Gateway To Hell, Giant Meteorite, Vacuum Decay, Bring Back Pluto !

Scattered across the ancient Mediterranean were alleged gateways to hell, according to Roman fables.  One such gateway remains at Hierapolis  in Turkey - Hooray ! We can throw the evil-doers (mostly high-ranking government officials) into the fiery pit from whence they came..but wait - it appears that toxic gas was responsible for the fate of sacrifices....

Ploutonion, named after the god Pluto...

Speaking of Pluto, New Horizons recently made a course correction, putting it on target for its rendezvous with Kuiper Belt object MU69 - 'Ultima Thule',  on Jan 1, 2019

Voyager 2 is nearing the beginning of interstellar space, following Voyager 1 , which left our solar system 6 years ago, and is now the farthest spacecraft from Earth, at 13 billion miles distant.

enamel pin available    Pin Alchemy @GreggB4

In the never - ending search for the elusive planet X , they have discovered an extremely distant object...personally, I just want Pluto re-instated as a planet. It's a lot closer - and we've 'been' there...just because it has an elliptical orbit is no reason to expel it from our solar system ! 

Bring Pluto Back Into The Fold...

A news report asks whether the JWST could spot alien life - the answer is possibly, but first they have to actually get the damn thing into space. Currently looking at a 2021 launch, it is running 14 years behind schedule - at this rate, you'd have a better chance taking pictures from the porthole of a Space X cruiser...

Speaking of the JWST, it appears that its predecessor is hobbling through space with stabiliser problems- down to one gyro from four...fingers crossed for the Hubble telescope, our 'eye-in-the-sky' since 1990

click here for more                 NASA/JPL/ University of Arizona

In other news we may have evidence of the first exomoon , which is great, but the current fad for deducing where something is by defining where it's NOT strikes me as possibly counter - productive*...discuss

A giant meteorite used as a doorstop in a rural farmhouse ? Sounds like the start of a science fiction...

Speaking of quantum computers, which we were not, or perhaps we were - here is a good / straight forward guide to that world of bizarreness

Another way to feel small and insignificant is to read this report on hypervelocity stars racing through our milky way...and the icing on the cake has to be this apocalyptic theory of vacuum decay ...honestly, what's the point ?

In a parting wave of cheerful news, the Ukraine has just announced plans to build a solar energy station...in Chernobyl.
If I were being crass, I'd say that every cloud has a silver lining.

Cheery Bye !


G

* I parallel this with our Anti-Social 'social' media culture, where a person is judged for what they didn't do- Person:  You didn't 'like' that anti-government joke
                 Me      :   I worry about 'humanising' the monsters.
                 Person:    So you're a nazi sympathiser, then ?
                 Me      :    WTF

Rendezvous with Ultima Thule, Rogue Satellites, Underwater Explorers, And Sabotage In Space

SUBSEA:  Nautilus explorer                image : NASA

NASA are using an underwater robot to examine signs of life around a volcanic vent off the coast of Hawaii . Known as the SUBSEA project, it is a test for similar probing on Enceladus , one of the most likely places to harbour* life beyond Earth. It's exciting stuff, much more ' hands on' than previous NASA proposal ' ELF', which rather delicately proposes to search for amino acids and methane traces in the plumes of water at the Souh pole of Enceladus. The heat is on, though, with  billionaire Yuri Milner proposing a commercial explorer to launch much sooner - after all, the prize for first place may be a place in the history books, for the discovery of life on other worlds...

The hole in the Soyuz ferry- ship MS 09

The world of space is normally free of espionage (except in film and scienti - fictions),but recent news  has set conspiracy theorists into overdrive - there is a tiny hole in the hull of the Soyuz capsule docked at the I.S.S.  Is it sabotage by a political enemy? Damage from a micro-meteorite ? A warning shot fired by an invading force of microscopic aliens ? My personal feelings are that there is a very embarrased maintenance person somewhere, (who realises that using chewing gum to cover the hole might have been the better option) , but I'm just glad that we don't have a trigger - happy 'space - force' up there...ahem.

Speaking of objects orbiting the Earth, the Aeolus satellite is now in place, and has begun taking critical readings to increase our accuracy when reporting stormy weather - to do this, the satellite fires an ultraviolet laser beam earthwards ( full details in the link ) . Currently, the satellite is in ' test' mode, so no advance warnings or news on the current barrage of typhoons / hurricanes, sadly.

Typhoon Mangkhut                                       image ©2018 EUMETSAT

Meanwhile, there is allegedly a rogue satellite conducting odd manoeuvres overhead, causing concern to both France and the USA . Perhaps we are heading for an active ' ...space situational awareness', to use the new gobbledy-gook.

Further out in space...(the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, to be precise),
the Dawn explorer is now swooping down to give us closer images (24 miles high instead of 240) of
the intriguing dwarf planet Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt.

Much closer shot of the salts around Occator on CERES                      image NASA/ JPL/Caltech/MPS/DLR/IDA

Speaking of objects floating in space, the Japanese craft Hayabusa 2 is preparing to release its 'hopping rovers' for touchdown on asteroid Ryugu on the 21st September 2018
Also, the first image of ' Ultima Thule '  has been taken by New Horizons in advance of its New Years Day flypast 2019 . Formerly known as MU69, the kuiper belt object was renamed in a public vote , although the highest ranked suggestion was 'mjolnir' ** - Thor's hammer.

Thors hammer won the public vote, but Tiramisu ranked highly, too

The decay of the Higgs Boson particle into 'bottom quarks' has been observed which confirms the model of  standard physics, and leads us closer to the elusive world of quantum physics. Just reading the article has given me a headache, but I'm sure it is perfectly rational to someone ...similarly, the news that entanglement of 18 qbits has been achieved, which strikes me as a very important development, but my pea-brain closes down when expressions like 'Hilbert Space' are used. If you are at all interested in the idea of the quantum multi-verse, then you may like this piece on how the brain allegedly visualises in 11 dimensions...



Thanks For Reading My Waffle !

G

* See what I did there ? Feeble, I know, but times are hard
** Sorry, my keypad won't let me add the umlaut Alt 0246

Sunscreen Rains , The Cameras of Mars, Rogue Worlds And Tiny Suns

I love seeing the sand dunes of Mars, frequently pictured by the MRO.

Beautiful 'linear gullies' on Mars      MRO/NASA/JPL

They  have found a giant planet orbiting a tiny sun , 600 light years away, in the obscure constellation of Columba.
What makes it notable is the bizarre scale (a planet the size of Jupiter orbiting a dwarf star so closely that its year only lasts two days)
Technically, the giant world should not exist at all, especially in such close proximity.
I favour the idea that it is a rogue world, somehow captured by the dwarf sun.
Without an observatory in my vicinity, it's guesswork, but there appear to be a few 'rogue' stars in the constellation.

The Hubble telescope just spotted an exoplanet where it rains sunscreen. At 5000 degrees farenheit, the titanium-oxide rain would hardly be protective...

There is a good deal of excitement at the latest object (A/2017 U1) spotted in our universe -mainly because it appears to have come from another solar system

Indications are that the object is red , similar to Kuiper Belt Object MU69
In which case, is mu69 from another sun , too ?
I find it oddly comforting to know that people are determined to identify and archive these things
 ( thanks to Pedro Lacerda for that link I stumbled across )
The other side of this coin is that we didn't see the asteroid coming, so there is no planned 'sortie' , Bennu style, to gather information about its composition / origins.
Researching this piece led me to this thread from Reddit, which re-affirms my faith in humanity as a curious, knowledge - hungry species...

Red asteroids don't exist- at least, in our solar system- so this points towards A/2017 U1 being an icy, KBO-like object. Why, then, didn't it develop a cometary tail as it passed by the sun? It's honestly confusing. Perhaps the billions? of years it flew through interstellar space drove away all its volatiles?

Clearly there's a lot about the surface composition of interstellar asteroids that we don't know!

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[–]FaceDeer 9 points 10 hours ago 

I'm very happy to have made it to a portion of history where investigating the composition of interstellar asteroids is a thing.

I also learned about the designation which changed from C2017 U1 to A2017 U1 - from a comet to an asteroid, as it did not exhibit a 'tail', outgassing as it passed the sun.
Apparently this unique little red rock will never pass this way again, it came in from the direction of the constellation Lyra, and was heading out towards the Kuiper Belt .

Rearview from Curiosity    NASA/JPL

23 Cameras for the next Mars Mission

In keeping with our current trend for pictures everywhere, the next Mars rover will have 23 cameras - including 3D .
Opportunity rover has a pair of B/W cameras mounted in front to produce stereo images , and another two mounted on the rear of the rover, presumably to monitor bad drivers behind.
The Curiosity rover has 17 cameras. This means that , including the MRO  and Opportunity, there are already 24 cameras on Mars - with another 23 enroute, it won't be long before we have pictures of rovers photographing rovers taking pictures of Mars...

Speaking of rovers armed with cameras,  way back in 1971, the Apollo 17 mission rover had only two cameras and even a compartment for spare film magazines- bulky payloads in the days before Micro sd cards  (although, at least they didn't get so easily lost).
Spare a thought, though, for the nightmare of moon dust in the lens...

Apollo17 Lunar Buggy with ominous ' Secondary life support system'

Please excuse the format problems, I plead ignorance of cut 'n' paste procedure.


G

Countdown For Cassini, Plumes on Enceladus, And The Pale Blue Dot

The Countdown for Cassini nears its end - only a few days now to its 'Grand Finale' , following an epic twenty years of exploration in the Saturnian system, and some truly amazing finds-
as well as releasing the furthest ever man- made probe to land on another world (when Huygens landed on Titan), Cassini has also relayed a treasure trove of new knowledge about the mysterious gas giant and its moons - eye opening stuff, like the amazing plumes of water on Enceladus - tantalising and interesting enough to have sparked further exploration
The proposed Enceladus Life Finder- ELF mission is a possible contender in 2020 - the other being LIFE, which is intended to bring samples back to Earth - but we all know how that plays out......

Cassini dived through the water plumes on Enceladus in 2015

Not to be out done (by themselves), NASA simultaneously released the news that the Hubble telescope had seen water plumes on Jupiters moon Europa.
The legacy of Cassini will be covered in its final moments, more thoroughly than I can, so I will restrain myself from further outpourings - but I am proud and humbled to see such wonders in the heavens - proof of what can be achieved when humanity sets aside the petty politics and squabbles that consume so much energy.
The final 'swan-song' dive will furnish us with further science, and for that, I am grateful.

It's forty years for the two Voyager craft in space, and with Voyager1 now travellimg outside our solar system (40,000 yrs until the next star) , it's up to New Horizons to clinch the next rendezvous as it fast approaches the mysterious object MU69 - ok, so fast is relative with MU69 penciled in for a flyby in 2019, but in space terms, that's soon.
It also promises to be the closest flypast yet.

The journey of the Voyagers has blazed a trail, forcing us to upgrade our listening capabilities as they get further away, and let's not forget that the Voyager craft also produced the first images of planets in our solar system that were more than fuzzy blobs - and also the famous image of Earth known as the 'pale blue dot', taken by Voyager One in 1990:

'The Pale Blue Dot' -    Feb 14 1990  NASA/JPL

Clockwork Rovers, Missing Chunks, And The Pending Eclipse

To address the problem of electronics frying in the heat of the Venusian surface, JPL have created an entirely clockwork rover.
This instantly conjures images of a 'Steam-punk' contraption exploring a distant world.
Sadly, the actual design is purely functional, looking like a table with treads, and without the extra gears and embellishments associated with Steampunk (although another prototype appears to have 'spider-legs').
Still, the principle is there, and operating in temperatures of almost 500 degrees c, the risk of warped and damaged parts would be too great...

'Table on Treads' Venus rover mock-up      ©JPL

Since 1994, Venus has been neglected in favour of the exploration of Mars and the outer worlds of our solar system.
Even so, NASA have earmarked money for a mission which may be a joint effort with Russia, whose Venera13 was the last mission to send full colour images from the surface of Venus.
As Venus is close in size and mass to Earth, it may give us valuable information about climate and other mysteries ; one of which is why does it have such a thick atmosphere ?
The thick, hazy atmosphere is partly the reason for a probe being necessary - but it's also the reason for the surface being hotter than Mercury .
As we found with Magellan, it's impossible to clearly see the surface of Venus from above.
On the other hand, if it all looks like this, then we're not missing much...

Venus viewed by Venera 13 . Homely place...      

In Other News...

Let's just take a moment to remember that the plucky New Horizons probe is out there, travelling at over 30,000 mph towards a rendezvous with Kuiper Belt Object MU69.
The latest news tells us that MU69 may be multiple objects, or, rather oddly, just one with a chunk bitten out of it.
I'm conflating and exaggerating, of course, but how else do I make this update interesting ?

Meanwhile, back on Earth...

You may notice that I have barely mentioned the pending Stateside eclipse - not intentionally, although I am a little jealous - the last full eclipse I saw was in London long ago, in 1999...I'd like to say that I 'partied like it was 1999', but ironically, I was working underground at the time, and had to come to the surface just to watch the sky darken...

Eclipse 1999                           picture by Jurgens Mandeldorf

I'm pretty sure that this once in a lifetime total eclipse is well documented elsewhere, I'm sure there will be attempts to follow the progress coast -to -coast, but at only two minutes in each area, that would be a fast road trip !

Red Planet, Red Dragon And The Red KBO

Since the Pluto flypast on July 14 2015, New Horizons has been hurtling through space at approximately 32,000 mph, heading for its next rendezvous - Kuiper Belt Object MU69.
The report I linked is a tad speculative, as recent attempts to observe the object drew a blank - it remains uncertain whether it is a single object, or a cluster of smaller space rocks - all that is known for sure is that it is red.
Although which particular shade remains uncertain...

Artist impression               ©NASA/JHUAPL/SwRi

Regardless, New Horizons powers onward through the bleak vastness of space, aiming for a rendezvous on New Years day 2019
I must set my alarm...
Seriously though, I'm still trying to get my head around the sheer distance being covered.
That's another year and a half at 32,000mph.
Travelling 24 / 7
Without even a pitstop.
Damn

Speaking of things that move quickly...
Elon Musk may or may not have permission to build a hyperloop between Washington D.C. and New York.
Transporting people at 700 mph  would certainly ease the pressure of road traffic and the carbon footprint of flights...
staying with the innovative Elon Musk, his Dragon outfit are reworking their Mars landers.
This was reported widely as a complete withdrawal from commercial landings, but apparently it's just a re-design...

Meanwhile, those pesky alien signals...

The latest on the signal from Ross 128, is that it comes from a geostationary satellite.
However, there are still uncertainties .
At least it's not the microwave oven , this time...

Meanwhile, on Mars...   ©NASA/JPL

It has been asked of NASA, whether there were ancient civilisations on Mars.
Personally I hope the answer is yes, and the atmosphere vanished due to unchecked global warming...

Apologies for that outburst.
No more politics, or conspiracy theories...I promise !
Well, that's what the martians said...

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