Great News for a Mars Colony!

Well if they have moons AND oceans they'll have tides:

https://www.iflscience.com/space/ex...-the-act-of-forming-moons-for-the-first-time/


Two independent teams of astronomers have found evidence that a circumplanetary disk surrounds two nearby exoplanets. This is believed to be a fundamental stage in the evolution of gas giant planets that could lead to the formation of moons.

Both studies used the incredible capabilities of the Very Large Telescope, although they employed different instruments. The first paper, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, used the SINFONI instrument. The second paper, published in Nature Astronomy, employed the MUSE instrument.
 
So instead of calling it Blue Thunder we should call it Red Thunder?

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-nasa-mars-helicopter-phase.html


NASA's Mars Helicopter flight demonstration project has passed a number of key tests with flying colors. In 2021, the small, autonomous helicopter will be the first vehicle in history to attempt to establish the viability of heavier-than-air vehicles flying on another planet.

"Nobody's built a Mars Helicopter before, so we are continuously entering new territory," said MiMi Aung, project manager for the Mars Helicopter at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Our flight model—the actual vehicle that will travel to Mars—has recently passed several important tests."

Back in January 2019 the team operated the flight model in a simulated Martian environment. Then the helicopter was moved to Lockheed Martin Space in Denver for compatibility testing with the Mars Helicopter Delivery System, which will hold the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) spacecraft against the belly of the Mars 2020 rover during launch and interplanetary cruise before deploying it onto the surface of Mars after landing.


Okay, at 4 pounds we should call it "little" Blue Thunder.
 
Man we've got to make this work:

https://www.wired.com/story/a-mythical-form-of-space-propulsion-finally-gets-a-real-test/


Since the birth of the space age, the dream of catching a ride to another solar system has been hobbled by the “tyranny of the rocket equation,” which sets hard limits on the speed and size of the spacecraft we sling into the cosmos. Even with today’s most powerful rocket engines, scientists estimate it would take 50,000 years to reach our closest interstellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri. If humans ever hope to see an alien sunrise, transit times will have to drop significantly.

Of the advanced propulsion concepts that could theoretically pull that off, few have generated as much excitement—and controversy—as the EmDrive. First described nearly two decades ago, the EmDrive works by converting electricity into microwaves and channeling this electromagnetic radiation through a conical chamber. In theory, the microwaves can exert force against the walls of the chamber to produce enough thrust to propel a spacecraft once it’s in space. At this point, however, the EmDrive exists only as a laboratory prototype, and it’s still unclear whether it’s able to produce thrust at all. If it does, the forces it generates aren’t strong enough to be registered by the naked eye, much less propel a spacecraft.

Over the past few years, however, a handful of research teams, including one from NASA, claim to have successfully produced thrust with an EmDrive. If true, it would amount to one of the biggest breakthroughs in the history of space exploration. The problem is that the thrust observed in these experiments is so small that it’s hard to tell if it’s real.
 
They claim the fate of the Universe depends on this:

https://www.space.com/giant-higgs-fate-of-universe.html


We all know and love the Higgs boson — which to physicists' chagrin has been mistakenly tagged in the media as the "God particle" — a subatomic particle first spotted in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) back in 2012. That particle is a piece of a field that permeates all of space-time; it interacts with many particles, like electrons and quarks, providing those particles with mass, which is pretty cool.

But the Higgs that we spotted was surprisingly lightweight. According to our best estimates, it should have been a lot heavier. This opens up an interesting question: Sure, we spotted a Higgs boson, but was that the only Higgs boson? Are there more floating around out there doing their own things?

Though we don't have any evidence yet of a heavier Higgs, a team of researchers based at the LHC, the world's largest atom smasher, is digging into that question as we speak. And there's talk that as protons are smashed together inside the ring-shaped collider, hefty Higgs and even Higgs particles made up of various types of Higgs could come out of hiding.

If the heavy Higgs does indeed exist, then we need to reconfigure our understanding of the Standard Model of particle physics with the newfound realization that there's much more to the Higgs than meets the eye. And within those complex interactions, there might be a clue to everything from the mass of the ghostly neutrino particle to the ultimate fate of the universe.


I suspect we all don't LOVE the HB particle but it sure is damn interesting!
 
So is any one on Yappi booking a trip?

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-nasa-international-space-station-tourists.html


"NASA is opening the International Space Station to commercial opportunities and marketing these opportunities as we've never done before," NASA chief financial officer Jeff DeWit said in an announcement made at the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York.

These travelers would be ferried to the orbiter exclusively by the two US companies currently developing transport vehicles for NASA: SpaceX, with its Crew Dragon capsule, and Boeing, which is building one called Starliner.

These companies would choose the clients—who will not have to be US citizens—and bill for the trip to the ISS, which will be the most expensive part of the adventure: around $58 million for a roundtrip ticket.

The tourists will pay NASA for their use of the station, for food, water and use of the life support system.

That will run about $35,000 per night per astronaut, said DeWit.

That does not include internet, which will cost $50 per gigabyte.


Wow, $50 per gigabyte seems a bit expensive to me.
 
Good grief this takes the precautionary principal to ridiculous lengths!


https://www.express.co.uk/news/scie...ing-sun-asteroid-mining-solar-sail-space-news


Man-made climate change is an immediate concern, meaning a global warming apocalypse appears increasingly likely. However the planet’s long-term prognosis is even more dire, because the sun will one day run out of fuel and expand, most likely destroying the Earth in five billion years. Moving the Earth to a wider orbit to escape this fiery oblivion may seem like a far-fetched solution, but an engineer has now outlined several theories for escaping this fate.


First off a "global warming apocalypse" is NOT likely. It's this type of empty headed alarmism that gives the whole humans cause climate change concept a bad name among skeptics. But then again considering that this article actually talks about a solution to a problem that won't happen for 5 BILLION YEARS maybe the authors are just the nervous type.

I get this was just a thought exercise but it would have made more sense to have used Science Fiction writers rather then engineers to brainstorm this. I suspect that if we're still around in a couple of billion years we'll be technically advanced enough to turn suns on and off and propel the Earth anywhere in the Universe we want to go.
 
This seems like something we should be worrying about more then when the Sun expands in 5 billion years and eats the earth:

https://www.space.com/asteroid-could-hit-earth-in-september-2019.html


This fall, Earth has about a 1-in-7,000 chance of getting an uninvited extraterrestrial visitor: asteroid 2006 QV89.

The space rock is expected to whiz by our planet on Sept. 9, 2019, according to European Space Agency's (ESA) list of space objects that could collide with Earth. That list was updated online June 6. Out of 10 objects on the list, 2006 QV89 ranked fourth.

Compared to the 6-mile-long (10 kilometers) asteroid that killed the nonavian dinosaurs about 66 million years ago, 2006 QV89 is pretty dinky, measuring just 130 feet (40 meters) in diameter, or about the length of two bowling alleys placed end to end.


Maybe it's just me but I don't find a 1 in 7,000 chance of this thing hitting us all that comforting. After all those are about the odds of my Bills or Bengals winning next years Super Bowl and I'm looking forward to the 2019 NFL season.
 
The Ocean on Jupiter's Moon Europa Has Table Salt, Just Like Earth's Seas

The huge ocean sloshing beneath the ice shell of the Jupiter moon Europa may be intriguingly similar to the seas of Earth, a new study suggests.

Scientists have generally thought that sulfate salts dominate Europa's subsurface ocean, which harbors about twice as much water as all of Earth's seas put together. But the Hubble Space Telescope has detected the likely presence of sodium chloride (NaCl) on Europa's frigid surface, the study reports.

The NaCl — the same stuff that makes up plain old table salt — is probably coming from the ocean, study team members said. And that's pretty exciting, given that the saltiness of Earth's oceans comes primarily from NaCl.
Click to expand...

Read more:
https://www.space.com/jupiter-moon-europa-ocean-has-table-salt.html
 
This is why you have to be careful holding on to metals as an investment:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/scie...uadrillion-psyche-asteroid-mission-space-news


The value of all the nickel and iron that NASA believes makes up 16-Psyche’s oddly-shaped space rock in the asteroid belt’s outer reaches is estimated at $10,000 quadrillion. This is a massive sum, but NASA’s Psyche mission, which has now received approval to enter the final development stages before manufacturing begins for its 2022 launch, is actually after a much bigger prize – revealing how Earth's origins. NASA researchers believe asteroid Psyche is key to understanding how planetary bodies are formed.
Related articles

This is because the space scientists theorise Psyche is really the core of a planet which broke apart following a succession of apocalyptic collisions.


I think $10,000 quadrillion is $10,000,000,000,000,000,000!
 
Some real cool gizmo's that are on NASA's drawing boards:

https://www.space.com/nasa-moon-asteroid-mining-concepts-niac-2019.html


Two far-off NASA concepts could quickly survey lunar craters for astronauts and help identify mining resources on nearby asteroids.

The projects come courtesy of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, which pursues theoretical ideas that could take many years to come to fruition. Each project is at the most advanced stage of development NIAC has offered to date, Phase III, and will receive up to $2 million to outline the mission concept, according to a NASA statement released on Tuesday (June 11).
 
Zunardo said:
De Beers will go out of business if our astronauts ever reach that big diamond at the core of Jupiter.
Click to expand...

Maybe, maybe not. The De Beers have a long track record of doing what's necessary to keep diamonds scarce and the prices high. But I suspect that even they would have a hard time hiding Jupiter!

Your post though is spot on with respect to the economic shocks that expanding into the solar system will lead to. The first will be as we spread throughout the Solar System and exploit the available resources and the 2nd will be when we expand to the stars.
 
Where there are "Jupiter's" there will be other smaller more livable planets:

https://phys.org/news/2019-06-jupiter-like-exoplanets-sweet-planetary.html


As planets form in the swirling gas and dust around young stars, there seems to be a sweet spot where most of the large, Jupiter-like gas giants congregate, centered around the orbit where Jupiter sits today in our own solar system.

The location of this sweet spot is between 3 and 10 times the distance Earth sits from our sun (3-10 astronomical units, or AU). Jupiter is 5.2 AU from our sun.

That's just one of the conclusions of an unprecedented analysis of 300 stars captured by the Gemini Planet Imager, or GPI, a sensitive infrared detector mounted on the 8-meter Gemini South telescope in Chile.


Make sure you check out the cool time lapse video showing the evolution of the exoplanet survey map over the last 5 years. The "neighborhood" is getting crowd!
 
Now this is interesting:

https://www.space.com/meteor-smoke-trigger-clouds-on-mars.html


Cotton candy clouds in the middle atmosphere of Mars may owe their life to dying meteors.

New research suggests that the atmospheric destruction of meteors creates tiny particles of dust that can seed the thin clouds. The discovery may help solve the mystery of how the wispy clouds grow in the middle atmosphere, improving scientists' understanding of the Martian climate both of today and in the past.

"Clouds don't just form on their own," Victoria Hartwick, a graduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder and lead author on the new paper, said in a statement. "They need something that they can condense onto."
 
This is NOT the same as the moon race and we need to be very careful here:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7157711/Russia-aiming-baby-born-space-scientist-claims.html


The baby space race: Moscow scientist vows to ensure the first child born in space is Russian - but admits she is struggling to find volunteers for the project

* Dr Irina Ogneva, of the Russian Academy of Sciences, revealed the ambition

* She said Moscow wants the first baby born in space to be Russian, because the country 'has always been first in space'

* She did not say whether the child would be conceived as well as born in orbit

* She also admits that, so far, there have been no volunteers for the project
 
lotr10 said:

* Dr Irina Ogneva, of the Russian Academy of Sciences, revealed the ambition

* She said Moscow wants the first baby born in space to be Russian, because the country 'has always been first in space'

* She did not say whether the child would be conceived as well as born in orbit

* She also admits that, so far, there have been no volunteers for the project
Click to expand...


How do you NOT get volunteers for the conception end? I don't care if 7 billion people know what I'm up to. I'll have that kiska shouting "Da! Da!"
 
eastisbest said:
How do you NOT get volunteers for the conception end? I don't care if 7 billion people know what I'm up to. I'll have that kiska shouting "Da! Da!"
Click to expand...

This is the 21st century east. I don't think they're looking to achieve conception via the good old fashioned way. They seem to be more interesting in collecting space sperm and clinically impregnating a women in orbit!
 
I thought this was interesting. This shows the power of the media. The chances of a asteroid hitting Earth is minimal. One that could do significant damage is even much less likely. But we are being conditioned to fear this. We need to reach out to other planets instead of worrying about something that we can't do much about. We are also likely to learn more about protecting ourselves by exploring space rather than focusing on what might end our civilization.

Poll: Americans Want NASA To Focus More On Asteroid Impacts, Less On Getting To Mars

Americans are less interested in NASA sending humans to the moon or Mars than they are in the U.S. space agency focusing on potential asteroid impacts and using robots for space exploration. That's according to a poll by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released Thursday, one month before the 50th anniversary of the first walk on the moon.

Two-thirds of respondents said monitoring asteroids, comets and "other events in space that could impact Earth" was "very or extremely important." According to NASA, which watches for objects falling from space, about once a year an "automobile-sized asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere," but it usually burns up before it hits the surface. And the instances of larger objects actually making it past Earth's atmosphere and causing any damage happen thousands of years apart, NASA says.
Click to expand...

Read more:
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/20/7343...ore-on-asteroid-impacts-less-on-getting-to-ma
 
One movie of Martians throwing big at Earth and that poll flips. That's all people are responding to, interest news and movies.
 
Yappi said:
I thought this was interesting. This shows the power of the media. The chances of a asteroid hitting Earth is minimal. One that could do significant damage is even much less likely. But we are being conditioned to fear this. We need to reach out to other planets instead of worrying about something that we can't do much about. We are also likely to learn more about protecting ourselves by exploring space rather than focusing on what might end our civilization.



Read more:
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/20/7343...ore-on-asteroid-impacts-less-on-getting-to-ma
Click to expand...


I think that article is a prime example of how far NPR has slid over the last couple of decades. On this topic I both agree and disagree somewhat with you Yappi:

* Where I differ is that while it is highly unlikely, I do think an asteroid strike on the Earth is a big enough threat to warrant special efforts be put in place to protect us from it happening. And it's encouraging that folks see this as a threat. IMO it's a far more deadly threat then climate change and unlike Climate Change there are practical things we can do to guard against it.

* Where I agree is how the media damages the situation by trying to turn this into an "either/or" thing. As you note the best way to protect ourselves from an asteroid strike involves us exploring space and going to Mars & the Moon. The MORE we strike out into the solar system to explore & colonize the more able we'll be to detect and deflect any asteroid targeting the earth. These efforts are better done simultaneously.
 
I'm all for going out into space but that will help us detect and deflect asteroids about as well as a pen light will give you a chance to detect and deflect a grain of sand from hitting you.

Even though we'd assume that most of concern would be on traditional orbital paths in the planar, it's still much too large a space to reliably observe by any means.

Near Earth quick reaction defense is what will be needed.

Asteroids are a boogey man used to raise money now that the Russians aren't seen as a threat. If deep space is on the agenda and they can use that fear to get the funding, ok then.
 
eastisbest said:
I'm all for going out into space but that will help us detect and deflect asteroids about as well as a pen light will give you a chance to detect and deflect a grain of sand from hitting you.

Even though we'd assume that most of concern would be on traditional orbital paths in the planar, it's still much too large a space to reliably observe by any means.

Near Earth quick reaction defense is what will be needed.

Asteroids are a boogey man used to raise money now that the Russians aren't seen as a threat. If deep space is on the agenda and they can use that fear to get the funding, ok then.
Click to expand...


I disagree. A push into the solar system will significantly increase the rate of space technology development. Such development will ultimately find it's way into every aspect of systems designed to identify & deter an asteroid strike.

IMO a near Earth rapid reaction defense would be the LAST line of defense and would be used only if we failed to divert an incoming asteroid or if we failed to spot it coming in. But even here, such a defensive system would benefit greatly from the improved rocket launch systems resulting from an aggressive human expansion into the Solar System.

I don't think NASA uses the risk of an asteroid strike to gain funding. But even if they did so what. It's a real risk. Just in the last century a major strike occurred in Siberia (the Tunguska incident) that would have wiped out a major metropolitan area had it struck a populated region.

Even the recent Chelyabinsk meteor strike in Russia was a serious incident. A little larger and a lot of people would have died. I'm also concerned that such a strike could trigger nuclear war if it happened during a period of heightened international tensions.
 
Mysterious glowing light on Mars captured by Nasa's Curiosity probe

Screenshot-2019-06-18-at-15.07.17-2f72.png

A photograph taken by Nasa’s Curiosity rover on Mars has captured a mysterious bright glow on a distant Martian hillside.

The black and white photograph shows the desert landscape with high rocky hills in the background.

In front of the larger rock formations, a tiny elongated white blob appears to be streaking past.

Nasa has previously admitted to similar anomalies in pictures taken by the probe. This image was taken on 16 June, and while conspiracy theorists have said the photograph is evidence of extra-terrestrials on the Red Planet, it appears more likely to have been a cosmic ray, some kind of camera lens flare or sunlight reflecting on rocks.
Click to expand...

Read more:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...sa-curiosity-rover-aliens-space-a8969021.html
 
Curiosity rover found a big hint pointing to life on Mars

The NASA Curiosity rover made a remarkable discovery this week that may hint at signs of life on Mars.

The surprising development, reported on by The New York Times, brings legitimacy to the long-held notion that aliens may actually be occupying the red planet.

According to a measurement taken on Wednesday by NASA's Curiosity rover, scientists unearthed high amounts of methane in the air on Mars — indicating microbes could survive on the planet. As The Times noted, methane is typically just produced by living things.
Click to expand...

Read more:
https://www.aol.com/article/news/20...a-big-hint-pointing-to-life-on-mars/23754723/
 
EagleGuy said:
Looks like a VW Beetle to me.
Click to expand...


Now that you pointed it out it does look a bit like a VW Beetle!

So maybe a bunch of stoned California hippies circa 1975 were on their way to a Grateful Dead concert testing out the latest hallucinogens when they drove through a dimensional portal and ended up cruising the endless desert on Mars?
 
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