Outer Space Crud

[wetkingcanute]

What I don't understand is that when Captain Kirk and Spock beam down to a planet it's just like a disused quarry on earth and they can breath quite easily.

I think all these so called Scientists have got it all wrong.

[rick49]

"Twelve Months in Two Minutes; Curiosity's First Year on Mars" (video)

www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html#.UgD9nazYEit

[Eric]

[rick49]

"NASA Rover Gets Movie as a Mars Moon Passes Another"

www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20130815.html#.Uh4lkH_YEis

[Eric]

It is thought that the boron minerals needed to form RNA from pre-biotic soups were not available on early Earth in sufficient quantity, and the molybdenum minerals were not available in the correct chemical form.

Prof Benner explained: "It’s only when molybdenum becomes highly oxidised that it is able to influence how early life formed.

"This form of molybdenum couldn’t have been available on Earth at the time life first began, because three billion years ago, the surface of the Earth had very little oxygen, but Mars did.

"It’s yet another piece of evidence which makes it more likely life came to Earth on a Martian meteorite, rather than starting on this planet."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23872765

[rick49]

Neptune is 30 AU's from the sun. This thing is 650 AU's/97 billion km/60 billion miles from HD 106906

"UA Astronomers Discover Planet That Shouldn't Be There"

"The discovery of a giant planet orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance has astronomers puzzled over how such a strange system came to be."

tinyurl.com/mhrkmbt


"Is There Martian Salty Water At The Red Planet’s Equator? These Lines May Be The Smoking Gun"

"Get ready, because here are some more findings about possible water on Mars. This picture above from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is a series showing changing dark lines on an equatorial hillside — which could be an indication of salty water, scientists said."

"As MRO circled the planet and peered at the lines with its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, it tracked these changes at five locations in Valles Marineris, the biggest canyon our solar system has to offer. The lines were on slopes that faced the north and the south, and most intriguingly, they activated when the sun hit their respective sides."

“The equatorial surface region of Mars has been regarded as dry, free of liquid or frozen water, but we may need to rethink that,” stated Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

“The explanation that fits best is salty water is flowing down the slopes when the temperature rises,” added McEwen, who is HiRISE principal investigator.

tinyurl.com/mx9nlct

[KrispyKoala]

Chinese aspirations to land on Mars are at best far away, in the meantime, they've just fired a probe onto the surface of the moon.

China successfully soft-lands probe on the moon

BEIJING (AP) — China on Saturday successfully carried out the world's first soft landing of a space probe on the moon in nearly four decades, state media said, the next stage in an ambitious space program that aims to eventually put a Chinese astronaut on the moon.

The unmanned Chang'e 3 lander, named after a mythical Chinese goddess of the moon, touched down on Earth's nearest neighbor following a 12-minute landing process.

The probe carried a six-wheeled moon rover called "Yutu," or "Jade Rabbit," the goddess' pet. After landing Saturday evening on a fairly flat, Earth-facing part of the moon, the rover was slated to separate from the Chang'e eight hours later and embark on a three-month scientific exploration.

China's space program is an enormous source of pride for the country, the third to carry out a lunar soft landing — which does not damage the craft and the equipment it carries — after the United States and the former Soviet Union. The last one was by the Soviet Union in 1976.

"It's still a significant technological challenge to land on another world," said Peter Bond, consultant editor for Jane's Space Systems and Industry. "Especially somewhere like the moon, which doesn't have an atmosphere so you can't use parachutes or anything like that. You have to use rocket motors for the descent and you have to make sure you go down at the right angle and the right rate of descent and you don't end up in a crater on top of a large rock."

State-run China Central Television showed a computer-generated image of the Chang'e 3 lander's path as it approached the surface of the moon, saying that during the 12-minute landing period it needed to have no contact with Earth. As it was just hundreds of meters (yards) away, the lander's camera broadcast images of the moon's surface.

More

news.yahoo.com/china-successfully-soft-lands-probe-moon-141611089.html

[rick49]

"It's still a significant technological challenge to land on another world," said Peter Bond, consultant editor for Jane's Space Systems and Industry.

Very true. It's no easy thing.

[flatandy]

Personally, I'm massively excited about the Jade Rabbit and China's plans to colonise the Moon and conquer Mars. Because it's about time someone did it, and the decadent western world won't be bothered and won't want to spend the money and the Chinese are rich enough to do it and cynical enough to allow a few spacemen to die in Apollo 1 style accidents so won't spend all their time trying to make sure everything's completely and utterly failsafe. So they'll be able to take a few shortcuts and get stuff done faster.

[hammerhead]

China will be able to hold America to ransom too, as they'll visit the so-called Apollo landing sites and have the proof that they're devoid of anything but - umm - tricks of the light.

[rick49]

I wonder if that "Planet That Shouldn't Be There" was a Nomad Planet that was captured by HD 106906. Some astronomers believe that there may be up to 100,000 times more nomad planets that don't orbit a star than there are planets that do orbit stars.


"In 1998, David J. Stevenson theorized[12] that some planet-sized objects drift in the vast expanses of cold interstellar space and could possibly sustain a thick atmosphere which would not freeze out. He proposes that atmospheres are preserved by the pressure-induced far-infrared radiation opacity of a thick hydrogen-containing atmosphere."

"It is thought that during planetary-system formation, several small protoplanetary bodies may be ejected from the forming system.[13] With the reduced ultraviolet light that would normally strip the lighter components from an atmosphere, due to its increasing distance from the parent star, the planet's predominantly hydrogen- and helium-containing atmosphere would be easily confined even by an Earth-sized body's gravity."

"It is calculated that for an Earth-sized object at a kilobar hydrogen atmospheric pressures in which a convective gas adiabat has formed, geothermal energy from residual core radioisotope decay will be sufficient to heat the surface to temperatures above the melting point of water.[12] Thus, it is proposed that interstellar planetary bodies with extensive liquid-water oceans may exist. It is further suggested that these planets are likely to remain geologically active for long periods, providing a geodynamo-created protective magnetosphere and possible sea floor volcanism which could provide an energy source for life.[12] The author admits these bodies would be difficult to detect due to the intrinsically weak thermal microwave radiation emissions emanating from the lower reaches of the atmosphere, although later research suggests[14] that reflected solar radiation and far-IR thermal emissions may be detectable if one were to pass within 1000 AU of Earth."

"A study of simulated planet ejection scenarios has suggested that around five percent of Earth-sized planets with Moon-sized natural satellites would retain their satellites after ejection. A large satellite would be a source of significant geological tidal heating."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_planet

[rick49]

"A Strange Lonely Planet Found without a Star"

"An international team of astronomers has discovered an exotic young planet that is not orbiting a star. This free-floating planet, dubbed PSO J318.5-22, is just 80 light-years away from Earth and has a mass only six times that of Jupiter. The planet formed a mere 12 million years ago—a newborn in planet lifetimes."

"It was identified from its faint and unique heat signature by the Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) wide-field survey telescope on Haleakala, Maui. Follow-up observations using other telescopes in Hawaii show that it has properties similar to those of gas-giant planets found orbiting around young stars. And yet PSO J318.5-22 is all by itself, without a host star."

"We have never before seen an object free-floating in space that that looks like this. It has all the characteristics of young planets found around other stars, but it is drifting out there all alone,” explained team leader Dr. Michael Liu of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “I had often wondered if such solitary objects exist, and now we know they do.”

www.ifa.hawaii.edu/info/press-releases/LonelyPlanet/

[rick49]

As for China's space program, more power to them. The U.S. just doesn't care, anymore. obama ended our manned program, and the curtain is rapidly lowering on our unmanned program. We have become content to stare at our navels or watching our "reality" television programs.

[flatandy]

The US manned spaceflight program has been dying since the mid-80s. It's not entirely Obama's fault, as you well know. The rest of what you say is sadly true.

[rick49]

"Some Stars Capture Rogue Planets"

Cambridge, MA

"New research suggests that billions of stars in our galaxy have captured rogue planets that once roamed interstellar space. The nomad worlds, which were kicked out of the star systems in which they formed, occasionally find a new home with a different sun. This finding could explain the existence of some planets that orbit surprisingly far from their stars, and even the existence of a double-planet system."

"Stars trade planets just like baseball teams trade players," said Hagai Perets of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

"Could our solar system harbor an alien world far beyond Pluto? Astronomers have looked, and haven't found anything yet."

"There's no evidence that the Sun captured a planet," said Perets. "We can rule out large planets. But there's a non-zero chance that a small world might lurk on the fringes of our solar system."

www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2012-12

[rick49]

"NASA Releases New Apollo 8 Earthrise Simulation Video"

"NASA has issued a new visualization of the events leading to one of the iconic photographs of the 20th Century - Earth rising over the moon captured by the crew of the Apollo 8 mission."

spaceref.com/onorbit/nasa-releases-new-apollo-8-earthrise-simulation-video.html

Almost half a century ago.

[rick49]

"Yutu Flexes Robot Arm then Enters Hibernation During Long Lunar Night"

"As night fell on the Earth’s Moon, China’s Yutu rover and mothership lander have both entered a state of hibernation determined to survive the frigidly harsh lunar night upon the magnificently desolate gray plains."

"Yutu went to sleep at 5:23 a.m. Dec. 26, Beijing time, upon a command sent by mission control at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC), according to China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND)."

"The Chang’e-3 lander began its long nap hours earlier at 11:00 a.m. Beijing time on Christmas Day, Dec. 25."

"The vehicles must now endure the lunar night, which spans 14 Earth days in length, as well as the utterly low temperatures which plunge to below minus 180 degrees Celsius."

tinyurl.com/pfxlsz9

[rick49]

"Kepler-62f: A Possible Water World"

tinyurl.com/qcd3evh

[voice]

take a while to get the colonist there even if we could go at a few fractions of a % off light speed.

[rick49]

Could do it in 14 years with warp drive.


"How NASA might build its very first warp drive"

"A few months ago, physicist Harold White stunned the aeronautics world when he announced that he and his team at NASA had begun work on the development of a faster-than-light warp drive."

io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-build-its-very-first-warp-drive