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.

All Quiet on Sol , Saturns Rings Await and Orion begins the Hunt.

Almost spotless

THE SUN

Our Sun is approaching its lowest activity cycle, with precious little sunspot activity , as above.
This picture is very appropriate in its blankness, as I managed to lose my draft notes this morning* for this very blog.
Yes there was no backup, as there is no plan.
Please bear with me as I attempt to recall the newsworthy moments using good old fashioned grey matter - ahem.
The sun is not scheduled to reach its lowest point of activity until 2021- it generally means fewer power outages and possibly a wider sense of 'calm' if soothsayers are to be believed.
On the other hand it could be a bad omen.

THIRD PLANET FROM THE SUN...

IBM have created a molecule that could kill all known viruses , says the headline of this article - a strong claim, but something that could be a game changer.
It also puts IBM at the potential forefront of genetic adaptions ... which leads us to the report that scientists have successfully combined organic material with silicon.
What purpose this serves is yet to be seen, but it has never been done in nature ( to our knowledge) , so it's a first. Possibly.
Certainly the oldest 'fossils' found must be the ancient bacteria from some 2 .5 billion years ago - be warned, that link contains some heavyweight geology stuff...
After an upgrade, the LIGO gravitational waves detector is ready for another session of detection of space/time ripples ( shock-waves from black holes, basically ) - don't forget that it was only until recently that such waves remained undetected, languishing in the realms of  theoretical science.

 NASA will soon be testing their new Orion craft in advance of manned missions to Mars ( hey, no queue jumping - I know things are tough , but there won't be a manned Mars lift - off until 2021)

MEANWHILE, ON MARS...

Current thinking is that Mars once had sufficient water to cover its entire surface..
Waterworld ?- We hope not. Let's move on from that cinematic debacle...
This has inevitably led  to the question of potential fossils, but the timeline would appear to dash any such hopes.
Following from Octobers ill-fated ExoMars mission, all is not lost -
First images back from the Trace Gas Orbiter are good.


AT THE RINGS OF SATURN...

 Cassini orbit    NASA/ JPL / Caltech

NASA explorer craft Cassini is about to begin a spectacular flyby of Saturns rings, weaving in between and above and below, it will be the prelude to Cassinis farewell when it plunges into the atmosphere of Saturn on September 15 2017 ( at 5.07 pm PDT ).





* last Wednesday actually, the first in a series of odd little technical mishaps . . . which is why this post never happened. I find these things increasingly frustrating. If someone has it in for my micro blog, then I'm flattered for the attention, but seriously, what's the point ?

Impossible Drives, Missing Nukes and Balloons in Space

The 'impossible'  em - drive

Perhaps the biggest news is the publication of a paper by NASA following their exhaustive testing of the enigmatic EM drive.
I mentioned this in a post some time ago, as it holds incredible potential for space travel at near light speed - it also makes flying cars a possibility.
The fact that it negates part of Einsteins Theory of Relativity is a minor hurdle , but one which it seems to have overcome.
After all , rules were made to be broken.
The ramifications of this news are truly amazing - Earth to Mars in 70 days - making a swift visit to those distant relatives a very real possibility...

MEANWHILE, UP IN SPACE...

bloostar

With the recent comet-landing , and Bennu sample mission underway, much of the current space activity seems to be aimed at future near - world asteroid mining which has potential already identified by at least two companies ; Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries.
With Blue Origin and SpaceX both offering commercial rocket flights and bloostar offering a balloon - assisted launch for smaller payloads , including spacecraft, it will soon be quite a busy place up there - so if you want to take advantage of the serene view of Earth from the edge of space, you'd better quickly book a balloon flight with zero2infinity.com  ( I love the slogan 'purveyors of elevation')

There seems to be an upsurge of interest in off-world stuff, so have a tour of the ISS in 4K .
The leisurely pace of the film also provides a relaxing 'chill-out' factor, just the thing to take your mind off all that Earthbound stress...
Today the crew known as expedition 50 sucessfully boarded the ISS to begin their six - month stint of experiments and living in the confined space.
Plans are being made for a joint space station orbiting the moon , when the ISS has been decommisioned. The projected date for the new facility is 2028 or thereabouts, just to be unscientific...

We learn that there is a huge chasm on Mercury big enough to rival the Deep Rift valley in Africa, and the Grand Canyon, at 600 miles long and 250 miles wide.
Whilst its dimensions are impressive, the main thing is that it indicates active geology on Mercury - and the little planet is shrinking - hardly surprising being so close to the sun ,...but this also tells us that both Mercury and Pluto appear to have an unknown internal heat source.
In other news, Mars has a funnel which could potentially support  microbial life , being a depression from an old volcano atop a glacier.

MEANWHILE BACK ON EARTH...

A long lost 'nuke' may have been found off the Canadian coast , where it has lain since 1950 when it was abandoned following a plane crash .
Phew, one less cause for sleepless nights among Canadians...

Only dedicated applicants need apply to see Marie Curies notes ; they have a radioactive half-life of 1500 years.
In fairness you should probably wear a hazmat suit, which makes page-turning difficult, too.


                               

Touchdown , Smackdown , Saturn and Giant Wombats

16 sunrises every day on the ISS

It is now 21 years since the discovery of  the first exoplanet , 51Pegasi B, in the constellation of Pegasus.
Following this find , the number of exoplanets has rocketed ( no pun intended) , and now stands at  approximately 3500 
Whilst many exoplanets are woefully unsuitable for Earth comparisons - 51Pegasi B is a 'hot Jupiter', a tidally locked world that orbits its sun every four days with an average surface temperature of 1200°c .
The figure of 3500 exoplanets gives only a tiny fraction of potentially Earth - like worlds - personally, I think we're wasting precious resources looking for our own reflections.
Are we a world of Narcissists ?
Actually...

NASA celebrates 16 years of the ISS in orbit with the release of an amazing selection of  gifs charting the development of the little 'space colony '.
 A recent touchdown of returning crew from the ISS in Kazakhastan  generated some great photos courtesy of  Bill Ingalls

Returning Soyuz capsule    pic NASA/ Bill Ingalls

Saturn pic Cassini   NASA

The mysterious hexagon , which is bigger than Earth at Saturn's north pole has changed color,
shifting from blue to gold...speculation abounds online that the planet is the solar systems mood-ring.
Meanwhile, it is revealed that Saturns moon Titan is littered with steep- walled canyons filled with liquid methane .
Stunning views and fine sailing for anyone brave enough...seriously though, when Cassini reaches the end of its tenure, there is a proposed submarine mission 

Giovanni Cassini's journals.
He discovered four of  Saturn's moons
between 1671-1684

 Meanwhile on Mars...

The dauntless explorer Curiosity is still roving over the rugged martian landscape.
Its latest find is a meteorite ( known as egg-rock) composed of a nickel / iron mixture .
Whilst it's not exactly big news, I include it here as evidence that NASA are scanning images for even such small oddities - although they obviously missed the squirrel , witchy woman and alien -crab -thingy amongst other uncanny similes.
For those who wish to conduct a post -mortem , the wreckage of the ill- fated Schiaparelli has been imaged by the Mars Orbiter.
I hope that someday the wreckage can be displayed alongside Beagle II and remnants of the many other ill- fated expeditions to the ' Red Planet'.
No doubt the Curiosity rover will be first in line to mock its failed predecessors / rivals in an understated , robotic way

Following the revelation that there are huge amounts of galaxies ( at least two trillion ) in the observable universe, it's the brain- melting number -crunch time again.
Apparently dark matter ( the theoretical crazy-glue of the cosmos) is comprised of trillions of axion particles.
Trillions of axions in every cubic centimeter of the universe.
Ponder.
Feel incredibly small.
Then get annoyed at all the ' ifs' and ' possiblies' associated with what is undoubtedly impressive but almost totally conjectural work.
Personally, I was initially impressed, but increasingly angered by the vagueness of the piece ( see above link).
Perhaps.


MEANWHILE, BACK ON EARTH...

A mysterious 'ping' sound emanating from the seabed in the Arctic is being investigated by the Canadian military .
Early reports dismiss industrial exploration and international subterfuge .
Apparently this ping is pretty serious then , or we're involved in a publicity scam for a new X-files movie....

In the last post, I mentioned the discovery of a hybrid cattle / bison species depicted in cave paintings - now we hear of a discovery indicating that Australia was populated 10 000 years earlier than previously thought.
Evidence has emerged with the discovery of bone fragments, weapons and egg shells in the Australian outback.
The media spin tells us that a man made the discovery when he was caught short and decided to answer the call of nature in a rocky shelter .

Other ancient discoveries recently include what may or may not be a dinosaur brain.
Found some 50 miles from London , ( for the politically inclined, there are dinosaur brains in London , in the Palace of Westminster, which are still functioning in a rudimentary fashion) it is currently being studied as a rare anomaly  (soft tissue tends to degenerate quickly , leaving no trace)  by a Paleobiologist - blimey - first I knew of such a profession !

Finally , a tip of the hat to the tireless writers of  Gizmodo , ( particularly the excellent work of Maddie Stone) , the Planetary org , NASA and  also thanks to you for indulging this weird little micro -blog 
Until next time

G Alias Me

Mars Malfunction , Jovian Jollies , Red Rocks and Missing Links

Huge slab of ice found on Mars...        Image : American Geophysical Unit

Mars continues to reveal wonders , with the alleged discovery of a huge slab of ice beneath the surface.
It's actually been quite the week in space. I was planning to create this blog last Wednesday 19th October , in celebration of Exomars arriving at its destination , but - oops , that didn't happen.
Exomars, a two-pronged exploration mission by ESA had only partial success.
The Trace Gas Orbiter is in place, but apparently the Schiaparelli lander had issues with a parachute jettisoning too early. Given that the parachute failed, and the probe entered a freefall reaching a speed of 186mph, the expression ' touch down ' is an understatement.
Further understatement in the BBC report - ' The mood is not positive ' ...

My first response was to wonder why they didn't just aim it at one of the ice caps, letting the heat melt the ice and hopefully absorb some impact that way, but that ignores the Space Treaty and potentially endangers any as yet undiscovered life, I suppose..
That being the case, though, what about the unsuspecting martian who may have been struck by Schiaparelli?
How do we know our puported martian victim is okay ?
There he / she / it  is walking along, minding their own martian business when ka-ding! a lump of hot metal from space...and this one doesn't even have a golden disc with details of where it's from.

Identifying disc from Voyager...

Anyway , the whole Exo-mars thing was really a ' tech demo' , being a dry run for the next mission from ESA , which involves a Curiosity - style rover.
Let's just hope that goes to plan...

Staying with the idea of malfunctioning space probes, earlier in the week , Juno had an issue when two valves opened very slowly , with a resultant loss of a crucial 'window' for a closer orbit (14 days instead of  53.5) around Jupiter .
This means that Juno won't really ' science ' until  Dec 14th, almost two months from now.
If those pesky valves open fast enough.
It makes you realise just how time - sensitive these things are.

Media also tell us of the approach as New Horizons now heads out to Kuiper Belt Object MU 69. The rendezvous is not until 2019 , but we now know that the object appears to be very red.
It seems amazing that we have reached a point in our history where we look for news from an event in the future , rather than now...and quite incredibly , we already know that MU69, a rock drifting a billion miles away in space, is red.
We're not quite advanced enough to determine which particular shade of red, but ...patience is a virtue.
Speaking of space events - I almost missed the news of the two Chinese astronauts reaching their space station.
Pause for a moment - China has a space station ?
Well . yes, but it seems to have happened ' under the radar '. Hmmm
I recall the coverage of the ' Jade Rabbit' moonshot , but a space station ?
Tiangong 1 , known as the ' heavenly palace' is the station.
Anyway, well done China , and a shame on our media bias

Meanwhile back on Earth 

 Palaeontologists have discovered a cave painting that shows some form of ' missing link '- a hybrid between European cattle and the bison.
Again, I must express a little concern - since when did a cave painting become empirical evidence of a species?
I can see it now - deep in a dark cavern in the shadow of retreating glaciers, the neolithic man and his companion are daubing the walls
Hey - I'm drawing a white horse with a horn on its nose. That'll confuse them'
I'm extrapolating of course, but it is surely as likely as a new species defined by 18, 000 year old art scrawled in a dark cavern by flickering torchlight.

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...