Perfect fare to start off the New Year and give you that desperately needed jolt of optimistic determination -- every few years this epic-good short film - Wanderers -- gets rediscovered by the Web and re-viraled. As it should, be, yet again. It is that good. That beautiful and inspiring.
== Dark Matter anomalies ==
Let's dig in for one of our periodic space and science compilations, as a way of celebrating what has to have been by-far humanity's best year in exploration of the cosmos. A truly spectacular year... almost as amazing as the fact that almost none of our fellow citizens even remotely realize it.
And so...
Streams
of dark matter particles may interact with our planet’s gravitational field.
Non-baryonic mass seems to not engage our kind (baryonic) via
electromagnetism or interacting with light. But we know it is out there, from
the orbital speeds of stars around galactic centers… and from cases of
gravitational lensing. Now this “stream” concept intrigues: “A (dark matter) stream can be much larger than the solar
system… perhaps many streams crisscross our galactic neighborhood… When gravity
interacts with the cold dark matter gas during galaxy formation, all particles
within a stream continue traveling at the same velocity.”
Further: “As
these streams begin to interact with a planet, according to results from his
computer simulation, the streams pass straight through, focusing as an
“ultra-dense filament,” producing many dark matter “hairs” that seem to sprout well above Earth’s surface. This stream will not interact with our planet’s
normal matter, it will pass through as if nothing were there, but channeled by
the intensity of Earth’s gravity.”
And: “For
Earth, the dark matter streams will emerge from the planet, concentrating as
“roots” of the dark matter hairs around 600,000 miles above the surface (about
twice the Earth-moon distance)… “tips” of the hairs should be located over
twice as far away from the planet’s surface….”
What’s cool
is that this hypothesis should be testable with sensitive gravimetric satellite
probes. Already some discrepancies seem to point to dark matter anomalies…
though not yet “hairs.”
== Moons, asteroids and more ==
Go to Phobos before landing on Mars itself? I have pushed this idea
for twenty years and now some at NASA agree.
Not only is the larger moon far easier to reach and might serve as an ideal
research platform, it also has two advantages never mentioned in this article. It can serve as a logistics hub where supplies might be pre-positioned and tended without complex orbital
management. It also might (some figure)
be carbonaceous chondritic material, containing volatiles like water. If these could be mined and stored and
prepared, subsequent Mars landing missions would find all the water and rocket
fuel they need, lowering both cost and risk by an order of magnitude.
I’ve long held that Phobos, the larger moon of Mars, is one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the solar system. Certainly the Russians seem to think so, though none of their efforts have delivered a lander, yet. (Note, Phobos has far less of a gravitational well to deal with than out vastly larger Moon, which renders the latter almost useless as a staging area or logistics hub.)
Now there are indications we had better hurry! There may be only a little time left to exploit this resource! Phobos is being slowly torn apart by gravity as it approaches the Red Planet at a rate of 2 meters every century, a rate that will cause it to break apart completely within the next 50 million years. Mars may lose a moon, but gain a ring, so hurry up!
Speaking of fascinating
moons… “At half the diameter of Pluto, Charon is the largest satellite relative
to its planet in the solar system. Many New Horizons scientists expected Charon
to be a monotonous, crater-battered world; instead, they're finding a landscape covered with mountains, canyons, landslides, surface-color variations and more.” Signs of a possible once-molten interior point to very active early days
in the solar system. And the features on
one side of Charon are named after… science fiction characters! The other side, never seen clearly by New
Horizons, will get names only after some future mission… so make my characters
famous and beloved enough to get places of their own!
== More excitement... for those capable of looking up ==
== More excitement... for those capable of looking up ==
Oh, what a wonderful year it's been, in humanity's advancement through space and the cosmos! Possibly the best year ever, and I include the 1960s. And now -- the Cassini probe just
completed a dive to within 50 kilometers of Enceledus, Saturn's little moon
whose under-ice ocean is spewing plumes of water into space. Cassini’s passage through those plumes will
reveal much about ice-roofed ocean moons and the possibility they may be abodes
of life.
A new study, published in Science, suggests that the asteroid or comet that impacted the Earth 66 million years ago rocked
the planet severely enough to set off massive volcanic eruptions in India, spreading lava across the Deccan Traps. Together, the impact and volcanism finished off the dinosaurs and 70 percent of the
Earth's species.
By now you’ve all seen the
news (dismissed as a hoax by Rush Limbaugh) that there is (briny) liquid water occasionally flowing on a current-day Mars.
Suggesting that the precious material is both more common and accessible
than expected. Not everyone greets the news with enthusiasm, though: “…but the
very fact that it’s in a liquid state is troubling. In fact, it could be deadly.” Because highly caustic perchlorates are known
to be common on Mars and these may be among the salty substances in the brine-stew.
And perchlorates destroy organic compounds. (They are also components of solid
rocket fuel.) Though there are also a few earthly organisms that find them
yummy. And who can fault a liquid that's... brin-y?
Once a week a thousand ton
asteroid passes between the Earth and Moon.
Thousands of small ones are easier to reach energetically than
the surface of the moon, and laced with vastly more useful minerals. This spooky “skull-shaped” asteroid passed near us on Halloween!
Three times as far away as Pluto, V774104 is officially the most distant object yet in our solar system.
== Galaxies and black holes ==
Most galaxies
appear to have a supermassive black hole at the center. About one percent are
“active galaxies” where this central black hole is sucking in matter fast enough to
create fierce jets, spewing from the north and south poles. A ‘blazar’ happens
when one of these jets happens to be aimed our way. In one case, the Fermi orbiting gamma ray
observatory has seven years’ data suggesting a two year periodicity with real implications. Stay tuned.
Have we found evidence of another universe bumping into ours? Some anomalies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) might — (not the top probability, but not excluded) be caused by contact with another “bang” cosmos next to ours.
An aged mini-galaxy, near the Milky Way, has just 1000 or so stars and is making no new ones… yet its dark matter component may be huge. A number of dwarf galaxies - just discovered - are changing our perceptions.
A lovely article on the newly augmented LIGO gravitational wave detector system that recently came online and that may finally give us a whole new window onto the cosmos.
The idea of Space Solar
Power Satellites is making some headway. A proposal titled "Carbon-Free Energy for Global Resilience and International Goodwill" has been selected
for semi-finals in the Secretary of Defense's innovation challenge. Led
by Lt Col. Pete Garretson, the group seeks to "empower global prosperity
and security: through a three step program leading to an ambitious
international on-orbit demo of an orbital power station within 10 years."
Cool… literally! 3-D Printed Igloo Wins Mars Habitat Contest. If astronauts land in a place where water is abundant, this could be the ideal building material.
Did I invent the concept
of the “refrigerator laser?” Someone
find a mention before my 1980 novel Sundiver!
Now scientists claim to have brought a version into the real world,
using an infrared laser to excite electrons in a single microscopic crystal
suspended in water. That produced emissions that transmitted-away slightly more
energy than the amount of light absorbed, and the surrounding water cooled.
Super Strypi is a system to launch a rocket along a 45 degree slanted rail in order to give it rapid turnaround and self-correcting spin, in order to access Low Earth Orbit with small payloads with minimized cost and time.
Let me conclude this amalgam by thanking Elon and the SpaceX team for the finest Solstice present - capping our best yet year in space. Now every other rocket company will have to innovate and re-land their boosters too. Just like Tesla forced them to admit it's time for electric cars. Even if he winds up in the poor house, he will have changed the world. Forever.
Onward!
Let me conclude this amalgam by thanking Elon and the SpaceX team for the finest Solstice present - capping our best yet year in space. Now every other rocket company will have to innovate and re-land their boosters too. Just like Tesla forced them to admit it's time for electric cars. Even if he winds up in the poor house, he will have changed the world. Forever.
Onward!