More marvels from space

We can only repair both Earth and society if we regain confidence that we're capable citizens of a flawed-but-great ... and getting-greater ... civilization. And so, let's start with --

Gorgeous planetary art by Van God. Seriously, your neighbors who yearn for apocalypse, ask them how can it not be the creator's intent that we go forth and appreciate such glory? And ever-greater sights and knowledge across the sea of stars? Yours is the folk that does all this, with competence and skill and awe.

And joy. Those trying to demoralize us will fail.

Remember Oumuamua?  The  mysterious space rock, first spotted in 2017, plunged into our solar system from interstellar space, flung around the sun and sped onward, captivating us with its strange shape, so like that of Arthur C. Clarke’s “Rama.” Moreover, in a sci-fi-ish twist, it’s been accelerating!

Okay, okay, don’t get in a twist. The tiny acceleration fits what we’d expect from gas puffing out of the sun-warmed end of a comet.   ‘Oumuamua was indeed comet-like, it was just coated in a thick layer of carbon-rich grime that insulated the space rock’s icy heart. The rock’s exit from our neighborhood has settled most astronomers’ minds.'

Okay, unavoidable brag time. The entire theory of insulating dust or other layers atop comets, limiting or delaying their heating and outgassing, is mine. My doctoral dissertation “Three Models of Dust Layers on Cometary Nuclei.”  Indeed, many of what we call asteroids may be choked-off short period comets, which would be great news. So much yummy water, within fairly easy reach. Vastly easier than dragging smidgeons from the bottom of the dusty old moon’s gravity well. (And we've found nothing else of value, down there.) Hey. Just sayin’.

Movin' on... Mathematica guru Stephen Wolfram offers a series of way-cool (if long!) essays on: (1) looking back fifty years to what the movie 2001 got wonderfully right… and interestingly wrong. (My own essay on such matters is here.)

The 2018 motion picture Clara “tells the story of an exoplanetary astronomer who makes a momentous discovery.” This AAS article by the film’s science advisors discusses how to simulate an object in another star’s L1 point. Ooooh. sci fi that’s nerdy!

== Solar System marvels ==

Thirteen years of data from the Cassini Mission have allowed NASA to create a globe of Titan that strips away the obscuring clouds and haze.  Fantastic.

Is Pluto made of a billion comets?  Scientists have found an intriguing consistency between the estimated amount of nitrogen inside a plutonian glacier and the amount that would be expected if Pluto was formed by the agglomeration of roughly a billion comets or other Kuiper Belt objects, only chemically modified by liquid water, perhaps even in a subsurface ocean.

One of the most exciting discoveries of the last 30 years has been learning there’s more than one moon in our system with a ice-roofed ocean. There may be more than a dozen, including Pluto!  Meaning such roofed water worlds are likely to abound everywhere in the universe. Which makes the next news awesome:  

“Using data collected by NASA’s late-great Cassini space probe, scientists have detected traces of complex organic molecules seeping out from Enceladus’ ice-covered ocean. It’s yet another sign that this intriguing Saturnian moon has what it takes to sustain life.”

“The newly confirmed organic molecules feature masses above 200 atomic units, which is more than 10 times heavier than methane. These molecules contain aromatic structures (ring-shaped, flat molecules) with possible cross chains of hydrocarbons. The source of these complex organics could be of a non-biological or biological nature, but the exact origin has not been determined.”  There is a small chance the molecules might have come from passing comets (nu?) But more likely from vents releasing showers of sub-ice water from the seas of Enceledus.

Listen in.... Eerie plasma wave chatter between Saturn and its ice-roofed, ocean moon. Researchers compressed 16 minutes of plasma exchange between Saturn and Enceladus into 29 seconds of audio for human ears.

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover-lab will go beyond the capabilities of the current Opportunity probe in many ways. In one added feature, it will drill and dig up soil samples to put in over 30 tubes and will then drop them at various points. Now Airbus and the European Space Agency have announced plans of a “fetch rover,’ which could head to the planet in 2026. If it lands and operates successfully, it will seek these cached samples, autonomously drive to their location, and store them. It will also have to be able to plot its driving route on its own every single day, saving on the high cost of maintaining a large support team of humans on Earth. Once it has “proceeded to the route,” it will have a guide map already created by Mars 2020.

“It could take the vehicle around 150 days to collect all the canisters Mars 2020 leaves behind. Then it has to find the rocket it landed with, hand off the sample tubes, then back off and film the rocket blasting off to rendezvous with an orbiter to bring the samples back to Earth.”

Complicated, ambitious and worthy of a mighty, wonderful civilization, of which you should be proud. Assertively, adamantly and - yes - even aggressively proud. This stuff is significant even theologically. And I mean that, literally.

== Looking toward asteroids ==

Japan’s space mission Hayabusa 2 is now close to the Ryugu asteroid with hopes to then return samples of the type C asteroid, containing traces of water and organic material. The press is kvelling over it’s shape, like an 8-sided D&D die.

Many asteroids appear to have similar orbits and compositions. Perhaps each "asteroid family" formed when a collision shattered a planet-size body into many fragments. Nearly every meteorite that falls onto Earth may ultimately come from a half dozen or so lost worlds that splintered apart soon after the birth of the solar system.

Speaking of asteroids, the Dawn probe has lowered its orbit around Ceres from 220 to 22 miles, delivering stunning images, including the dwarf planet's Bright Patches.

A peculiar asteroid 2015 BZ509 with a retrograde orbit was apparently captured by proto-Jupiter from the interstellar medium 4.5 billion years in the past.

== Beyond the solar system ==

Astronomers have made a bold prediction: "In 2022, give or take a year, a pair of stars will merge and explode, becoming one of the brightest objects in the sky for a short period.” The binary pair’s the speed of the orbit was gradually getting faster and faster, implying the stars are getting closer together. Calculations suggest the pair will explode as a “red nova”— caused by a binary merging—in about 5 years’ time.

Three young protoplanetary suns have been found to have dust rich in nanodiamonds.  Yes, that’s nano… diamonds.

Fantastic new image of the Galactic Center taken by the new, South African radio telescope! All still consistent with Gregory Benford's Galactic Center series.

And while we're down there... Too cool. Each time I look at this time-lapse of stars orbiting the black hole at the center of the galaxy, I go “gosh.”
That’s a lie. Sometimes I go Wow or Dang! Or “I’m as proud as heck.”

Is this  the very first direct image of the birth of a planet still forming around a star?

Researchers have tried to catalogue the ordinary matter in the universe—not to be confused with dark matter, or Dark Energy. About 10 percent sits in galaxies, and close to 60 percent is in the diffuse clouds of gas that lie between galaxies. Some predicted that the missing 30 percent of baryons were likely in a web-like pattern in space called the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM).

“Astronomers have found the brightest object ever discovered in the early Universe, 13 billion light-years away - a quasar from a time when our Universe was just seven percent of its current age.” A huge black hole eating massively from one of the earliest galaxies.

And finally... Moon landing fakery! Well, not really. These recovered hi-res images from Apollo 11 help prove the opposite.  But one of the captions is wrong! Image #3 supposedly shows: “The lunar module, after being jettisoned.”  Um wrong! It shows both sections of the LEM together, hence it is pre-landing, undoubtedly taken by Michael Collins as Buzz & Neil began their descent.  Yeah, picky-picky. And we are the civilization that did that. You are mighty beings called competent citizens.  Show it.