Asteroids, Super space drives, and Io volcanoes!

Here goes one of our occasional space and astronomy roundups!

First some personal science news. I will be speaking about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) twice, early in 2015. (1) at the conference of the AAPT - the American Association of Physics Teachers, January 4 - 6, 2015, in San Diego...

... then (2) I'll be the "con" arguer in a debate over "messaging to aliens" at the American Association for the Advancement of Science - AAAS Annual Meeting - the greatest scientific conclave on the planet, from 12 - 16 February 2015, in San Jose, CA.

And now... cool stuff!

== Are we a target? ==

... or rather... really hot stuff! Did you hear that a solar storm spewed forth a major spray of energetic, charged particles that passed very close to the Earth, a while back? Read up on the 1859 Carrington Event that fried telegraph systems -- if it struck today, our electronics-dependent civilization could suffer real damage. Contemplate that... then consider this. There may have been a truly monumental coronal mass ejection around the year 775 that hit the Earth with a strength that was about 20 times the 1859 Carrington Event.

And yes, the solution is to get out there!  Members of Congress introduced a bill to protect property rights for commercial exploitation of asteroids. The bipartisan legislation, introduced by Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) and Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA), is called the American Space Technology for Exploring Resource Opportunities in Deep Space (ASTEROIDS) Act. Alas, during our current civil war, there is no chance of an actual political process in the USA.  But when this phase ends, as it must, the bill will be ready for action by a restored, scientific and forward-looking nation.

Have you heard stories about this supposed reactionless drive, “unveiled” at a NASA conference in Ohio? I've put in a query to Geoff Landis - NASA scientist and renowned SciFi author, who promised to watch developments and give us the straight dope... or poop.   To be clear, there are some places where we already can do a version of this -- turn solar energy directly into motion, without using reaction mass or rocketry -- e.g. by applying electrodynamic tethers to leverage against the Earth's magnetic field...

…but only where there is an electron rich zone like the Van Allen belts to close the circuit loop. Interestingly, electomagnetic tethers work in exactly the realm you must climb through before deploying a solar sail. (See this process illustrated in both my short story “Tank Farm Dyamo” and in the first chapter of EXISTENCE, which I read aloud for you, here.)

Meanwhile. NASA released high-quality footage of their experiment in near-space in June, deploying the agency’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) and experimental parachute systems that will be helpful in maneuvers and landings near planets, like Mars. Way cool footage!

Oh but we really need to get out there! Dig this — “Within a two-week period in August 2013, astronomers observed three massive volcanic eruptions on Jupiter’s moon Io. The grand finale was an eruption they say was one of the brightest volcanic eruptions ever observed in our solar system. These astronomers are speculating that these eruptions on Io – which can send material hundreds of miles above the little moon’s surface – might be much more common than they previously thought."

We should have a satellite observatory in-residence above Jupiter, permanently.

Meanwhile, researchers have found a microbial menagerie that thrives in tiny water worlds floating in oily tar pits ... perhaps a model for life on Titan?

== And yet more from space! ==

From beyond the solar system: Cosmic grains returned by the Stardust mission predate the solar system -- and may be our first samples of interstellar dust. This is amazing.  And crowd-sourced amateur science played a role!

Are many asteroids “rubble piles” held together by molecular forces, in addition to very weak gravity?  It seems that is the case for near Earth crosser 1950 DA… and the implications — for resource-mining as well as countering potentially dangerous ones — are very complicated.  It is a good thing we are forging forward to find out.  Alas, the Space.com reporter might need to get straight the meanings of “centripetal” vs “centrifugal.”

Under ideal conditions, the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) should be able to detect two kinds of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmospheres of alien worlds, if atmospheric levels were 10 times those on Earth. In other words, if aliens are self-destructive fools, we might catch them during the brief window of time. But only if it is orbiting a very dim star.

Is the Universe a Bubble? If two pocket “universes” make physical contact, there are several possibilities. M-brane theorists think the collision would release so much energy that the resulting bang would wipe out any galaxy-style realms that existed before. 

On the other hand, researchers at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, think the interaction could be mild and show up in the maps we are now making of the microwave background. “We start with a multiverse that has two bubbles in it, we collide the bubbles on a computer to figure out what happens, and then we stick a virtual observer in various places and ask what that observer would see from there."

Want more about the multiverse? See Exploring the Multiverse -- a talk given by astrophysicists Brian Keating (UCSD) and Andrew Friedman (MIT)... and me....  We covered the ELEVEN different ways (that we have thought-of, so far) that this cosmos we observe may be just one of many! The event took place at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UCSD on July 29. 

Here's a photo from our panel discussion: Brian Keating on the left, Andrew Friedman in the middle, me on the right:

== Space is also for dreams ==

Finally... do you miss the "final frontier"? The notion of a hopeful future of unbounded possibilities? Do you like well done sci fi and drama and neat effects... in a terrific Kickstarter-level production? Have a look at the 20 minute "Prelude to Axanar."  All of it aimed at a high quality, semi-pro indie Star Trek film.

You have to hand it to Paramount Pictures.  They figured out that you don't have to be jerks about policing a copyrighted franchise. Start Trek has always had a close and friendly relationship with its fans and Paramount has kept a very loose and tolerant attitude toward "unofficial" productions, many of which have been well-written and entertaining... and which ultimately kept Paramount's valued core healthy.  A true win-win.

But Axanar looks likely to be something special. This is Star Trek at its best. The danger and tension and action... mixed with joy and optimism that you get nowhere else, these days. This is worth your support.

Space Marvels. Science is... alive!

My previous posting about the real reasons for the American Revolution, remains one of my most popular, ever, drawing lots of traffic.  But now it is time to shift over to... science!  Just a spacey set of cool miscellany items this time… about… space! 

The European Space Agency’s elderly comet-hunting Rosetta satellite woke up from hibernation and successfully rendezvoused with a comet! After a decade long journey, the spacecraft closed in on its target, comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, and has sent back the first high-resolution photos of the double-lobed comet. 

I agree with the folks at Planetary Resources that “It has been fascinating to see the increasingly more detailed images of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. It is like nothing scientists have seen to date.” Truly a new era for comet studies.

Those pock marks aren’t impact craters, they are proof of my doctoral dissertation… blow-out cavities where sun-heated and sublimed volatiles punched out overlaying dust layers, creating the fountains that are now portrayed on most NOVA-style shows. You’ve seen those shows that depict these dirty-iceball messengers from 4.5 billion years ago. 

The dust fountains? Mine from 1981… and portrayed even better in Heart of the Comet. It’s almost like being there!

Here is a terrifically concise and persuasive animation about one of the bases for orbital mechanics — explaining why you must have several images of an asteroid, against the starry background, in order to determine its orbit.

Modeling the universe, starting with the Big Bang, only became possible with the advent of supercomputers, fantastic software and the realization of the existence of mysterious dark matter. Combining all of these resulted in what may be one of the great scientific achievements of our time -- a model that portrays the Bang, then natural evolution into the cosmos we see today, with the same array of numbers of sizes and types of galaxies. If verified, it is a stunning validation of our current models and our growing ability as simulators… then creators?… in our own right.

==Exoplanet Updates==

 

NASA's Kepler mission has found a planet roughly the same size as Earth, orbiting the "Goldilocks" or potentially habitable zone near an M-class (small-red) sun, about 500 light years from our system.   I'll be very interested to see if calculations show it likely to be tidal-locked. In any event, we have a good target for the next generation of planet-studying telescopes.

Meanwhile, computer models indicate that having a companion planet may increase the chance of life on earth-sized planets.

See this chart of all confirmed exoplanets identified by the Kepler spacecraft.

==Interstellar Relations==

Anthropologist Cameron Smith suggests that any interstellar colony starship would have to carry a minimum of 10,000 people to secure success on a genetic basis… assuming no further replenishment of breeding stock from Earth. This conflicts with University of  Florida's John Moore who, in 2002, figured only 150 people might bring enough diversity for a viable gene pool. One wonders how much this is altered if you can bring frozen sperm, ova and even embryos.

Pope Francis would absolutely baptize an alien from Mars, if one showed up at the Vatican and asked for it. "If God prompts some Martians to come to Earth, find the Pope, and say "we want in on this Catholicism thing." The pope would probably say "OK. cool." But probably in Latin," says The Wire.

Is this really true? “Creationist Ken Ham has said that the U.S. space program is a waste of money because any alien life that scientists found would be damned to hell.”  Ham writes, "any aliens would also be affected by Adam's sin, but because they are not Adam's descendants, they can't have salvation." So much for the thoughtful Christian theological musings about other life and possible other redemptions, by solid minds like C.S. Lewis.

Ah but then televangelist Pat Robertson shockingly has urged Young Earth Christians to can it. “We’ve got to be realistic that the dating of Bishop Ussher just doesn’t comport with anything that’s found in science,” Robertson continued, “and you can’t just totally deny the geological formations that are out there.” 
Dang. It’s enough to make one believe in miracles.

==Back to Earth...and Mars==

Zircons are our probes into the very earliest days of Planet Earth. Now - in Australia - one was found with an age of 4.4 billion years. It cooled just 100 million years after the planet formed! Amazing implications.

 A new analysis of data from NASA's Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) shows that a July 2012 solar storm of unprecedented size would have wiped out global electronic systems if it had occurred just nine days earlier. At long last, some of the powers in our protector caste are starting to take this kind of thing seriously. But in time?

Boil, burn or explode in space: NPR looks at what would happen to your body in space...without a spacesuit.

Photographer David A. Kodama took this composite image capturing the unmanned, next-generation Falcon 9 rocket launch trajectory as it blasted off from the SpaceX launch pad at Vandenberg, Sept 29.

Those Norwegian skydivers who "caught” a "meteorite" falling past them? All of my instincts told me… no way, man. And now it seems more likely I was right. Some possibilities often seem too cool to be plausible. Stay skeptical, my friends.

The Curiosity Rover has completed two years roving over the surface of Mars. For a collection of stunning images, take a look at Mars Up Close: Inside the Curiosity Mission, by Mark Kaufman. Meanwhile, NASA is planning for its next rover -- the Mars2020 mission.

Meanwhile, listen to Neil de Grasse Tyson's video tribute to Curiosity ....and the spirit of exploration.

Here's a Kickstarter project worth checking out. "Shrox" wants to fund production of a calendar of art depicting the settlement of Mars.