Dragon Flies around the Moon, Giant Penguins Once Waddled the Earth, Gifts from NASA

In a gracious gesture, NASA has released free access to software featuring new technologies.
Whizz - kids and Tech-heads will find plenty of inspiration in their PDFs.
The new 'space race' is hotting up as Dragon X announce the first commercial flight around the moon taking place next year, 2018.
Two people will be undergoing health and fitness tests for the milestone journey very soon.
The ultmate goal  for Dragon X is to transport people '...to Mars '.

Mimas  , no Death Star visible....pic NASA/ JPL-Caltech

Even in space with its mind - boggling distances , there are near - misses: recently, the Mars Orbiter had to be course - corrected to avoid collision with Phobos.
This may sound insignificant, but I was taken aback to learn that Mars is a busy ' highway' with no less than five vehicles in orbit.
Which led me to wonder how many were in orbit around our moon , and finally Earth  ( over a thousand )
Even Saturn is being buzzed -  by our intrepid explorer Cassini, which took the photo shown below.
Cassini is currently grazing the ring system around Saturn , observing and preparing for its ultimate demise when it plunges into the gas giant in September.

Saturn pic by Cassini       NASA/ JPL-Caltech

The above image of Saturn was taken by Cassini.
Pause for jaw-dropping fact - each  pixel equates to 37 miles...
 ...that's big.
Saturn is said to be a place where metallic hydrogen exists in the crushing pressure of the atmosphere.
Regarded as a ' Holy Grail ' of chemistry, its status is due to the fact it could be potentially used as rocket fuel, which makes Saturn a re-fuelling stop on the long journey to our next destination.
Attempts have been made to replicate the material under laboratory conditions , which have allegedly succeeded, but unfortunately, the only sample of metallic hydrogen in the world has gone missing .
As you can imagine this has caused great concern.
The extra difficulty in finding the missing sample is that it is one-fifth the thickness of a human hair.
Which is pretty small.
Regardless, though, baffled scientists are currently looking behind curtains and down the side of sofas.
So far, they have found thirty brass coins, a leaky biro pen, a washer , and a ticket to a Level 42 gig .

Meanwhile, back on Earth...

The University of Hong Kong have created a computer simulation of a flying dinosaur with four wings.
Also, fossil evidence of a giant prehistoric penguin  has been found  in New Zealand.

Finally, apropos of nothing,  I found this article very interesting. 






Please note - I have been guilty of occasionally linking to articles in Wikipedia. This has been pointed out as a highly unreliable source of information, which I understand - but in my experience, simple fact - checking against alternate sources is always the way to go. I trust that others will continue to do the same, as I don't intend to patronise my readers . Thank you for being here !
G

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...