Space and astronomy news
Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)
Guests:
Jolene Creighton (@jolene723 / fromquarkstoquasars.com)
Brian Koberlein (@briankoberlein / briankoberlein.com)
Dave Dickinson (@astroguyz / www.astroguyz.com)
Morgan Rehnberg (cosmicchatter.org / @MorganRehnberg )
Alessondra Springmann (@sondy)
Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout – May 15, 2015: Finding, Studying and Visiting Other Worlds!”
When humans finally travel into space, where will we live? Will we ever be able to colonize gas giants like Jupiter?
NASA and Elon Musk have plans to get your ass to Mars.
It’s not impossible to imagine humans living and working on the Red Planet. Maybe they’ll be crusty asteroid miners making their fortune digging precious minerals out of the inexhaustible supply of space rocks. Pray they don’t dig too deeply. We should go ask Kuato, that creepy little guy knows everything! Except he’s always trying to get you to touch his funny little hands. Pass.
Venus looks like it’s a pretty great place to live, if we stick to the clouds in floating sky cities, plying the jet streams in our steampunk dirigibles. It’ll be fun, but first, does anyone know how to attach a cog to a top hat? Venus, here we come!
We should stay away from the surface, though, that place’ll kill you dead. We’re guessing a crispy shell holding in a gooey center, at least for the first few moments. Once we sort the living in space deal, is there anywhere we won’t be able to go?
We could create underwater cities on Europa or Ganymede, in the vast oceans with the exotic hopefully unarmed, peaceful, vegetarian Jovian whales.Like Jupiter? Could we live there?
Jupiter is the most massive planet in the Solar System. It has a diameter of almost 140,000 kilometers and it’s made mostly of hydrogen and helium; the same materials of the Sun. It has more than 317 times the mass of the Earth, providing its enormous gravity.
If you could stand on the cloud tops of Jupiter, you would experience 2.5 times the gravity that you experience on Earth. Then you’d fall to your death, because it’s a gas planet, made of hydrogen, the lightest element in the Universe. You can’t stand on gas, rookie.
If you tried to bring your Venusian Vernian exploratorium ballooncraft for a jaunt across the skies of Jupiter, it would sink like a copper bowler with lead goggles.
The only thing that’s lighter than hydrogen is hot hydrogen. Let’s say you could make a balloon, and fill it with superheated hydrogen and float around the cloud tops of Jupiter suffering the crushing gravity. Is there anything else that might kill you?
Did you leave Earth? Then of course there is. Everything is going to kill you, always. You might want to write that on the brass plaque next to your ship’s wheel with the carving of Shiva in the center there, Captain Baron Cogsworth Copperglass.
Jupiter is surrounded by an enormous magnetic field, ten times more powerful than Earth’s. It traps particles and then whips them around like an accelerator. This radiation is a million times more powerful than the Earth’s Van Allen belts. Our big human meat roasting concern during the Apollo days.
If you tried to get near the radiation belts without insufficient shielding. It’d be bad. Just picture jamming your copper and brass steamwork fantasy into a giant microwave.
Is it possible there’s a solid core, deep down within Jupiter? Somewhere we could live, and not have to worry about those pesky buoyancy problems? Probably. Astronomers think there are a few times the mass of the Earth in rocky material deep down inside.
Of course, the pressure and temperature are incomprehensible. The temperature at the core of Jupiter is thought to be 24,000 degrees Celsius. Hydrogen is crushed so tightly it becomes superheated liquid or strange new flavors of ice. It becomes a metal.
The moral, we’re not equipped to go there. Let alone set up shop. So, let’s just stick with fantasizing your adventures as Emperor Esquire Beardweirdy Brassnozzle Steamypantaloons.
In his classic book 2001, Arthur C. Clarke said that “all these worlds are yours except Europa, attempt no landing there”. Well that’s crazy.
Europa’s awesome, we’re totally landing there, especially if we discover alien whales. So, Europa first. Besides, it’s just a book. So, Jupiter is the worst. Do not navigate your airship into that harbour.
What’s the worst possible environment you can imagine to try and live on? Tell us in the comments below.
Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)
Special Guest: Astrophysicist Katie Mack (@AstroKatie)
Guests:
Ramin Skibba (@raminskibba)
Charles Black (@charlesblack / sen.com/charles-black)
Brian Koberlein (@briankoberlein)
Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout -March 13, 2015: Astrophysicist Katie Mack”
Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)
Guests:
Morgan Rehnberg (cosmicchatter.org / @MorganRehnberg )
Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout – February 27, 2015: In Memory of Leonard Nimoy”
Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)
Guests:
Morgan Rehnberg (cosmicchatter.org / @MorganRehnberg )
Special Guest: Astronaut Ron Garan (orbitalpersepctive.com / @Astro_Ron)
Ron will talk about his new book The Orbital Perspective: Lessons in Seeing the Big Picture from a Journey of 71 Million Miles.
This Week’s Stories:
Obama’s NASA budget request
Black Holes Do Not Exist Where Space and Time Do Not Exist, Says New Theory
SES Rethinking Being First to Fly on a Full-Throttle Falcon 9
5 Lunar X-Prize Teams Land Payday; Only 2 Landed Hardware
Moroccan Meteorite May Be a 4.4-Billion-Year-Old Chunk of Martian Crust
After Canceling NRO Launch Competition, USAF Dangles More Plums for SpaceX
Where is Saturn? VLBA Used to Accurately Measure Position of Saturn and its 62 Moons
SpaceX Nears Pad Abort Test for Human-Rated Dragon Capsule
Closer Look at the IXV Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle
Skylon Spaceplane’s Inventor Sees Busy Spaceports Coming Soon
SpaceX Conducts Static Fire Test Ahead of DSCOVR Mission
Supernova Mystery Found at the Bottom of the Sea
NASA Does an About Face on SOFIA: Requests Full Funding
LightSail Test Flight Scheduled for May 2015
Mining the Moon Becomes a Serious Prospect
TWiM: NASA Presses Congress for More Commercial Crew Funding
A Second Ringed Centaur? Centaurs with Rings Could Be Common
Rosetta Swoops In for a Close Encounter
Super Sizing Pegasus for SLS Core Transport
TWiM: SpaceX Drone Boats Named After Sci-Fi Legend’s Spaceships
It’s Official: We’re On the Way to Europa
McCain Accuses USAF of “Actively Keeping Out” SpaceX
Europe Tired of Playing “Simon Says” with SpaceX
Business on the Moon: FAA Backs Bigelow Aerospace
Mystery of the Universe’s Gamma-Ray Glow May Be Solved
New Infrared View of the Trifid Nebula Reveals New Variable Stars Far Beyond
Gap Reveals Potential Exomoon
We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Friday at 12:00 pm Pacific / 3:00 pm Eastern. You can watch us live on Google+, Universe Today, or the Universe Today YouTube page.
You can join in the discussion between episodes over at our Weekly Space Hangout Crew group in G+, and suggest your ideas for stories we can discuss each week!
On Christmas Eve, as millions upon millions of people focused on wrapping gifts and getting ready for the holidays, an amateur astronomer gave a small gift to the world. The person turned a telescope and camera to Jupiter and caught volcanic Io going across the face of the gas giant. This happened just a few days after professional astronomers caught a rare eclipse involving that very same moon.
“I wish I had been able to go on for longer but Jupiter went behind the house just before the transit ended. The transit is 102 frames (306 captures in total, RGB separate). Seeing was rather poor and a small amount of dew formed resulting in reduced brightness and contrast in some parts of the GIF,” wrote Reddit user IKYLSP.
“Something rather interesting with this one is the brief appearance of Ganymede from behind the planet’s shadow just before it’s eclipsed by the planet. If you zoom in you can actually see it as a half-moon shape which is really awesome.”
Speaking of half-moons, check out another awesome animation of Io taken from the Gemini North observatory on Dec. 16. Here, you can see icy Europa passing in front of the volcanic moon from the telescope’s perspective. Here’s part of what the observatory wrote about the rare event:
Observations of Jupiter’s volcanically active moon Io, obtained that night as part of a program led by Katherine de Kleer of UC Berkeley to watch for volcanic outbursts, revealed an unusual event involving Io and another large jovian moon, Europa. According to de Kleer, the images captured an occultation event in which Europa briefly blocked some of the light from Io, “…giving Io a very un-Io-like appearance!” These sorts of events occur when we observe the moons’ orbits edge-on, and can occasionally view the moons passing in front of one another.
And below you can see individual frames from the eclipse.
Europa, Jupiter’s sixth-closest moon, has long been a source of fascination and wonder for astronomers. Not only is it unique amongst its Jovian peers for having a smooth, ice-covered surface, but it is believed that warm, ocean waters exist beneath that crust – which also makes it a strong candidate for extra-terrestrial life.
And now, combining a mosaic of color images with modern image processing techniques, NASA has produced a new version of what is perhaps the best view of Europa yet. And it is quite simply the closest approximation to what the human eye would see, and the next best thing to seeing it up close.
The high-resolution color image, which shows the largest portion of the moon’s surface, was made from images taken by NASA’s Galileo probe. Using the Solid-State Imaging (SSI) experiment, the craft captured these images during it’s first and fourteenth orbit through the Jupiter system, in 1995 and 1998 respectively.
The view was previously released as a mosaic with lower resolution and strongly enhanced color (as seen on the JPL’s website). To create this new version, the images were assembled into a realistic color view of the surface that approximates how Europa would appear to the human eye.
As shown above, the new image shows the stunning diversity of Europa’s surface geology. Long, linear cracks and ridges crisscross the surface, interrupted by regions of disrupted terrain where the surface ice crust has been broken up and re-frozen into new patterns.
Images taken through near-infrared, green, and violet filters have been combined to produce this view. The images have been corrected for light scattered outside of the image to provide a color correction that is calibrated by wavelength. Gaps in the images have been filled with simulated color based on the color of nearby surface areas with similar terrain types.
These color variations across the surface are associated with differences in geologic feature type and location. For example, areas that appear blue or white contain relatively pure water ice, while reddish and brownish areas include non-ice components in higher concentrations.
The polar regions, visible at the left and right of this view, are noticeably bluer than the more equatorial latitudes, which look more white. This color variation is thought to be due to differences in ice grain size in the two locations.
This view of Europa stands out as the color view that shows the largest portion of the moon’s surface at the highest resolution. An earlier, lower-resolution version of the view, published in 2001, featured colors that had been strongly enhanced. Space imaging enthusiasts have produced their own versions of the view using the publicly available data, but NASA has not previously issued its own rendition using near-natural color.
The image also features many long, curving, and linear fractures in the moon’s bright ice shell. Scientists are eager to learn if the reddish-brown fractures, and other markings spattered across the surface, contain clues about the geological history of Europa and the chemistry of the global ocean that is thought to exist beneath the ice.
This is of particular interest to scientists since this supposed ocean is the most promising place in our Solar System, beyond Earth, to look for present-day environments that are suitable for life. The Galileo mission found strong evidence that a subsurface ocean of salty water is in contact with a rocky seafloor. The cycling of material between the ocean and ice shell could potentially provide sources of chemical energy that could sustain simple life forms.
Future missions to Europa, which could involve anything from landers to space penetrators, may finally answer the question of whether or not life exists beyond our small, blue planet. Picturing this world in all of its icy glory is another small step along that path.
In addition to the newly processed image, JPL has released a new video that explains why this likely ocean world is a high priority for future exploration:
Further Reading: NASA
Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)
Guests:
Morgan Rehnberg (cosmicchatter.org / @cosmic_chatter)
Brian Koberlein (@briankoberlein)
Ramin Skibba (@raminskibba)
Dave Dickinson (@astroguyz / www.astroguyz.com)
Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout – Nov. 21, 2014: New Images of Europa”
Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)
Guests:
Morgan Rehnberg (cosmicchatter.org / @cosmic_chatter)
Brian Koberlein (@briankoberlein)
Nicole Gugliucci (cosmoquest.org / @noisyastronomer)
Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout – Nov. 7, 2014: Ship Updates & Solar System Formation”
Could there be an ocean hidden somewhere in that Death Star-like picture? This is an image of Mimas, a moon of Saturn, and just yesterday (Oct. 15) newly released data from the Cassini spacecraft suggests there are big liquid reservoirs underneath its surface.
“The amount of the to-and-fro motion indicates that Mimas’ interior is not uniform. These wobbles can be produced if the moon contains a weirdly shaped, rocky core or if a sub-surface ocean exists beneath its icy shell,” said Cornell University in a press release. More flybys with the Cassini spacecraft will be required to learn more about what lies beneath.
You can read more about the study (led by Cornell astronomy research associate Radwan Tajeddine) in Science, where it was published. Below, learn more about other worlds in the Solar System that could host oceans under their surface.
Enceladus
After nearly a decade of speculation, this year the Cassini spacecraft returned gravity data suggesting Enceladus (another moon of Saturn) does have a large subsurface ocean near its south pole, if not a global ocean. If confirmed, that could help explain why scientists see water gushing out of fractures in that area. As this recent paper by Cassini scientists shows, Enceladus is a promising location for habitability.
Titan
By the way, anyone noticed that we still haven’t even left Saturn’s system? Titan is usually high on astrobiology wish lists for researchers because its hydrocarbon chemistry could be precursors to how life evolved. What’s not talked about as much, though, is at least two research findings pointing to evidence of a hidden ocean. Evidence comes from Titan’s tidal flexing from interacting with Saturn — which is 10 times more than what would be expected with a solid core — and the way that it moves on its own axis as well as around Saturn.
Europa
That Minecraft-looking object floating beside Europa there is a rendering showing where water vapor erupted from the Jovian moon, spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2013. We were lucky enough to have a close-up view of Europa in the 1990s and early 2000s courtesy of NASA’s Galileo spacecraft. What we know for sure is there’s thick ice on Europa. What’s underneath is not known, but there’s long been speculation that it could be a subsurface ocean that may have more water than our own planet.
Io
Still flying around Jupiter here, we now turn our attention to Io — a place that is often remarked upon because of its blotchy appearance as well as all of the volcanoes on its surface. A newer analysis of Galileo data in 2011 — looking at some of the lesser-understood magnetic field data signatures — led one research team to conclude there could be a magma ocean lurking underneath that violence.
Triton
Little is known about Triton because only one spacecraft whizzed by it — Voyager 2, which took a running pass through the Neptune system in August 1989. An Icarus paper two years ago speculated that the world could host a subsurface ocean, but more data is needed. The energy of Neptune (which captured Triton long ago) could have melted its interior through tidal heating, possibly creating water from the ice in its crust.
Charon
We don’t have any close-up pictures of this moon of Pluto yet, but just wait a year. The New Horizons spacecraft will zoom past Charon and the rest of the system in July 2015. In the meantime, however, findings based on a model came out this summer in Icarus suggesting Charon — despite being so far from the Sun — might have had a subsurface ocean in the past. Or even now. The key is its once eccentric orbit, which would have produced tidal heating while interacting with Pluto. The science team plans to look for cracks that could be indicative of “the structure of the moon’s interior and how easily it deforms, and how its orbit evolved,” stated Alyssa Rhoden of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, who led the research.