decimated medieval Europe ?
TB, Polio and other nasties once thought eradicated ?
 It doesn't bear thinking about, so let's lighten the tone...

Hello to new life - yes, apparently even on this old piece of rock there are still surprises, with the recent discovery of new species - specifically beaked whales, which have recently been cropping up around Alaska - eight in total, none of which are previously known about; in the heady rush to colonise / occupy outer space, it seems that we still have vast unexplored swathes of this blue world.
Even our understanding of the world as it once was, is frequently called into question - most recently by the discovery of  minute air bubbles in grains of rock salt - the specimen grains being 815 million years old, it implies far higher oxygen levels in the Earths atmosphere than previously thought.
This in turn means there is a large gap between oxygen and complex lifeforms evolving.
So there would seem to be something else missing from the equation.
Like the time it took for aliens to arrive and give Earth 'the nod'.

ALIEN 1- "This'll do, but let's start with simple forms like aquatic amoebas, sponges and ultimately cephalopods and fish, then land-based murderous creatures."
ALIEN 2 - "Don't you mean humans ?"
ALIEN 1- "Same thing, different Modus Operandi "
- instantly we have intelligent aliens who understand Latin; or at least watched stray galactic transmissions of CSI.
Which brings us neatly to -
Apparently grammar could easily create a barrier to our ability to understand aliens.
Of course, the whole issue could be irrelevant given the continued lack of contact (wired magazine have just explained the Fermi Paradox again, for those who wonder)
I touched on this previously - damnit there I go again, without a decent referential database to mine for past subject matter.
I need a robot to list all my previous subjects on this blog.
Oh, wait, that will be me, then.
Doh

Robotic Stingrays, Vanishing Explorers and Virtual Hunters

This time around, we have a number of  truly strange developments , so we'll begin with something that is almost mundane - it appears that peas can gamble 

Reality trumps fiction as we move casually into the world of living / artificial hybrids, with news of a
robot stingray made from cells taken from a rat.
Making use of low energy propulsion , the robot stingray has odd implications for the future.
They could be used for  aquatic exploration , but also for the underwater exploration of other worlds.
Our solar system is teeming with possible subsurface oceans, so a swimming robotic explorer would be highly prized.
It really ought to have a seriously good camera , too.
Then of course, there is the problem of having nowhere to keep samples - perhaps a tiny backpack ?
which brings us conveniently to the new craze for ' Pokemon Go', an app that strangely enough, is drawing people together, in a bizarre new form of bonding over the hunt for cartoon characters in virtuality

Already, pleas have gone out that people should not play 'Pokemon Go' whilst driving ...
The downside is that this ' alternate reality ' intersects with our own in some potentially dangerous tangents.
Aside from the potential for death by road accident / drowning, it also gives the app massive control of the users online information, so compromised security is a hefty price to pay for your Pikachu...

The teensy Cozmo...          pic Anki

On a similar level, the tiny robot Cozmo is a cute and very capable package, a rover with the power of facial recognition and the ability to take remote control of your room lights and probably other stuff.
So insiduous AI exists, but in packages that may be overlooked as trivial .
Perfect disguise, really...

STOP PRESS !

News just in tells of an encounter between a robot security guard and child in a security mall, resulting in mild bruising for the human child.
Still, the robot uprising has to start somewhere, so why not in a shopping mall in the USA ?
It was good enough for George Romeros zombies...

Meanwhile, somewhere above Mars...

New theories emerge regarding the origins of Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos . I include the link here, but to condense the piece, it suggests that the pair of moons were created following a humungous impact on Mars , long long ago. 

Amidst the frenzy of excitement (well, as frenzied as scientists get) surrounding the potential for life in the subsurface oceans of Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede and Ceres, we have another contender.
 Saturns moon Titan, neglected and unloved, steps up to the plate with new revelations that life could exist there.
Yes, it's an inhospitable deep frozen rocky moon, but apparently the right chemicals are in place for freaky non-waterbased lifeforms.
The mind boggles.

The last thing seen by Hitomi, the ll-fated  Japanese black hole explorer came as a disappointment to me.

Hitomi - final view was the Perseus cluster     pic JAXA

It shows the Perseus cluster , some 249 million light years away, so yes, impressive - but from the wording of the report , it sounded a tad more ominous...perhaps just an image of giant eyeballs...

Meanwhile, further out...

340 light years away - so close, then in universal terms - a planet has been found that defies explanation , as it has three suns.
Take that, Tatooine !
Such a world would almost certainly attract lots of holiday agents - all that guaranteed sunshine !
Endless romantic sunsets !
Infact, it would probaby never get dark...