Robotic Eels, Citizen Satellites, Sky Cranes and The Frozen Lakes Of Mars

Develop and fly your own cube satellite with help from ESA !
Okay, it's not open to individuals , but university groups with a good design , deadline is March 5th, 2017.
Hurrah for ESA !
Citizen Satellites can't be far away...maybe let's practice with drones first.
For the very ambitious, there is the competition to reach the moon and be first to return selfies.
Twenty million dollars for the winner !
The final contestants will begin launching this year !

Whilst I'm impressed that they have developed a chip that can survive the hellish temperatures of the surface of Venus, I can't help wondering why they are so focused on replicating a Curiosity-type rover - surely at such high temperatures a different style is called for
Why not have a hovering rover with extendable probe for surface samples.?
Or a completely separate autonomous drilling  unit ?
Would a drone be feasible , controlled by a remote signal from a satellite in the upper atmosphere ?

This is the problem with astro-physics - for all the compliments paid to the film Interstellar for its realistic depiction of a wormhole, has anyone actually been through one ?
Can a black hole be replicated under lab conditions ?
No, so everything is conjecture.
By the same token we are in danger of imposing limits on our own potential
There is the saying, that 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'; which is fine to an extent, but no-one ever pushed the envelope by staying in their comfort zone.
On re-reading this paragraph, I think it is unclear - what I'm trying to say is, let's get wild with spacecraft designs.
I don't want to lapse into business speak with ' blue- sky- thinking -outside- of -the-box', but here's an example of a box to think outside of...

Europa lander...   artist impression      NASA / JPL-Caltech

I'm not saying that landers should be aesthetically pleasing
And I understand that huge doses of radiation from Jupiter is a very real threat, so a shielded box is a smart thing,but...
But there's something - dull about it.
It's retro, but not in a good way.
Even the pareidolia of the robot 'head' looks naff.

STOP PRESS
Further reading tells me that the pictured lander is just an early prototype
It would drill beneath the surface , but only a few inches, as opposed to the miles of drilling needed to reach the ocean,
I stand corrected.
Further details
I'm still not convinced by the drilling theory - I hope further exploration might reveal a hidden shortcut, perhaps a deep gully / ravine, or better still, a system of caves.
My conjecture.

I remember reading of submarine probes based on the fact that any life on Europa is likely to be beneath the waters - even the recently developed robot - eels look appropriately ...alien.
I understand the practical necessity to assess land-based minerals for their extraction value, but are we not limiting our potential in exploration terms ?
Send in a couple of the very cool robotic eels.

There is an issue, of course - given the current attention paid to avoid contaminating potential water sources on Mars , why would we send technology into an alien ocean ?
Is it not running the risk of breaching the Outer Space Treaty ?

Mars continues to confuse.
Curiosity has ample evidence of lake beds which once were filled with fresh water , yet the lack of traceable co2 in the atmosphere suggests the water was always frozen, and never achieved a liquid state . Bizarre...


If you saw the film Gravity, then this picture probably resonates .
It's a photo from the first 'untethered'. spacewalk , showing Bruce McCandless
Not so futuristic after all - this picture is from 1984
Don't panic , he got back safely - phew !

Don't look down

The Dunes of Mars, Bennu, Blazars and Cats in Boxes

It's official - being in space can alter your DNA !
Expect returning astronauts to resemble giant rubber - suited monstrosities of yore
Actually, nothing so dramatic, but there is evidence of unexpected alterations .
This could have major implications for long, manned journeys - to Mars, for instance.
Speaking of which, a recent image shows the dunes in the northern hemisphere of Mars - fun facts; whilst perusing the photos, I became aware that there are different kinds of dune - I am guilty of thinking how one pile of sand was pretty much like another.

Mars - Pahrump Hills - Curiosity                  pic NASA /JPL-Caltech

The image below had me confused for some time, and shows the problem of pictures without objects of reference for scale ; to be fair, Mars is rather short of monuments and landmarks to judge scale by - I thought that this was just a close up of a dry riverbed with cracked mud...but apparently some of the thin ridged areas are 16 storeys high.

Mars image by HI RISE        NASA/ Caltech / University of Arizona

A new test for biosignatures has been developed, which is 10,000 times more sensitive than those onboard Curiosity.
The article which mentions this discovery also name-checks Europa as a suitable target for testing, In preparation of which, this piece describes a proposed lander for Europa .
Personally, I'm disappointed that it looks so - underwhelming.

The tiny blue smudge in the centre is our solar system...

The illustration above shows our solar system compared to the largest black hole yet found.

Don't fret, it's not actually swallowing us - it is 12.1 billion light years away , thankfully.
Of course, given its immense size and the voracious appetite of black holes, it may well munch its way here, like a giant Pacman*...
This supermassive black hole is part of an immense quasar - if it were 280 light years away from us, it would give us heat equivalent to the sun.
I am now feeling small and insignificant , still banjaxed by all the big numbers involved , so in order to preserve my sanity, I will extricate myself from the event horizon of this monstrosity (diameter of 236.7 billion kilometres)

In a previous post , I mentioned the exciting project which would use lightsails powered by sunlight to achieve incredible speeds reaching 20% the speed of light, and enabling exploration of Alpha Centauri within a mere 20 years.
The caveat to that was the lack of a braking system - obviously a craft travelling at 60,000 km/s without brakes could have a problem with landing...
It turns out they have worked out a way to slow the craft down - although this will also affect the overall speed, bringing it down to a 95 years journey rather than a mere 20 years, so it becomes a generational thing.
Which means if you're travelling with Virgin Galactic , don't get a return.
Unless they solve longevity, too.
Which maybe connected to this earlier piece.
Longer telemeres, longer life ?

More immediate space exploration is the Bennu mission which aims to return sample material from an asteroid to Earth, with contact planned for 2018.
The Bennu-Rex explorer is also tasked with discovering whether Earth has any 'trojan' asteroids following its orbit.
This could unlock details of our distant past , as potential asteroids would likely be composed of material dating from Earths creation.
This little ' side-mission' is happening now ( Feb 2017)

If, like me, you've been struggling to understand quantum mechanics, there is now  a Ladybird guide to the strange , but inevitable realm.
Before you ask, the answer is no - I still don't understand it .
Cats in boxes ?
Yes - and no.
At the same time.
That's quantum .

Until next time, keep it ...erm...in a state of flux.



* Showing my age here, is Pacman still a thing ?