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posted: Jun 02, 2008

Greg O'Byrne

An interesting read here from Gregg Easterbrook regarding the risks from a major asteroid strike on the Earth.  Once thought to be a terribly remote occurrence, it seems the more the astronomers look at the issue the less rare it appears to be.

The Sky Is Falling

A generation ago, the standard assumption was that a dangerous object would strike Earth perhaps once in a million years. By the mid-1990s, researchers began to say that the threat was greater: perhaps a strike every 300,000 years. This winter, I asked William Ailor, an asteroid specialist at The Aerospace Corporation, a think tank for the Air Force, what he thought the risk was. Ailor’s answer: a one-in-10 chance per century of a dangerous space-object strike.

Although from what I can glean from this table: Sentry Risk Table [NASA], there appears to be only one rock that is of any concern at this time. [this one - 2007 VK184] and that will happen June 3rd...2048.

The whole point of the first article seems to be that we may be more at risk than we had previously thought and spending some money on asteroid defense systems may be prudent.

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posted: May 28, 2008

Greg O'Byrne

Here is a roundup of links regarding the successful landing on Mars of the NASA Phoenix Mars Lander.

First of all there are several pictures taken of the lander taken from Mars orbit by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) [now THAT is a mouthfull].

Here is one of the Lander with its solar panels extended on the surface.

And this one is remarkable, the HiRISE satellite captured the Lander during decent!

This is remarkable.  Stop and think for a moment.  We have four eight probes looking at Mars at one time.  Scientists are experiencing a golden age of Martian exploration right now.

Links:

• Phoenix Mars Mission Home: [U. of Arizona, Phoenix Mars Mission]
• Team blogs
• Mission charter and structure: [linky]
• Mission Goals
• Landing method: Entry, Descent, and Landing
• NASA Phoenix Mars Lander Home Page - [linky]
• The main components of the spacecraft: [Spacecraft and Instruments]
• Wikipedia entry
• Yay capitalism! [buy shwagg]

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posted: Mar 04, 2008

Greg O'Byrne

Titan’s surface organics surpass oil reserves on Earth

"Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material—it’s a giant factory of organic chemicals," said Lorenz.

...maybe when we get there we can bring along our big SUV's.

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posted: Dec 11, 2007

Greg O'Byrne

Accelerating change is going on all around us.  We see it in entertainment from computer games to movies.  We see it in telephones as they keep getting smaller and more feature rich.  We see it in cameras and music players and personal GPS devices.  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

All of this creeps into our lives and becomes ubiquitous.  The changes quickly becomes invisible, expected and, in a weird sort of way, un-important.

But accelerating change is also affecting the sciences.

For example the hunt for extra-solar planets.  The first one discovered was in 1991.  Since then there has been a rapid pace of discovery.  The bulk of the discoveries essentially done by inference: careful detection of the wobbling of the star around which the planet[s] orbit. 

 

So the point here is that before 1991 we had NO evidence of planets orbiting other stars.  In theory we were 100% sure (or so close as to make no difference) that most stars had some planets, but we had no direct evidence.

Now there has been over 250 planets identified.

But wait that's not all!

Now there is a new technology under development by the Lyot Project, it's goal to create the necessary instrument and associated software to remove starlight from images thus allowing the much fainter planets to be viewed directly.  Astronomers will no longer need rely on inference to discover new planets.

This would be a remarkable achievement and would allow for a much greater number of planets to be discovered.  It would probably also allow for the discovery of Earth like planets and the reading of spectrums from the planets themselves.

What would the reactions be if we found a planet with a spectral analysis that matched Earth?  Orbit, temperature, water, oxygen?...

Would that spur some research into a viable star probe?  Just asking...

Accelerating change is cool.

Sites of interest:

• Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia
• How do astronomers find planets orbiting other stars?
• The Futurist is a big proponent of observing the accelerating change going on in many facets of our world and even in places we don't normally look. There are several entries that discuss the accelerating change that is going on in telescope technology.

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posted: Nov 15, 2007

scooter

I was able to find the video of this awesome footage on YouTube today. 

The rising image Wide Shot taken from near the North Pole, and the Arabian Peninsula and Indian Ocean can be observed on the Earth.

The setting image Tele Shot taken from near the South Pole, and we can see the Australian Continent (center left) and the Asian Continent (lower right) on the Earth.

Scooter
GadgetGrid.com

Comments [3]

posted: Nov 14, 2007

scooter

A Japanese moon probe, Kaguya, has recaptured the Apollo "Earth-rise" photograph but, this time it was captured with high-definition imaging.

The relative locations of the Kaguya probe: the moon, and the Earth as the imagery was made. Credit: JAXA/NHK:




Earth-rise (2): In the image, made from a moving image taken onboard the Kaguya spacecraft, a region of the moon's surface near its north pole is shown.  Credit: JAXA/NHK:

Earth-set (1): This still image was taken from a moving image shot by the HDTV onboard Kaguya and sent to the JAXA Usuda Deep Space Center. The Moon's surface is a region near its south pole.  Credit: JAXA/NHK:
 
Earth-set series:


Via Space.com

Scooter
GadgetGrid.com

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posted: Oct 14, 2007

Greg O'Byrne

Check this out.  Very cool flash simulator of the Solar System.