Stephen Hawking has cornered that market...
Printable View
Stephen Hawking has cornered that market...
The teleconference is done. Good coverage on the NSF Forum.
An article on NSF
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016...ssions-europa/
A thread on the topic with more information.
NASA to Hold Media Call on Evidence of Surprising Activity on Europa
In short. Some observations of the Hubble space telescope that support the theory of water or ice eruptions. None of the observatons is 100% conclusive but the observing scientists are convinced it is real.
The Juno space probe will not be allowed very near Europa to make sure there is no biologic contamination.
The Europa mission will get much better observations. It is possible they may find evidence of life in the plumes without getting to the surface as living cells may be expelled.
NASA discovers water 'spewing' on Jupiter moon Europa
Big report on Sky News.
NASA discovers water 'spewing' on Jupiter moon Europa
Scientists believe Europa is one of the most promising places to harbour life in the Solar System.
NASA has discovered what is believed to be plumes of water spewing from the surface of Jupiter's moon, Europa.
Astronomers made the discovery using the Hubble Space Telescope.
The observation means missions to Europa may be able to take samples from its ocean without having to drill through miles of ice, the US space agency said during a live announcement on Monday.
As Europa's ocean is considered to be "one of the most promising places that could potentially harbour life in the Solar System", it is a significant finding which could provide "a tantalising opportunity".
Geoff Yoder, acting associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said: "These plumes, if they do indeed exist, may provide another way to sample Europa's subsurface."
Europa's huge ocean - which contains twice as much water as all of Earth's oceans combined - is protected by a layer of extremely cold and hard ice of unknown thickness.
The plumes are estimated to rise about 125 miles (200 kilometers) before, presumably, raining material back down onto Europa's surface, NASA has said.
The team, led by William Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, observed Europa passing in front of Jupiter on 10 separate occurrences spanning 15 months.
They saw what could be plumes erupting on three of these occasions.
If confirmed, Europa would be the second moon in the solar system known to have water vapour plumes, after NASA's Cassini orbiter detected jets of water vapour and dust spewing off the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus in 2005.
Scientists may use the infrared vision of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, to confirm venting or plume activity on Europa.
The agency announced last year that it intends to send a robotic spacecraft, equipped with a suite of scientific instruments, to circle Europa in the 2020s.
Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system and fifth from the sun, is surrounded by more than 50 moons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QJS9LcB66g
To get ahead of ourselves a bit, I think most agree that it is likely for there to be some form of life in the subsurface oceans of Europa and Enceladus. Anywhere on Earth where these conditions exist, there are forms of life.
The most interesting aspect of finding any life there would be the DNA. If the DNA is completely different/alien to any found on Earth, it could be evidence of panspermia from a difference source of life than on Earth.
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
There's a word not seen here very often.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luigi
Thanks for all your reports.
“The Greeks do not think correctly about coming-to-be and passing-away; for no thing comes to be or passes away, but is mixed together and dissociated from the things that are. And thus they would be correct to call coming-to-be mixing-together and passing-away dissociating”
― Anaxagoras
This Greek philosopher was credited with the first mention of panspermia back in the 5th century BC, I believe...
Welcome.Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
And thanks to Takeovers for sharing some of his great knowledge.
In relation to panspermia - life being delivered to a World, be it Earth or other, via asteroids etc. is a common theory. The building blocks of life have been found on comets.
Taking Europa, likely a subsurface water ocean, with thermal vents and active geology, it would be surprising if it was completely barren of life.
It is thought that panspermia in our solar system would come from basically the same source, but if not, and life on Europa or Enceladus exists and contains completely different alien DNA to anything on Earth, it would be quite the find regarding life in the Universe.
Methane based life is also possible on Titan, where there are massive lakes and rivers of it, just like there is water on Earth.
Now that would be a find.
Exactly. If life we find elsewhere is of independent origin that would be the exciting discovery. One incident of life could just be a freak occurence which is very rare. It could spread out only very slowly and limited even with panspermia. If we find two independent occurences in our solar system it would mean life is everywhere in the universe because it can come into existence everywhere.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luigi
The extremophiles and chemosynthesis revolutionized the study of biology by revealing that terrestrial life need not be sun-dependent; it only requires water and an energy gradient in order to exist.
Water and energy...
Indeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by BaitongBoy
Until only a 2-3 decades ago it was thought that life without solar energy was impossible.
Since proven completely wrong. Energy + water = life, on Earth.
It looks like two moons in our solar system also have this scenario, quite abundantly, and one likely has Energy + liquid methane. Imagine if methane based life has evolved there. I was reading a that a submarine based mission for Titan is under development, where it would dive down in the methane lakes and have a good look/feel around.
Unfortunately, if my fingers and toes didn't let me down, I'll be nearly 60 by the time it happens. :)
If you haven't read it, A short history of nearly everything, by Bill Bryson is a great read in layman's terms. There is also a kids version which is great for those with youngsters.Quote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
There is a range of bacteria which thrive on methane plus some source of nitrogen. Their protein is approved as animal feed in the EU and a company is pursuing this as feedstock. Some modification of the protein would be necessary to make it suitable for humans or long lived animals as these proteins tend to stress the kidneys when eaten over a long period.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luigi
A very interesting 50 minutes long YouTube video.
The Engines That Came In From The Cold - And how The NK-33/RD-180 Came To The USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMbl_...ature=youtu.be
It shows how the Soviet rocket developers designed and built a rocket engine for the N-1 rocket. It is an engine that actually never flew on N-1. All the explosions happened with an older type of engine and the Polit Bureau cancelled the program after Apollo had done some flights to the moon and just at a time a new better engine was ready to fly on the N-1.
The NK-33 were stored for decades in a storehouse and then bought up and used on the Orbital Sciences Antares rocket for the NASA ISS resupply contract. Their use was terminated after one engine blew up. They probably have not survived decades of storage well enough to be used and had some minor flaws. Their descendants however are hugely efficient and reliable engines.
The fabulous RD-180 designed and built by russian Energomash is used on the most successful rocket ever built by Lockheed Martin. It is directly derived from the NK-33. Up to now american industry has not build a rocket engine to match that family of Soviet engines.
The first american engine to challenge the superiority of russian engines many decades later is now the SpaceX Raptor that has been testfired last sunday. But it is still in an early development stage.
For a clearer understanding that superiority is for first stage booster engines. The USA is better and has been better since Saturn V on upper stage engines.
The International Space Station flies approximately 250 miles over thunderstorms visible during a nighttime pass
Lightning can be seen flashing brightly in several places inside the clouds below. #
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/09/1338.jpg
A few minutes ago the misson of the Rosetta probe to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko has ended. Rosetta touched down on the comet and took photos to the very end. The last photos were not sharp as the cameras were designed only for long distance. But they are still the most detailed that could be taken.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/09/1504.jpg
The very last photo.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/09/1505.jpg
After landing no more transitions are possible as the solar panels can no longer be pointed to the sun and more importantly the antenna dish can no longer point to earth.
Just as a reminder. This mission was extremely ambitious and complicated. A comet comes in from the outer solar system on a very excentric trajectory. It moves very fast when near the inner solar system. This makes it very hard to approach. The probe did a very complex dance passing by earth 3 times and Mars once. Each of these flybys had to change speed and direction of Rosetta in exactly the planned way to make the rendezvous with the comet possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEQuE5N3rwQ
Sad, but a brilliant achievement by all the scientists and engineers involved.Quote:
Originally Posted by Takeovers
Amazing images and results, I hope they are having a nice party tonight to celebrate their work.
;)
Some info on the european ESA Exomars 2016 mission to Mars in cooperation with Russia. It sends the exomars trace gas orbiter and the Schiaparelli experimental lander to Mars. Schiaparelli will touch down on Oct. 16, at 15:48 CET. For some that would be 3:48 PM.
The orbiter will be a long term science mission. Schiaparelli is an experimental lander that will provide atmospheric data like temperature, windspeed, humidity, pressure, dust. Unfortunately it is only battery powered and will expire after a few days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3WCt...ature=youtu.be
Some history of the project. Initially it was a joint ESA NASA project. NASA would provide the launch vehicle and an RTG, a nuclear battery that would power Schiaparelli to be a long term weather station on Mars. But Congress terminated funding and NASA dropped out.
The project was continued in cooperation with Russia which provided a Proton rocket for launch. Proton is not very reliable but this one worked flawlessly and sent the probes on their way to Mars. Russia would also provide a RTG but export permit issues delayed it and it was not availble at the time the technical design for Schiaparelli was finalized. So now it has only batteries and will last only a few days. It will provide pictures of the landing but has no camera that can provide pictues after landing.
After NASA had committed to the project, cancelling the funding by Congress was not a very bright move by Congress IMO. It displayed NASA as an unreliable partner.
Astronomers previously estimated that the observable universe contains about 100 billion galaxies.
The new study checked that figure by estimating the density of galaxies from nearby to the farthest edges of the universe. And because the speed of light is finite -- and can take billions of years to reach Earth -- they were also looking back in time at the cosmos' youngest eras.
The team of four astronomers, led by Christopher Conselice at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, began by reprocessing surveys of the darkest patches of space.
One of those included the ultra-deep-field survey taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which reveals galaxies that existed when the universe was as young as 400 to 700 million years old. (The universe from our vantage point is 13.8 billion years old.)
They counted galaxies in multiple wavelengths, charted them in three dimensions, and figured out how many there were at various distances and epochs of time:
They discovered the density of galaxies increased the farther back in time that they looked. This made sense, since galaxies regularly merge and grow larger over time, and they were looking at earlier eras. (Our Milky Way galaxy, for example, is on a collision course with the nearby Andromeda galaxy.)
But the density of galaxies went up only up to a certain point -- then fell off.
" These observations do not reach the faintest galaxies," the authors concluded, adding: "we know that there should be many more faint galaxies beyond our current observational limits."
By extrapolating the rates they saw, and assuming that something was blocking their view, they think previous estimates of the number of galaxies in the observable universe may be off by a factor of 10, 20, or more.
Put another way, there are 2 trillion galaxies in the universe instead of 100 billion.
https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/as...205958886.html
Some good photos of the Soyuz rocket. It is ancient in terms of rockets but a reliable workhorse. I like it because it is unique in its design.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/10/428.jpg
Two Soyuz in the hangar prepared to launch. There is the center stage and there are 4 boosters at the side which are dropped early. BTW you see 4 nozzles at each booster but it is really only one engine with one turbopump. They use 4 nozzles because 1 big nozzle causes instabilities that are very hard to control. So not 20 engines but only 5 engines. There is also one smaller nozzles. Those are the so called Vernier thrusters. They are used for steering. The big engine block is fixed and only the small one is movable for steering. Newer designs no longer use Vernier engines. They make the whole engine movable for steering. Another sign the design is ancient but who cares. They can build them cheap and they are reliable.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/10/429.jpg
This is the interstage. The structure that connects the first stage with the second stage. From this photo alone it is clear it is a soviet/russian design. This latticework of struts is used by them, seen very prominent on the failed N1. The US designers prefer a cylinder of thin metal or composite materials.
The latest russian progress resupply ship has left the ISS and burned up in the atmoshere as all their resupply ships do.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/10/432.jpg
Leaving the ISS released by the russian space agency. Some people suspect, it is a stock photo from an earlier mission but I don't know.
https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gif
Progress burning up in the atmosphere. Picture taken from the ISS.
News from China. China is preparing to launch a manned spaceship Shenzhou 11 with two Taikonauts in about 2 hours. Their destination is the recently launched Tiangong 2 space station. The mission will be 1 month at the station. There is a lot of reporting on CCTV News channel.
I get it from satellite TV but there should also be a live stream but presently I cannot connect to it. Maybe too many try already for the upcoming launch.
http://english.cctv.com/live/
Very extensive coverage. Life pictures of the launch, live pictures of the firing engines during flight, life pictures of the boosters dropping. Even live pictures of the Taikonauts in their capsule during the whole launch.
Shenzhou 11 has successfully reached orbit.
Some Shenzhou-11 pictures.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/10/480.jpg
The launch vehicle almost ready to go.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/10/481.jpg
Liftoff
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/10/482.jpg
The Taikonauts, I believe already in flight, but not sure.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/10/483.jpg
The rocket in flight.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/10/484.jpg
Separation of the boosters.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2016/10/485.jpg
The fairing falling down on land after separation when the rocket is in space.