Tag Archives | Solar System

Space Satellites As Humanity’s Final Monuments

By on October 14, 2012 in News 24

The spacecraft EchoStar XVI will beam trillions of images into the darkness and then enter an eternal “graveyard orbit”. Artist in residence at MIT Trevor Paglen on satellites as the new pyramids:

Currently, more than 800 spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit form a man-made ring of satellites around Earth. The dead spacecraft in orbit have become a permanent fixture around Earth, not unlike the rings of Saturn. They will be the longest-lasting artifacts of human civilization, quietly floating through space long after every trace of humanity has disappeared from the planet’s surface.

Presented by public art organization Creative Time, The Last Pictures is a project to acknowledge these spacecraft as the monuments of our historical era. They are our Pyramids, our Stonehenge, and our Nazca lines.

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Scientists: We May Find Alien Life On Saturn’s Tiny Moon Enceladus

By on July 30, 2012 in News 1

The grueling process will involve of a decade of preparation, sending a probe on a journey which takes seven years in each direction, with several years of sample collecting in the middle. But after all of that, we may have proof of non-Earthly life from a place where all signs point to its existence. Via the Guardian:

Saturn’s tiny moon has suddenly become a major attraction for scientists. Many now believe it offers the best hope we have of discovering life on another world inside our solar system…and argue that Enceladus should be rated a top priority for future space missions.

The cause of this unexpected interest in Enceladus – first observed by William Herschel in 1789 and named after one of the children of the Earth goddess Gaia – stems from a discovery made by the robot spacecraft Cassini, which has been in orbit of Saturn for the past eight years.

… Read the rest

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NASA Spacecraft Discovers Mickey Mouse Icon On Mercury

By on June 21, 2012 in News 4

Ah, humanity — we travel to the far reaches of our solar system, only to find our own corporate logos. Space.com reports:

A NASA spacecraft has captured a spectacular photo of Mercury craters arranged in a shape that looks just like Disney’s iconic cartoon mouse. The photo comes from the Messenger spacecraft in orbit around Mercury and shows a giant crater topped with two smaller impact basins to create the recognizable shape.

The Mickey Mouse on Mercury is formed by a huge crater about 65 miles (105 kilometers) wide that was later peppered by other impacts to create the “ears.

… Read the rest

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Astronauts On Mars Would Risk DNA Damage

By on May 4, 2012 in News 11

DeMonchaux30Sad news for hopes of future visits to the red planet — anyone who journeys to Mars could come back with their DNA adversely altered, Russian scientists warn. Mars Daily explains:

Future astronauts working on the Red Planet’s surface risk general changes in health at the DNA level because of increased radiation exposure, a prominent Russian academic said on Monday.

“According to our estimates, researchers on the surface of Mars can expect a number of adverse factors, such as cardiac arrhythmia, sensory impairments, changes at the DNA level, and demineralization of bone tissue,” Anatoly Grigoryev, the deputy head of Russia’s Academy of Sciences, told at a presentation at the International Symposium on the results of ground-based experiment Mars-500.

The unique Moscow-based Mars-500 experiment was completed on November 4. It attempted to recreate at least some of the conditions of a flight to the Red Planet by locking six men away in a mock spacecraft.

… Read the rest

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Egg-Shaped Globule Inside Meteorite Is ‘Final Proof Of Life On Mars’

By on May 2, 2012 in News 11

globuleJust your daily dose of news on mysterious soft eggs allegedly found inside Mars meteors that crashed into Africa. I’d be afraid to hold it. The Sun writes:

Scientists claim this egg-shaped object is the final proof of life on Mars after finding it inside a meteorite from the Red Planet.

Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe [of Cardiff University] said the globule from the rock named Tissint is rich in carbon and oxygen and insisted they could only have been produced by living organisms. He added that they could not have been caused by contamination when they fell to Earth. PhD student Jamie Wallis, who was working with Dr Wickramasinghe, said: “All the indications are that structures such as we have found are evidence of life on Mars. “The spheres are probably remnants of polysaccharide shells surrounding algal type cells.”

The meteorite was named after the village where it came down in the Sahara desert in Morocco last July.

… Read the rest

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Interview With A Man Who Went To Mars

By on April 11, 2012 in News 28

1971japanspaceencyclopedia08Or so he claims—there’s no proof of veracity, but a gripping read nonetheless. Morgan Kochel’s conversation with a A Man Who Went to Mars:

Training lasted twelve months, very intense, including psychiatric tests. It took us about 230 days to get there, and slightly less back. We used rocket technology regularly available now. Just bigger tanks and more thrust. Nothing unusual in equipment to get there, but better radiation protection, as you can imagine, due to journey time.

We landed near Ares Vallis. Our employers got some data about the Sojourner landing, and this was the place they wanted to explore. We took the same type of collecting devices used by geologists, which is why this had to be a manned mission, as no robot could do this. There were plenty of minerals that we analyzed on the way home: metals, particularly gold(?), and some other substance that was a form of composite like carbon fiber, but already in a usable form.

… Read the rest

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Oxygen Discovered Around Saturn’s Icy Moon Dione

By on March 4, 2012 in News 0

DionePallab Ghosh reports on BBC News:

A NASA spacecraft has detected oxygen around one of Saturn’s icy moons, Dione.

The discovery supports a theory that suggests all of the moons near Saturn and Jupiter might have oxygen around them.

Researchers say that their finding increases the likelihood of finding the ingredients for life on one of the moons orbiting gas giants.

The study has been published in Geophysical Research Letters. According to co-author Andrew Coates of University College London, Dione has no liquid water and so does not have the conditions to support life. But it is possible that other moons of Jupiter and Saturn do …

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The Mammoth Eyeball Of Planet Mars

By on March 2, 2012 in News 18

marseyeVia Zapato Productions intradimensional, a century ago, at least one major newspaper reported on a flavor-of-the-moment theory, attributed to scientists at California’s Lick Observatory, that Mars contained a giant, sentient eye:

An artist’s rendition of the eye of Mars. It’s not a metaphorical depiction. What you see is exactly what the theory claimed: “A vast eye, upon a flexible, transparent neck raises itself high above the surface of Mars and can watch the growth of its vegetable body upon any part of the surface.” Its “vegetable body” is a Mars-hugging super-organism of intelligent vegetable life that creeps along the cracks left in the drying Martian surface.

The Martian Eye theory was put forward as an explanation for the shifting white patches just perceptible to telescopes, which less paranoid minds ascribed to mere seasonal snow. The illustration comes from an article about this startling new theory printed in the Oct. 13, 1912, Sunday magazine section of the Salt Lake Tribune.

… Read the rest

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Life On Venus, So Claims Russian Scientist

By on February 1, 2012 in News 7

VenusMaybe Jack Nicholson was right after all. Via Yahoo News:

Leonid Ksanfomaliti, an astronomer based at the Space Research Institute of Russia’s Academy of Sciences, analyzed photographs taken by a Russian landing probe during a 1982 during a mission to explore the heavily acid-clouded planet.

Venus is roughly the same size as Earth, but it has a thick atmosphere dominated by carbon dioxide. With an atmospheric pressure 92 times Earth’s, a waterless and volcano-riddled surface and a surface temperature of 894 degrees, the planet has never been considered a serious target of research into the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

But in his article, published in the magazine Solar System Research, Ksanfomaliti says the Russian photographs depict objects resembling a “disk,” a “black flap” and a “scorpion.”

“What if we forget about the current theories about the non-existence of life on Venus?” he wrote. “Let’s boldly suggest that the objects’ morphological features would allow us to say that they are living.”

Read More: Yahoo News… Read the rest

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Surprise Asteroid Passes Earth in Close Flyby

By on January 27, 2012 in News 5

Discovered two days ago (likely due to its small size). Reports BBC News:

The asteroid, estimated to be about 11 m (36 ft) in diameter, was first detected on Wednesday. At its closest, the space rock — named 2012 BX34 — passed within about 60,000 km of Earth — less than a fifth of the distance to the Moon. Astronomers stressed that there had been no cause for concern. “It’s one of the closest approaches recorded,” said Gareth Williams, associate director of the US-based Minor Planet Center.

“It makes it in to the top 20 closest approaches, but it’s sufficiently far away …” he told the BBC. The asteroid’s path made it the closest space-rock to pass by the Earth since object 2011 MD in June 2011.

Here’s more from Space.com:

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