Animal Saboteurs from the Future, Red Dragon on Mars, and Storms in Space

Weasel

Marten

The humbling effect of nature reaches us through this weeks news that the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider was recently taken down and rendered inoperable .
Terrorist action ?
No, apparently a weasel chewed through an electrical cable.
I say apparently , as it is yet to be determined whether the culprit is indeed a weasel, or a marten.
Either way, given the frazzled nature of the poor interlopers remains, it may never be conclusively proven.
It seems that incursions by wildlife are an occupational hazard for particle accelerators like the LHC.
In 2009, a bird dropped a 'piece of baguette' onto an electrical substation above ground, causing a dangerous heat surge in sector 81.

Also, a report dating from way back in 2006 tells of a ' co-ordinated attack' (May 30th entry) by raccoons on the Fermilab accelerator in the USA .

Fermilab, Illinois

It could be argued that the animal kingdom is determined to undermine these experiments - two physicists have actually proposed a theory that the animals are time travelling saboteurs, I kid you not - read this link to TIME magazine !
It's odd how something so bizarre as the ongoing search for theoretical particles renders the most outlandish ideas as somehow - normal .
Anyway, my attempts to further research the unusual animal interventions at Particle Accelerators led to a world of conspiracy, with wayward physicists and exploding magnets.
Then I took a deep breath and stepped back from the abyss...

Footnote
It appears that the creature involved was a beech marten , although whether it was a time- travelling saboteur determined to prevent the Earth from certain apocalypse by misguided physicists remains unknown .
As of 29/04/16 it will be a week until the LHC is back in action.


MEANWHILE, UP IN SPACE...

Space X have announced their intention to land a ' Red Dragon' craft on Mars in 2018, a feat which, if accomplished , will provide a major boost to the idea of colonising space.
Their recent successful launches and recovery of first stage Falcon rockets prove that where there is a will, there is a way - and NASA will be watching closely  (and no doubt with a tinge of jealousy) at the progress of the mission.


FURTHER OUT...

Neptune - roughly the size of Hat-P-11B

A previously unexplained radio signal from space now has an explanation - using complex algorithms, scientists have discovered that the signals from a large, icy exoplanet some 122 light years away were infact triggered by an immense storm estimated to be five hundred times bigger than anything on Earth.
So they now have an answer for strange signals from space - " Oh, that's nothing special -  it's raining on Hat - P - 11B "
So even in deep space, we can talk about the weather...

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.

The Wandering World , The Galaxy From Nowhere, and Other Oddities

Statue of Yuri Gagarin erected near Admiralty Arch, London

On the anniversary (12th April 1961) of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first man in space, we had an announcement from Stephen Hawking ,Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg (?) of project  'Breakthrough Starshot ,' an expedition to nearby star system Alpha Centauri, which will use a light sail, a powerful laser, and photons of sunlight to attain incredible speed - 20 % the speed of light, no less - taking a tiny microchip to its destination in a mere 20 years - a long journey to us, but a mere blip in cosmic terms (using conventional fuels would take 30 thousand years).
Momentous news, and just the kind of far - sighted thinking we need right now to escape our own earth-bound political struggles.

Breakthrough Starshot will boldly go...

The media is pushing the angle that it's the biggest attempt to discover aliens, ever.*
Well, I suppose it sells copy .
To be honest, the hyperbole would have you believe that the mere presence of our tiny solar sail would induce aliens to rush to appear on camera, take a selfie, etc.
The assertion that a tiny camera on a tiny sail is our most elaborate attempt to contact extraterrestrials is laughable.
I would point them to the wealth of online information, but it's not my job to educate lazy journos...

Mistakes mean we're only human, after all - for instance - they just discovered  a galaxy next to our own.
Researchers in the University of Cambridge discovered the galaxy , ( known as Crater 2 ) during recent observations.
A galaxy which has been there since forever.
The defence is that it is a very dim galaxy.
And you know how tricky it is to spot something that is quite dark.
Especially in the dark.
So we completely missed it until just now.
Oops

IN OTHER NEWS...

Hybrid star/ worlds...

A university in Canada (Western Ontario) , have discovered an orphan world  - a brown dwarf, no less- with the name 2MASS , for short (possible rapper delusions) , wandering around in our neighbourhood.
It is a relatively youthful world, too, at a mere 200 million years old compared to our own 4 billion.


In a first, the Saturn system explorer Huygens - Cassini has detected cosmic particles from beyond our own solar system,
Cassini also analysed the particles revealing a mixture of minerals, rather than the expected ice.

In other maybe news, it seems the Large Hadron Collider may have discovered a new particle.
Hopeful at best, we must await further testing and won't have final word until this summer - but it would be a first , and could involve further advances in some new fields, so fingers crossed

*A more sober observation regarding potential first contact from Neil DeGrasse Tyson says that initial contact would probably involve a mathematical exchange, perhaps a solution to a simple abstract problem, before we get down to discussing cosmic matters.

Notes From Anthropocene Man - The Gates of Hell, Falcon 9, and Supermassive Black Holes

STOP PRESS!

As this micro blog goes to press, Space X made history today by launching the Falcon 9 rocket to restock the ISS and then landing the first stage booster with pinpoint accuracy on a barge / 'droneship' in the Atlantic !
History is made !
Meantime, the Dragon craft is docking with the ISS to replenish supplies , and deliver an inflatable extension !

The West Coast  droneship used for the landing

It is a piece of history now, and surely the first step in a new, commercial, space race.

The image below appeared on my FB feed as a timely reminder that we see everything from a human scale, but in the grand scheme of things, we really are miniscule. Further feelings of insignificance came with the announcement of the discovery of a supermassive black hole in an otherwise empty corner of the universe.
The very phrase ' empty corner of the universe' is surely a euphemism...

Endeavour leaves Earth for the final time.          Pic NASA

I find it tempting to laugh at the ludicrous terminology - 'Supermassive', not just ' large' .
'Supermassive' black hole applies to anything over the size of ten billion* suns.
This one is the size of seventeen billion suns, so it's quite big, then.
but not the biggest.
This led me to wonder how they classify black holes , but I confess I'm none the wiser ...apparently the naming convention is ' primordial, stellar and supermassive' .
If you want to ponder, the link is here.

If you just want to see some great images from our solar system , the link is here, with thanks to The Atlantic.com

The giant listening 'ears' of SETI are being redirected.
The latest thinking is that intelligent life, should it exist, is more likely to be found in the habitable, or 'goldilocks' zones of planets in a tight orbit around red dwarf suns.
This information was gathered by the Keppler mission, and given that three quarters of the stars in our own Milky Way are red dwarf stars, that makes them much more practical (i.e. closer to home).
I laughed when I read the phrase 'They are the dim bulbs of the universe'.
This made me sit up, though - why so many red dwarf stars  in our galaxy ?
Are we a dying galaxy ?
Anyway, I hope the revised SETI search produces results - although I prefer another theory which states that our reliance on radio waves as a communication carrier might itself be at fault.

I also hold the belief that advanced alien civilisations might be hiding rather than attempting to communicate.
Who can blame them ?

MEANWHILE , BACK ON  EARTH...

Apparently the new, more energised world of the Large Hadron Collider leaves us open to dangerous possibilities .
Even Pope Francis has spoken out, saying " Scientists risk opening the gates to hell ".
If you ask me (or any old gamer) it sounds like a script for Doom .

In which science unleashes the hordes of hell...    

Either way, there's no denying that with increased power available, the world of the LHC is necessarily getting stranger.
Which makes me wonder -
Is there a global strangeness index ?
Personally, I reckon the world is a lot stranger than it was , but my Googling of the term ' Global Weirdness' only turned up a slew of Climate Change info, which is a frightening reality , but not 'weird '.

IN OTHER NEWS...

NVIDIA are developing supercomputers capable of intricate 'Deep Learn' style Artificial Intelligence.
The aim of this is to develop a system which approaches problems from a variety of angles, much as we humans do.
I only hope the resultant Artificial Intelligence doesn't decide to wipe us out and reboot...which brings us to the title of this post .

Apparently we are living in the Anthropocene era, when our impact on the Earth is unavoidably altering it - and not for the better.
As well as the obvious Climate Change, the search for rare earth elements is a potential eco-disaster.
These rare substances are essential components in smartphones and all things tech,, but do not exist in sufficient quantities to mine , except on the sea - bed.
The caveat is that wholesale destruction of fragile marine ecosystems is necessary to procure enough of them.
Of course, it's possible that many asteroids contain abundant 'rare-Earth' minerals - which, along with todays successful landing by Space-X, tells us that the new 'Space Race' is on - hopefully without the political edge...






* NASA claim that anything over 4 million suns is supermassive 

Vanishing Satellites, Planetary Collisions and Nitrogen Lakes

News just in tells us that there has been a collision on Jupiter, probably involving a stray asteroid.
In a move that laughs in the face of improbability, it has been documented by not one, but two amateur astronomers - which conjures a strange image of dedicated, lonely skywatchers !
More to the point, it's bizarre that it should even be noticeable from Earth.
Let's look at the maths for a moment.
At it's closest point to Earth, Jupiter is approximately 628 million miles away.
The object which collided with the gas giant is estimated as a few hundred feet in diameter, so not exactly big.
Yet here is the footage.

Hitomi launch 17 Feb 2016            pic ©JAXA

It's great that amateur astronomers are on the case, because even professionals can mess up -  Japan have just lost their brand new orbiting telescope, barely weeks after launch.
In a blow to JAXA , the satellite named Hitomi, has broken up and is now beyond recovery.
It was designed to examine large and powerful events, such as supernovae and black holes, but the joint Japanese / NASA mission is no more.
It remains a mystery as to what exactly occured, but the 273 million dollar telescope is now so much space debris.
STOP PRESS: The satellite Hitomi has suddenly re-appeared, it has shed some debris, and is in a spin / freefall. 
Due to the uncertainty of this development, I'm not going to delete the previous article yet.
Awaiting further developments as of 30 March 2016.
Exciting !
Thank you !

The controversial (well, he is responsible for the downgrading of Pluto) , Mike Brown @plutokiller, has found another Kuiper belt object whose unusual movements corroborate his planet nine theory - note I said theory - his evidence has not yet been peer reviewed, so it's still early days - although he's probably getting lots of love from the Conspiracy / New Age Niburu contingent.
Cynical, me ?

Frozen nitrogen lake on Pluto       pic NASA/ JPL / Caltech

In other news, hawk - eyed photo scrutinisers (is there no actual name for this increasingly relevant pastime ?) have discovered a small ( 20 miles wide !) frozen lake on Pluto.
Don't book that sailing holiday just yet - it's a nitrogen lake, and without a sun to defrost the Nitrogen - on the other hand there appears to be warmth emanating from inside Pluto , hence the new geological areas, so, despite its position out on the edge of our solar system , Pluto is anything but cold and lifeless.
In a moment of serendipity, I learned today that -169°c is the temperature at which nitrogen liquifies, and nitrogen is the liquid in which proponents (clients?) of Cryonics are preserved.
How this impacts on the news from Pluto, I'm not sure, but there's probably a dystopian sci - fi in there, somewhere...

One place not to go kite flying (or probably even using light sails to harness photons as propulsion) , is the newly discovered supermassive black hole with winds of up to 200 million mph .
That's fast - infact, it's a significant percentage of the speed of light - imagine the ability to 'slingshot' a spacecraft , using the thrust to boost travel speed...

Just to boost those feelings of cosmic insignificance, our Milky Way galaxy ( of which we are a dot on the outer edge) , is part of the Laniakea Supercluster of 100,000 galaxies.

And on that note of cosmic insignificance, I say, cheerio - till next time !

Clippy, AI and Distant Worlds

Xiaolce or Cortana or Siri or - just creepy dystopian AI

In my last post, I bemoaned human nature as the weakest link in our rapidly advancing, technology driven world -  as if to prove me right , Microsoft created a virtual teen AI as an online ' chatbot' .
Known as Tay, it was modelled on succesful AI which Microsoft introduced to China , named 'Xiaolce ' which gave great recitals of stories and made good conversation.
With 40 million devotees, it was decided to quickly expand the exercise .

Taught to Troll 

Sadly , though, apparently in the West, we still teach parrots to swear - and so, within 24 hours, the chatbot known as 'Tay' was withdrawn , as it had ' learned ' fascism , hyper-sexuality, and was producing a slew of offensive tweets .
Back to the drawing board, Microsoft - just don't reduce it to another ' Clippy' , please ...dysfunctional AI is one thing, but software that induces murderous rage is a no - no.

If you never suffered with 'helpful' Clippy, you're lucky

The burgeoning world of AI is heaving with personal assistants - from Siri to Cortana and Echo and Alexa, it's a troublesome field - but is it really a practical solution, or just a chance to slack off, whilst enjoying the idea of having AI resolve issues for you ?
My personal worry is the end result of ' outsourcing' questions - will it ultimately create a knowledge deficit ?
I suppose it's really no lazier than saying " I'll Google it", the great fallback for tricky questions; but even so, is it a virtual cop-out ?
Discuss...

Meanwhile, out in the solar system...



The area of online info regarding what's new in space is a burgeoning field, and NASA have created a new site to cover most things, so I will be lessening my focus on all things space related -
I am only a keen amateur, after all.
At the end of the day, the reappearance of a floating city in China interests me as much as tectonics on Pluto, so...
!
However, I am impressed with the pictures which show us ' Mithrim Montes' , a set of mountain ranges on Titan, one of Saturns moons.
The images look a bit like vague watercolour , as they are from radar readings which penetrate the hazy atmosphere, allowing us to gauge surfaces beneath , so not true - vision , really.
even so, I'm impressed.
Why ?
Because it may be a blurry image, but they have deduced the height of the tallest mountain on the satellite of a planet which is over a billion kilometres from here.*
That's why I'm impressed.

    Occator crater on Ceres               pic NASA/ JPL / CALTECH/

Staying with the idea of unconventional imaging, we also have a ' gravity map' of the martian interior.
Given the strangeness of Ceres   , I wonder whether we'll get a similar interior probe ?
Although the Mars map is made from three separate readings from three explorers -  Maven, Orbiter and Curiosity, whereas Ceres only has Dawn to survey it , at present.
The latest news of Ceres is that it almost certainly contains a subsurface, briny ocean - and the expulsion of bright salts we see are possibly the result of impacts .

Colour image of spots on Ceres           pic NASA

There have been recent launches including Exo Mars, the next level of Martian exploration -  a lander module and an orbiter , which will eventually lead to a research base , not a permanent colony .
After all , we still don't know if the way is clear.

Meanwhile, on Jupiter , there seems to be activity on the poles , which already have a permanent aurora display - also a mysterious collision has occured on Jupiter.
I say mysterious, it's almost certainly a wandering meteor, asteroid , or a comet . The incident is further detailed here.
Don't forget, with the NASA Juno probe entering Jupiters atmosphere in July this year, we may see the next collision up close .





* That's an approximation, the distance between us varies greatly .

Crisis Of Confidence

Lately, I've been suffering a 'crisis of confidence'.
This morning, I decided to ignore my normal urge to plunge into the online world.
It has become my 24 / 7 newspaper.
A window on a world that never stops.

In my childhood, I used to read the newspaper whilst eating breakfast.
It meant that I could start the day with some knowledge of topical news - although we never watched much tv , so I avoided all the celeb nonsense - actually, there wasn't so much of it then.
If someone was famous, it was due to their achievements.
What I mean is there was no connection between wealth and fame.
Or worse, fame for its own sake.
Infact, I think it was seen as somehow vulgar.

The first person who entered my personal radar as being famous 'just because' was Paris Hilton.*
Since then, it's been downhill - which is saying something.
Infact, sometimes I think it's out of control - and with it goes our system of values , where genuine ability was rewarded, as opposed to column inches of magazines and newspapers being dedicated to the next vacuous thing.
The saturation of media with narcissistic personalities has given us a very small ' gene pool ' , where ability is outshone by the cult of personality or wealth (Mr Trump).
...
People like to emulate success.
Although celebrity status is no guarantee of wisdom (Mr Trump).
I think that's part of the problem.
Should someone be able to lecture to us on diet and lifestyle just because they are in the public eye ?
Does their diet perhaps contain some secret to their success ?
Or is their surname Kardashian ?

Of course, manufacturers are always looking for famous people to endorse products - it's just that now we have people being famous for endorsing products.

Kaiju culture , or a comment on  Donald Trump ?

The ' old ' media world is populated now by the 'entitled ' classes.
There is no hunger for ' the new' anymore, and complacency is king.
It's already obvious in the constant re-invention of old material, and the remaking of classic films.
Perhaps it's age.
Of course, I am getting old, and am already outstripped by the upcoming ' millenials'.
On the other hand, almost everything now is a reference to what's gone before, so I'm perfectly placed to comment on 'pop' culture in all its forms -  cartoons and toys , transient fads or vinyl records or 3D films or clothes or lifestyle.
And this is perhaps, my point.
Pop culture is the main currency now, and we are all part of that.
Citizen microbloggers, You Tubers, Cosplayers, Instagrammers, Minecrafters, Makers, everyone is involved in enhancing pop culture at some level.
It's good to see blind consumerism morph into something more productive.

Not consumption - creation.

Memes are a new form of expression
( artist unknown )

I've always been fascinated by pop culture , and how it infiltrates and reflects our society.
I remember how strange it felt to live in the nowhere of middle England in 1987, reading manga .
It was like a window to another world - although even that world contained echoes of our own...

Barefoot Gen was harrowing

International time and date lines are immaterial in this switched on internet world.
Which brings me back to this morning, and my determination not to go online.
I failed.
Worse, I responded to an emotive article .
I soon found myself embroiled in an online argument.
In the days of newspapers, it was simply a matter of turning the page if you failed to agree with a piece.
Online, however, you must be prepared to have your entire worldview questioned or brought into disrepute.
It's a minefield - and lately, the scourge of lynch mobs with virtual pitchforks appears to have expanded to Farcebook as well as Twitter.
I thought I'd avoided childish banter by staying away from the ubiquitous ' comments' section of most online articles and You Tube videos.
But it's everywhere.
The end result of online anger is frustration.
All pent up and nowhere to blow.

Unfortunately, the old 'fight or flee' mechanism is sorely out dated in the internet realm.
Way back in the google-free days of the early Nineties, I used to say that coming advances in technology would leave us struggling as a species.
I think we've already reached that point.
So far, we have adapted quickly and well to the smartphone-driven world where images , emojis and acronyms are the new language: where everything is now, and all things are available.
But what next ?
Do we hope for a singularity or an evolutionary leap to lift us all to greater heights ?
Or do we try to slow the advance of technology ?
Do we yearn for the lazy Summers of yesteryear, when time was immaterial , or do we rush headlong into a future propelled by the relentless drive of technology ?
If you choose the latter, be prepared for endless upgrades.


P.s. I've just realised that Paris Hilton is as much a product of  pop culture as anything else, so I 'm guilty of cherry picking.
And hypocrisy.

I'll take my meds, now.

*In fairness, Big Brother generated the first slew of 'famous because' in the u.k. way back in 2000.