‘Space’ Archives
Notes Queries 11/21/11
Millis on The Space Show Marc Millis is now in Brussels for another TEDx talk — I link here to the TEDx description of him as ‘a rock star in the world of space geeks’ that always gives him a chuckle. More about the talk as soon as I have the link for online viewing. All this reminds me to tell you that Marc and I were guests on David [...]
Science Fiction and the Interstellar Idea
Science fiction has been much on my mind of late, particularly following the 100 Year Starship Symposium, where so many of the scientists I talked to mentioned novels and movies that had been influential in getting them into science. My friend Keith Cooper, editor of Astronomy Now and a fine science writer whose work I often cite in these pages, [...]
A Possible Subsurface Lake on Europa
An area of disrupted terrain called Thera Macula on Jupiter’s moon Europa may be evidence for a body of liquid water with the volume of North America’s Great Lakes encased within the ice. The notion comes from analysis of floating ice shelves that seem to be collapsing. That an ocean exists beneath the ice on Europa should surprise no one, but [...]
Updating the Gravitational Wave Hunt
The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna mission (LISA), slated for launch later this decade, will go about testing one of Einstein’s key predictions, that gravitational waves should emanate from exotic objects like black holes. Detectors like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) have operated on Earth’s surface but are [...]
Can Project Orion Be Re-Born?
Project Orion keeps surfacing in propulsion literature and making the occasional appearance on the broader Internet. A case in point is a vigorous defense of Orion-style engineering by Gary Michael Church on the Lifeboat Foundation blog. Church is rightly taken with the idea of propelling payloads massing thousands of tons around the Solar System, [...]
An Asteroid Born Near the Earth
This morning we stick with the planetary migration theme begun on Friday, when the subject was a possible ice giant that was expelled from the Solar System some 600 million years after formation. We have a lot to learn about the mechanisms that could force such ejections, but it’s becoming clear that objects up to planet size do indeed migrate, [...]
A Gas Giant Ejected from our System?
Free-floating planets — planets moving through interstellar space without stars — may not be unusual. If solar systems in their epoch of formation go through chaotic periods when the orbits of their giant planets are affected by dynamical instability, then ejecting a gas giant from the system entirely is a plausible outcome. David [...]
A Gas Giant Ejected from our System?
Free-floating planets — planets moving through interstellar space without stars — may not be unusual. If solar systems in their epoch of formation go through chaotic periods when the orbits of their giant planets are affected by dynamical instability, then ejecting a gas giant from the system entirely is a plausible outcome. David [...]
A Look at Methane-Based Life
Could life exist on a world with a methane rather than a water cycle? The nitrogen-rich atmosphere of Titan, laden with hydrocarbon smog, is a constant reminder of the question. Cassini has shown us the results of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun interacting with atmospheric methane, and we’ve had radar glimpses of lakes as well as the [...]
Pluto/Charon: A Dangerous Arrival?
We’ve often considered the effect of interstellar dust on a spacecraft moving at a substantial percentage of the speed of light. The matter becomes even more acute when we consider an interstellar probe arriving at the destination solar system. A flyby mission moving at ten percent of the speed of light is going to encounter a far more dangerous [...]
