Lightsails, Femme Fatales, Martian Maps and Matters of Faith

Photonic propulsion is very much in the news , being touted as a way of taking a crew to Mars in good time (in practical terms, about five weeks) at a potentially large ( 30% ) proportion of the speed of light.
Its simplicity (solar power) makes it economical, and its potential for upscaling makes it suitable for interstellar use - no more rockets laden with heavy fuel - it is seriously threatening the much touted SLS as a means of travel.
I imagine that light sails could become quite a common mode of travel within our solar system. It is environmentally friendly, using a renewable power source , it ticks all the boxes - the only down side to carrying humans would be the sheer scale of the thing - small is beautiful seems to be the key at present, with the possibility of tiny satellites being made of smartphones !


The excitement from the recent discovery of gravitational waves continues with news that radio telescopes can be set to do likewise, and NANOGrav are now monitoring 54 pulsars (which can witness the collision of binary black holes ).

Further news tells us that the source of a mysterious FRB has been found to be a galaxy some 6 billion light years away - it is possibly a collision from two neutron stars.
Nothing greatly exciting then - and this info comes to us from the Parkes observatory in Australia.
Last year, they told us excitedly of a massive radiation burst from deep space - which turned out to be the microwave oven next door.
Ahem.

Artist impression of AIM        image ©ESA

One craft heading into space soon (well, 2020) is the Asteroid Impact Mission - now that  ESA have proved that it is possible to land on an asteroid (although sadly, there is no more word from the lander  Philae), they have decided to launch the Asteroid Impact Mission , which along with the NASA  DART* mission will test our capability for deflection of rogue asteroids from potential collision with Earth - infact, for lovers of morbid scenarios in which doom arrives from space in the form of an errant asteroid, 30th June is Asteroid Day, raising awareness of the threat of potential global destruction.

So hurrah for that -
Any excuse for a fun day off...

Our Galaxy                           pic byESA

An indepth new view of the milky way reveals more of everything.
The view was taken by ATLASGAL - APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy.
Almost makes the DART * acronym ( Demonstration of Autonomous Reconnaisance Technology) seem simple...

Meanwhile, back on Mars...

If you watched 'The Martian' wishing you were there (despite the deadly irradiated landscape) , then you can get the next best thing - an ordinance survey map of the planet !
Yes, the standard piece of kit for any fell walker in the uk now covers the Red Planet too.
Did you know that the O.S. department in the U.K. was spawned by the volume of accurate measurements required for the building of the Embankment in London ?

Remaining on (virtual) Mars, apparently tomatoes or even strawberries would make good first crops, rather than the humble potato.
I'm not sold on the logic, although the water content of tomatoes might be a bonus on such a dry, arid world.

 Back on Earth - 

Preserved in amber, and 15 million years too late to be a crop on Mars (although I'm sure a mad scientist may see opportunity for disabling the populace), is a beautiful , but deadly strychnos flower, the ancestor of strychnine and cyanide ,  much admired by the Borgias, for example.

Lucrezia Borgia

The online world is a battlefield.

Everyone thinks they have the answer, and social media is full of opinions - like this one.
Of course, in this topsy - turvy world we now live in , we get extremes - hence the re-appearance of  Flat-Earthers .
Ahem.
I'm sure there are those who deliberately 'farm' strong opinions - certainly on FB, after all it adds a degree of interest to any newsfeed - and people like the opportunity to air their views; we tend to surround ourselves with like - minded friends, and so are often ' preaching to the converted', whereas a wider audience involves fresh opinions and input.
Of course, occasionally things descend into the 'trolling' level of personal insults , but that is generally the response from someone who feels cornered and threatened - either through a lack of ability to reason or to argue a point, or just through playing 'devils advocate'.
This pointless waffle brings me neatly to a potential image for debate - a map of the world according to the  friendliness of nations !
I was in two minds about including the map purporting to show nations according to how welcoming they are, on the grounds that it may be biased , and lets not introduce political favour - but although this is generated in the U.S.A, it doesn't favour that country - infact the U.S.A. is about halfway - Canada seem to be the friendly guys here - and speaking of friendly (and outwardly hostile) , this link takes you to a map showing hostilities worldwide - if you drill down to the original site, you can manipulate the dates etc, for greater accuracy. It's obviously incomplete, and very Euro-centric, but even so, a rather grim rendition of battles mostly around us.

It's almost midnight here (GMT), and the candle is guttering here in the shed, so I shall post this piece, and repair to the great beyond.
It's almost impossible to know when to stop at the moment, as there is an abundance of space related stuff out there - perhaps it's the season, or just an exponential increase, following high profile stuff like Ceres and the asteroid landing and last years Pluto flypast.
What I'm saying is goodnight, and watch the sky, and this space !
TTFN !

Solar Sails, Ripples in Spacetime, and Holidays on Distant Moons

Of course, the big news this week is the proof of the existence of Gravitational Waves .
The dedicated team at LIGO made the announcement on Thursday, 11th Feb.
Some of those involved have made the search their lifes work , and the initial team was assembled back in 1975.
It brings to a conclusion the decades of speculation (and false signals), and the vindication of Albert Einsteins prediction , over a hundred years ago.
It also tells us that 'spacetime' is flexible, and not rigid, as a medium: this will fuel all manner of sci-fi conjecture.
This is a truly amazing revelation , which will lead to game - changing discoveries.
It enables us to better understand gravity, but also opens a whole new realm of exploration.
In essence, visual wavelengths have been used to observe stellar phenomenon - but this discovery brings the dimension of sound into play.
The initial sound of the  two black holes merging which led to this discovery has already been timestretched into an ambient, hour - long piece - it is essentially a rising scale on a cosmic keyboard up to middle C - (maaan).
The number crunching is mind blowing in itself - the gravitational wave began with two black holes colliding 1.3 billion years ago, unleashing an energy equivalent to the observable universe x50 - but which ultimately only affected the measuring devices by one ten thousandth the width of the nucleus of an atom.
Cue my mind melting.
We are dealing with next level science here, way beyond my own ability to fathom : infact, it's so far out, that I found myself drawn to the human element of the story - Dr Ron Drever, one of the earliest members of the team, could not join in the celebrations as he is now in a nursing home in Edinburgh, suffering with dementia.
His colleague, Dr  Rainer Weiss maintains that it was Dr Drevers creative genius that helped to propel the discovery.

Planetary Society LightSail

Solar Sails

In the last post, I extolled the virtues of nuclear fusion, and have decided to redress the balance by writing up solar sails, which are unrivalled as a means of distance travel through deep space .
I don't want to get bogged down in the arguments for and against , but certainly in terms of deep space, the solar sail has the edge.
Although the force employed (photons) is very small, the push is continuous, so the acceleration is constant.
It's been estimated that a craft with a 1300 foot sail could travel 1.3 billion miles a year, and leave our solar system within ten years
The only real issue for deep space travel would be the need for a huge laser firing photons at the sail, in lieu of sunlight.
In 2010, the Japanese craft Ikaros employed a solar sail 46 feet wide, and recently (albeit with limited success) the Planetary Society unfurled a larger sail.
The sheer scale of the sails required for interstellar journeys is incredible, and would create quite a visual impact in the darkness of space.
Attempts to guess the fastest method of travel to the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) give us a possible 9 years using a massive solar sail (600 miles / 945 km diameter) .
Nine years travel may sound a lot , but Proxima Centauri is 4 light years distant, so 9 years is actually pretty fast - well, unless you compare it to your daily commute.
Quite apart from the sheer scale of the thing, it would need boosting from a giant laser once it leaves the area of influence of our sun, so for now at least, this is in the realms of sci-fi.

©NASA

In Other News...

NASA have released a series of retro 'travel' posters extolling the virtues of 'space breaks'- if you were uncertain as to choosing a holiday on Enceladus as opposed to Titan, for instance.
I think they are great, although my past playthroughs of the computer game ' Bioshock ' gives  me reservations about such Art Deco styling.

Bioshock

Apparently, an asteroid heading our way on March 5th could fly past Earth at a distance of 11,000 miles, which is a mere whisker (in cosmic terms).
The comet in question ( designated 2013 TX68 ) - was only discovered three years ago, and as such, has no given name.
There is a one in 250 million chance of impact, hardly enough to cause sleepless nights - but then, what about the comets we didn't discover yet ?
Goodnight

Capturing the Sun, Lunar Flashlights and Mirror Magic

The Stellarator - limitless power ?

Research into Nuclear Fusion is making great leaps forward as news comes in of the generation of hydrogen plasma which reached 80 million° C for a quarter of a second .
That may not seem a big deal, but for a brief time, we emulated the sun .
In the Max Planck Institute in Germany, they have achieved the beginnings of what could be limitless fuel from a source that is little more than salt water.
News to ponder.
This gives us a huge insight into future power.
MIT in the U.S.A. have also made inroads into this research although it's being detailed with reference to 'Tony Stark'.
I doubt whether it has anything to do with Iron Man (personally, in my childhood, I preferred Daredevil, but hey ho ) .
The point is that ultimately we get closer to a real alternative to fossil fuels and the resultant pollutants.

Could we see the return of the lightbulb ?

Staying with the MIT thread, they have been busy redefining lightbulbs - I don't know about you, but part of me was sad to see the decline of the familiar lightbulbs in favour of the energy efficient but colder LEDs.
Apparently, MIT have found a way to reflect wasted energy back into filament bulbs as even more light !
It may not be up there with potential limitless energy, but it's still a move in the right direction.
So yay, for all those who are working for the good of humanity .

Elsewhere - in Barcelona, Spain to be exact, scientists have created a wormhole (in a bathtub, apparently)
The article states that this wormhole is more like the ' cloak of invisibility' , as though people can't digest accurate scientific information without populist allegories, but I have wandered off topic - the point is that the wormhole is capable of moving information in the form of a magnetic shield from one place to another.
For me, the relevant parallel is that it could be used to remotely assess brain / body issues without the need for an MRI scan - anyone unfortunate enough to have endured this claustrophobic machine will know what a bonus that would be.

Scientists following genomes and DNA have discovered a possible overhaul of history, with not one, but two apparent population upsets - one approximately 50,000 years ago, and one 15,000 years ago just after the last ice age, when indigenous hunter-gatherers were supplanted by a sudden influx from an unknown populace.
It's early days yet, but this could seriously upset the apple cart.


The James Webb Telescope has had all of its mirrors attached, and is nearing completion.
Due for launch in French Guiana in 2018, it will afford unprecedented views of ancient galaxies, possibly right back to the purported ' Big Bang' - well, a couple hundred million years after, but who's counting ?

Artists impression of the 'Lunar Flashlight'    pic © NASA

Space Launch System / Orion is basically a rocket full of hitchhikers (well, 13 CubeSats, TBH ) and is due to launch soon-ish.
One of its payloads is shown above .
It's a cubesat with a hovering flashlight, for exposing those dark craters on the moon - specifically hidden areas of frozen water ice, although I'm sure that many will hope for hidden alien bases and such.
The Lunar Flashlight will also boast a Solar Sail, which , as well as powering the CubeSat flight to the moon, will be used to reflect sunlight into the dark craters.
On an almost serious level though - did anyone wonder how we managed to name all the moons in our solar system except our own ?
Just asking.

2,274 satellites overhead...

 An 'overseer' satellite , part of the EDRS initiative was recently launched (29th Jan 2016) and is now dutifully logging information from all the other satellites currently orbiting the Earth.
 It's good to know that at least there is an attempt to centralise information from the ever-increasing number of satellites (2,274 at last count) around our globe.


...and finally, a recent picture of the North polar vortex at Saturn, taken by Cassini. The explorer will next flyby Titan on Feb 16 2016.

NASA / JPL / Caltech

The Midnight Rambler and a Cloud called Smith.

There is a cloud called Smith, and it's heading this way at 700,000 miles an hour from the distant outer edge of our galaxy.
It's a gas cloud full of cosmic chemicals, the stuff of stars.
Don't worry though, it's not due to collide with us for another 30 million years, so panic over.
I think I'll be tidying the shed that day.
By all accounts, it will be quite a sight, though, as it could give birth to up to two million stars.
I love these giant space numbers - they remind me of how insignificant I really am, in the greater scheme of things.
Enough navel gazing - the cloud was discovered by Gail Smith , hence the name.

Jupiter image ©NASA / JPL

Apparently the ancient Babylonians used algebra to plot the passage of Jupiter across the night sky, taking its origins (calculus) back some 1500 years.
My personal caution is that we are approaching 'ancient astronauts' territory here, and will next hear of the alien race who bequeathed this knowledge - puts me in mind of the claims regarding the Dogon tribe of Mali.

Remaining on the subject of possible alien interlopers, we are advised that there will be further pictures of the mysterious lights / salts in the craters of Ceres.
The Dawn mission is currently taking images from a new lower orbit of 240 miles. Images thus far look great, but the relevant ones are conspicuous by their absence.

Moscow viewed from ISS  pic ESA / 

Only last night, I saw a photo taken over Moscow which looked not unlike the Occator region - pareidolia possibly, but even so.
I'm still quietly excited.

Occator lights, Ceres   pic NASA / JPL / Caltech

There now follows a close up image of comet 67P Churyumov - Gerasimenko on which the lander Philae has apparently died a cold and lonely death, but will be joined in September when mothership Rosetta finally sets down to become one with the now famous hunk of icy rock as it continues its journey through space.
the comet was originally from the Kuiper belt, until a brush with Jupiter in 1959 knocked it out of it's orbit **, and Jupiter is where we came in, so...

Close up of comet 67P Churyumov - Gerasimenko           23 Jan 2016  ©ESA

* 'they' = the government, obv.
** which makes the comet a 'centaur' technically, as it's a hybrid.

FYI, this post was edited on Feb 5th 2016 to remove my 'midnight ramble' which frankly adds nothing to the post. Thank you all.

By the way, if anyone is wondering about my name change - it's to avoid being labelled a bot on social media - so the initials still mean 'Alias Me', ok ? Thank you !

The Ninth Planet and Giant Mirrors

It's busy up in space, so NASA have created this useful spread for us.


I'm a little underwhelmed by the hyperbole around Ceres, though.
Can't help feeling there's something - missing ?
Oh yes, the mysterious ' lights' in the Occator crater ?


Speaking of missing, they've 'found' a Ninth planet in our solar system - well, to be precise, the scientist responsible for the Pluto downgrade has allegedly found a new ninth planet, four times the size of Earth, with an orbit taking 10 - 20,000 years to loop around the sun.
Except, they haven't actually found anything.
Its existence is based on the unusual orbits of other bodies.
Beware the hype !

Orbits which supposedly prove the ninth planet exists ©Caltech / 

There is a live feed from NASA which allows you to watch the building of the Webb telescope
Hardly world shattering, but don't forget, when this thing gets to space, it will be able to see further than ever before, with its infra-red capabilities and position on the second Lagrange point at a distance of 1.5 million km from Earth.
Okay, October 2018 is the projected launch date from French Guiana, so a little wait yet,
although I'm sure citizen astronomers will be on the case already.

Znamiya 2.5             pic Triz Journal

Productivity bonus!
There once was an attempt to turn night to day, thus enabling more productive times on Earth - well, Cold - War era Soviet Russia.
Far from being a flakey idea, the man behind the huge space mirror created the spaceship docking system still in use today at the ISS.

In other non-news
There is a new allusion to illustrate quantum mechanics, which says that three pigeons can be put in two holes without the same pigeons occupying any hole.
Which is like saying that a thing does not exist until it is noted.
I think.
My problem with this example is why not have two pigeons in one hole without being in the same hole ?
Surely that is more quantum ?
Remaining in the realm of hypothesis and brain-ache , two strands of possible systems are being reconciled - yes, they have found common ground between string theory and looping quantum physics , which may close the chasm of incompatibility.
For the layman like myself, it just means that interstellar travel may be possible sooner .
Or at all.
My brain hurts.

Final words in a pointless post
In my endless drifting through the world of social media news aggregates (tough, repetitive work, but someone has to do it), I notice with dismay the new tendency to over-use superlatives.
It's almost as though everything is awesome incredible shocking.
I suppose in our news hungry modern world, these are the superlatives needed to grab attention.
I can't help thinking though, that ultimately something really amazing will be overlooked, and left ignored, swamped by a sea of viral puffery.
For those who wonder what 'puffery' means, it's pointless trivia like this :
Did you know that the Wikipedia article on Jesus has been edited more than 25,000 times?
That's more than the article on The Beatles (only 22,000 edits, approx}.
So it's true to say that Jesus is more famous than The Beatles, now.
Which is only slightly funny for a few people.
Oh well.

The Megastructure, The Mammoth, And The Canyon we've never seen

One of todays links is to a site where NASA store moon rocks and meteorites - appparently there is an expedition every year, where meteorites are sought and gathered from Arctic slopes.
I sigh, and wonder how I never heard of such a job when I was younger.
Which brings me conveniently to our recurring mystery star:

A few months back , there was a brief flurry* of media interest in what might conceivably be an alien mega-structure around a nearby star .
By nearby, I mean 1500 light years away.

Apparently it's not comets...

Astronomically, that's 'nearby'.
Anyway, I digress.
The point is that there is further uncertainty over the same star.
Although Keppler only has records of the star and its odd light fluctuations going back 4 years, photographic plates from previous observations have been found which trace back over a hundred years.
And light from the star was fluctuating back in 1890.
It's not the fluctuation itself that's significant, but the degree - up to 20 %, which is a lot.

The generally accepted theory was that the variance in light output was being caused by passing comets: but it has now been estimated that the amount of time involved would require 648,000 comets passing at regular intervals.
So that theory is abandoned .

KIC 8462852  artists impression pic via NASA/JPL/ Caltech

Excited, yet ?
Perhaps it's just me, but then I was actually crestfallen when SETI failed to intercept any signals from that direction.
So there is scope for further investigation, as all current theories are null and void.
Something is causing massive fluctuations in light from this star that cannot be explained by natural phenomenon.
And it's been happening regularly for over a hundred years.
Which is also confusing, as there is no apparent pattern to the variances.

It seems to be one single mechanism which is changing over time, causing the dramatic dimming of the star.
With no audible or visible wavelength signals discernible, however, if it is aliens, then they are being very quiet...

Meanwhile, back on Earth...

There is a hidden canyon beneath the ice of  Antarctica, twice as long as the Grand Canyon, and possibly culminating in a lake covering 480 square miles.
It appears that it was created in a time when Antarctica was free of ice, long ago.
However,that 'long ago' is a movable feast, as another recent discovery in the Siberian permafrost is a mammoth bearing signs of attack by ancient hunters.
Given its age and location, it seems to indicate that our ancestors were further North, some 10,000 years before our previous guesstimate: pushing back the date of humans crossing the Bering Strait into what is now North America.
Are we all immigrants from the dawn of time?




* A link to the original 'Invisible Words' post which mentions it in October last year. Not essential reading, just to say - hey, we're ahead of the curve - stay with us!

Farewell then, David Robert Jones Bowie

Did you get swept up in the deluge of online Bowie mourning?
I know that I did - I used to hang out in Brixton and - blah, blah you get the picture.
The fact is, he cannot be ignored.
Perhaps it's generational - I found that I was suddenly hearing tunes from his back catalogue which triggered memories and moments from my past.

I was too young to appreciate the use of Space Oddity to accompany moonshot footage on tv.
Or the fact that it was his first transatlantic hit.
Later in life, I conducted walking tours which took in Trident Studios, where it was recorded.
I loved pointing out the humble anonymity of the place, tucked away in the back streets of London.
I could go on, but I won't.
Not yet, anyway.
I've always loved music, and Bowie was always there, flirting with genres and genders, re-inventing himself, and breaking boundary walls .
He initially identified himself as a folk musician, but he was so much more - refusing to be tied to a narrow definition of the term.
My first real introduction to the strangeness was through a babysitter who was older, and therefore party to these mysteries which confused my thirteen year old self - I only knew that Bowie was popular, and had played an alien in a film.

British lobby poster    

I remember seeing images of the character and his family with dark lenses for eyes, and thinking how strange they looked, but how sad it was that he should fall all the way to Earth with no spaceship.
Even worse, that he'd have to live as a 'normal' human being.

 Man Who Fell To Earth. Dir Nic Roeg 1976

Somehow, in my young mind, the shots of Bowie on the distant world got confused with the music and the stylised photographic imagery on the cover of StationtoStation .
I didn't get it, and felt like one of the cavemen he sang about in 'Life on Mars'.

In later, more cynical, punk - infused times, he was still there, still relevant, although I steered clear of 'Let's Dance', as I considered it 'bubblegum pop' .
At the time, I preferred his theme to the Paul Schrader film,' Cat People'.
The music of David Bowie was often like that - if there was something you didn't like, there was always an alternative somewhere.
For me, it was the era mentioned here, with bits of Diamond Dogs , Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, 'Heroes' , Hunky Dory...
I didn't like ' The Lodger' , but 'Scary Monsters and Super Creeps' hit the spot for me.
Tin Machine passed me by, but by that time his immense back catalogue towered over any lesser projects - and he moved into acting, following his early experience in 1967 , and later as the alien Thomas Newton ( see above ), then his impressive  stage performance as ' The Elephant Man'.
He returned to the silver screen with roles in 'Just A Gigolo', 'The Hunger', ' Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence' , and the Goblin King in Labyrinth.
As I grew up, he was almost omnipresent, yet never seemed 'over-exposed' - not in the way I find so many media figures these days.
Perhaps it was his gift for transformation that kept him 'fresh' - though he was also very selective, never appearing in a film just for the sake of being seen.

He was also a huge influence on the New Romantic scene, predating it, and including many prominent figures from there in the video of Ashes To Ashes, his 'sequel' to Space Oddity.
I'm sure the flamboyant post-punk dressing - up thing would be claimed by Malcolm McLaren, but he was inspired by the New York Dolls , who were cross - dressing way back when - which brings me conveniently to Transformer.
I'd picked up on the Velvet Underground, and enjoyed (?) their sonorous melodies but wasn't so enamoured of Lou Reeds solo output - except that one album.
Transformer was great.
When I realised it was produced by Bowie, I gained a renewed respect for both artists.

David Bowie      ©Tom Colbie

Reading back through this labyrinth (no pun intended) of words, I realise that it's just  another one of the untold thousands of tributes to a true legend, who is tightly interwoven in the memories of so many that his passing cannot be ignored.
So I'll keep it brief, and say farewell.
Thank you, Mr Bowie.
Safe Journey Home.