The Space Review: Why we fall for the hype: contextualizing our thought on space warfare
The title says it all.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Monday, March 05, 2012
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Monday, December 05, 2011
Are the Durban Climate Talks—or Climate Talks in General—Doomed? | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network
Are the Durban Climate Talks—or Climate Talks in General—Doomed? | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network:
'via Blog this'
'via Blog this'
Say it ain't so, Joe! We can't be doomed. To quote T.S. Eliot in Hollow Men, we will go out not with a bang (nuclear holocaust), but with a whimper (climate changed to death)!
Thursday, December 01, 2011
The Future of Deep-Space Exploration: In-Depth Reports
The Future of Deep-Space Exploration: In-Depth Reports
Scientific American Magazine 
Interactive Features 
Observations 
Features 
The Future of Deep-Space Exploration
When humankind once again ventures out from Earth's neighborhood, where will we go? And how will we get there?
November 29, 2011 |
Scientific American Magazine This Way to Mars
By adapting ideas from robotic planetary exploration, the human space program could get astronauts to asteroids and Mars cheaply and quickly
Interactive Features Breaking the Deep Space Barrier
How a spacecraft propelled by ion drives could deliver humanity deeper into space than ever before
Observations Forget Asteroids--Send a Manned Flyby Mission to Venus
Why not add our closest planetary neighbor to the list of destinations for astronauts to visit in the coming decades?
Features How an Energy-Efficient Spacecraft Could Revolutionize Space Travel [Video]
In a Skype interview, Damon Landau and Nathan J. Strange of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory talk about the radical mission proposal they laid out in the December issue of Scientific American
More in this Report
News Obama's Goals for Space Exploration Include a Manned Mission to Mars Orbit in the 2030s
In a speech from Florida's Space Coast, the president argued the case for his proposed NASA budget and outlined his vision for human spaceflight
Apr 15, 2010Saturday, November 26, 2011
Russian Phobos craft contacted
As the Python skit goes "I am not dead yet"! The European Space Agency reports that it contacted the Phobos craft, still in earth orbit, using a special antenna attached to an Australian dish.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Scientists: Faster-Than-Light Finding Still Holds - ABC News
Scientists: Faster-Than-Light Finding Still Holds - ABC News
Can it be true?? Probably not! I believe that they use GPS coordinates, accurate to only a few feet, then use some kind of fancy pants algorithm to compensate.
GENEVA November 19, 2011 (AP)
The chances have risen that Einstein was wrong about a fundamental law of the universe.
Scientists at the world's biggest physics lab said Friday they have ruled out one possible error that could have distorted their startling measurements that appeared to show particles traveling faster than light.
Saturday, May 07, 2011
Ants and Caterpillar Robots
ANTS AHOY! and Caterpillar robots:
The latest on the bug beat: To survive floods, fire ants band together to form a raft. They can sail for weeks. But how does the raft stay afloat? Researchers report the answer in PNAS this week. Plus, engineers at Tufts are looking to the caterpillar for inspiration for soft-bodied robots. The problem is that squishy bodies make it difficult to move quickly--but some caterpillars have developed a workaround.
The latest on the bug beat: To survive floods, fire ants band together to form a raft. They can sail for weeks. But how does the raft stay afloat? Researchers report the answer in PNAS this week. Plus, engineers at Tufts are looking to the caterpillar for inspiration for soft-bodied robots. The problem is that squishy bodies make it difficult to move quickly--but some caterpillars have developed a workaround.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
How Was Egypt's Internet Access Shut Off?: Scientific American
How Was Egypt's Internet Access Shut Off?: Scientific American: "How Was Egypt's Internet Access Shut Off?
Preliminary investigations indicate that most of the country's ISPs cut Internet access within a 20-minute period, likely at the government's behest
By Larry Greenemeier | January 28, 2011 | 16"
See also the American Kill Switch Plan, CLICK HERE!
Preliminary investigations indicate that most of the country's ISPs cut Internet access within a 20-minute period, likely at the government's behest
By Larry Greenemeier | January 28, 2011 | 16"
See also the American Kill Switch Plan, CLICK HERE!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Landscapes of Extraction: Industrial Impacts Mar the Planet [Slide Show]: Scientific American
Landscapes of Extraction: Industrial Impacts Mar the Planet [Slide Show]: Scientific American
We Art Doomed!
Read the linked SciAm article for further information. Mountaintops leveled. Tar sands scraped and boiled. Water taps aflame. These are just a few of the ways that mankind's quest for fossil fuels manifests itself, beyond the obvious utility of being able to power a home or business or drive a car.
Industrialized civilization relies on coal, oil and natural gas—the stored sunlight collectively known as fossil fuels—for more than 80 percent of the energy that enables everything from driving to reading on a computer screen. For all its many benefits, that energy can also have hidden costs—invisible CO2 forming a thickening blanket in the atmosphere and causing climate change, asthma in inner cities, to name a few—along with the more visible impacts.
Industrialized civilization relies on coal, oil and natural gas—the stored sunlight collectively known as fossil fuels—for more than 80 percent of the energy that enables everything from driving to reading on a computer screen. For all its many benefits, that energy can also have hidden costs—invisible CO2 forming a thickening blanket in the atmosphere and causing climate change, asthma in inner cities, to name a few—along with the more visible impacts.
Monday, January 31, 2011
The frugal alien's beacon
The frugal alien's beacon:
Waiting for the WOW signal in the SETI search? Read the article linked above. Also see the Science Fact column in the January 2011 issue of Analog Magazine.
Also, listen to the Planetary Society article on Planetary Radio by clicking below on MP3 or wmv
Airdate: Monday, October 4, 2010
Running Time: 00:28:52
Listen: Windows Media | MP3
Greg and Jim Benford return to Planetary Radio, this time to talk about their rethinking of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. The twin brothers believe "classical" SETI may not have been looking in the right places or for long enough. Bill Nye covers several topics in his weekly commentary, ranging from Congress' vote on the NASA budget to losing fingernails on spacewalks. Emily Lakdawalla reports on the effort to pick a spot on Mars for the Curiosity rover. Bruce Betts shares a the night sky, a new space trivia contest, and a cookie with Mat Kaplan.
Click on the MP3 or Windows Media to listen
Waiting for the WOW signal in the SETI search? Read the article linked above. Also see the Science Fact column in the January 2011 issue of Analog Magazine.
Also, listen to the Planetary Society article on Planetary Radio by clicking below on MP3 or wmv
Gregory and James Benford on Benford Beacons for SETI
Airdate: Monday, October 4, 2010
Running Time: 00:28:52
Listen: Windows Media | MP3
Greg and Jim Benford return to Planetary Radio, this time to talk about their rethinking of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. The twin brothers believe "classical" SETI may not have been looking in the right places or for long enough. Bill Nye covers several topics in his weekly commentary, ranging from Congress' vote on the NASA budget to losing fingernails on spacewalks. Emily Lakdawalla reports on the effort to pick a spot on Mars for the Curiosity rover. Bruce Betts shares a the night sky, a new space trivia contest, and a cookie with Mat Kaplan.
Click on the MP3 or Windows Media to listen
Monday, January 24, 2011
The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia
The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia: "The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia"
Keep up with the latest. Found recently was an earth type rocky planet only a few times larger than earth...unfortunately, it is too close to the sun to support life. Also, three planets in one system were actually imaged! (HR 8799 B, C D)Exopl
NEW SCIENTIST MAG.: New Approach to Quantum Reality
Quantum reality: The many meanings of life
- 24 January 2011 by Michael Brooks
- Magazine issue 2796. Subscribe and save
- For similar stories, visit the Quantum World Topic Guide
Editorial: "Don't fear the f-word in quantum physics"
Quantum theory is a scientific masterpiece – but physicists still aren't sure what to make of it
A CENTURY, it seems, is not enough. One hundred years ago this year, the first world physics conference took place in Brussels, Belgium. The topic under discussion was how to deal with the strange new quantum theory and whether it would ever be possible to marry it to our everyday experience, leaving us with one coherent description of the world.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Did 'Martian' methane signal come from Earth? - space - 23 December 2010 - New Scientist
Did 'Martian' methane signal come from Earth? - space - 23 December 2010 - New Scientist
This can't be right! The Martians are playing with us! Doom!
Monday, December 06, 2010
From New Scientist
Are you really smarter than a Neanderthal?What image first comes to mind when you think of a Neanderthal? Chances are you picture a brutish, subhuman figure – a cliche that survives in the face of mounting evidence that they were inventive, creative and cultured. Perhaps it's time we accepted that Neanderthals were people too? This week's lead feature examines that proposition. Elsewhere this week: we investigate the danger of unreliable paternity tests; find out how to create temperatures below absolute zero; and in the latest edition of our subscriber-onlyInstant Expert, cognitive biologist W. Tecumseh Fitch explains how we think language evolved.
Sumit Paul-Choudhury, online editor
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Weird Arsenic-Eating Microbes Discovered? Yes. Finding E.T.? No. - NASA Watch
This, combined with deep sea worms existing on chemicals from ocean floor chimney's make it more likely that we will find some type of life away from earth. Perhaps the 1976 Mars lander did find life...just life with a different chemical basis.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Journal of Cosmology
Journal of Cosmology: "\Table of Contents - Volume 12
Colonizing Mars
The Human Mission to the Red Planet
October - November, 2010
Edited by
Joel S. Levine, Ph.D.,
NASA, Co-Chair, Human Exploration of Mars Science Analysis Group (HEM-SAG) of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG).
Rudy Schild, Ph.D.,
Center for Astrophysics, Harvard-Smithsonian
In Association and Collaboration with the Mars Society
Colonizing Mars
The Human Mission to the Red Planet
October - November, 2010
Edited by
Joel S. Levine, Ph.D.,
NASA, Co-Chair, Human Exploration of Mars Science Analysis Group (HEM-SAG) of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG).
Rudy Schild, Ph.D.,
Center for Astrophysics, Harvard-Smithsonian
In Association and Collaboration with the Mars Society
Transorbital Railroad
"Transorbital Railroad" Proposed
by Freya Jackson — last modified 2010-10-13 12:32
The following article by Mars Society president Dr. Robert Zubrin appears in the October 4, 2010 edition of the industry weekly Space News. The proposed “transorbital railroad” would greatly facilitate space development ventures of every kind, including both government and privately funded robotic and human Mars exploration, while stimulating the growth of the launch vehicle industry and a vibrant orbital economy.
Opening a Railroad to Space
Space News, October 4, 2010
Robert Zubrin
In the history of the American frontier, the opening of the transcontinental railroad was an epochal event. Almost instantly, the transit to the West Coast, which had previously required an arduous multi-month trek and a massive investment for an average family, became a quick and affordable excursion. As a result, the growth of the nation accelerated exponentially.
How can we today deliver a similar master stroke, and open the way to the full and rapid development of the space frontier? We need to open up a transorbital railroad.
Here’s how it could be done.
First, we could set up a small transorbital railroad office in NASA, and fund it to buy six heavy-lift (100 metric tons to low Earth orbit) and six medium-lift (20 tons to LEO) launches per year from the private launch industry, with heavy- and medium-lift launches going off on schedule on alternating months. The transorbital railroad office would pay the launch companies $500 million for each heavy launch and $100 million for each medium launch, thus requiring a total out-of-pocket program expenditure of $3.6 billion per year, roughly 70 percent that of the space shuttle program. It would then turn around and sell standardized compartments to both government and private customers at subsidized rates. For example, on the heavy-lift vehicle, the entire 100-ton capacity launch could be offered for sale at $10 million, 10-ton compartments for $1 million, 1 ton for $100,000, and 100-kilogram slots for $10,000 each. The entire 20 tons of the medium-lift launcher could be offered for $2 million, with 2-ton containers made available for $200,000 and 200-kilogram spaces for $20,000. While recovering only a tiny fraction of the transorbital railroad’s costs, such low fees (levied primarily to discourage spurious use) would make spaceflight readily affordable to everyone.
As with a railroad, the transorbital railroad’s launches would occur in accord with its schedule, regardless of whether or not all of its cargo capacity was subscribed by customers. Unsubscribed space would be filled with containers of water, food or space-storable propellants. These standardized, pressurizable containers, equipped with tracking beacons, plumbing attachments, hatches and electrical pass-throughs, would be released for orbital recovery by anyone with the initiative to collect them and put their contents and volumes to use. A payload dispenser, provided and loaded by the launch companies as part of their service, would be used to release partial payloads to go their separate ways once orbit is achieved.
As noted above, the budget required to run the transorbital railroad would be 30 percent less than the space shuttle program, but it would accomplish far more. Instead of perhaps 60 tons (three shuttle launches) delivered per year to orbit, it would launch 720 tons. The U.S. government thus would save a great deal of money, since its own departments in NASA, the military and other agencies could avail themselves of the transorbital railroad’s low rates to launch their payloads at trivial cost. Much further savings would occur, however, since with launch costs so profoundly reduced, it no longer would be necessary to spend billions to ensure the ultimate degree of spacecraft reliability. Instead, commercial-grade parts could be used, thereby cutting the cost of spacecraft construction by orders of magnitude. While some failures would result, they would be eminently affordable, and moreover, enable a greatly accelerated rate of technological advance in spacecraft design, since unproven, non-space-rated components could be much more rapidly put to the test.
With such a huge amount of lift capability available to everyone at low cost, both public and private initiatives of every kind could take wing. If NASA’s Exploration Mission Directorate were to desire to send expeditions to other worlds, all they would have to do is buy space on the transorbital railroad for their payloads. But private enterprises or foundations could use the transorbital railroad to launch their own lunar or Mars probes — or settlements — as well. Those who believe in space solar power satellites would have the opportunity to put their business plans into action. Those wishing to launch and operate orbital space hotels would have the low-cost lift capacity necessary to make their concepts feasible. Those hoping to offer commercial orbital ferry service to transfer payloads from low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit or beyond would be able to get their crafts aloft, and have plenty of customers. As such enterprises multiplied, a tax base would be created both on Earth and in space that would ultimately repay the government many times over for its transorbital railroad program costs.
While the implementation of a cargo-only transorbital railroad would be a great advance over our current situation, we should not limit it to that. As John F. Kennedy said at the dawn of the space age, “A new ocean has opened, and free men must sail it.” Thus the transorbital railroad’s compartments should be open to receive passenger capsules provided by private vendors, thereby making affordable trips to orbit possible for anyone. Some might say that such open access to human spaceflight would put people at risk, and this is true. But bold endeavors have always involved risk, whether personal or financial, and free men and women should be allowed to decide for themselves what risks they are willing to accept in order to achieve their dreams.
We don’t have to wait for years to implement the transorbital railroad. We can begin it straight away, with 12 medium-lift launches per year. This would cost only $1.2 billion yearly, leaving several billion dollars per year to support the development of heavy-lift vehicles through two or more fixed-price contracts issued to industry on a competitive basis. Once these heavy-lift launchers become available, they could be integrated into the program to enable the full transorbital railroad capability discussed above. With a guaranteed market, launch vehicle companies would be able to put mass-production techniques into action, thereby causing the costs of their rockets to fall over time. This, in turn, would allow the transorbital railroad to increase further the frequency of its service, from one launch per month to two, three or more, and result in a dramatic drop in the cost of launch vehicles bought outside of the transorbital railroad program as well.
Some might say that the implementation of the transorbital railroad would represent an anticompetitive subsidization of the U.S. launch industry. But the federal government has always subsidized transportation, supporting the development of trails, canals, railroads, seaports, bridges, tunnels, subways, highways, aircraft and airports since the founding of the republic. Rather than complain, the Europeans or others distressed by low American launch prices could create transorbital railroads of their own, thus multiplying humanity’s capacity to reach into space still further.
Within a few years, we could be sending not a mere handful of people per year to orbit, but hundreds. Instead of a narrow space program with timid objectives moving forward at the snail’s pace of politically constrained bureaucracy, we could have dozens of bold endeavors of every kind, attempting to realize every vision and every dream — reaching out, taking risks and proving the impossible to be possible. With the aid of the transorbital railroad, the vast realm of the solar system could be truly opened to human hands, human minds, human hearts and human enterprise, a new ocean for free men and women to sail, their creativity unbounded, with prospects and possibilities as unlimited as space itself.
Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer, is president of the Mars Society (www.marssociety.org) and author of “The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must.”
by Freya Jackson — last modified 2010-10-13 12:32
The following article by Mars Society president Dr. Robert Zubrin appears in the October 4, 2010 edition of the industry weekly Space News. The proposed “transorbital railroad” would greatly facilitate space development ventures of every kind, including both government and privately funded robotic and human Mars exploration, while stimulating the growth of the launch vehicle industry and a vibrant orbital economy.
Opening a Railroad to Space
Space News, October 4, 2010
Robert Zubrin
In the history of the American frontier, the opening of the transcontinental railroad was an epochal event. Almost instantly, the transit to the West Coast, which had previously required an arduous multi-month trek and a massive investment for an average family, became a quick and affordable excursion. As a result, the growth of the nation accelerated exponentially.
How can we today deliver a similar master stroke, and open the way to the full and rapid development of the space frontier? We need to open up a transorbital railroad.
Here’s how it could be done.
First, we could set up a small transorbital railroad office in NASA, and fund it to buy six heavy-lift (100 metric tons to low Earth orbit) and six medium-lift (20 tons to LEO) launches per year from the private launch industry, with heavy- and medium-lift launches going off on schedule on alternating months. The transorbital railroad office would pay the launch companies $500 million for each heavy launch and $100 million for each medium launch, thus requiring a total out-of-pocket program expenditure of $3.6 billion per year, roughly 70 percent that of the space shuttle program. It would then turn around and sell standardized compartments to both government and private customers at subsidized rates. For example, on the heavy-lift vehicle, the entire 100-ton capacity launch could be offered for sale at $10 million, 10-ton compartments for $1 million, 1 ton for $100,000, and 100-kilogram slots for $10,000 each. The entire 20 tons of the medium-lift launcher could be offered for $2 million, with 2-ton containers made available for $200,000 and 200-kilogram spaces for $20,000. While recovering only a tiny fraction of the transorbital railroad’s costs, such low fees (levied primarily to discourage spurious use) would make spaceflight readily affordable to everyone.
As with a railroad, the transorbital railroad’s launches would occur in accord with its schedule, regardless of whether or not all of its cargo capacity was subscribed by customers. Unsubscribed space would be filled with containers of water, food or space-storable propellants. These standardized, pressurizable containers, equipped with tracking beacons, plumbing attachments, hatches and electrical pass-throughs, would be released for orbital recovery by anyone with the initiative to collect them and put their contents and volumes to use. A payload dispenser, provided and loaded by the launch companies as part of their service, would be used to release partial payloads to go their separate ways once orbit is achieved.
As noted above, the budget required to run the transorbital railroad would be 30 percent less than the space shuttle program, but it would accomplish far more. Instead of perhaps 60 tons (three shuttle launches) delivered per year to orbit, it would launch 720 tons. The U.S. government thus would save a great deal of money, since its own departments in NASA, the military and other agencies could avail themselves of the transorbital railroad’s low rates to launch their payloads at trivial cost. Much further savings would occur, however, since with launch costs so profoundly reduced, it no longer would be necessary to spend billions to ensure the ultimate degree of spacecraft reliability. Instead, commercial-grade parts could be used, thereby cutting the cost of spacecraft construction by orders of magnitude. While some failures would result, they would be eminently affordable, and moreover, enable a greatly accelerated rate of technological advance in spacecraft design, since unproven, non-space-rated components could be much more rapidly put to the test.
With such a huge amount of lift capability available to everyone at low cost, both public and private initiatives of every kind could take wing. If NASA’s Exploration Mission Directorate were to desire to send expeditions to other worlds, all they would have to do is buy space on the transorbital railroad for their payloads. But private enterprises or foundations could use the transorbital railroad to launch their own lunar or Mars probes — or settlements — as well. Those who believe in space solar power satellites would have the opportunity to put their business plans into action. Those wishing to launch and operate orbital space hotels would have the low-cost lift capacity necessary to make their concepts feasible. Those hoping to offer commercial orbital ferry service to transfer payloads from low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit or beyond would be able to get their crafts aloft, and have plenty of customers. As such enterprises multiplied, a tax base would be created both on Earth and in space that would ultimately repay the government many times over for its transorbital railroad program costs.
While the implementation of a cargo-only transorbital railroad would be a great advance over our current situation, we should not limit it to that. As John F. Kennedy said at the dawn of the space age, “A new ocean has opened, and free men must sail it.” Thus the transorbital railroad’s compartments should be open to receive passenger capsules provided by private vendors, thereby making affordable trips to orbit possible for anyone. Some might say that such open access to human spaceflight would put people at risk, and this is true. But bold endeavors have always involved risk, whether personal or financial, and free men and women should be allowed to decide for themselves what risks they are willing to accept in order to achieve their dreams.
We don’t have to wait for years to implement the transorbital railroad. We can begin it straight away, with 12 medium-lift launches per year. This would cost only $1.2 billion yearly, leaving several billion dollars per year to support the development of heavy-lift vehicles through two or more fixed-price contracts issued to industry on a competitive basis. Once these heavy-lift launchers become available, they could be integrated into the program to enable the full transorbital railroad capability discussed above. With a guaranteed market, launch vehicle companies would be able to put mass-production techniques into action, thereby causing the costs of their rockets to fall over time. This, in turn, would allow the transorbital railroad to increase further the frequency of its service, from one launch per month to two, three or more, and result in a dramatic drop in the cost of launch vehicles bought outside of the transorbital railroad program as well.
Some might say that the implementation of the transorbital railroad would represent an anticompetitive subsidization of the U.S. launch industry. But the federal government has always subsidized transportation, supporting the development of trails, canals, railroads, seaports, bridges, tunnels, subways, highways, aircraft and airports since the founding of the republic. Rather than complain, the Europeans or others distressed by low American launch prices could create transorbital railroads of their own, thus multiplying humanity’s capacity to reach into space still further.
Within a few years, we could be sending not a mere handful of people per year to orbit, but hundreds. Instead of a narrow space program with timid objectives moving forward at the snail’s pace of politically constrained bureaucracy, we could have dozens of bold endeavors of every kind, attempting to realize every vision and every dream — reaching out, taking risks and proving the impossible to be possible. With the aid of the transorbital railroad, the vast realm of the solar system could be truly opened to human hands, human minds, human hearts and human enterprise, a new ocean for free men and women to sail, their creativity unbounded, with prospects and possibilities as unlimited as space itself.
Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer, is president of the Mars Society (www.marssociety.org) and author of “The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must.”
Saturday, October 09, 2010
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Airships to return?
.jpg)
U.S. Navy Airship Akron launching a plane from its flight deck.I am a great fan of lighter than air rigid inflatables. Zeppelin NT is a German company bringing back commercial Zeppelins, though I think they are only semi-rigids as opposed to full zeppelins like the Hindenberg or Blimps like those flown by the Goodyear company.
NASA and Lighter than Air, see the New Scientist and a NASA video Test Inflation Video
See video of the Hindenberg crash...filled with Hydrogen.
Good books: Dr. Eckner's DreamMachine, about very successful Graf Zeppelin
I have read both of these as well as several of the others listed at the University of Colorado website referenced here.
To fly in a Zeppelin, check out Airship Ventures in California.
For those of you in Oregon, as I am, many of the books listed above are available at the Multnomah County Library.
Also, consider visiting a WWII Navy Dirigible base, The Tillamook Air Museum, at the site of the old Tillamook Airstation, a port for anti-submarine flights in WWII.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Smallest Exoplanet Is Most Earth-like Yet | Wired Science | Wired.com
From Wired magazine...maybe the smallest exoplanet yet found. Astronomers are getting better and better at this....I really don't believe they can do it, but they do!
Smallest Exoplanet Is Most Earth-like Yet | Wired Science | Wired.com
The smallest exoplanet ever seen is less than twice the size of Earth, and orbits a star similar to our sun 390 light years away. Astronomers recently spotted this world, the most Earth-like planet yet discovered, with the COROT satellite.
Smallest Exoplanet Is Most Earth-like Yet | Wired Science | Wired.com
The smallest exoplanet ever seen is less than twice the size of Earth, and orbits a star similar to our sun 390 light years away. Astronomers recently spotted this world, the most Earth-like planet yet discovered, with the COROT satellite.
"For the first time, we have unambiguously detected a planet that is
‘rocky’ in the same sense as our own Earth,” said Malcolm Fridlund, ESA
COROT project scientist.
For all its similarity to our own globe, though, it is still a far cry away from a habitable Earth-twin. For one thing, it is so hot — between 1,830 and 2,730 degrees Fahrenheit — that scientists think it might be covered in lava. It orbits extremely close to its sun and whips around the star once every 20 hours.
Nonetheless, the discovery takes us one step closer to finding another world that could host life. The newly found planet, dubbed COROT-Exo-7b, is distinct from most of the roughly 330 exoplanets so far discovered, which are by and large gas giants like Jupiter. This planet, however, is a terrestrial world like Earth, and seems to have a density similar to that of our own planet.
Saturday, March 06, 2010
SPACE.com Image Gallery: Views from Space: Imagery from Past Shuttle Missions
Click above for interesting images from space.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
NASA Needs a Destination — The Mars Society
NASA Needs a Destination — The Mars Society: "Consider the following: At the same time it announced its new space policy, NASA gave notice that the three key supposedly “game-changing” inventions it would seek to develop as part of the effort would be the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VaSIMR) propulsion drive, orbital space depots, and heavy-lift technology."
Friday, February 19, 2010
02.12.2010 - New fiber nanogenerators could lead to electric clothing
02.12.2010 - New fiber nanogenerators could lead to electric clothing
This is from a U.C. California, Bezerkely site. Would you wear electric clothing? What about eclectic clothing (That will teach you to read my blog!)
Also, see about generator knees:
This is from a U.C. California, Bezerkely site. Would you wear electric clothing? What about eclectic clothing (That will teach you to read my blog!)
Also, see about generator knees:
Generate power while you walk
An energy-capturing knee brace can generate enough electricity from walking to operate a portable GPS locator, a cell phone, a motorized prosthetic joint, or an implanted neurotransmitter.
 Knee brace device is a bit heavy, but it can help generate electricity. |
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)