Space Waste and an Aurora Called Steve...

Opportunity heat shield         NASA

There is a crater on Mars , recently imaged by the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter, which contains detritus from the 2004 landing of Opportunity.
I got to thinking that we have already begun leaving our waste on other worlds
The moon has over 70 space vehicles, including buggies and landers, golf clubs, discarded boots, flags, and various - over 100,000 pounds of debris.
I looked for statistics regarding waste on Mars, but beyond this list, it gets into alien conspiracy territory, so I quickly back-tracked.
Let's not forget the ring of debris orbiting our own planet - some 500,000 pieces (according to NASA in 2013).
Add to this the many Russian Verbera modules on Venus - although I imagine they've been cremated and crushed to a pulp, so at least there should be no trace...
Mercury didn't escape so lightly in 2008 , when the Messenger craft impacted, creating a whole new crater.

Mercury imaged by Messenger               NASA

Currently surveying Titan for the last time, Cassini will eventually descend into Saturn, although given the toxic nature of the atmosphere, it will almost certainly be destroyed - and let's not forget the two Voyager craft, heading into deep space, followed by New Horizons, which achieved the most distant rendezvous yet with its flypast of Pluto, and following its encounter with MU69 in 2019, will become so much hi-tech driftwood floating through the heavens.
Our faltering steps into space have already left quite a trail , like a bored passenger tossing trash out of a car window on a long drive.
We humans are a messy bunch, but until we get the bill from the Intergalactic Sanitation Engineers, we'll be none the wiser.

On a lighter note , a new discovery in the majesty of the aurora ; a trail of green and purple lights which have been given the name of Steve.
No mushrooms required.


G

Hell and High Water

© Flickr / SpaceX

Blimey, we've got a unifying theme this week - well , I think so - on Monday last, NASA announced the discovery of water plumes erupting from the surface of Europa
Personally, I wasn't too impressed, as we'd already heard of similar plumes on Enceladus .
Perhaps the most impressive thing is the sheer scale of the water jets - up to 125 miles / 200 km above surface level.
So, pretty darned impressive.
Enough so that we already have an illustration of a SpaceX craft there.
Of course, the elephant in the room is the fatal dose of radiation levels on Europa , courtesy of  Jupiter .
Not much chance of a quick selfie before imminent death...

Likewise, the recently mooted ocean beneath the surface of Pluto may be up to 62 miles / 99 km deep - That's a lot of sea.
The deepest part of our own oceans is a mere 7 miles / 10 km .
On the subject of oceans,  rising sea levels present a very real threat to NASA
Time to find a new launch pad !
Launch pads could be a wise investment, what with the increasing noise about the colonisation of Mars / the Moon / deep space.
The rockets currently being displayed by Elon Musks Space X and Jeff Bezos Blue Origin appear to be engaged in a ' mine is bigger than yours ' routine, with operational capabilities coming a poor second...
Still, healthy competition can only lead to better designs, surely
Speaking of designs (see what I did there?), it appears that ostrich eggs are marked with protein dna strands going back a long time.
I'm not sure what this means in the greater scheme of things , although there's probably a direct link to a Jurassic World - type scenario, where we happily watch dinosaurs with colourful feathers tearing each other apart.

 From Earth, we move inwards towards Mercury where we have been surprised to learn that there is tectonic activity happening there now - and also, it's shrinking - hardly surprising , with an average daytime temperature of 800 degrees farenheit.
Pretty hellish, then - but still active.
I find it somehow comforting knowing that worlds we previously considered geologically dead, are very much active.
We have Mercury, wilting in the sun, and Pluto with its beating heart is far from being the distant ball of windswept ice that my childhood imagination conjured...

Final frames from Rosetta    © ESA

POSTSCRIPT

Rosetta has ended its mission . After an epic 6 billion-mile journey, the Rosetta craft has descended to the surface of Comet 67P . The media is awash with words like crashlanding, and such - but at only 1 mph, it's hardly a spectacular finale.
Personally, I still wonder why it was not simply left to drift in space , perhaps locked into the comets orbit forever ?
After all, surely theft of industrial secrets isn't an issue in space ?
On the other hand, you can never trust those pesky aliens.
Perhaps we should build a Space Wall...