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...

Vanishing Satellites, Planetary Collisions and Nitrogen Lakes

News just in tells us that there has been a collision on Jupiter, probably involving a stray asteroid.
In a move that laughs in the face of improbability, it has been documented by not one, but two amateur astronomers - which conjures a strange image of dedicated, lonely skywatchers !
More to the point, it's bizarre that it should even be noticeable from Earth.
Let's look at the maths for a moment.
At it's closest point to Earth, Jupiter is approximately 628 million miles away.
The object which collided with the gas giant is estimated as a few hundred feet in diameter, so not exactly big.
Yet here is the footage.

Hitomi launch 17 Feb 2016            pic ©JAXA

It's great that amateur astronomers are on the case, because even professionals can mess up -  Japan have just lost their brand new orbiting telescope, barely weeks after launch.
In a blow to JAXA , the satellite named Hitomi, has broken up and is now beyond recovery.
It was designed to examine large and powerful events, such as supernovae and black holes, but the joint Japanese / NASA mission is no more.
It remains a mystery as to what exactly occured, but the 273 million dollar telescope is now so much space debris.
STOP PRESS: The satellite Hitomi has suddenly re-appeared, it has shed some debris, and is in a spin / freefall. 
Due to the uncertainty of this development, I'm not going to delete the previous article yet.
Awaiting further developments as of 30 March 2016.
Exciting !
Thank you !

The controversial (well, he is responsible for the downgrading of Pluto) , Mike Brown @plutokiller, has found another Kuiper belt object whose unusual movements corroborate his planet nine theory - note I said theory - his evidence has not yet been peer reviewed, so it's still early days - although he's probably getting lots of love from the Conspiracy / New Age Niburu contingent.
Cynical, me ?

Frozen nitrogen lake on Pluto       pic NASA/ JPL / Caltech

In other news, hawk - eyed photo scrutinisers (is there no actual name for this increasingly relevant pastime ?) have discovered a small ( 20 miles wide !) frozen lake on Pluto.
Don't book that sailing holiday just yet - it's a nitrogen lake, and without a sun to defrost the Nitrogen - on the other hand there appears to be warmth emanating from inside Pluto , hence the new geological areas, so, despite its position out on the edge of our solar system , Pluto is anything but cold and lifeless.
In a moment of serendipity, I learned today that -169°c is the temperature at which nitrogen liquifies, and nitrogen is the liquid in which proponents (clients?) of Cryonics are preserved.
How this impacts on the news from Pluto, I'm not sure, but there's probably a dystopian sci - fi in there, somewhere...

One place not to go kite flying (or probably even using light sails to harness photons as propulsion) , is the newly discovered supermassive black hole with winds of up to 200 million mph .
That's fast - infact, it's a significant percentage of the speed of light - imagine the ability to 'slingshot' a spacecraft , using the thrust to boost travel speed...

Just to boost those feelings of cosmic insignificance, our Milky Way galaxy ( of which we are a dot on the outer edge) , is part of the Laniakea Supercluster of 100,000 galaxies.

And on that note of cosmic insignificance, I say, cheerio - till next time !