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

Eyes on Exoworlds, Microbes in Clouds, and Hopping Robots on Asteroids

T.E.S.S. final picture before being prepped for launch

The Transiting Exoplanet Satellite Surveyor will be launched on Monday 16th April (Tomorrow as I write this, but who's counting ?)
Launching from Cape Canaveral, it will add to the search for Earth-like exoplanets currently being scoped by Hubble and Keppler.
It will bridge the (ever-increasing) gap between now and the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope

I find it both commendable but also a good deal of why?
Exoplanets are already bountiful, but the hopes of ever reaching one are painfully slim.
I suppose it helps to identify chemical composition, and make comparisons with our own backwater world. In that respect, it may further our ability to i.d. various chemical signatures in the atmosphere of impossibly distant worlds.
Recently though, Proxima B, a strong exoworld contender, has apparently been subjected to a potentially lethal dose of radiation from its parent star.

Exoplanet transit

Closer to home, we are finding tantalising possibilities of life in our own universe  - the water plumes of Enceladus and the submerged oceans of  Europa to name but two possible contenders; and now there is also the potential of microbes in the clouds of Venus.

The inhospitable surface of Venus has claimed many probes and led to the place being dubbed a hellish world, but the upper atmosphere has potential for further exporation - a floating ' cloud station' has even been mooted. There is also a pending joint America / Russia sortie ( the much delayed Venera -D)

Still remaining in our vicinity - the Japanese explorer Hayabusa 2 is on schedule to collect and return with samples from asteroid Ryugu, having already found and imaged the target - if I'm not mistaken, this is the mission with hopping robots !

Minerva - hopping robot     ISAS

The return of Hayabusa 2 is scheduled for 2020, leaving Osiris- rex lagging behind (it won't get a visual of the target asteroid Bennu until August 2018, and return is scheduled for 2023 ) - but in the spirit of international co-operation, samples will be shared between the two missions.

Apropos of nothing, here is a link to a piece I was going to use as an illustration of spacetime travel, but I ran out of time...

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It's not just birds that can ' see' the Earths magnetic field - ESA have Swarm on the case, too


The discovery of a galaxy lacking the elusive ' dark matter' has become a contentious issue...

Is Quantum The New Shrödingers Cat ? Should We Not Look ?

In this age of hi-technology and lo-brow clickbait , it pays to read between the lines - whilst not being clickbait, the latest publicity release from MIT is a little underwhelming.
The photograph of what appears to be a full 50 qubit quantum computer got me excited...the article sounded great - but, tucked away at the end, was the sad reality that IBM had not submitted their cutting edge creation for peer review before issuing the press release.
Don't get me wrong - IBM are a heavy hitter, with all the credibility that implies...but.
Protocol.
It seems that we are involved in an ongoing propaganda battle as various factions attempt to claim the first kudos for genuine quantum computing.
It's becoming increasingly like ' Shrödingers Cat'*.
Or the Emperors New Clothes...

image      DWaveSys.com

The first image I saw was the shot of the D -Wave machine, followed  by controversy over its true nature, and allegations that it was no better than a 'mere' super-computer
Let's stop right there, though - we are now belittling super - computers.
Yes, we're in that place.
My worry is that 'quantum supremacy' will become an everyday phrase even before we see any actual quantum computing ....

* Perhaps we are creating the observer effect, just by reading the publicity...


Meanwhile, back on Mars...

Nothing much - but as part of a new, self-empowering drive, here is a link to the Curiosity Analysts Handbook !

Curiosity 'Arty' selfie   8.11.2017   NASA/JPL/Caltech   

Here is another link to an extensive archive of images from Rosetta / Osiris


Meanwhile, near Saturn...

The buzz around Saturnian moon Enceladus increases with a new model which tells us that its core may be fluid and permeable, generating heat and potentially life supporting conditions in the sub - surface ocean of the little moon...

Enceladus lines upclose....Cassini/ NASA

Dusty Stars, Colonies On Mars, And The University That Wasn't

Eugene Cernan, last lunar mission, Apollo 17, 1972

Continuing from last weeks thread about developments in space travel and the race to Mars, it seems that the Trump™ administration has pressured NASA to go with lunar projects, as a 'stepping stone' for Mars.
Given the commercial edge introduced by Elon Musk, it should make for a busy and fruitful time. It's good to see progress - after all, it's been over forty years since the last moon landing.

My Mars boarding pass! Send your name to Mars! Follow the link !

In a blow to the ' Dyson Sphere' theory of the mysterious dimming of Tabbys star, this article tells us of a possible dust-cloud which could have the same effect
Mildly disappointing, but I'm glad that the mystery seems to be solved, rather than wasting time entertaining fantastical theories; speaking of which, a popular conspiracy theory which tied in with cyberpunk 'The Matrix', was the idea that the world we live in is only a computer simulation. Not so, according to physicists at Oxford University. The argument (based on the computational requirements) is convincing. My problem with it is the fact that 'Oxford University' is a matriculation body which oversees the exams for all the colleges in Oxford, it is not a 'university' at all; so the theory that our world does not really exist is disproved by a university that does not really exist.

Dione          (pic by Voyager 2)

Interesting article here about the proliferation of potential ocean worlds in our solar system - including some love for the sadly overlooked Saturnian moon Dione, which was overshadowed by the discovery of plumes of water on Enceladus and Europa.

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

From The Great Attractor To The Fountains of Enceladus

This is the closest thing to a cosmic xmas wreath, so...merry festive !

Apparently dark shadows in craters on Ceres conceal frozen water ice, something which the Dawn explorer is looking into (no pun intended) - the famous  highly reflective white patches are salt , and the craters conceal what could be ice water from which the salt has come; more evidence of a briny, subsurface ocean .
Given the sheer amount of subsumed salt on the surface, I'd wager it wasn't far beneath the surface.
It's almost a given that our solar system is full of worlds with hidden oceans.

A recent trend seems to be the coupling of serious information with crude humour , and the headline of this article continues the tradition.
Anyway, Uranus exhibits unusual rotation in the southern latitudes , rotating some 15% faster than the rest of the gas giant.
This seems to be the result of an unusual object deep inside the planet.
Very little is known about the gas giants , so this, along with the current Juno explorer , could help greatly increase our knowledge.

Scientists have measured the smallest sliver of time ever , so brief (850 zaptoseconds*) , that they can see an electron emerge from an atom which got me thinking ; how can they create a ' sliver ' of time?
Can they therefore stop time ?

A new Antarctic exploration has begun with an attempt to drill  down deep and uncover the oldest ice on Earth, yielding evidence from millions of years ago.
From the microscopic to the macrocosmic - the discovery of galactic infrastructure
(we are part of a supercluster called Laniakea) means that we  are potentially the tiny building blocks of an even greater universe .
This has implcations for many things, including our understanding of time; speaking of which, go see  Arrival...

Enceladus water plumes     image NASA / Cassini

The next journeys to Saturns moons Enceladus and Titan, will be to find evidence of life.
Nasa have an explorer lined up called Enceladus Life Finder, or ELF, to be funny.
Not to be outdone, ESA will be exploring with a craft named E2T , which isn't quite so snappy, but it will be amazing to see two flybys intent on uncovering evidence of life.
The focus will be on the jets of water seen emitting from the southern polar area of Enceladus. Coupled with a low altitude camera survey of the surface, it is hoped that enough information will be gleaned to establish for once and for all the possibility that even microbial life does or did exist in those subsurface oceans.

Meanwhile, on Mars...

Slightly closer to home - well, Mars anyway, is on target for the 2020 Exomars thing, with the addition of a drill capable of taking samples from a depth of two metres below the surface in the ongoing search for biosignatures...

High above the Earth...

...even closer to home is the ISS, and NASA are mooting a new form of parachute braking system to enable two way journeys of science payloads.
Plans are already afoot for a new space station, with the mooted NASA / Roskosmos collaboration scheduled for 2024 . By this time, such operations should be quite commercialised , and a joint exploration of Mars is also planned - to which end, the new Orion is being put through its paces.

Out there, somewhere...

Apparently,the Great Attractor is our destiny .
Whats going to happen is a secret though-
It's 200 million light years away, so we won't be getting spoilers for a long time.
No one knows what the great attractor is, except that it has the mass of 200 billion suns, and is drawing us inexorably towards it
So it's pretty irresistible
Pun was not intended

I am posting this as we approach the end of  2016, for better or worse.
Personally, I think it's for the better, as this year has been relentless and miserable .
I do intend to write a couple more blogposts by the end of this year, but they may be more 'Earthbound' than recent posts.
I'm scratching my head though - perhaps I should just get a new blog.
Decisions, eh ?

Until soon, take care !





* Apparently its very short. I trust New Scientist not to prank me.

Mars Landings, Space Utopia, and Nightmare Wasps

Ice on Mars

Simulation of Schiaparelli landing   ©ESA

 We are mere days away from the attempt by ESA / Roskosmos to break the NASA Mars exploration monopoly , with the two- part mission to identify the chemical makeup of the atmosphere.
The attempt will be aided by the orbiting Mars Express, with its instruments that were initially to designed to aid the ill - fated Beagle 2 lander.
Since 2003 , Mars Express has been orbiting and relaying priceless data , and will now help the dual- faceted Exomars mission in its final stages of entry /descent into the Martian atmosphere.
The mission is basically an attempt to prove whether there were conditions once favourable for life on Mars.
The Trace Gas Orbiter will remain in a low orbit around Mars, with Schiaparelli attempting a surface landing.
Schiaparelli is basically a laboratory,  not a  roving explorer, so sadly no companion for Curiosity .
Don't forget though, that Opportunity still roams the martian surface, collecting information.
It's all very functional , reducing the unknown to manageable levels of ' known' and understood - which is very necessary, at least in our own ' backyard ' , especially given the revelation that there are ten times as many galaxies in the heavens than previously thought.
The latest estimates peg the figure at two trillion galaxies.
I laugh at the thought of a team of lab- coated scierntists attempting to count every single one only to reach one trillion , 6 billion, 3million and 457,000 when someone interrupts and they have to start again.
Trivial, but it tickles me.
I'm assured however, that's not how it's done.
Still, let me just say that again-
Two trillion galaxies.
My attempt to rationalise such a huge number led me down another internet  rabbit hole.
A trillion is a milion million.
Which is a lot.
And that's the number of galaxies in the observable universe at least .
Galaxies, not stars.
There are possibly 400 billion stars in our own galaxy.
Which puts our little exploration of our neighbouring world in perspective.

Dione also contains water

In our own tiny corner of space, we have a solar system teeming with watery moons with subsurface oceans.
Recent data from the Saturn system explorer Cassini tells us that the moon Dione may also harbour an underground ocean , up to 40 miles deep: the deepest part of our own oceans is  a mere 7 miles / 9 km, or so.
It joins the growing list of  Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede , and the contentious planet / dwarf planet Pluto which all seem to contain large bodies of water

On another positive note, a new initiative is announced , with the purpose of creating a nation of space - dwellers who will colonise a giant orbiting craft known as Asgardia.
The ultimate goal is to democratise space, which sounds fine, but my concern is why choose a Nordic name then , thus firmly laying claim to a specific nationality and its own mythos ?
Just saying...

Speaking of which, space brain is a potential new danger for future human travellers to the outlying worlds...


On a final, uncomfortable, note:
A prehistoric nightmare wasp* somehow conflated in my mind with the news that a virus has been disovered that contains DNA from a mosquito
Nightmare fuel.

Megalara Garuda -These specimens are dead - phew !

*Obviously I checked further, to find any living descendants of the ancient ' nightmare wasp '.
This foolish internet quest led me to the Megalara Garuda wasp, discovered in Indonesia in 2011.
The fact that no-one lives on the island where it was discovered is not really surprising...

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...

Meteorites, Mini Monsters and our Moon

Largest meteorite. Hobart, Namibia      60 tonnes.         

A massive 30 ton meteorite has just been excavated in Argentina , becoming the second largest meteorite in the world.
Personally, I loved the casual nature of the video - just one digger and a smattering of applause.

Staying on the subject of large objects from space, apparently the moon was born as the result of a violent collision between Earth and a wandering planet (about the size of Mars) which resulted in a huge cloud of debris five hundred times the size of Earth which eventually coalesced into the moon as we know it.
This expansion of an old theory has been facilitated by new technology allowing for more precise readings of  moon rocks gathered by the Apollo missions.
I don't want to get bogged down with talk of Nibiru and all that, so let's move on...

What may or may not be a dinosaur 'nursery' has been discovered in the Russian Steppes , but speculation is rife as to whether the little fossil dinosaurs (one metre tall ) are infact a new species of miniature raptor.
Personally, I was most impressed by the fact that the site is only accessible by kayak , being so deep in the Steppes - I doff my cap to the intrepid palaentologists involved  - deep exploration worthy of Indiana Jones.

When ' You Are Here' means nothing...

Intrepid explorers have also ventured inside a cave which has apparently been isolated from the outside world for some 5.5 million years, give or take a few hundred thousand...
The atmosphere in Movile cave, Romania,  is toxic, being very sulphurous , and the permanent darkness and harsh conditions have led to a wealth of strange creatures, proving that life can thrive in the most inhospitable environments
Remaining in the realm of intrepid exploration, a recent survey of an extinct underwater volcano off the coast of Hawaii found  a plethora of oddities...

This lends more hope for the future exploration of places like the ice-bound and possibly waterlogged Saturnian ( is that a word ? ) moon Enceladus.

Enceladus from 30km

As we near the end of Rosettas planned mission , commemorative stuff goes into overdrive , heck you can even buy a plush version of Rosetta / Philae .
The final 'resting place' of Rosetta will be on the opposite side of the asteroid to Philae, so no 'reunited' scenario .
I remain impressed by the fact that I am alive at a time when we landed a probe on a comet - even moreso by the fact that we've been photographing and tracking it in such amazing detail for over a year
Now that the Osiris rex mission to Bennu has been launched, we will soon see the next phase, when an explorer takes a sample from a comet and returns with it...
Yay, go, science !

13 -Unlucky for some....

'Astrology is not science' is a phrase NASA had to use recently following an overly keen journalistic spin on their summary of astrology, its history and origins.
In this online world of assumptions based on half truths and third - hand hearsay, it quickly became reported as fact that NASA had added a new sign to the zodiac.

People, please !


Finally, we hear the sad story of Voyager , which collided with the end of the known universe, and received some damage as a result.
Sad to know that it will become space debris in the bottom right hand corner of the universe...

Watch The Skies!

The skies are afire with wondrous things - it dawned on me recently that we (i.e. humanity) are making some serious headway in the exploration of our solar system.
Three years ago, I became aware of the Curiosity lander on Mars. I'd followed previous excursions - Opportunity, etcetera, but Curiosity had better PR, and presents some of  the best quality images - and of course the Mars Orbiter (or mothership), like a benevolent watchful satellite continues to monitor from above... I must admit, I was stunned when Curiosity even successfully landed, given the previous track record of landings on Mars.

Curiosity 'selfie' on Mars

So far, so good - then I learned that Voyager is heading into deep space, mankinds first ever probe to go that far. Hurrah! -because I'd forgotten all about Voyager - didn't we all ?
Then, following a path that began with a launch in 1973, Rosetta, in a nail-biting moment sets a new record by placing a lander on a comet !
Now the Dawn explorer has entered orbit around distant mini - planet Ceres, and in July the New Horizons explorer does a flypast of outermost planet Pluto and its moon , Charon!

Ceres with the mysterious double-dot

What a time to be a science nerd! My inner 'Sheldon' is truly amazed!
 I vaguely remember the black and white moon landings (well they were black and white on our tv back then) , and then the slow building of the ISS, and the sad fate of the Beagle2 (Colin Pillingers ill-fated eccentric British Mars lander).

But now, it's an all - out space race! (without the Cold War posturings).
Heck, there are even people who've signed up for a one-way ticket to Mars! - in fairness, I don't feel so excited by this, infact, maybe I've seen too many dystopian sci - fi films, but I feel a bit queasy when I think of people on Mars.
Don't get me wrong, though - the future is now- we have robots exploring the outer solar system!
It's here and it's real!
(this burst of childish enthusiasm will only be understood by those who remember the old Look and Learn magazines)

Sunset on Mars taken by Spirit rover

Recent Mars findings indicate the former presence of a huge ocean which once covered most of the red planet. This is interesting, but what of the subsurface ocean of Jupiters moon Ganymede, as recently purported ?
What of the iced -over oceans of Enceladus with their geysers issuing plumes up to 500 kilometres into space, with minute particles of silica becoming part of Saturns rings?

The geysers of Enceladus, up to 500 km high

It  is astonishing, and it's information that's reaching us on an increasingly frequent, almost daily basis.
My tiny mind is well and truly boggled !
But -focus- this means that there are considerable bodies of water, with the potential for life, in our own solar system. Yes, this little solar system on the distant outer edge of the milky way.
Not some far flung and rubbish - named  planet in the mythical 'goldilocks ' zone of a distant sun, but
right here.
On our doorstep.