Filed under: Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, Ballistics, Cassini, Depression, Enceladus, Guns, Health, NASA, Phil Plait, RKBA, Saturn, Science, Space
Man, I still feel like someone beat me with a bag of nickels.
I wonder if this is just an effect of having subjected myself to a lot of blast shock over a four day period? Shooting a lot of the ‘real world’ guns (we test something on the order of 40 with all the different ammos available from the previous tests) wasn’t such a big deal. But some of them – particularly the Bond derringers in the larger calibers – were just brutal to shoot 20 – 30 times in a row. And the blast from the short barrels of the chop tests could knock your teeth loose.
Anyway, I ache everywhere. And I’ve been fighting a mild depression for the last couple of days. At first it was just masked by being tired (the tests were hard, and I got too little sleep). Also, I figured that the emotional energy it took to be in close proximity to several other people constantly over five days time was a component – don’t get me wrong, I like everyone involved in the testing a lot, but I am just not used to being with people that much. But I have now had some time to recover, and I should be past the worst of that.
So, a little post-project blues. Or maybe the blast shock, repeated several thousand times, has something to do with it. I dunno. I’ll write more tomorrow, in the meantime take a few minutes to enjoy these great images of the Saturn system from the Cassini spacecraft, courtesy of the Boston Globe’s Big Picture series.
Jim Downey
(Via Phil Plait.)
Filed under: Astronomy, NASA, Predictions, Science, Space, Titan, Writing stuff
Well, the Advanced Survey Array from Communion of Dreams just got another step closer, and here’s a bit of insight into how I came up with much of the whole idea for the novel:
Telescope blasts into space to find other Earths
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA’s planet-hunting telescope, Kepler, rocketed into space Friday night on a historic voyage to track down other Earths in a faraway patch of the Milky Way galaxy.
It’s the first mission capable of answering the age-old question: Are other worlds like ours out there?
Kepler, named after the German 17th century astrophysicist, set off on its unprecedented mission at 10:49 p.m., thundering into a clear sky embellished by a waxing moon.
From NASA’s site on the mission:
The Delta II rocket carrying the Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft lifted off on time at 10:49 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The spectacular nighttime launch followed a smooth countdown free of technical issues or weather concerns.
Kepler’s mission: to peer closely at a patch of space for at least three-and-a-half years, looking for rocky planets similar our own. The spacecraft will target an area rich with stars like our sun, watching for a slight dimming in the starlight as planets slip through the space between.
“Kepler is a critical component in NASA’s broader efforts to ultimately find and study planets where Earth-like conditions may be present,” said Jon Morse, the Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The planetary census Kepler takes will be very important for understanding the frequency of Earth-size planets in our galaxy and planning future missions that directly detect and characterize such worlds around nearby stars.”
It was this mission that I used as the basis for the Advanced Survey Array – specifically, the idea that such an array would need to be situated somewhere which would be shielded in order to allow the greatest possible sensitivity in the search for likely planets for colonization. Why? Well, here’s a bit from the Wikipedia entry for the Kepler mission:
Kepler is not in an Earth orbit but in an Earth-trailing solar orbit 950 miles above the Earth[11][12] so that Earth will not occlude the stars which are to be observed continuously and the photometer will not be influenced by stray light from Earth. This orbit also avoids gravitational perturbations and torques inherent in an Earth orbit, allowing for a more stable viewing platform. The photometer will point to a field in the constellations of Cygnus and Lyra, which is well out of the ecliptic plane, so that sunlight never enters the photometer as the spacecraft orbits the Sun. Cygnus is also a good choice to observe because it will never be obscured by Kuiper belt objects or the asteroid belt.[9]
So, the ASA needed to be somewhere where it would be isolated & stable, as the Kepler observatory is somewhat isolated and stable – and that led to the idea of creating an electromagnetic “bubble” around Titan (where I wanted to situate the novel), caused by . . . what? It was at this point that I came up with the idea for the super-conducting ‘Tholan gel’, and from there . . . well, read the book. I don’t want to give away too many spoilers.
Anyway, glad that Kepler finally got off the ground – and I’m looking forward to the data which comes from it!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, Failure, Government, ISS, movies, NASA, Phil Plait, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Star Trek, Survival, tech, Travel, UFO
This item made the news yesterday:
Scientists eye debris after satellite collision
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Scientists are keeping a close eye on orbital debris created when two communications satellites — one American, the other Russian — smashed into each other hundreds of miles above the Earth.
NASA said it will take weeks to determine the full magnitude of the unprecedented crash and whether any other satellites or even the Hubble Space Telescope are threatened.
The collision, which occurred nearly 500 miles over Siberia on Tuesday, was the first high-speed impact between two intact spacecraft, NASA officials said.
Wow: two satellites have collided in orbit, destroying both. This is the first time such a major collision has ever occurred.
The satellites were Cosmos 2251, a Russian communication relay satellite that’s been defunct for a decade, and an Iridium satellite, one of a fleet of communication satellites launched by Motorola in the late 90s and early 2000s.
* * *
There have been collisions in space before, but never from such large satellites — the Iridium bird was about 700 kg, and the Cosmos was about the same — and never resulting in a total wipeout like this. Again, if I have my numbers about right, the explosion resulting from the energy of impact would have been about the same as detonating a ton of TNT.
I had to chuckle at this comment in that thread at Bad Astronomy:
But wouldn’t the impact have made a new, ever more powerful hybrid satellite? It would have an over-arching need to communicate and would do so in Russian. The only way to make it stop broadcasting a constant barrage at us would be if it mistook someone for its designer at Motorola and then. . . Oh wait, this isn’t Star Trek.
No, not at all. When you have two large satellites, each moving at something on the order of about 5 miles a second hit one another at nearly right angles, then you don’t get any kind of hybrid. You get a mess. As in a debris cloud of upwards of a thousand bits and pieces of space junk, some of it substantial, most of it still moving at thousands of miles an hour, and all of it dangerous.
I’ve written previously about the threat of real ‘UFOs’ to our space exploration. From the quoted article in that post:
The reason is life-and-death. Since Mercury days, NASA engineers have realized that visual sightings of anomalies can sometimes provide clues to the functioning — or malfunctioning — of the spaceships that contain their precious astronauts. White dots outside the window could be spray from a propellant leak, or ice particles, flaking insulation, worked-loose fasteners (as in this latest case) or inadvertently released tools or components.
Whatever the objects might be, they pose a threat of coming back in contact with the spacecraft, potentially causing damage to delicate instruments, thermal tiles, windows or solar cells, or fouling rotating or hinged mechanisms. So Mission Control needs to find out about them right away in order to determine that they are not hazardous.
Right now the bulk of that debris cloud is about 250 miles higher than the ISS. But it will slowly drift closer (the effect of atmospheric drag – even at that altitude, it will slow anything in orbit, meaning that the item in question will drop to a lower orbit). At some point, this could be a real threat to the space station.
And beyond that, it is a further complication to *any* effort to get into something other than a low Earth orbit. Currently we have something like tens of thousands of bits of “space junk” that have to be tracked – and while all of it will eventually fall back into the atmosphere and burn up, it can present a real danger. If we’re not careful, we could encase ourselves in a shell of so much junk that it would basically eliminate the possibility of travel beyond our planet for decades.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Apollo program, Art, Astronomy, General Musings, NASA, NPR, Science, Space
The rocket blasted off with a huge spread of flame and hurled the men into space. They became the first earthlings to watch their home planet grow smaller and smaller and smaller, until it was floating far away and tiny in the darkness.
From this morning’s NPR coverage of the Apollo 8 mission to orbit the Moon 40 years ago. Most of the world remembers it best thanks to Earthrise, the iconic image from the mission, which gave us all a new perspective of our fragile little home.
It’s a good story. As I said elsewhere in a discussion of my memories from the event, I expect there will be few other such moments in my life.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, NASA, National Geographic, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Titan
I’m still playing catch-up, so just found this news item of interest on the National Geographic site – an excerpt:
But a new study reports faint signs of a natural electric field in Titan’s thick cloud cover that are similar to the energy radiated by lightning on Earth.
Lightning is thought to have sparked the chemical reactions that led to the origin of life on our planet.
“As of now, lightning activity has not been observed in Titan’s atmosphere,” said lead author Juan Antonio Morente of the University of Granada in Spain.
But, he said, the signals that have been detected “are an irrefutable proof for the existence of electric activity.”
OK, the piece is actually about how Titan is known to have all the necessary “prebiotic” conditions needed for the beginning of life as we know it, and how electrical activity from lightning on the moon could provide the spark to initiate life.
But I thought it a bit fun to speculate that the electric field detected is actually evidence of the tholin superconducting gel at the heart of Communion of Dreams.
Another travelogue from my recent trip later today, if things come together as I hope.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, Fireworks, NASA, Phil Plait, Science, Space
Via the Bad Astronomer, some really incredible images of our local star, courtesy of the Boston Globe:
The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minumum – in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year – with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Scientists are unsure of the significance of this unusual calm, but are continually monitoring our closest star with an array of telescopes and satellites. Seen below are some recent images of the Sun in more active times. (21 photos total)
Stunning stuff. Simply stunning.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, NASA, Phil Plait, Science, Science Fiction, Space
Play with your brain. Or, more accurately, let the universe play with it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Bad Astronomy, Daily Kos, Mars, NASA, Phil Plait, Predictions, Press, Science, Space, Universe Today
You undoubtedly heard that the Phoenix Mars Lander this week confirmed the existence of water ice at the location of the lander. News, yes, but as others have noted, scientists have had little doubt that there was water ice on Mars for quite some time.
However . . .
. . . what if there’s something else going on that will be much more interesting news?
The White House is Briefed: Phoenix About to Announce “Potential For Life” on Mars
It would appear that the US President has been briefed by Phoenix scientists about the discovery of something more “provocative” than the discovery of water existing on the Martian surface. This news comes just as the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) confirmed experimental evidence for the existence of water in the Mars regolith on Thursday. Whilst NASA scientists are not claiming that life once existed on the Red Planet’s surface, new data appears to indicate the “potential for life” more conclusively than the TEGA water results. Apparently these new results are being kept under wraps until further, more detailed analysis can be carried out, but we are assured that this announcement will be huge…
So why is there all this secrecy? According to scientists in communication with Aviation Week & Space Technology, the next big discovery will need to be mulled over for a while before it is announced to the world. In fact, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory science team for the MECA wet-chemistry instrument that made these undisclosed findings were kept out of the July 31st news conference (confirming water) so additional analysis could be carried out, avoiding any questions that may have revealed their preliminary results. They have also made the decision to discuss the results with the Bush Administration’s Presidential Science Advisor’s office before a press conference between mid-August and early September.
And from the Aviation Week article:
White House Briefed On Potential For Mars Life
The White House has been alerted by NASA about plans to make an announcement soon on major new Phoenix lander discoveries concerning the “potential for life” on Mars, scientists tell Aviation Week & Space Technology.
Sources say the new data do not indicate the discovery of existing or past life on Mars. Rather the data relate to habitability–the “potential” for Mars to support life–at the Phoenix arctic landing site, sources say.
The data are much more complex than results related NASA’s July 31 announcement that Phoenix has confirmed the presence of water ice at the site.
I can understand the desire to be much more certain of their results before making an official announcement. Remember the debacle of the Martian Meteorite which purportedly contained evidence of fossilized bacteria? That debate is *still* going on, in large part because there are legitimate questions of how to understand the data. No one at NASA, or JPL, or anywhere else is going to want to overstate the results this time around.
So, is there life on Mars? Maybe. I’d guess likely, given all that we know about the planet. But it costs me nothing to make such a statement – scientists with reputations on the line are understandably going to be much more careful in making that case. So, let’s wait and see what the evidence shows.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos.)
Communion Of Dreams 