TEPCE...

Image source: Futurism/Dan Robitzski

Topics: Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Space, Space Junk

A massive cloud of space junk—containing more than 23,000 pieces larger than 10 centimeters across—is currently zooming around Earth with an average speed of about 36,000 kilometers per hour. And as companies such as SpaceX and OneWeb plan to launch tens of thousands of new satellites over the next few years, this hazardous clutter will likely pose an increasing threat to space missions and astronauts. One possible solution may be an electrodynamic tether, a device that could help prevent future satellites from becoming abandoned wrecks. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory plans to test this technology in the next few weeks.

In early November the Tether Electrodynamic Propulsion CubeSat Experiment (TEPCE), already in orbit, is set to make its move under the watchful gaze of telescopes on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The Earth-bound control team is waiting for an ideal 10-minute period at dawn or dusk, when the dim sunlight will offer the best possible view of the shoe box-size spacecraft involved. Once the crew triggers the process, TEPCE should separate into two identical minisatellites joined by a kilometer-long tether as thick as several strands of dental floss. If deployment goes smoothly, the mission can observe how the tether interacts with Earth’s magnetic field in the ionosphere (where much of the space junk orbits) to change the satellites’ velocity and orbit; the results could possibly enable future spacecraft to move around while orbiting Earth—without having to carry unwieldy chemical propellant.

“In other words, it is the sailing ship of space,” says Enrico Lorenzini, a professor of energy management engineering at the University of Padova in Italy, who is not involved in the TEPCE mission. But instead of wind, the electrodynamic tether technology moves thanks to the physical laws that govern electric and magnetic fields. A tether in Earth’s ionosphere—an upper atmospheric layer filled with charged particles such as free electrons and positive ions—can collect electrons at one end and emit them at the other, generating an electric current through itself. The electrified tether’s interactions with Earth’s magnetic field produce an impetus known as the Lorentz force, which pushes on the tether in a perpendicular direction.

Kilometer-Long Space Tether Tests Fuel-Free Propulsion
Jeremy Hsu, Scientific American

Going Interstellar...

Artist’s depiction of a space probe, propelled by a solar sail. (Image credit: Andrzej Mirecki)

Topics: Exoplanets, Interstellar Travel, NASA, Space, Space Exploration, Spaceflight, Spacetime

Solar sails have been discussed for a long time as the most viable option for interstellar travel at current technological attainment. That will entail the nanoengineering of polymers that can be durable to things like micro-meteor strikes at 0.1 c (one-tenth the speed of light) as well as shielding for electronics so as not to fry instrumentation on the exceedingly long journey. I hope we're mature enough societally, socially and emotional intelligence-wise to complete the project. It would be a shame if our instrument transmitted information back to Mother Earth, and for a myriad of bad reasons, no one was here to receive the message.

NASA is in the earliest stages of planning an exoplanet expedition, set to mark the 100th anniversary of its first crewed Moon landing, Apollo 11. A small team based at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) hopes to send a spacecraft to a distant planet in search of life.

In 2016, a funding bill was passed that called upon NASA to investigate methods of interstellar travel that could reach at least 10 percent of the speed of light by 2069 [the 100th year anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission]. It also requested a mission to Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to our own.

A probe is set to be sent to the chosen exoplanet to determine whether or not life is present. A few years after its launch, NASA will send a large telescope into deep space, which will use gravitational lensing to offer a full view of the exoplanet.

At present, there’s some debate as to whether Alpha Centauri or another system will be selected, as there are several candidates being considered. Of course, there are some big questions to be answered before this mission becomes a reality.

NASA Is Planning the First-Ever Interstellar Mission, Brad Jones, Futurism

#P4TC:

TRAPPIST-1...

Solar Eclipse 2017...

Image Source: NASA.gov

Topics: Eclipse, NASA, Space, Space Exploration

The good news: The eclipse glasses I ordered from Amazon are on the approved NASA list (see Friday's post).

The bad news: They're not here yet. Luckily, I'm adept at returning their merchandise when they've flubbed the ball, and unless the US Postal Service comes through with a Lynn Swann diving save, I'm likely going to be viewing it from the links I planned below. Like I said, I'd rather have what's left of my eyesight the remainder of my life. Another (partial) eclipse if I'm so inclined is a plane ticket away.

Eclipse Live Stream
NASA TV’s - Eclipse Across America: Through the Eyes of NASA

On Monday, Aug. 21, 2017 (today), a total eclipse will cross the entire United States, coast-to-coast, for the first time since 1918. If you can’t make it to the path of totality you can still safely view a partial eclipse and you can still enjoy totality through the eyes of NASA Television and NASA webcasts.

Viewers around the world will be provided a wealth of images captured before, during, and after the eclipse by 11 spacecraft, at least three NASA aircraft, more than 50 high-altitude balloons, and the astronauts aboard the International Space Station – each offering a unique vantage point for the celestial event.

NASA Television will air a four-hour show, Eclipse Across America: Through the Eyes of NASA, with unprecedented live video of the celestial event, along with coverage of activities in parks, libraries, stadiums, festivals and museums across the nation, and on social media.

Related links:

Eclipse Live, NASA.gov
Total Solar Eclipse 2017: Here Are the Best Live (Video) Streams, Sarah Lewin, Space.com

Jackpot...

Six different images from the Hubble Space Telescope have been magnified by a cosmic effect called gravitational lensing. The images were taken in infrared light by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. Color has been added to highlight details in the galaxies.
Credit: NASA/ESA/J. Lowenthal (Smith College)

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Gravitational Lensing, NASA, Space

A glittering jackpot of ultrabright galaxies bursting with star formation has been revealed in a series of stunning images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The galaxies captured in these images sparkle like jewels of cosmic light. These massive collections of stars are each as much as 10,000 times more luminous than the Milky Way in the infrared range, or 10 trillion to 100 trillion times the brightness of the sun. They are also forming about 10,000 new stars each year, according to a statement from NASA. (By comparison, it is estimated that fewer than 10 stars form in the Milky Way each year.)

Viewers may also notice strange shapes, including rings and arcs of light. Those are mostly the result of a cosmic phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, in which a foreground galaxy acts as a lens, warping and magnifying the light from a more distant galaxy.

This lensing has magnified the light from these very distant galaxies, giving scientists the opportunity to study in them in much finer detail than would be otherwise possible.

Hubble Hits Jackpot: Images Capture Ultrabright Galaxies via Cosmic Magnification, Calla Cofield, Space.com

Starshot...

ESA/Hubble/NASA
The star system α Centauri is more than 4 light years from the Sun.

Topics: Physics Humor, Space, Space Exploration, Special Relativity, Star Trek

0.20 x 3.00 x 10⁸ m/s = 6 x 10⁷ m/s isn't warp drive, but it's still pretty fast. We'll also get to see some phenomena in the universe that would normally take us decades to visit, and within our lifetimes so long as our sturdy cell-sized craft and their respective sails aren't punctured with micro meteors or picked off by V'Ger. The benefit to us on Earth will be the spin off technology. As with the original space race, we won't be the only ones with small ships and tall sails out there.

Space has long fascinated humans, but few have dared to initiate an interstellar space programme. Now a coalition of entrepreneurs and scientists aims to design a fleet of laser-powered spacecraft that could reach α Centauri, the star system closest to the Solar System, in just two decades. The group envisions probes that could complete that journey — a distance of 4.37 light years (1.34 parsecs) — at 20% the speed of light.

“For the first time in human history we can actually do more than observe the stars,” said Yuri Milner, a Russian Internet billionaire who is funding the initiative, at a 12 April press conference in New York. “We can reach them.”

Called Breakthrough Starshot, the programme is based on an idea that has been around for decades: the solar sail. The theory is that a lightweight space sail could harness the momentum carried by photons in order to travel without fuel.

The Breakthrough Starshot team is betting that a burst of concentrated lasers, fired from the ground, could rapidly accelerate a mobile-phone-sized device equipped with microelectronics and a tiny sail — providing much more energy than could be harnessed from the Sun. Whereas NASA’s plutonium-powered New Horizons spacecraft took nine years to reach Pluto, the “nanocraft” envisioned by Breakthrough Starshot would pass by the dwarf planet and exit the Solar System in three days.

Nature: Billionaire backs plan to send pint-sized starships beyond the Solar System
Jeff Tollefson

Related link

Tech Insider: 'Starshot' wants to launch tiny robots to a star 25 trillion miles away
Kevin Loria

Space Weather...

Photo: NASA
Huge solar coronal mass ejections hurl plasma into space. These cause space storms that can wreak havoc on Earth.

Topics: Heliophysics, International Space Station, NASA, Space, Space Exploration

Auroras lit the skies as far south as Cuba on September 1, 1859. Telegraph systems across the globe malfunctioned, sparking and shocking their operators, and making transmission impossible. The cause was a massive geomagnetic storm, known as the Carrington Event after astronomer Richard Carrington, who observed an enormous solar flare preceding the events on Earth.

If a storm of equal strength occurred in today’s technology-addicted world, it would have catastrophic impacts, said a panel of space weather experts at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Meeting in Washington, DC on February 15.

“This was by all measures a huge storm,” said Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado. “If an event of that size were to occur today, the effects by most estimates would be devastating.” Large regions of the globe could be plunged into darkness and hobbled with technology failures, from widespread power outages, to loss of communication systems, to GPS navigation failures, and damage to satellites.

APS News: Scientists Discuss the Dangers of Space Weather, Emily Conover

Back To Earth...

Scott Kelly inside the Cupola, a special module which provides a 360-degree viewing of the Earth and the space station, July 12, 2015.
REUTERS/NASA

Topics: International Space Station, Mars, NASA, Planetary Science, Space, Space Exploration, Spaceflight

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko headed back toward Earth on Tuesday after nearly a year aboard the International Space Station, ending a record-long U.S. spaceflight intended to pave the way for human travel to Mars.

The men, accompanied by Russian cosmonaut Sergey Volkov, strapped themselves inside a Russian Soyuz capsule and departed the station at 8:02 p.m. EST (0102 GMT on Wednesday).

They are expected to make a parachute landing in Kazakhstan at 11:25 p.m. EST (0425 GMT on Wednesday).

Kelly and Kornienko have been aboard the space station for 340 days, about twice as long as previous crews. Their flight sets a record for the space station and for the longest U.S. space mission.

Reuters Science: Station crew heads home after record U.S. spaceflight, Irene Klotz

Aliens Among Us...

See "into glass" link.

Topics: Biology, Planetary Science, SETI, Space, Space Exploration

Tardigrades are fascinating creatures. Not only are new species being found in Antarctica and Maine, they're near indestructible. The latest is when it really gets rough, they can turn themselves into glass. I think we'll find them on Mars and other planets in our own solar system. I think anything this adaptable and tough can live places WE can't! Most species have about 1% "foreign DNA," usually from ingestion of food stuffs and evolution: tardigrades have 17%.

I applaud the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and life on other worlds. I think with a simple microscope, we might have missed the obvious ones in front of us.

Related links:

IFL Science: Tardigrades
Extreme Tech: Tardigrades, already impossible to kill, also have foreign DNA,
Jessica Hall

Man From U.N.C.L.E...

Image Source: Reuters Science

Topics: Humor, International Space Station, Space, Space Exploration

Showing my age again, but it was a good show and great movie.

A Soyuz spacecraft successfully delivered a Russian, an American and a Briton to the International Space Station on Tuesday after blasting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The otherwise smooth journey ended with a slightly delayed docking at 1733 GMT as Russian commander Yuri Malenchenko aborted the automatic procedure and manually guided the spacecraft towards the station.

Alongside Malenchenko, a veteran of long-duration space flights who is on his fourth space mission, were NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and Briton Tim Peake, both former Apache military helicopter pilots.

Peake, 43, a former army major who is on a six-month mission for the European Space Agency (ESA), became the first astronaut representing the British government and wearing a Union Jack flag on his arm. The first Briton in space was Helen Sharman, who travelled on a Soviet spacecraft for eight days in 1991.

Reuters Science: Spacecraft carrying Russian, American, Briton docks with space station

Orbital WALL-E...

Image Source: Figure 3 Debris engine, see link below

Topics: Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Space, Space Junk, Taikonaut

I am always glad when good science is proposed and achieved. This is mostly a thorough application of Kepler and Newtonian physics as well as engineering rocketry. I give the poignant observation with some exception, this is happening LESS in the country of my birth, currently known for carnival barkers and xenophobes as presidential front runners, and some of my fellow citizens thinking "The Flintstones" instead of a parody of "The Honeymooners" was a documentary.

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: At 16:56 UTC on August 29, 2009, an Iridium communications satellite suddenly fell silent. In the hours that followed, the U.S. Space Surveillance Network reported that it was tracking two large clouds of debris—one from the Iridium and another from a defunct Russian military satellite called Cosmos 2251.

The debris was the result of a high-speed collision, the first time this is known to have happened between orbiting satellites. The impact created over 1,000 fragments greater than 10 centimeters in size and a much larger number of smaller pieces. This debris spread out around the planet in a deadly cloud.

Space debris is a pressing problem for Earth-orbiting spacecraft, and it could get significantly worse. When the density of space debris reaches a certain threshold, analysts predict that the fragmentation caused by collisions will trigger a runaway chain reaction that will fill the skies with ever increasing numbers of fragments. By some estimates that process could already be underway.

An obvious solution is to find a way to remove this debris. One option is to zap the larger pieces with a laser, vaporizing them in parts and causing the leftovers to deorbit. However, smaller pieces of debris cannot be dealt with in this way because they are difficult to locate and track.

Another option is send up a spacecraft capable of mopping up debris with a net or some other capture process. But these missions are severely limited by the amount of fuel they can carry.

Today, Lei Lan and pals from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, propose a different solution. Their idea is to build an engine that converts space debris into propellant and so can maneuver itself almost indefinitely as it mops up the junk.

Physics arXiv: Debris Engine: A Potential Thruster for Space Debris Removal
Lei Lan, Jingyang Li, Hexi Baoyin

#P4TC WALL-E mentions:
Predicted, but still kind of gross when you think of it...
NASA Going Green...

Wright Mons...

An overhead view of Wright Mons, one of two potential cryovolcanoes on Pluto.

NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

Topics: NASA, Planets, Planetary Science, Space, Space Exploration

Two icy volcanoes may lurk near Pluto’s south pole, images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft suggest.

The images show two mountains roughly circular in shape and with deep depressions in their centers. One, Wright Mons, is 3 to 5 kilometres high, while the other, Piccard Mons, is up to 6 kilometres high.

They resemble icy volcanoes, known as cryovolcanoes, on Neptune’s moon Triton and other frozen worlds. Flowing ice, rather than hot lava, fuels cryovolcanoes.

“We’re not yet ready to announce we have found volcanic constructs at Pluto, but these sure look suspicious and we’re looking at them very closely,” says Jeff Moore, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, who heads the New Horizons geology team. Moore spoke on November 9 at the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in National Harbor, Maryland.

Scientific American:
Ice Volcanoes Could Be on Pluto, Alexandra Witze and Nature magazine

Europe To The Moon...

The European Space Agency has been looking at what it takes to construct a moon outpost.
Credit: ESA/ Foster + Partners

Topics: European Space Agency, Humor, ISS, Moon Colony, Space Exploration

Living on our closest neighbor has some advantages. I've seen articles about how long-term radiation would alter our astronauts' brains on a trip to Mars, for example. There's a low probability of getting "super powers," e,g. the fictional "Fantastic Four," but an extreme likelihood of dying prematurely - a rather unpleasant outcome for the astronauts and their families. The International Space Station does have shielding, but its exposure to radiation is by far not as harsh as would be encountered by a crew on an interplanetary flight. We'll have to come up with some knew design configurations/materials for shielding, and being a mere 238,900 miles (384,400 km) from Earth is probably a good place to start. Although I must admit: the representative photo looks like a graphic from a "Doctor Who" episode (explain to your non-nerd friends if that completely went over their heads).

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — The incoming leader of the European Space Agency is keen on establishing an international base on the moon as a next-step outpost beyond the International Space Station (ISS).

Johann-Dietrich Wörner expressed his enthusiasm for a moon colony at the Space Foundation’s National Space Symposium, a gathering of global, commercial, civil, military and "new space" experts that was held here from April 13 to April 16.

"It seems to be appropriate to propose a permanent moon station as the successor of ISS," Wörner said. This station should be international, "meaning that the different actors can contribute with their respective competencies and interests." [Living on the Moon: What It Would Be Like (Infographic)]

Space.com:
Europe's Next Space Chief Wants a Moon Colony on the Lunar Far Side,
Leonard David

Giant Leap...

International Space Station - Facts and Figures Page

Topics: International Space Station, NASA, Space, Space Exploration

Growing up in the Apollo era, spaceflight and space exploration were "big deals" that stopped traffic, ensued water cooler conversations and dominated - at least in nerd culture - deep thoughts regarding where we were heading. It wasn't until the Space Shuttle Program that spaceflight became humdrum; routine. We'd pause when Challenger or Columbia tragedies dominated the news cycle, briefly reflect, give heartfelt condolences and go back to our technology-centered lives. My sincere hope is going forward we don't lose our need to explore and sense of wonder, nor suppress it with fear, propaganda, empty talking points and arrogant convictions. My optimism is many of our future leaders - in high school and college now - get to experience the "overlook effect" and maybe this cooperation will become a little more widespread, and sanguinely for out continuance, quite routine.

Since 1998, humanity’s had a permanent presence in space with the International Space Station. The ISS, which circles the Earth once every 90 minutes, is a model of global cooperation: A joint cooperation among five national space agencies, crewed by astronauts from more than 15 countries. Take an inside look at the daily life and science that goes on inside the space station whizzing by at more than 200 miles above our heads.
World Science Festival Staff

After Contact...

Topics: Alien Life, Existentialism, NASA, SETI, Space, Space Exploration

This is the most recent article I've seen on the subject, stemming from the pronouncements of a NASA scientist that within 20 - 30 years, we'll confirm the existence of alien life:

"I think we're going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we're going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years," Nasa chief scientist Ellen Stofan said on Tuesday, during a panel discussion focusing on the space agency's search for habitable environments outside of Earth.

Now, the article only suggests within the solar system, things like oceans on frozen moons around Jupiter or Saturn; microbes on Mars. It wouldn't have to say anything, fly in a spaceship with death rays, or speak at all. The fact that it is beyond the clouds we've known to stipple ozone blue skies. That would be "extra-terrestrial"; that would be as shattering as an actual contact with advanced intelligence. It would expand the notion of where life is, what forms it would take: if it is ubiquitous in our own solar system, then it is probably in all likelihood everywhere there are favorable conditions for it.

Wikipedia: partial plot synopsis, "Contact" (1997 movie) by Carl Sagan:

The nations of the world fund the construction of the machine in Cape Canaveral at the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39. An international panel is assembled to choose a candidate to travel in the machine. Although Arroway is one of the top selections, Christian philosopher Palmer Joss, a panel member whom Arroway met in Puerto Rico and with whom she had a brief romantic encounter, brings attention to her lack of religious faith. As this differentiates her from most humans, the panel selects Drumlin as more representative. On the day the machine is tested, a religious fanatic destroys the machine in a suicide bombing, killing Drumlin and many others.

Truther: Noun- One who rejects the accepted explanation of the events of 9/11. Truthers generally believe the U.S. government committed the acts of terrorism against itself. Urban Dictionary

That definition morphed over time: from flat-Earthers (with their own web site); to birthers; from denial of the moon launch to vaccine truthers that endanger the human herd in America and climate change denial that will eventually endanger entire species, human or otherwise. What then is a microbe that metabolizes oxygen in similar fashion to that which we've observed? What is any reality that collectively we don't want to except, but the next inconvenient truth-cum-conspiracy-theory, blared over web sites and trolled on social media? It may not be as melodramatic as the Contact scene, but I've noticed zealots - religious and irreligious - that attack anything that doesn't conform to their preconceived notions of what's "right" with their thought processes and what's "wrong" with everyone outside of their particular group. Once you can "other" anyone as outsider, you can remove their humanity, justify their slaughter, either actual, or digital avatar: ET truther.

Knowledge is not just power: it is disruptive to power and regressive forces serving power determined to fight mightily in order to distort it, or destroy it.

Knowledge is power, and so is the darkness of ignorance.

Dark ages - once fully metastasized - have a way of lasting a long, long time.

"...Science is a reliable method for creating knowledge, and thus power...science constantly disrupts hierarchical power structures and vested interests in a long drive [by science] to give knowledge, and thus power, to the individual, and that process is also political." From "Fool Me Twice - Fighting the Assault on Science in America," Shawn Lawrence Otto

IR and G-HAT...

Image: NGC 2403 in Camelopardalis. Dysonian SETI, not limited to relatively nearby stars, looks for signs of astroengineering not just in our own but in distant galaxies like this one, some ten million light years away.. Credit & Copyright: Martin Pugh.

Topics: Drake Equation, SETI, Space, Space Exploration

This has been a week devoted to extraterrestrial technologies and the hope that, if they exist, we can find them. Large constructions like Dyson spheres, and associated activities like asteroid mining on the scale an advanced civilization might use to make them, all factor into the mix, and as we’ve seen, so do starships imagined in a wide variety of propulsion systems and designs. Dysonian SETI, as it is called, takes us into the realm of the hugely speculative, but hopes through sifting our abundant astronomical data to find evidence of distant engineering.

This effort is visible in projects like the Glimpsing Heat from Alien Technologies (G-HAT) SETI program, which proceeds in the capable hands of Jason Wright and colleagues Steinn Sigurðsson and Matthew Povich at Penn State (see Wright’s Glimpsing Heat from Alien Technologies essay in these pages as well as his AstroWright blog). For those wanting to follow up these ideas, an excellent introduction is the paper “Dysonian Approach to SETI: A Fruitful Middle Ground?”, which ran in JBIS in 2011 (Vol. 64, pp. 156-165). It’s not, unfortunately, available online, though the British Interplanetary Society offers a print copy of the entire back issue here.

Centauri Dreams: SETI Explores the Near-Infrared, Paul Gilster

Yotta-eV and ET...

Artist's impression of a black hole. Could an advanced alien civilization create a cosmic collider using such an object? (Courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Topics: Black Holes, Neutrinos, Particle Physics, Space, SETI

Has an advanced alien civilization built a black-hole-powered particle accelerator to study physics at "Planck-scale" energies? And if such a cosmic collider is lurking in a corner of the universe, could we detect it here on Earth?

Brian Lacki of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, has done calculations that suggest that if such an accelerator exists, it would produce yotta electron-volt (YeV or 10²⁴ eV) neutrinos that could be detected here on Earth. As a result, Lacki is calling on astronomers involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) to look for these ultra-high-energy particles. This is supported by SETI expert Paul Davies of Arizona State University, who believes that the search should be expanded beyond the traditional telescope searches.

Like humanity, it seems reasonable to assume that an advanced alien civilization would have a keen interest in physics, and would build particle accelerators that reach increasingly higher energies. This energy escalation could be the result of the "nightmare scenario" of particle physics in which there is no new physics at energies between the TeV energies of the Standard Model and the 10²⁸ eV Planck energy (10 XeV) – where the quantum effects of gravity become strong. "The nightmare of particle physics is the dream of astronomers searching for extraterrestrials," says Lacki.

An important problem facing alien physicists would be that the density of electromagnetic energy needed to reach the Planck scale is so great that the device would be in danger of collapsing into a black hole of its own making. However, Lacki points out that a clever designer could, in principle, get round this problem and "reaching [the] Planck energy is technically allowed, if extremely difficult".

Physics World: Have alien civilizations built cosmic accelerators from black holes?
Hamish Johnston is editor of physicsworld.com

Dawn...

Image Source: Link below

Topics: Ceres, Ion Propulsion, NASA, Space Exploration

The NASA spacecraft Dawn has spent more than seven years traveling across the solar system to intercept the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. Now in orbit around Ceres, the probe has returned the first images and data from these distant objects.

But inside Dawn itself is another first – the spacecraft is the first exploratory space mission to use an electrically-powered ion engine rather than conventional rockets.

Such ion engines will propel the next generation of spacecraft.

Ion engines use electric power to create charged particles of the fuel, usually the gas xenon, and accelerate them to extremely high velocities. The exhaust velocity of conventional rockets is limited by the chemical energy stored in the fuel’s molecular bonds, which limits the thrust to about 5km/s. Ion engines are in principle limited only by the electrical power available on the spacecraft, but typically the exhaust speed of the charged particles range from 15km/s to 35km/s.

What this means in practice is that electrically powered thrusters are much more fuel efficient than chemical ones, so an enormous amount of mass can be saved through the need for less fuel on board. With the cost to launch a single kilogram of mass into Earth orbit of around $20,000, fuel savings can make spacecraft significantly cheaper.

This can be of great benefit to commercial manufacturers of geostationary satellites, where electric propulsion can allow them to maneuver adding new capabilities to the satellite during its mission. And for scientific missions such as interplanetary travel to the outer regions of the solar system, electric propulsion is the only means to carry useful scientific payload quickly across the enormous distances involved.

Discovery: Step Aside, Rockets – Ion Engines Are the Future of Space Travel
By Steve Gabriel, University of Southampton
#P4TC: NEXT...

An Eclipsing Friday...

Image Source: See "link" in following paragraph

Topics: Astronomy, Eclipse, Safety, Space

Please enjoy the Solar Eclipse safely from your vantage point. This link (also the source of the photo above) has a scientist explaining how to build a pinhole viewing box. I've used one with one of my undergrad professors at the observatory on the top floor of Marteena Hall. I can't overemphasize safety enough. If you're lucky to see it in person, protect the only eyes you'll ever own.

Since I'm neither at the Faroe Islands or Svalbard, I don't think we're going to see anything in New York. Besides: we have more snow in the forecast from "Ultima" for the first official day of Spring. This is one many hope the meteorologists got hopefully wrong! If I sound frustrated, ask any New Yorker in Manhattan, and give them some space in their reply (again, for your safety).

Slooh Community Observatory: The Total Solar Eclipse of 2015
Solar Eclipses: An Observer's Guide (Infographic)
Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

Warp Drives and Wormholes...

Topics: FTL, Space Exploration, Spacetime, Star Trek, Wormholes

Since the 1994 paper by Miguel Alcubierre (and the physics caveats to attaining it), there has been some interest in this area just because of the vastness of interstellar space and the limitations since the Mercury Space Program of Newtonian Space Travel.

Also, it is unlikely we will come in contact with 5-dimensional hyper-humans that want to see to their ancestors' survival by popping up a wormhole next to Saturn (note: not a spoiler to "Interstellar" by now).

The problem being addressed is species survival - dinosaurs were animals with small brains that had a really BAD day 65 million years ago. We homo sapiens (Latin: "wise man") are not. With our demand for energy and resources going unabated, and the fact that our neighboring planets are so far uninhabitable, we are reduced to several options:

1. Conservation and resource restrictions: This has proven untenable as our economy at this point in history has been based on scarcity and charging a premium for that scarcity.

2. Plus, we'd have to forgo our Victorian compunctions regarding birth control, and stop encouraging both large families and early teen motherhood by ignorance of the same.

3. Terra-forming other planets: Which, I guess is the attraction to Mars and the four presumed volunteers to a one-way mission to the Red Planet (good luck). Mars has no breathable oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere; it is roughly 1/3 g, so bones would lose calcium and muscles would atrophy; temperatures can dip below -87 degrees Celsius (or, -124.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Getting there would take 150-300 days unless the VASIMR plasma rocket is available by 2020.

4. Conversion to non-fossil fuels based energy infrastructure: see #1.

Alpha Centauri is 4.367 light years away, that's if we had a craft that could attain 99.9999% of c, the speed of light. It sounds ideal until you take into account the affects of time dilation: that would be roughly 3,088 years for any twins our astronauts had back on Earth. The "right stuff" would be similar to those embarking on Mars One - not just the vastness of space, but of time itself as a gulf.

That's also if there's a habitable but largely uninhabited planet around its twin or triple star system. It would take our Newtonian conventional rockets 165,000 years to reach it (75,000 by Dr. White's comparison to Voyager), enough time and 6,600 generations in the first case for our descendants to forget WHY they were sent there in the first place. If they survive at all, humanity would be decidedly different than the breed that left the cradle of Sol and Earth Millennium ago. What is now us, would be a distant or forgotten memory.

Whether eventually warp or non-causality impacting relativistic speeds, humanity will have to decide it wants to travel to another world, and try not to replicate the mistakes we've made on this one on the next.

NuSTAR...

Supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies blast out radiation and ultra-fast winds, as illustrated in this artist's conception. NASA's NuSTAR and ESA's XMM-Newton telescopes show that these winds, containing highly ionized atoms, blow in a nearly spherical fashion. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Topics: Black Holes, Einstein, General Relativity, NASA, Space Exploration

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and ESA’s (European Space Agency) XMM-Newton telescope are showing that fierce winds from a supermassive black hole blow outward in all directions -- a phenomenon that had been suspected, but difficult to prove until now.

This discovery has given astronomers their first opportunity to measure the strength of these ultra-fast winds and prove they are powerful enough to inhibit the host galaxy’s ability to make new stars.

"We know black holes in the centers of galaxies can feed on matter, and this process can produce winds. This is thought to regulate the growth of the galaxies," said Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California. Harrison is the principal investigator of NuSTAR and a co-author on a new paper about these results appearing in the journal Science. "Knowing the speed, shape and size of the winds, we can now figure out how powerful they are."

Supermassive black holes blast matter into their host galaxies, with X-ray-emitting winds traveling at up to one-third the speed of light. In the new study, astronomers determined PDS 456, an extremely bright black hole known as a quasar more than 2 billion light-years away, sustains winds that carry more energy every second than is emitted by more than a trillion suns.

NASA: NASA, ESA Telescopes Give Shape to Furious Black Hole Winds