Skycranes Above Mars, Lunar Lava Tubes, Symbiotic Stars and Junocam

Sky-crane being assembled for next Mars mission     NASA/ JPL

After a slight delay, the next Mars mission, InSight, is due to be launched in May 2018.
Its landing will be via 'skycrane', the alternative to impractical and outdated airbags.
The last use of a skycrane was the tense, fraught landing of Curiosity on Mars. At the time it was a  new thing, and given the many previous unsuccessful landings, it was a long shot.
I found myself rooting for the thing to land safely, having heard of the incredible new method - mainly because faulty airbags had been blamed for previous failed landings, including Beagle2, which had that great eccentricity about it - I always root for the underdog, after all.
Fortunately, eleven years after its landing, Beagle2 was spotted on Mars, (and the airbags were not at fault - the solar panels failed to open properly).
So near, yet so far.
For me, the greatest tragedy here was that the inventor of Beagle2,
Professor Colin Pillinger , died in 2014, the year before the rediscovery of his lost lander..

A self tapping probe will plant itself beneath Mars    NASA/JPL/Caltech

I am looking forward to the launch of InSight , which is scheduled for May 2018.
For those who wonder, Insight will be a stationary lander, tasked with drilling beneath the surface, seeking knowledge on the internal geology of Mars .


On the subject of 'beneath the surface' there has been a lot of noise surrounding the recent discovery of lava tubes on the moon, one of which is estimated to be large enough to sustain a city.

Lunar lava tube large enough to contain Philadelphia...                  pic by D. Blair

The illustration uses Philadelphia as an example, but there is clearly enough room for at least one more city, possibly two.
I think there should be an artificial sun powered by nuclear fusion, suspended in the centre

Which gets me wondering-is the whole world contained in a giant lava tube?

In a distant constellation, a pair of stars are permanently entwined in a symbiotic relationship, R Aquarii is an unusual combination of white dwarf and red giant stars.
First recognised a thousand years ago (with the naked eye, apparently).
They have been most recently imaged by Hubble, trapped in their orbiting cycle of 44 years, with the red giant sun being stripped of energy by the hungry white dwarf.
I was going to wax lyrical about a cosmic waltz, but instead, here's the Hubble image , which has been processed by citizen astronomer Judy Schmidt 

                                                        credit: Hubble/Judy Schmidt

Anyone who wishes to try their hand at processing images, here is a link to Juno cam, which has a slew of raw, Jovian imagery for processing !

Tunnels on the Moon, Martian Landscapes, and the Storms of Jupiter

Investigations have revealed a network of tubes beneath the lunar surface , and arguments abound on whether to explore / inhabit them.
Personally, I think that moment has gone, as all eyes appear to be on Mars...speaking of which -

The diligent Mars explorer Curiosity still rumbles on, but is now showing signs of significant wear and tear on one of its wheels.
Fortunately we can view Mars from afar - this incredible animation was painstakingly pieced together from  available images.
Images from Hubble bring us two distant, interwoven galaxies
Juno is on its fifth Jovian flyby , with some  stunning results

Image from Juno , details here

Recent images from ESA show the many changes on comet 67P, indicating an active geology, surprising for a lump of icy rock in space..
I'm constantly impressed by the quality of images from space, and it's about to get better-
Nasa are working on a system of  ' broadband' for information packets from space.

 ESA have shared this , for those who might want to imagine themselves in the area of a black hole...




A Rant About The New Religion of Atheism

This week, I found myself debating atheism on social media, and being surprised at the arrogance on display -let's not forget that, when connected to the 'Big Bang' , atheism is nothing more than a faith - based belief system - i.e. you have faith that one day, someone will prove the theory.
I'm not impressed by the current wave of 'populism' , short on thinking and long on memes and soundbites, which allows people to parade half - truths as fact.
Ultimately, it harms the very mindset that claims to be advancing the 'clear light' of science,
and it smacks of  'the one true path ', a form of delusion which is normally found in religious zealots.
Science is meant to be a questing thing, a continual search for fact - based evidence, not an endgame.
For instance - has anyone actually managed to replicate a black hole under laboratory conditions ?
No ?
Their existence, then, is a matter of belief / faith...
The whole point of my rant (and thank you for bearing with me), is that quantum  mechanics looms larger by the day, bringing with it a whole new realm of chaos to upset science - from the very notion of 'entanglement' , which Einstein called ' spooky action at a distance', to a  theory that there was no big bang and the universe is eternal.
Regardless of its validity (further debate / testing needed) , it's a new idea, born of quantum science, not an extrapolation of extant physics.

'...nothing is written in stone.'                     pic:    Charlton Heston as Moses

I think the fractious, defensive noise we hear from some corners is insecurity - after all , there are people who have dedicated their lives to proving theories like the big bang.

Those who are genuinely curious either way, await the revelations from the James Webb telescope, which should be able to see as far back in space/time as the afterglow of the alleged Big Bang.
The telescope will be launched into orbit in October 2018.
At least until then, nothing is written in stone.
Including the Ten Commandments and the Big Bang Theory.*


G

* In this universe, it is equally true that The Big Bang Theory is a comedy show about a group of geeks , and The Ten Commandments  is a film by Cecil B DeMille.

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 ?

Flying Cars, Superfast Trains, Venusian Waves and the Squirrel Problem...

A familiar element in sci-fi , the flying car is fast becoming a reality.
Tom Enders, the CEO of Airbus, plans to have a working prototype by the end of this year, and Uber are also investing in VTOL technology.
Stealing a march on driverless cars from Google, the Airbus cars will be fully automated-
but they will not time - travel.

Airbus' flying car will not time-travel

Miracle material graphene has exhibited superconductivity in its natural state.
As well as being a unique one - atom thick material which is two dimensional , super-flexible, tougher than diamond and harder than steel it also has unrivalled superconductivity.
Previously, superconductivity only happened at very low temperatures, an expensive process.
Offering superconductivity at normal temperature could make serious improvements to the cost and efficiency of  devices such as maglev trains and MRI scanners.
The current fastest maglev train recorded was 500 kmh in  Japan - but the potential increase in speed could reach over a 1000 kmh...suddenly commuting from London to Tokyo might be feasible.
Since its discovery in 2004, graphene has rightly gained a reputation as a miracle material -
as well as its potential for use in lightweight airplanes and foldable cellphones, graphene has even been used in the fashion world

Currently in orbit, we have 18 Galileo satellites, which are tasked with the creation of a global search and rescue GPS .
Each of the satellites has four clocks to help with balance and positioning.
It seems that four of the eighteen clocks have malfunctioned, and are currently being assessed / repaired...
There are estimated some 2271 satellites in orbit around the planet  (officially), which makes for a lot of space junk 
Fortunately the loss of four clocks is nothing more than an inconvenience , but it has been alleged that the biggest threat to our planets infrastructure comes not from asteroids, space debris , hackers or terrorists, but squirrels; they top a list which includes rats, raccoons and snakes.
In a previous post, I detailed the havoc caused at the LHC by a Marten (link here)
Speaking of archives, the legendary Brian Eno, he of the ambient and oblique strategies,  kindly posted an archive of the old Omni mag , and I include a link here for those who wish to explore and marvel at that cutting edge science trends mag...

images of venus with bow - shaped anomaly       JAXA  / Taguchi

Meanwhile, on the blistering hell that is Venus, an immense wave has been seen stretching North to South.
This atmospheric anomaly is 10,000 km long , and appears to be caused by the ferocious winds which have slammed into a tall mountain range.
Despite being buffeted by the 250mph winds, the mysterious wave remains almost motionless (as can be seen in the above gif)
Theories abound, but there is no guaranteed explanation for this anomaly.

Seeing Venus through the clouds of sulphuric acid is tricky, so radar has been used to help map the surface detail.

Finally, on Mars , Curiosity has found a new meteorite for examination , and further possible evidence of water on Mars.

Postscript - it has been pointed out to me that the current weirdness of the world is connected to the upgrade and switching on of the Large Hadron Collider - perhaps they did create an alternate dimension...hmmm

Until next time !

Space is The Place...or at least, it's the Transit Lounge

NASA have announced that Mars once had an atmosphere (it still does, but a mere shadow of its former self) when oceans, pools of rippling water and lush landscapes of alien vegetation were (possibly) the norm.
In this post - 'Matt Damon stranded on Mars' movie world, we seem  to be gearing up for the next phase - colonise Mars !

Mars pic NASA / Caltech / jpl

This is perhaps driven by the 1% who are keen to start anew, with a fresh, toxin - free world, where land rights, religion and sovereignty are not yet a problem.
It's certainly driven by the stark awareness of the declining stocks of fossil fuels.
Renewable energies could be embraced, but with the likes of Stephen Hawking advocating the colonisation of space, it seems inevitable.

We still have  the eternal struggle vis -a- vis Climate Change / Global Warming / whatever it's named now, but that seems almost irrelevant.
There's a sense of excitement in the air - and perhaps an understanding of why survival of the fittest is once again on the agenda.
After all we can't all go.
Altruism aside, would we have a televised battle for seats on the putative Mars Colonial Flyer ?

And what human traits would we export to that pristine world?
The law of the gun ?
Might is right ?

I digress - one conjectural step at a time - anyway, NASA are still plugging away at the question of exactly what happened to strip Mars of its presumably once rich atmosphere. This has been greatly helped by the sterling work of MAVEN which has captured a lot of information following a series of deep swoops through the remaining atmosphere.
The action of the sun and the lack of a global magnetic shield would appear to be the main culprits, so obviously we are projecting our own fears and trying to determine exactly what could cause such a dramatic change of fortunes.
Did Mars have a dinosaur -wipeout- style comet?
If so, where were the dinosaurs, anyway?

That's about the level of my personal interest.
We have evidence of fairly violent tectonic upheavals which would seem ideal for revealing fossils, yet no apparent traces.
That said, a sense of perspective is required.
After all , not all rock is fossiliferous.
In the U.K., if you examined the rock of Edgbaston you'd find nothing.
And was there ever intelligent life in Slough?
Curiosity has been roaming and examining Mars since 2012, but even so, it has only covered a tiny area of land.
Approximately six miles all told,
In the bigger scheme of things, that's like landing on an airport runway, examining a flat area of tarmac, and deciding that the whole world looks lke that.

Then, of course, there may never have been a developed world of abundant life at all...yet, given the previous existence of bodies of fresh and saline water, you'd think so.
Let's not forget that Curiosity is not technically rigged to discover evidence of life, even in the past tense, so perhaps we just don't have the right explorer there yet .


Meanwhile - the alleged alien megastructure may be no more than wishful thinking.
Having recently pointed the Allen Telescope Array towards solar system KIC 8462852, no radio transmissions have been found on the obvious wavelengths , to which I say, perhaps they are transmitting on the same frequency as everything else? After all, if it's good enough for our wi-fi, fridge, microwave, washing machine...

For true enthusiasts there is a more detailed pic available from ThinkGeek

...of course, the lack of almost instant response does not mean anything, really: after all , KIC 8462852 is 1500 light years away, which would create a considerable delay - to transmit and receive a reply would be at least three thousand years - that's if they reply immediately.
Then they might not even use radio. Or even exist.
Researching the whole radio signal angle, I found a wealth of material that pointed to the absurdity of any succesful 'contact' via that medium.
So much so, that I wondered whether SETI was just a pacifier.

Spaceship Graveyard

What happens to robot explorers when they die ?

There is no fabled final resting place like the elephants graveyard yet.

Curiosity landing site on Mars. 

Following the Pluto flypast which gave us a plethora of new information (still being assessed / downloaded),

New Horizons is now heading for the Kuiper belt, and with further funding,  possible analysis of another object - before it powers down , leaving us with a hunk of junk drifting in space, billions of miles away.

I personally hope that it continues for many years, but the truth is that we're lucky New Horizons didn't get struck already by space debris - and given the prevalence of random stuff in the Kuiper Belt, the odds are stacked against it.

Image taken from here:

Powered by Plutonium (ho-ho, almost funny), New Horizons is currently set to rendezvous either PT1 or PT3, (PT2 was eliminated).
The difference is that PT1 is smaller, but closer, therefore requiring less fuel, whereas PT3 is bigger but further away.
If the latter is chosen then the flyby is scheduled for 2019, at which point the fuel onboard should expire, and New Horizons will be freefloating.

Sadly for New Horizons, unlike the explorer Cassini, it will not be given a final blast of glory .

Cassini is currently tasked with photographing the moons of Saturn.

Cassini , should it last , will be repeatedly thrust through Saturns rings before plummeting down into its atmosphere at an incredible speed.,
A fiery send off in a blaze of glory, then.

Philae, the much beleagured lander on comet 67P may similarly go out in a blaze as the comet reaches its perihelion with our sun in August, erupting in a halo of ice and flame.

But New Horizons will just become smaller and smaller on the cosmic horizon, until, like Voyagers 1 and 2 before it, it's gone.

At this point, I should say that it qualifies as the first ever craft to approach Pluto system on a flypast, and its discoveries have been unrivalled.


And oh yes, I almost forgot - oops

There's also Curiosity, the Mars lander.
.
Still trundling around the hostile dust-bowl of the Martian surface, dutifully identifying different geological phenomena.

No spectacular ice flows or suchlike for Curiosity, no.

Just strata of quartz and such.

Curiositys progress.

Perhaps Curiosity is harbouring a robot dream of becoming a museum piece, when Mars is colonised.
And people will come to visit,
With their bored children in tow.

 There it will be, Curiosity, shiny and proud, if a little battered and worn.

Part of an exhibit showing the earliest unmanned pioneers of Mars.

Alongside Spirit, Opportunity, Sojourner and the wreckage of Beagle 2.

 Mars Rovers to scale...image from ExtremeTech.com

In fairness, quite a lot of wreckage, as Mars proved almost unassailable for many years.

But I digress.

Beneath that terraformed dome with its buzzing lights and hushed crowd,

I wonder whether anyone will wonder how things are,

back on Earth.

Earth from Mars.

Killer Robots

 I wanted to refer to a particular robot as an android the other day, but I didn't - because of potential confusion in the reader with a slew of mobile phone technology, as the word is now synonomous with open o.s. on cellphones which are not made by a certain company.
Android is often used in place of 'robot'.
The word 'robot' was first used in the play R.U.R. in 1921 by Czech writer Karel Capek.

Robot rebellion in a production of Rossums Universal Robots

The three laws of robotics were created in 1942 by sci-fi author Isaac Asimov, and
they basically laid a foundation for peaceful interaction between robots and humans,
but now we have phrases which are almost duplicitous, and don't tell us the reality : for instance a new phrase is Lethal Autonomous Weapons System , referring to robot soldiers in battle.

For a second I thought I was living in a blockbuster Hollywood sci - fi , in which the phrase "I'll be back" assumes global significance.
But it's real.
Killer robots are real. 

Well, real enough to lead to a series of ongoing ethical debates and even a campaign.
The debate hinges on whether robots should ignore the 'prime directive' and be allowed to kill humans at all.
The question is a deeply moral one,  affecting the issue of free will / artificial intelligence.
Let me take a step back :

We are actually debating whether we should allow robots which we have created, to kill us.

One of the most frightening questions posed in a multitude of  fictions is suddenly real.
The only good thing is - hey, it's a first world problem- no battlefield here !
Phew, huh ?

We've all heard of and gotten used to the idea of drones being used in battle zones as delivery systems for death.
You could almost say that we're blasé about them.
Drones allegedly first came into use during the war in the Balkans, but have since been used in Iraq, Afghanistan, and to a lesser degree, Pakistan.
They're always somewhere over there, far away.
Which makes it somehow removed;
abstract even
But no less true:
Battles are being waged quietly
and death is being delivered
By silent little drones with lethal cargos.

                                 

Image of Mars (blue areas are sand dunes apparently)

The flipside of that coin is the image I saw the other day (included here), which resonated deeply in a similar but good way - the photo taken by the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter of  the rover 'Curiosity' on  the lower slopes of Mount Sharp.

Slightly enlarged view- the blob in the square is Curiosity

Whilst not a stunning image, it is immensely powerful - a photograph taken by a  man - made satellite of a man-made robotic explorer , examining a planet where no human has ever set foot.

That blew my tiny mind.
The future is now.
It's truly amazing what we can achieve.
Let's just ease off on the death thing, right ?





p.s. photos used are property of ESA and the RUR photo, unsure of provenance. Educational purposes...