Hey Jupiter! We’re baaa-aack! Launched in August of 2011, NASA's Juno spacecraft arrived near the largest planet in the solar system on July 4th. Juno will enter a difficult polar orbit, measuring Jupiter's water content, mapping its magnetic fields, fierce radiation storms and searching for signs of a solid core, passing as close as 5,000 km above Jupiter's cloud tops. (That should be AWESOME!) Its final maneuver.... will be a suicidal plunge into Jupiter's dense atmosphere.
== Solar System Marvels ==
A mini moon for Earth? A second “moon,”asteroid 2016 HO3, is currently locked into “a century old little dance” with Earth, an elliptical orbit between 38 and 100 times the distance of our planet’s primary moon. Don’t get too excited. It’s teensy. NASA says it’s larger than 120 feet (36.5 metres) across, but no more than 300 feet (91 metres) wide, and will orbit for many more centuries to come. Though that may make it ideal for our first harvesting mission! Interestingly, its dimensions are that of a small starship.
So kewl! Another Curiosity rover selfie, along the alien slopes of Mt Sharp, on Mars.
See the latest stunning high-resolution images of Pluto's surface sent back from NASA's New Horizons mission after its closest approach in 2015. The photo to the left shows rugged highlands bordering hummocky cratered uplands and smooth uncratered ice plains, indicating much more complex geology than expected for this dwarf planet. What a change from our previous images of Pluto -- merely an indistinct dot of light. Now we can view details such as ice volcanoes towering miles over the surface.
This is fun: see these new full-color spinnable maps of Pluto and Charon. Explore the geography and named features of these worlds. Approaching Pluto: This NASA video, assembled from New Horizons images, shows what it would be like to approach and swoop down toward Pluto, landing on its icy plains.
More evidence that Pluto has an ice-roofed ocean? New Horizon's probe recorded deep cracks marking Pluto's surface. That leads researchers to conclude that something, perhaps heat radiating from radioactive elements in the dwarf planet's core, is keeping the ocean on Pluto wet.
A mini moon for Earth? A second “moon,”asteroid 2016 HO3, is currently locked into “a century old little dance” with Earth, an elliptical orbit between 38 and 100 times the distance of our planet’s primary moon. Don’t get too excited. It’s teensy. NASA says it’s larger than 120 feet (36.5 metres) across, but no more than 300 feet (91 metres) wide, and will orbit for many more centuries to come. Though that may make it ideal for our first harvesting mission! Interestingly, its dimensions are that of a small starship.
So kewl! Another Curiosity rover selfie, along the alien slopes of Mt Sharp, on Mars.
See the latest stunning high-resolution images of Pluto's surface sent back from NASA's New Horizons mission after its closest approach in 2015. The photo to the left shows rugged highlands bordering hummocky cratered uplands and smooth uncratered ice plains, indicating much more complex geology than expected for this dwarf planet. What a change from our previous images of Pluto -- merely an indistinct dot of light. Now we can view details such as ice volcanoes towering miles over the surface. This is fun: see these new full-color spinnable maps of Pluto and Charon. Explore the geography and named features of these worlds. Approaching Pluto: This NASA video, assembled from New Horizons images, shows what it would be like to approach and swoop down toward Pluto, landing on its icy plains.
More evidence that Pluto has an ice-roofed ocean? New Horizon's probe recorded deep cracks marking Pluto's surface. That leads researchers to conclude that something, perhaps heat radiating from radioactive elements in the dwarf planet's core, is keeping the ocean on Pluto wet.
Phil Plait at his best, explaining why Cassini’s discovery of 36 fast-moving dust particles is such a big deal. Interstellar travellers! Sayeth Phil: “we have tasted the stars. You can fault humanity for a lot of ills, but sometimes, when we reach beyond ourselves, when we yearn to understand the Universe, we can truly be a wonderful species.”
Earth's twin - Venus has sulfuric acid rainstorms and surface temperatures to melt lead. No lander there has lasted even an hour as electronics soon fry. (At NIAC we have funded a small effort to develop a lander whose lonic and movement and even data-recording would all be mechanical-analog and wind-powered.) Now it seems that Venus has got a monstrous electric wind that appears to have helped strip all the water out of the atmosphere.
At NASA's Innovative and Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program (I am on the external council), we have funded a number of provocative concepts for exploring asteroids or Venus of Europa. Look up the next NIAC Symposium August 23-25 in Raleigh North Carolina. The meetings are open to the public! (With RSVP.)
== Marvels of the Cosmos ==
A reborn universe... Could the vision of Poul Anderson and Frank Tipler (in Tau Zero and The Physics of Immortality) come back? Might the universe undergo a collapse and a “bounce-back,” allowing us to evade the need for a truly bottomless singularity or even inflation? (Or the heat death of endless dissipation discussed by Freeman Dyson?) This kind of "bounce" is bizarre on many levels and I admit I don’t routinely operate at this “high church” end of physics… though I understand enough to ask good questions. This article and others glide past a number of vexing points… like how today’s accelerating expansion - propelled by Dark Energy - ever slows down enough to contract! Still… fascinating.
The Cosmic Web: Mysterious Architecture of the Universe, by Princeton astrophysicist J. Richard Gott, takes an in-depth look at the latest theories of cosmology, as well as growing evidence for the superstructure of the cosmos, which appears to consist of clusters of galaxies strung in an immense cosmic web. Mind boggling!
(And you San Diegans! I will be on stage again this August with astrophysicists Brian Keating and Andrew Friedman for another "evening with the Three Physicists." (Not tenors, though we are amigos.) This time re Mathematics and the Mid of God. Ooooooh! hosted by UCSD's new Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, where the sciences and arts come together to explore humanity's most unique gift.) Register to attend.
Meanwhile... Researchers have observed a black hole swallowing a star and ejecting a flare of matter moving at nearly the speed of light… a cataclysm of stellar destruction followed by the launch of polar jets, occurring over several months.
A spectacular image from rapidly advancing astronomy - a vastly better view of the expanding and ongoing Tycho supernova. But don’t stop there. Go on to the Chandra X-Ray site to see amazing closeups and the story of an unlucky star that was too close when the Tycho blew up! In fact, it seems likely the companion star “caused” the supernova.
Magnificent scientific art... Out of this world: Why the most important art today is made in space. This article from The Guardian reflects on the grandeur of astronomic images - such as the magnificent Pillars of Creation and others from the Hubble Space Telescope - that have reshaped our understanding of the cosmos, and might be considered some of the finest art of our generation. "Great art should fill us with a new vision of the world - indeed the cosmos - and our place in it," writes Jonathan Jones.
Indeed, I have elsewhere maintained the the most important works of visual art were the images of the atom bomb mushroom cloud and the Earth as a blue oasis, seen from space. These images changed us!
Can you think of another (hypothetical) image that would do the same? Jar us into taking meaningful steps toward growing up?
Earth's twin - Venus has sulfuric acid rainstorms and surface temperatures to melt lead. No lander there has lasted even an hour as electronics soon fry. (At NIAC we have funded a small effort to develop a lander whose lonic and movement and even data-recording would all be mechanical-analog and wind-powered.) Now it seems that Venus has got a monstrous electric wind that appears to have helped strip all the water out of the atmosphere.
At NASA's Innovative and Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program (I am on the external council), we have funded a number of provocative concepts for exploring asteroids or Venus of Europa. Look up the next NIAC Symposium August 23-25 in Raleigh North Carolina. The meetings are open to the public! (With RSVP.)
== Marvels of the Cosmos ==
A reborn universe... Could the vision of Poul Anderson and Frank Tipler (in Tau Zero and The Physics of Immortality) come back? Might the universe undergo a collapse and a “bounce-back,” allowing us to evade the need for a truly bottomless singularity or even inflation? (Or the heat death of endless dissipation discussed by Freeman Dyson?) This kind of "bounce" is bizarre on many levels and I admit I don’t routinely operate at this “high church” end of physics… though I understand enough to ask good questions. This article and others glide past a number of vexing points… like how today’s accelerating expansion - propelled by Dark Energy - ever slows down enough to contract! Still… fascinating.
The Cosmic Web: Mysterious Architecture of the Universe, by Princeton astrophysicist J. Richard Gott, takes an in-depth look at the latest theories of cosmology, as well as growing evidence for the superstructure of the cosmos, which appears to consist of clusters of galaxies strung in an immense cosmic web. Mind boggling!(And you San Diegans! I will be on stage again this August with astrophysicists Brian Keating and Andrew Friedman for another "evening with the Three Physicists." (Not tenors, though we are amigos.) This time re Mathematics and the Mid of God. Ooooooh! hosted by UCSD's new Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, where the sciences and arts come together to explore humanity's most unique gift.) Register to attend.
Meanwhile... Researchers have observed a black hole swallowing a star and ejecting a flare of matter moving at nearly the speed of light… a cataclysm of stellar destruction followed by the launch of polar jets, occurring over several months.
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| Tycho supernova remnant |
Magnificent scientific art... Out of this world: Why the most important art today is made in space. This article from The Guardian reflects on the grandeur of astronomic images - such as the magnificent Pillars of Creation and others from the Hubble Space Telescope - that have reshaped our understanding of the cosmos, and might be considered some of the finest art of our generation. "Great art should fill us with a new vision of the world - indeed the cosmos - and our place in it," writes Jonathan Jones.
Indeed, I have elsewhere maintained the the most important works of visual art were the images of the atom bomb mushroom cloud and the Earth as a blue oasis, seen from space. These images changed us!
Can you think of another (hypothetical) image that would do the same? Jar us into taking meaningful steps toward growing up?
