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...

G

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...

Dark Matter, Majorana, Quipu and Naked Sand

Apparently a galaxy has been found without any dark matter
Normally this would be a cause for concern, but as dark matter has never been empirically proven to exist, I think we'll just have to collectively shake our heads in bewilderment.
'Dark Matter' is possibly a marketing opportunity according to this piece - interesting article, but the overuse of the phrase 'sort of ' makes me sad.
Still, it's a step up from ' kinda '...if you know worra mean...

Perhaps I'm psychic...or a jinx, as no sooner did I mention * the pending launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, than it was put back to 2020.
The JWST has a long history of delays, going way back to 2005, but let's not be negative.
Sadly though, the delay will impact on other projects

Similarly, the Parker Solar Probe hit a couple of delays (it is also the only NASA craft named after a living person) but is now on target for a launch window between May and July 2018 : if you're quick, you can include your own name, sending it to the sun - not sure of the symbolism here - thousands of sun sacrifices at the same time, hmmm

Mayan sacrifices to the sun revisited ?

If you would prefer a hands- on role with NASA, now is the time - I'd apply, but not being a U.S. citizen means no, sadly...

There will be a bout of synchronised satellite flying in 2020, as ESA send proba 3 to record the suns corona closer than ever before.
The proba series of missions were designed to be low cost, small satellite projects-
Long ago, proba 1 was a satellite used for aerial photography, such as this shot of the Giza pyramid complex in Egypt.
Which brings us to the news that algorithms intended to reveal nudity are turning up images of sand dunes...perhaps it is more evidence that the science behind AI is not really fit for purpose; another frustration for Microsoft who are trying to make progress in what they see as a triptych of science offering great potential  - AI, Augmented Reality, and Quantum Computing.

Sand nudes , as they say...

They are currently working with an elusive particle - Majorana Fermion, in an attempt to corner the market in 'quantum supremacy' which is a long shot given that they have yet to produce an actual quantum computer ( D-wave have allegedly already done this, although their computers are very limited in ability).
Majorana Fermion is unique, in that it contains its its own anti-particle , as well as retaining memory of where it's been, and Microsoft hope to use it for braiding - the best analogy I can think of is the use of knots to contain information as practiced in many cultures - particularly the Andean Quipu system which was in use until it was eradicated by the Spanish conquistadors.

Quipu in the Larco Museum collection

Another analogy would be the DNA helix structure which contains the encrypted passcode to everything living... either way, good luck to Microsoft in their quantum endeavours. I'm only surprised that neither Jeff Bezos nor Elon Musk are involved in the race for ' quantum supremacy'...

IN OTHER NEWS...

It appears that the ' alien megastructure star' is at it again , with further dips in luminosity.

As I write this micro-blog post, we await the re-entry of the Chinese space station Tiangong 1 - debris is expected to fall between New Zealand and the U.S. - sometime on Monday 2nd April.
Previous debris falls included the 77 tonne Skylab in 1979...**

**UPDATE- Tiangong 1 burned up harmlessly somewhere overhead,,,



This link contains some stunning processed images of the Gale crater on Mars, thanks to Sean Dorán

 TTFN,

G

Happy April Fools Day, Easter, Eostre !


*23rd March blogpost

Cloud Cities, Dinosaurs & When Black Holes Align...

Visual of particle collsion in LHC

A theory currently doing the rounds holds that the Large Hadron Collider, in its newly turbo - charged state could be responsible for the rash of earthquakes we're experiencing lately.
I suppose it makes a change from the doom laden prophecies of gates to hell or black holes, but personally I think it's an attempt to sensationalise - as if human suffering and death wasn't enough, an unnatural explanation has to be found for tectonic activity.
Surely the logical ending of this assertion is the awakening of  Godzilla or some other  creature from the very bowels of our world ?
Anyway, I digress, but fingers are being pointed at the LHC .
Meanwhile, Cern have released 300 Terabytes of data from recent tests by the LHC for the use of any citizen scientist out there with a large storage capacity...

Another idea for consideration is the assertion that human ribs started as shark gills, which is almost certainly a theme in tales by H P Lovecraft .
Staying with the theme of the sea, a recent piece by Maddie Stone tells us a tale of Cold War paranoia, and the CIA attempting to salvage secret Russian technologies.
It's an intriguing piece, and the link is here .

Researchers are heading out for a sample.

New thinking tells us that the dinosaurs, rather than being wiped out enmasse by a comet, infact died out gradually, over millions of years, with the comet  merely serving as a full stop.
In fairness, this sounds more plausible - although I'm surprised there is not any clear evidence in the fossil record.
New evidence may be forthcoming with the imminent sample which is being taken from the Chicxulub crater ...........

Meanwhile, up on Venus...

The Venusian surface as captured by Venera 13. The probe lasted 2 hours...

We have avoided space in this post, but here's a little footnote.
There seems to be a ' buzz' around Venus at present - I'm not sure why,
Perhaps we're just jaded with all the Mars exploration.
After all , Matt Damon growing potatoes in a barren landscape may be close to reality, but it's not the exotic alien world stuff we hanker for; so there is talk of establishing cloud cities above Venus, thus avoiding the inconvenience of the molten temperatures on the surface (460°celsius), and the sulphur fumes in the air.
Anyway, wishful thinking aside, the real news is from old readings from the  ESA craft Venus Express* which discovered that Venus was colder at the Poles than we'd imagined, with temperatures dropping to - 157°c, much colder than anywhere on Earth .

Moving  further out towards Titan, it has been verified that it contains a lake of methane, with possible wetlands around its shoreline.
Covering over a million kilometres , with a depth up to 160 metres, and a slew of organic materials, it would certainly be a place to examine more closely - don't forget that the sea , known as  Ligeia Mare, is only one of three...

In the distant Kuiper Belt, it has been observed that the second largest dwarf planet Makemake has a little moon of its own, ( known as MK2 ) with a diameter of 100 miles.

Saturns moon Titan has a lake of pure methane    

Further out there...

The discovery in deep space of a series of supermassive black holes in the centre of disparate galaxies which appear to be aligned has caused uproar , defying the odds of being a random occurence, and hinting at a far larger ' structure' to the known universe.
For me this is fantastical territory, leading as it does to the nature of filaments in space , as though part of some immense neural network...just a step away from the question of intelligent design.
At present, it's still a theory until further experiments, but even so, the galaxies in question are hundreds of millions of light years apart, yet seem to follow a pattern.

Will we ever see the true nature of the scaffolding that supports the universe ?
Currently having its mirrors uncovered, our James Webb Space Telescope will see further than ever before, taking us tantalisingly close to the ' Big Bang' - well, only a few hundred million years after the event.
On that note, I take my leave -

Computer simulation of filaments and voids

*The Venus Express is now no more, but outlived its expected 500 days of  Venus monitoring , and continued exploration for a further eight years.

Clouds on Pluto, Distant Galaxies and Radio Signals

Following the recent announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves, you can help in the further discovery of more signals - link here.
In news from the New Horizons team, something is eating away at Pluto, creating a huge gouge in the Western hemisphere.
Don't panic though, it 's probably just material evaporating ...
Another recent discovery is what appear to be actual clouds on Pluto - caveat, I say actual clouds, but these are nitrogen with traces of methane, not water clouds.
Smelly acid rain then, don't forget your brolly.
Or breathing apparatus, obv.

Impossibly hard to see  wispy clouds on Pluto.  pic NASA

This discovery is possible through the ongoing downloads of material from the September flypast by New Horizons.

The downloads will continue until near the end of this year.
It's a slow process - after all, New Horizons is getting further away, heading for a rendezvous in the Oort cloud in 2019, so it is putting serious miles between us , travelling at approximately 30,000 mph in the opposite direction .
Don't forget the download speed is pathetically low; at an underwhelming 2000 bits a second - there are no Wi - Fi relay / booster stations out there !
Clouds on Pluto are exciting news because they could help in the reclassification of Pluto as a planet (remember it was downgraded in 2006) .
This would create a whole new set of problems with the ongoing search for the mysterious Planet X , which would then become a tenth planet in our solar system.

On its way out of service, Hubble has just imaged the most distant object in the known universe at 13 billion light years distant, which makes it just  aspproximately 400 hundred million years from the Big Bang.

JWST artists impression    pic NASA

Anyway, the incoming James Webb Telescope should easily surpass that, perhaps even revealing the finger of The Supreme Being hovering over the button marked ' Start .'

But I digress...

In other news, the source of the mysterious signal FRB 121102 has been pinpointed (approximately) -but they are none the wiser as to what exactly it is .
The actual signals seem to be clustered irregularly, which implies an artificial nature, perhaps designed to be noticed.
Beyond that, there is only speculation at present - but the 'alien megastructure' theory is no longer viable.
To add to the confusion, doubts have already been cast on the validity of the report - the internet is no slouch when it comes to raining on parades !
Despite this, the internet can also have its uses - for instance, here's a link to many Russian films, including the only horror film made in the old USSR 'Viy', and the mesmerising ' Stalker' - pointless and strange ? Exactly, that's why we're here !