Our Solar System

[T-bone]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ce_planetoid_dc (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&e=16&u=/nm/space_planetoid_dc)

New Distant 'Planetoid' Seen in Our Solar System

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A newly discovered dark and frigid world, a bit smaller than Pluto and three times farther away, has emerged as the most distant object in the solar system, astronomers said on Monday.

The new "planetoid," named Sedna after an Inuit goddess who created the sea creatures of the Arctic, is by far the coldest and most distant object known to orbit the sun, a team of researchers announced.

At more than 8 billion miles from the sun, the temperature on Sedna never gets above minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

"The sun appears so small from that distance that you could completely block it out with the head of a pin," said Mike Brown, an astronomer at California Institute of Technology, who led the research team.

First detected on Nov. 14 with the Samuel Oschin Telescope near San Diego, California, Sedna was observed within days on telescopes from Chile to Spain, Arizona and Hawaii.

NASA's new orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, which looks at the universe with infrared detectors that peer through cosmic dust, was also trained on the distant object.

The Spitzer scope found that Sedna probably has about three-fourths the diameter of Pluto, which would make it the biggest object found in the solar system since Pluto's discovery in 1930.

[Whitesaber]

Coooooool. I'm way too excited about this!

[Darth Darthy]

Nah, its just a rock. And now it's opened the debate again - what exactly is a planet?

[Tovor]

I didn't read the linked article yet, so is this Sedna the asteroid/planet found in the Kuiper Belt? I'd read about that some months ago, that it was smaller than Pluto and the contemplation of assigning it planetoid status was leading astonomers to question whether Pluto itself could be considered a planet or an asteroid.

[Momin327]

How bizzare. Yet welcoming at the same time too...

[Darth Vegas]

So planet X has been found and it has a 10,500 year orbit. Scientists have speculated such for years. Looks like we have found it now. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

[JediJaina]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>Professor Iwan Williams, the president of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which has the final say on the classification of celestial objects, said: "If it's smaller than Pluto then it won't be classed as a planet. The fact is that, if Pluto was discovered today, it wouldn't be called a planet. It's too small, and it's not that different from any number of celestial bodies of that kind of size."
[/b][/quote]

It's not going to be classified as a planet:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/scienc...sp?story=501662 (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=501662)

[Insane Protocol Droid]

wasn't the name for the mythical planet X named for Charon, ferryman of the dead in Greek Mythology?

[cj790]

It's not Planet X - doesn't have anywhere near the required mass.

From what I'd read in astornomical magazines, I'd thought the whole 'planet/not planet' debate centres mainly on a regular orbit of the Sun; Pluto, though has a bizarre orbit, is still predictable, hence it is classed as a planet. Other large KB objects have been detected but not granted planet status because they don't have predictable orbits around the Sun (eg Varanya).
Has the final size been calculated?
I checked yesterday and they were still torn between just smaller than Pluto and just larger...

Charon has been discovered, and is now classed as Pluto's moon (it's between 1/3 and 1/2 the size of Pluto, if I remember correctly).

[Lost-Jedi-Of-The-Republic]

did u guys know there was a deep impact like asteroid heading to earth today? too bad only Europe and Asia got to see it, and no it won't hit the earth

[Vortex]

I heard about all this about two years ago when I was in my astronomy class. o.O Originally they thought it was three times larger than Pluto, or something like that. In the end, they ruled out it being a planet because of the fact that it did not appear to have a core, nor atmosphere, if I remember correctly. I haven't gone over the article, so maybe that changed, or they found another one. When I have time I'll read it and change anything that needs to be changed.

And Pluto's moon was Char, not Charon. At least that's what it said in my book.

Also something to think about, though Pluto was discovered in the early 1900s, there is actually ancient south american diagrams which represent nine planets. Spooky, eh?

Now if only they found diagrams with 10 planets, we could call Sedna a planet and be done with it.

[hermit31]

Originally posted by Vortex@Mar 20 2004, 03:45 PM
Also something to think about, though Pluto was discovered in the early 1900s, there is actually ancient south american diagrams which represent nine planets.* Spooky, eh?

Now if only they found diagrams with 10 planets, we could call Sedna a planet and be done with it.

Actually, the Sumerians had other planets listed and charted. One of them used to be where the asteroid belt now is. And the other had a long elliptical orbit like Sedna. But I don't think anyone is saying that this is the Sumerian 12th planet for now, because it's size does not match with the Sumerian description. On coast to coast AM Michael Brown said that he believes in the possibility that other planets are out there.

[Vortex]

Exactly Hermit, that backs me up. Glad to see more people thinking alike.

[hermit31]

Here's a small pic focused on the solar system, from a Sumerian clay tablet.
There are 11 orbs circling the sun, one is our moon and the other is the 10th planet known as Nibiru to the Sumerians.

[cj790]

Vortex - check any website, eg. www.space.com; Pluto's moon is listed as Charon.
BTW - Sedna was only recently observed; there's a particularly good account of it over on bbc news online. I think you must be thinking of another KB object (although nothing bigger than Pluto has been discovered in our solar system since Pluto itself, in 1930).

[Siri Ruane]

What?? They're gonna have to remake the Schoolhouse Rock video!! style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/giveup.gif

[goodwije]

Ok though at what point does something have to be so far away from its star that it is no longer truely associated with it. I think it is just a peice of rock.

As far as other planets existing. Mathmatically they can show how other stars in the galaxy "sway" as objects with gravitational forces of their own circle them. I do not know if it is still in the theotetical stages or not. But if that is case it seems that many stars in our galaxies not only have planets but have multiple planets. Which some researches deem important for a life sustaining planet to survive.

[cj790]

I think that current models show that if anything is affected by the gravity of a star, it is deemed as associated with it.


You are right about the 'gravitational wobble' - it is being put into practice right now, and has been useful in detecting many planets. From what I have read, the most common number of planets in a solar system ranges between 9 and 11 - putting end to the speculation that our solar system is the exception to the rule rather than the rule itself.
However it is rocky planetoids with their own atmosphere orbiting within the habitable zone of a star's orbit that is considered important in the search for life.

[stormtrooper9]

Originally posted by cj790@Mar 16 2004, 04:42 AM
It's not Planet X - doesn't have anywhere near the required mass.

From what I'd read in astornomical magazines, I'd thought the whole 'planet/not planet' debate centres mainly on a regular orbit of the Sun; Pluto, though has a bizarre orbit, is still predictable, hence it is classed as a planet. Other large KB objects have been detected but not granted planet status because they don't have predictable orbits around the Sun (eg Varanya).
Has the final size been calculated?
I checked yesterday and they were still torn between just smaller than Pluto and just larger...

Charon has been discovered, and is now classed as Pluto's moon (it's between 1/3 and 1/2 the size of Pluto, if I remember correctly).
Well ther goes my schools monety they just got new texbookes too.

It should be planet X.

[Sluggo]

Originally posted by stormtrooper9@May 15 2004, 10:52 AM
Well ther goes my schools monety they just got new texbookes too.

It should be planet X.
It sounds like the school is getting its money's worth so far style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif

They ought to make it into a planet in my opinion. Why does this always have to be about science. They ought to make it the 10th planet because it is cool. I'd like to raise children on a planet with 10 planets in its solar system. My parents did that in a solar system with only 9.

Incidentally, there is a song called Pluto by the group 2 Skinnee J's that discusses all of the same arguments that are being made against Sedna.

[T-bone]

Keeping with the planet theme...




NASA Discovers Likely Youngest Planet
By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - One of NASA (news - web sites)'s space telescopes has discovered what scientists believe may be the youngest planet ever spied — a celestial body that at 1 million years old or less is a cosmic toddler.

In its first major findings, announced Thursday, the Spitzer Space Telescope also has shown that protostars, or developing stars, "are as common as the cicadas in the trees here on the East Coast" and that the planetary construction zones around infant stars have considerable ice that could produce future oceans.

"Oh, my goodness, it knocked our socks off," University of Wisconsin astronomer Ed Churchwell said of the trio of discoveries.

Spitzer is an infrared telescope has been orbiting the sun and studying the universe since last summer. It did not actually "see" the toddler planet, but yielded evidence that enabled scientists to infer its existence.

The object is in the constellation Taurus, 420 light-years away — quite close by astronomy standards. It is believed to be on the inner edge of a planet-forming dusty disk that encircles a 1-million-year-old star.

University of Rochester astronomer Dan Watson said a sharply defined hole in the middle of the disk suggests that a planet created the opening. That gaseous planet would have been formed sometime since the star's formation.

By comparison, the Earth and the rest of the solar system are 4.5 billion years old. And up until now, the youngest planets observed around other stars were a few billion years old.

Astronomer Deborah Padgett at the Carnegie Institution of Washington cautioned that instead of a planet, the gap in the dusty disk could be caused by asteroid formation or a smaller unseen stellar companion. She said it is also possible that the heat and light of the star are forming the gap by blowing all the dusty material out.

However, she said that it is "very likely" a planet, and that additional research by Spitzer and future spacecraft should settle the debate.

The Hubble Space Telescope (news - web sites) previously observed the star — named CoKu Tau 4 — but could not make out such details.

Watson also reported that for the first time, Spitzer has shown without ambiguity all the icy organic materials in the planet-forming disks surrounding infant stars, or those that are only hundreds of thousands of years old. He called these the building blocks of what might end up as a solar system like our own.

As for the proliferation of developing stars, Spitzer revealed more than 300 star formations in one region in the constellation Centaurus, 13,700 light-years away.

"It's kind of blown our minds," Churchwell said.

Anne Kinney, director of NASA's astronomy and physics division, likened the preponderance of protostars to the cicadas.

Scientists compared Spitzer to Smarty Jones, the young horse that next week may become a Triple Crown champion.

"Spitzer has beaten Smarty Jones considerably. It has already won the Triple Crown for 2004 by virtue of having made these three discoveries," said astronomer Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Spitzer is the fourth and final spacecraft in NASA's Great Observatory series, which began with Hubble and continued with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, now gone, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The 14-year-old Hubble was the only one designed for astronaut repairs, and its future has ignited a fierce debate in and outside NASA. NASA has decided to forgo any more shuttle missions to Hubble, citing post-Columbia safety concerns, and instead may send robots on a life-prolonging mission.

On Thursday, a petition signed by 26 astronauts, most of them retired, was sent to President Bush (news - web sites) by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. The astronauts — "we, the real risk-takers" — urged that the shuttle mission to Hubble be reinstated.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor.../ap/baby_planet (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/baby_planet)

[Luvinna]

I think it's awesome that the astronaughts want to continue missions to the Hubble. I did three reports on the HST through high school and college and I think it's been an invaluable resource through the years. I'll be sad to see it finally go. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/crying.gif Though hopefully that'll come later, than sooner. Think of all the sci-fi visual effects shots that likely never would have been had it not been for Hubble pictures. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif

[T-bone]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>astronaughts [/b][/quote]


are those like ugnaughts?

[Luvinna]

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif

[cj790]

What a great story! Hopefully this may shed some more light on how planets form - I remember reading an article last year that cast doubt that Earth-like planets form so close to stars; it claimed that a supernova must have occurred near the primordial dust and rock to make it radioactively 'sticky' enough to cohese to form a large enough solid body. This would mean that Earth like planets are not as common as originally thought.
I hope study of these early planets or proto planets can prove these wrong.

And I agree with you, Luvvina! I cant understand why NASA doesn't send up a team to correct the HST's orbit - one mission could keep it up there for another 10 years, while letting it fall would give us no orbiting telescope for at least 2 years!!!

[T-bone]

First chance in a lifetime to see the Venus eclipse
Sun Jun 6,10:00 AM ET

PARIS (AFP) - Next Tuesday, the planet named after the Romans' Goddess of Love -- in reality, a scorched hell where rainfall takes the form of sulphuric acid -- passes between the Earth and the Sun, a sight unseen by anyone alive today.

The so-called Venus transit is in fact an eclipse, but unlike a solar eclipse, the Sun will be hardly dimmed.

Instead, Venus will appear like a little black dot, eerily crawling across the face of our star for some six hours.

If weather permits, the sight, running from 0513-1126 GMT, should be visible to five billion people, but skygazers absolutely must use proper filters to avoid eye damage.

Europe and Africa will see the entire happening, as will most of Asia, while East Asia and Australia will miss the end and North and South Americas will miss the beginning.

The weird celestial ballet between the second and third rocks from the Sun makes the alignment "one of the rarest of predictable viewing phenomena," says Joe Rao, astronomy columnist with the specialist website space.com.

"Venus transits recur like clockwork, though in an odd pattern."

The way it works is this: Transits occur eight years apart, either in June or December.

A pair of December transits follows a June pair after 105 and a half years, while a June pair comes 121 and a half years after a December pair.

That means the last transit was on December 6 1882, the next will be on June 5-6 2012, and the one after that will be 105 years down the track.

The Venus transit was first predicted by the 17th-century mathematician Johannes Kepler.

Since then, only six have been recorded: in 1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874 and 1882.

The big scientific interest in those days was to calculate the distance between the Earth and the Sun, essentially by timing the transit from different places in the globe.

Knowing this "Astronomical Unit" would provide the yardstick for accurately mapping our Solar System and beyond.

In the 18th century, that goal unleased a frenzied quest for glory between Britain and France, the superpowers at the time.

Two British surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, were dispatched abroad to watch the 1761 crossing, only to be attacked by French warships just after leaving Plymouth.

Discouraged, the pair wanted to cancel the trip, but headed back out to sea after receiving a now-legendary piece of hatemail from the Royal Society, the British scientific association which sponsored them.

To give up would "bring an indelible Scandal upon their Character, and probably end in their utter Ruin," the letter warned stonily.

Drama was also in store for the 1769 transit, when Britain sent James Cook to Tahiti to view it from there. After his mission, he then opened the instructions for the secret (and most important) part of his expedition -- to explore the South Pacific for the British Crown.

He made the first accurate maps of New Zealand and was the first European to discover Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

To scientists' dismay, the 1882 event failed to provide accurate measurement of the Astronomical Unit -- using parallax timings was not exact enough -- and eventually radio measurement and satellites established it with great precision.

Sentiment, therefore, is the fundamental force driving the curiosity in Tuesday's transit, and astronomers from the West Coast of North America are flying to sunny locations, such as Egypt's Red Sea coast, for a good view.

But there will still be a scientific quest behind Tuesday's observations, although no one knows today how fruitful it will ever be.

A small, radical branch of astronomers will use the transit to finetune techniques for observing planets that orbit other stars.

Much can be discovered about these extrasolar planets, of which more than 100 have been spotted, when they pass in front of their parent star.

The drop in observed light can help deduce the planet's diameter and the spectrum of deflected light gives clues as to the planet's atmosphere.

Such knowledge may identify an Earth-like planet, a potential home for mankind that we, with today's puny rocket technology, can only visit in our imagination.

But scientific change can be so dramatic that the words of US naval astronomer William Harkness are as true today as when he wrote them in 1882:

"When the last transit occurred, the intellectual world was awakening from the slumber of ages, and that wondrous scientific activity, which has led to our present advanced knowledge, was just beginning.

"What will be the state of science when the next transit season arrives? God only knows."

[Darth Darthy]

Well I missed that one. By 7 hours.

[bous]

Yeah, I've seen it, it was pretty cool.
It was a very small black dot but visible nonetheless.

[cj790]

It was cloudy here, but I managed to sneak away from my teaching assessment to watch it projected in the university. Looked amazing! You could really tell that it was a large planet, dwarfed amongst the Sun.

[DukeIrot]

Weather was pretty excellent in here eastern Finland during the Transit.

I took 11 627 pics for European Southern Observatory and here are few examples:

http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/V...sTransit001.jpg (http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/VenusTransit001.jpg)
http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/V...sTransit002.jpg (http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/VenusTransit002.jpg)
http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/V...sTransit003.jpg (http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/VenusTransit003.jpg)
http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/V...sTransit004.jpg (http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/VenusTransit004.jpg)
http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/V...sTransit005.jpg (http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/VenusTransit005.jpg)
http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/V...sTransit006.jpg (http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/VenusTransit006.jpg)
http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/V...sTransit007.jpg (http://koti.mbnet.fi/dukeirot/kassiopeia/VenusTransit007.jpg)

[Luvinna]

Awesome pics, Irot! Thanks for posting them! style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/w00t.gif

[Darth Badly]

Yeah, I watched this. It was a grand site.

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

[Tovor]

I wonder how many people recieved eye damage from not taking precautions while viewing?

[Darth Badly]

What did Tovor post? My eyes hurt too much to read it?

[Tovor]

^ Statistics so far indicate one person with eye damage.

[Leia]

Originally posted by TK-007@Mar 15 2004, 06:45 PM
So planet X has been found and it has a 10,500 year orbit. Scientists have speculated such for years. Looks like we have found it now. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif
I thought Planet X was Pluto style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/huh.gif

[Leia]

Yeah, I saw the transit! Well.. the end of it at least style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif It was so funny, my dad and I were going to go out with my grandpa and my uncle but nobody said they had any way of viewing it! So the morning of, we're scrambling around; I get a cardboard shoe lid and some white paper (supposedly you could put a pinprick through the paper and project it onto the cardboard lid...) and my dad got binoculars and a tripod (I guess another way of projecting without looking directly?). We got to the house and my grandpa hands us these flimsy little paper glasses. My dad gets this funny look and says "Dad, these look like 3-D glasses, I don't think... oh wait!" They were actually made specifically for the Venus transit, my grandpa had picked them up at his last astronomy club meeting style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif So he was all prepared! I'm glad we didn't have to try the carboard lid approach style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/huh.gif

[Leia]

Oh, I know now why I was associating planet X with Pluto. Tombaugh was trying to find Planet X, but instead he found Pluto style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif

[cj790]

Great pics DukeIrot!

[Obi-Stu]

Originally posted by Leia@Jun 10 2004, 05:28 AM
Yeah, I saw the transit! Well.. the end of it at least style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif It was so funny, my dad and I were going to go out with my grandpa and my uncle but nobody said they had any way of viewing it! So the morning of, we're scrambling around; I get a cardboard shoe lid and some white paper (supposedly you could put a pinprick through the paper and project it onto the cardboard lid...) and my dad got binoculars and a tripod (I guess another way of projecting without looking directly?). We got to the house and my grandpa hands us these flimsy little paper glasses. My dad gets this funny look and says "Dad, these look like 3-D glasses, I don't think... oh wait!" They were actually made specifically for the Venus transit, my grandpa had picked them up at his last astronomy club meeting style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif So he was all prepared! I'm glad we didn't have to try the carboard lid approach style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/huh.gif
Photograph negatives work very well too...


Think of all the Star Trek episodes that will be outdated due these new planets... style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/exclamation.gif

[cj790]

Planet X hasn't been found - all we have found are large bodies of rock in the Kuiper belt. Planet X would have to be Pluto-size or larger; all the bodies discovered so far are smaller than Pluto.
There is debate that Pluto's eccentric orbit may mean that it too (and Charon) are in fact Kuiper belt objects too.

[Leia]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>However, even with this discovery, calculations indicated that Pluto was still too small to be the Planet X that Lowell had been searching for. Its size was too small to affect the orbit of Neptune as predicted.[/b][/quote]

According to that, it has to be bigger than Pluto

[DukeIrot]

Pluto's planet-status should be removed. It isn't a planet, it's just a kuiperoid.

[JediJaina]

Are Kuiper belt objects in an orbit around the Sun like Pluto?

[DukeIrot]

Yes, they are.

[cj790]

^ Well, not really. They have even more eccentric orbits than Pluto has, and can be affected by the pull of other large Kuiper Belt objects whereas Pluto cannot (that we know of). Pluto is the largest object that far out that we know of, has an eccetric but pretty stable orbit, and has a regularly orbiting moon. There is speculation that if it were found today it may not be classed as a planet, but really it is very different to the Kuiper Belt objects. It should be given a different status.
It is also substantially smaller than the hypothesized Planet X.


For anyone interested about Saturn's moons, check this out!
http://newsbox.msn.co.uk/article.aspx?as=a...ks=0&mc=5&lc=en (http://newsbox.msn.co.uk/article.aspx?as=article&ae=windows-1252&f=uk_-_olgbtopnews&t=11881&id=38066&d=20040611&do=http://newsbox.msn.co.uk&i=http://newsbox.msn.co.uk/mediaexportlive&ks=0&mc=5&lc=en)

Should be quite spectacular! Now lest hope there are a few more missions to Jupiter's moons too style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

[DukeIrot]

Originally posted by cj790@Jun 11 2004, 05:18 PM
Pluto is the largest object that far out that we know of, has an eccetric but pretty stable orbit, and has a regularly orbiting moon.
Sedna is even bigger. But it just doesn't have any moons.

[cj790]

Sedna is not bigger - I'll just go get a link...

Here's a goodie:
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/sedna/

Read down the page:
Sedna is at most about 1800 km in diameter: about halfway in size between Pluto and the largest known Kuiper belt object Quaoar

Sorry to rain on your parade style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blush.gif

[DukeIrot]

What I have been talking with researchers working for NASA. They believes it is bigger than they first though. And it might be even bigger than Pluto but they are still doing some measurements to confirm it.

[cj790]

Care to give out your sources?

Why don't we just stick with what is given the official stamp right now, that Sedna is smaller than Pluto, and re-evalute if your friends are ever proved correct...

[DukeIrot]

I cannot give any links because I saw those diagrams and calculations in printed to paper during astronomical conference about month ago. And even how much I would have liked to get copies of those papers NASA has pretty selfish rules about their research data. They wants to keep every single file for their own researchers.

I just re-calculated an Astronomical Unit (this time from our taken pics) and the error to the theoretical AU was only 0.002% (3655 kilometers (about 2284 miles)). And we are talking about distance over 1,49 billion (or milliard if you're from Europe) kilometers.

[Emerita]

I think you guys will like this....... turn up your speakers.... the show will start automatically.


http://wires.news.com.au/special/mm/030811...m#00-titlepage2 (http://wires.news.com.au/special/mm/030811-hubble.htm#00-titlepage2)

[Luvinna]

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20040621_612.html

I wish I had a few million dollars... style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif

[Emerita]

You and me both...There are so many multi millionares and billionaires out there that you would think one of them would see that the hope for humanity is out in space. I know if I had Bill Gates' money, I'd be funding Nasa......and we would have a starship built.....or at least the Space station completed......

[cj790]

Emerita - your link was fantastic! Thanks! style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

Really evocative images - looking at how majestic and enormous our universe is constantly takes my breath away.

[JediJaina]

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

I love this stuff!

[Sluggo]

Nice. Jaina, thanks. I've got my new wallpaper for my compy.

[T-bone]

Spacecraft Sends Back Images of Saturn
By JOHN ANTCZAK, Associated Press Writer

PASADENA, Calif. - Just hours after swooping into orbit around Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft sent "absolutely mind-blowing" images of the giant planet's rings back to Earth early Thursday.


The first shadowy close-ups were taken from the U.S.-European craft looked down on ring segments as it entered orbit late Wednesday. As more and more pictures came in Thursday, the images from the dark side of the rings gradually gave way to increasingly clear pictures.

Mission scientists and engineers at NASA (news - web sites)'s Jet Propulsion Laboratory had watched tensely late Wednesday as a signal indicated first that Cassini — launched nearly seven years ago — had safely passed through the ring plane and then performed a crucial engine firing. It squeezed through a gap in Saturn's shimmering rings, fired its brakes and settled into a near-perfect orbit around the giant planet.

"I can tell you it feels awfully good to be in orbit around the lord of the rings," JPL Director and Cassini radar team member Charles Elachi said.

Mission officials huddled before a control room screen as the raw images came in Thursday from more than 900 million miles away.

Some ring segments appeared as a bland haze. Others resembled ripples in water or crisp bands of light and dark.

"Absolutely mind-blowing," imaging team leader Carolyn Porco said as an image resembling tight-grained wood popped up.

"Look at that sharp edge. That brings tears to my eyes," Porco said. "Most of the structures we see, we don't know the cause of it. That's why we've gone back to Saturn."

Putting the first spacecraft into orbit around Saturn marked another major success this year for NASA, which has had two rovers operating on Mars since January and has a spacecraft heading home with samples from a comet encounter.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, in a call from Washington, D.C., Wednesday, called the reaching of orbit around Saturn an "amazing victory" and part of a "doubleheader," following a successful spacewalk by the international space station crew earlier Wednesday evening.

A carefully choreographed maneuver allowed Cassini to be captured by Saturn's gravity as it arced within 12,500 miles of the giant planet's cloud tops.

Using its big radio dish as a shield against small particles, the spacecraft ascended through a gap between two of the rings, then spun around and fired its engine for more than 1 1/2 hours to slow its acceleration.

The craft then rotated again to place its shielding antenna in front as it descended back through the gap.

The maneuver had to be carried out automatically because Earth and Saturn are currently more than 900 million miles apart and radio signals take more than 80 minutes to travel each way.

Navigation team chief Jeremy Jones said initial analysis showed the orbit to be so good that a "cleanup" maneuver planned for Saturday would be very small.

The orbital insertion came after two decades of work by scientists in the United States and 17 nations. The $3.3 billion mission was funded by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

David Southwood, director of space science for the European Space Agency, called it a "world mission" but said the orbital insertion was "America doing it right."

Cassini will now go on at least a four-year tour of Saturn and some of its 31 known moons. Cassini was scheduled to make 76 orbits and repeated fly-bys of the moons.

Scientists hope the mission will provide important clues about how the planets formed. Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun and the second-largest, intrigues scientists because it is like a model of the early solar system, when the sun was surrounded by a disk of gas and dust.

Cassini and the Huygens probe it carries are named for 17th century astronomers Jean Dominique Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.

The probe will be sent into the atmosphere of Saturn's big moon Titan in January. The moon, blanketed by a thick atmosphere of nitrogen and methane, is believed to have organic compounds resembling those on Earth billions of years before life appeared.

Cassini was launched on Oct. 15, 1997, from Cape Canaveral, Fla., over the objections of anti-nuclear protesters who feared what might happen if the rocket exploded while carrying Cassini and its 72 pounds of plutonium, which powers the spacecraft. NASA insisted that the launch would be safe because of the numerous precautions taken with the poisonous substance.

Cassini has traveled 2.2 billion miles, getting gravitational assists from Earth and Venus as it caromed around the solar system. The 22-foot-long, 13-foot-wide spacecraft took the roundabout route because it was too massive to be launched on a direct trajectory to Saturn.

[Javen]

That's cool. Saturn is my favorite planet.

[cj790]

Are there any links to pics yet?

[JediJaina]

Originally posted by JediJaina@Jun 23 2004, 01:17 PM
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

I love this stuff!
cj790....I posted this above. It's the official site for it.

[cj790]

Cool! Thanks!

*Maybe I should have checked the thread before posting style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blush.gif *

[JediJaina]

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif

[T-bone]

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/sa...star_mimas.html (http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/saturns_death_star_mimas.html)

[cj790]

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif

[Tarkheki JD]

"That's no moon!...."

[stormtrooper9]

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thud.gif >8[oo]9< style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/chortle.gif all I can say.

[Momin327]

"All wings report in..." Any word of a second, incomplete moon?

[stormtrooper9]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>will get a better view on August 2, 2005,[/b][/quote]
Wonder if it will see any ties....hehe

[T-bone]

Life on Mars Likely, Scientist Claims
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
SPACE.com

DENVER, COLORADO -- Those twin robots hard at work on Mars have transmitted teasing views that reinforce the prospect that microbial life may exist on the red planet.

Results from NASAs Spirit and Opportunity rovers are being looked over by a legion of planetary experts, including a scientist who remains steadfast that his experiment in 1976 proved the presence of active microbial life in the topsoil of Mars.

"All factors necessary to constitute a habitat for life as we know it exist on current-day Mars," explained Gilbert Levin, executive officer for science at Spherix Incorporated of Beltsville, Maryland.

Levin made his remarks here Monday at the International Symposium on Optical Science and Technology, the 49th annual meeting of Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

Provocative find

Levin has a long-standing interest in time-weathered Mars and the promise of life today on that distant and dusty world.

NASAs 1976 Viking mission to Mars was geared-up to look for possible martian life. And it was Levins Labeled Release experiment that made a provocative find: The presence of a highly reactive agent in the surface material of Mars.

Levin concluded in 1997 that this activity was triggered by living microorganisms lurking in the martian soil -- a judgment he admits has not been generally accepted by the scientific community.

Now roll forward to 2004. Consider the findings of Spirit and Opportunity, the golf-cart sized robots wheeling over Mars at Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum.

"Those rovers have been absolutely sensational, pouring out thousands of images. Those images have lots of information in them. And Ive tried to deduce something in there relative to life...and I think I found a lot," Levin told SPACE.com.

Squeezed out of the soil

In perusing rover imagery, Levin reports there is clear evidence for liquid water existing under Martian environmental conditions. "The images should be reviewed against the background of surface temperatures as varying from below to above freezing reported by both Spirit and Opportunity," he explained.

Levin points to the potential for mud puddles on Mars, showing an image of clearly disturbed martian soil after rover airbags bounced across Mars surface. Possible standing water and sinkholes can also be seen in rover imagery, according to his analysis. In some pictures, the often-discussed "blueberries, " tiny spheres of material, disappear as if submerged underneath mud-like surroundings, he added.

Then there are tracks left by the machines as they roll across the martian terrain. Self-taken shots by the robots show what Levin said appears to be water squeezed out of the soil which then freezes into a whitish residue left in embedded tread marks.

Similarly, Levin added, are images taken by Opportunity of the results from an operation of the robots Rock Abrasion Tool, or RAT. The center of that particular RAT hole is largely white, possibly indicating the formation of frost since the hole was drilled, he noted.

Organisms there now?

"The evidence presented strongly indicates the presence of liquid water or moisture at the Mars Exploration Rover sites," Levin reported at the SPIE meeting. "Mars today could support many forms of terrestrial microbial life."

Other scientists are cautious to point out that the presence of water does not guarantee life. Rather, it means one crucial ingredient exists.

There is clear evidence for frost or ice on Mars, the former Viking experimenter stated. At some point of the day -- when temperatures climb above freezing -- theres going to be moisture..."and thats enough to support microorganisms," he said.

None of the many new findings about Mars revealed by Spirit and Opportunity, Levin concluded, conflict with, or render untenable, his long-held belief that the Viking Labeled Release experiment in 1976 detected living microorganisms in the soil of Mars.

"I contend that today you could take a great many Earth microorganisms, put them on Mars, and theyd grow," Levin said. "And I think there are organisms there now. They may have come from Earth. They may have originated on Mars. They may have come from a third place that populated both Mars and Earth."

Rocks can be kicked up from one planet by an asteroid impact, drift through space for eons, then land on the other. Other studies have shown that these rocks could potentially transport life, in a dormant phase, from one planet to the other.

Levin said that he thinks the "greatest speculation" would be to say there can be no life on Mars.

Moon used as Earth bio-shield

If indeed Mars is rife with life, care should be taken in hauling back to Earth specimens of rock and surface materials from the red planet. NASA (news - web sites) has indicated that, next decade, robotic craft could be dispatched to gather and return to Earth select samples of Mars for detailed laboratory study.

Could those bits of Mars, perhaps laden with martian microbes, act as dangerous cargo?

As a precaution, Levin advocates a kind of bio-shield strategy for Earth -- but using the Moon.

The new NASA vision to reestablish a human presence on the Moon is good timing, Levin said. "Bring samples of Mars not to Earth but to the Moon," he said. "There we would have built a scientific laboratory in which scientists could examine the samples and determine whether or not there is a hazard."

[cj790]

Interesting! Good work.

[T-bone]

Could Space Signal Be Alien Contact?

LONDON (Reuters) - An unexplained radio signal from deep space could -- just might be -- contact from an alien civilization, New Scientist magazine reported on Thursday.

The signal, coming from a point between the Pisces and Aries constellations, has been picked up three times by a telescope in Puerto Rico.

New Scientist said the signal could be generated by a previously unknown astronomical phenomenon or even be a by-product from the telescope itself.

But the mystery beam has excited astronomers across the world.

"If they can see it four, five or six times it really begins to get exciting," Jocelyn Bell Burnell of the University of Bath in western England told the magazine.

It was broadcast on the main frequency at which the universe's most common element, hydrogen, absorbs and emits energy, and which astronomers say is the most likely means by which aliens would advertise their presence.

The potentially extraterrestrial signals were picked up through the SETI@home project, which uses programs running as screensavers on millions of personal computers worldwide to sift through the huge amount of data picked up by the telescope.

[Luvinna]

Ouch!

Genesis Space Capsule Crashes Into Desert
Sep 8, 12:54 PM (ET)

By PAUL FOY

DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Utah (AP) - The Genesis space capsule, which had orbited the sun for more than three years in an attempt to find clues to the origin of the solar system, crashed to Earth on Wednesday after its parachute failed to deploy.

It wasn't immediately known whether cosmic samples it was carrying back as part of a six-year, $260 million project had been destroyed. NASA officials believed the fragile disks that held the atoms would shatter even if the capsule hit the ground with a parachute.

"There was a big pit in my stomach," said physicist Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory, which designed the atom collector plates. "This just wasn't supposed to happen. We're going to have a lot of work picking up the pieces."

Hollywood stunt pilots had taken off in helicopters to hook the parachute, but the refrigerator-sized capsule - holding a set of fragile disks containing billions of atoms collected from solar wind - hit the desert floor without the parachute opening.

The impact drove the capsule halfway underground. NASA engineers feared the explosive for the parachute might still be alive and ready to fire, keeping helicopter crews at bay.

"That presents a safety hazard to recovery crews," said Chris Jones, solar system exploration director for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The copters were supposed to snatch the capsule's parachute with a hook as it floated down at 400 feet a minute, or more than 6 feet per second. But the capsule tumbled out of control. It was supposed to be spinning at 15 revolutions a minute to slice evenly through the atmosphere, but camera images showed it tumbling instead.

Scientists hoped the capsule's charged atoms - a "billion billion" of them - would reveal clues about the origin and evolution of our solar system, said Don Burnett, Genesis principal investigator and a nuclear geochemist at California Institute of Technology.

"We have for years wanted to know the composition of the sun," Burnett said before the crash. He said scientists had expected to analyze the material "one atom at a time."

Genesis had been moving in tandem with Earth outside its magnetic shield on three orbits of the sun.

Cliff Fleming, the lead helicopter pilot, and backup pilot Dan Rudert had replicated the retrieval in dozens of practice runs. Fleming and Rudert, stunt pilots by trade, were drafted for the mission because of their expertise flying high and capturing objects. Fleming has swooped after sky surfers in the action movie "XXX" and towed actor Pierce Brosnan through the air in "Dante's Peak." He just worked on "Batman 4."

The Genesis mission, launched in 2001, marked the first time NASA has collected any objects from farther than the moon for retrieval to Earth, said Roy Haggard, Genesis' flight operations chief and CEO of Vertigo Inc., which designed the capture system.

Together, the charged atoms captured over 884 days on the capsule's disks of gold, sapphire, diamond and silicone were no bigger than a few grains of salt, but scientists say that would be enough to reconstruct the chemical origin of the sun and its family of planets.

Scientists had expected to study the material for five more years.

---

On the Net:

http://www.genesismission.org

[Cassus Fett]

whats this crap bout not sending a message back to this single we have received thats took 31 million years to reach us so it will take the same time to get back. Nasa already sends a signal out into space continuesly so if we are not going to send a reply back what the piont of Nasa sending that signal out in the first place.

[Vyndim]

Originally posted by Cassus Fett@Sep 8 2004, 02:20 PM
whats this crap bout not sending a message back to this single we have received thats took 31 million years to reach us so it will take the same time to get back. Nasa already sends a signal out into space continuesly so if we are not going to send a reply back what the piont of Nasa sending that signal out in the first place.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>


My guess is that we lack the technology to emit a similar signal at this time. Or maybe we do, but nobody has the funds to do it. Which is quite common in the field of science. Funding for these experiments have to come from somewhere.

[Horse_Head]

Originally posted by Luvinna@Sep 8 2004, 10:35 AM
Ouch!

Genesis Space Capsule Crashes Into Desert
Sep 8, 12:54 PM (ET)
http://www.genesismission.org
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

That sucker hit hard...

[cj790]

This is what you get for the budegetary cutbacks - lots of missions failing, rather than a smaller number of more expensive missions succeeding. If we want to explore space, we cannot do it on a shoestring budget, or cut costs.

[T-bone]

European Probe Lands on Saturn's Moon
By MELISSA EDDY, Associated Press Writer

DARMSTADT, Germany - A European space probe landed safely on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan on Friday, a space official said, buoying hopes the mission would produce data that could shed light on the origins of life on Earth.

Officials were jubilant as early signals showed the probe powering up for entry, then beginning the 2 1/2-hour parachute descent during which it was to gather information that could shed light on how life arose on Earth.

Mission controllers were confident the Huygens probe made a soft landing because it was still transmitting steadily long after it should have landed, said David Southwood, the European Space Agency's science director.

"We know that it has landed based on the laws of gravity," Southwood said. "It simply cannot still be flying. It's got to be on a solid surface, and it must be soft."

Southwood said the early signal showed little more than that Huygens was still alive and the mission wouldn't be a success until a full set of data could be sent back via the Cassini mother ship orbiting Saturn.

"We still can't fully celebrate — we need to wait for the data to come from Cassini, but we have enormous faith in this mission," Southwood said.

The heart of the mission was the parachute descent, during which the probe was to take pictures and sample the atmosphere, believed to resemble that of the Earth when it was young.

Officials were optimistic because Huygens was designed to transmit for at least three minutes after landing before its batteries died and the signal had continued for more than five hours.

Early data showed that one of Huygens' experiments, designed to measure the Titanic winds, had begun to work, said Jean-Pierre Lebreton, ESA mission manager.

"We clearly have an engineering success," Lebreton said. "We are going to work very hard to convert this into a scientific success."

Mission officials — who have waited seven years for Huygens to reach its destination — had tears in their eyes as the first signal was picked up, indicating that the probe was transmitting to its mother ship, the international Cassini spacecraft.

Huygens was spun off from Cassini on Dec. 24 to begin its free-fall toward Titan, the first moon other than the Earth's to be explored by spacecraft.

Named after Titan's discoverer, the 17th century Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, the probe carries instruments to explore what Titan's atmosphere is made of and find out whether it has the cold seas of liquid methane and ethane that have been theorized by scientists.

Timers inside the 705-pound probe awakened it just before it entered Titan's atmosphere. Huygens is shaped like a wok and covered with a shield to survive the intense heat of entry.

On the way down, it was to shed its heat shield and use a special camera and instruments to collect information on wind speeds and the makeup of Titan's atmosphere. The data will be transmitted back to Cassini, which will relay them to NASA (news - web sites)'s Deep Space Network in California and on to ESA controllers in Darmstadt, Germany.

Titan is the only moon in the solar system known to have a significant atmosphere. Rich in nitrogen and containing about 6 percent methane, its atmosphere is believed to be 1 1/2 times thicker than Earth's.

Alphonso Diaz, science administrator for NASA, said Titan may offer hints about the conditions under which life first arose on Earth.

"Titan is a time machine," Diaz said. "It will provide us the opportunity to look at conditions that may well have existed on Earth in the beginning. It may have preserved in a deep freeze many chemical compounds that set the stage for life on Earth."

Part of a $3.3 billion international mission to study the Saturn system, Huygens is also equipped with instruments to study Titan's surface upon landing. Scientists don't know exactly what it will hit when it lands at about 22 mph.

The probe floats and can survive a landing in methane or ethane, which exist in liquid form due to the cold — 292 degrees below zero. One hazard would be landing on a solid slope in a position that doesn't permit a strong signal back to Cassini.

Engineers at ESA are counting on the probe having at least three minutes to transmit information and images from Titan's surface, before its battery runs out or Cassini gets out of range.

The Cassini-Huygens mission, a project of NASA, ESA and the Italian space agency, was launched Oct. 15, 1997, from Cape Canaveral, Fla., to study Saturn, its rings and many moons.

[brookie]

yeaaaaahhhh, im curently taking an astronomy class, ummmmmmm....stars!!! yeah, yeah, yeah, ummmmmmmmmm....light years!!! yeah.... style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ok.gif cant you tell that i'm learning?

[JediJaina]

On the NASA channel, they just showed the first picture from the probe that dropped into Titan. They said it looked like 'drainage ditches".

[Luvinna]

Is this the one you're talking about, JJ?
[attachmentid=7442]

Here's an image I found looking through NASA's Cassini picture archives. I thought it was pretty cool.
[attachmentid=7443]
The image shows the majestic ringed planet, with bands of colorful clouds in its southern hemisphere. The planet’s northern extremes have a cool bluish hue, due to scattering of blue wavelengths of sunlight by the cloud-free upper atmosphere there. Long shadows of the icy rings stretch across the north.

A grayish, oval-shaped storm is visible in Saturn’s southern hemisphere and is easily 475 kilometers (295 miles) across – the size of some hurricanes on Earth.

Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across) is visible near lower right with its thick, orange-colored atmosphere, and faint Mimas (398 kilometers, or 247 miles across) appears just right of the rings’ outer edge.

Images taken in the red, green and blue filters with the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera on Dec. 14, 2004, were combined to create this color view at a distance of approximately 719,000 kilometers (447,000 miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 43 kilometers (27 miles) per pixel.

[Luvinna]

Here's one we can all appreciate. It's labeled "That's no space station" on the NASA site. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/chortle.gif
[attachmentid=7444]
Soon after orbital insertion, Cassini returned its best look yet at the heavily cratered moon Mimas (398 kilometers, 247 miles across). The enormous crater at the top of this image, named Herschel, is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) wide and 10 kilometers (6 miles) deep.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on July 3, 2004, from a distance of 1.7 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Mimas and at a Sun-Mimas-spacecraft, or phase angle of about 102 degrees. The image scale is 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. The image has been magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.

[Darth Hepaticus]

Just saw some of the first pics form the descent and landing of the Cassini-Huygens probe. All one can say is "Wow". Great going NASA and ESA. Seeing hte SW univrse is fun, but this is an even greater experience in my book.

[attachmentid=7445]

[JediJaina]

Yep Luvinna...

At the time, they didn't have the piccie up at the website. Still very cool. And there's ice rocks!

[goodwije]

what color are the little men on Titan?

[Master Magnus]

I suggest you check out the European Space Agency's site, it has the first sounds from an other body in the solar system:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygen...85Q71Y3E_0.html (http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/SEM85Q71Y3E_0.html)

Oh, and pics can be found on the main site:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html

The first triumph for ESA, although one of the two radio channels didn't work.

[T-bone]

part 1 http://www.enterprisemission.com/moon1.htm
part 2 http://www.enterprisemission.com/moon2.htm

[Tovor]

Diamond planets.
http://cnn.aimtoday.cnn.com/news/story.jsp...68.htm&sc=romta (http://cnn.aimtoday.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0002%2F20050207%2F2211341768.htm&sc=romta)

[cj790]

^ I've read a few things about those theories before; at one point it was speculated that Jupiter may have a huge diamond core!
It is possible... shame we'll never get to that planet style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif


I'm just still loving those pictures from Huygens style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/beer.gif

[Tovor]

^ I've read of that as well. A diamond core tentatively the size of our world or more.

[Sargoth]

I have also read theories that Neptune may have "diamond storms", similar to the dust storms we enjoy here in the Southwest. Carbon is believed to be the most common element, so I would assume that diamonds are a very common occurance in the universe. Suck on that, DeBeers. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif

[Cassus Fett]

I heard a while back or i read it somewhere about in the next hundred years or so we were going to start colonising Mars.

I know to do this we have to warm the planet up by global warming, then over time as planet life grows and a breathable atmosphere is created we begin to colonising it.

[/quote]
Ouote from Wired News
NASA Warms to Living on Mars
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California -- It took billions of years before Earth could support life, but scientists think they can create the right conditions on Mars in less than a century by pumping the atmosphere full of greenhouse gases.

About 150 physicists and biologists gathered at the NASA Ames Research Center on Tuesday to discuss how the Red Planet might become a livable place

"Historically, it's been part of science fiction," said Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at Ames who organized the Physics and Biology of Making Mars Habitable conference. "We're trying to make it science."

McKay said scientists already know Mars has the three building blocks of life: carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water.

"Whether or not it has it in high enough levels we don't know," he said. "But we think it does."

The first step in colonizing the planet would be raising the temperature and pressure of the thin, freezing Martian atmosphere.

"How do we go from a cold, frosty Mars to a warm, wet one?" McKay asked. He said that efforts to make the Red Planet habitable would start within 100 years of a human landing. "The longer we delay, the longer this inevitable step is delayed."

He estimates that it would take 100,000 years to get enough oxygen on the planet to support humans using only plants. "Warming up a (planet) temperature is easy, but making oxygen is hard," he said. "The only way we know how to do it is with plants, which is very inefficient."

Margarita Marinova, a research assistant at MIT, suggested that the quickest and most efficient way to change the Martian climate is to pump the atmosphere full of so-called super greenhouse gases.

"We know how to make them, we're making them here on Earth," she said. "They are very effective in relatively small concentrations."

The key is to make gases that aren't too volatile and won't poison biological life when it is introduced, Miranova said.

The best candidates are PFCs (perfluorocarbons), cousins of the CFCs (chloroflourocarbons) that are contributing to Earth's greenhouse effect.

Miranova said the greenhouse gases could be made in factories on the planet surface from elements found in abundance in the Martian soil and atmosphere.

One hundred greenhouse gas factories, each with the power of a nuclear power plant, could transform the Martian climate into something resembling Canada's in 100 years, she estimated.

McKay said Mars would only need to be warmed a few degrees to support the first life -- nitrogen-fixing lichens and algae.

But to create enough oxygen for humans would require plant life, McKay said, which may need up to 100,000 years to make the atmosphere breathable.

But before then it may be possible to wander around the planet with just an oxygen mask instead of a full space suit, McKay said.

"It's inevitable that we will leave (Earth)," McKay said. "Mars is the obvious first step and what's amazing is we have the chance to spread life beyond its origin."
[/quote]

Wired News (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,39318,00.html)

I would really like to now what people think about this?
I also heard that humans that would be born on there would have a smaller heart becuase of the gravity is different. Could that lead to a 5th species of humans? (Other 3 died long time ago)

[Luminara Skye]

I think eventually it will be possible, but we need to know more about the planet first. Scientists seem pretty sure they are going to find some sort of life on Mars, so who knows. I wonder when they will start moon missions again. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif

NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_life_050216.html)

[Bandersnatch]

Will there be monkeybutts??

[Luminara Skye]

Maybe that's where the methane is coming from! style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif

[cj790]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4285119.stm

[Luminara Skye]

That could speed up the colonization of Mars. Thanks for the article!

[cj790]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4295475.stm

[Angel Starmaster]

Well, we definately need to get our own methane emitting butts off this planet before we annilate it completely, that's for sure.

The way i see it the human race is an angry teenager who has already trashed his own house and is now looking for someone else's lawn to go spin donuts on.

[cj790]

^ all the more reason to stay on Earth; we've made our bed, now we lie in it...

As much as I'd love humanity to explore the stars, right now I don't think it'd be a good idea - we can't even treat our home with respect, so what the hell are we going to be like on other properties?

[Angel Starmaster]

Yeah, but we're getting to a point, (unless the human race wakes up) that the only way to save our miserable hides will be to go elsewhere. Perhaps that will be the only thing to teach us the lesson that so badly needs learning.

[cj790]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4298053.stm

[Javen]

Originally posted by Angel Starmaster@Feb 25 2005, 08:38 AM
Well, we definately need to get our own methane emitting butts off this planet before we annilate it completely, that's for sure.

<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

Uhhh...but this is the only planet that is liveable. Unless you can personally take deadly gas off of planets, heat where it's too cold and/or cool where it's too hot, grow trees(for oxygen we breate it, ya know?) Water that is drinkable, etc...

[Cassus Fett]

Or we rapidly evolve not use any of them, which i cant see happening

[Ithorian guy]

Originally posted by Angel Starmaster@Feb 25 2005, 08:38 AM
Well, we definately need to get our own methane emitting butts off this planet before we annilate it completely, that's for sure.


You a tree huggin environmentalist? I think that that is a bunch of mumbo jumbo

[cj790]

^ Not according to the world's scientific population.

Anyhoo... style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif

Back to our Solar System:

[cj790]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4347571.stm

This MUST happen...

Most scientists believe it could be the strongest contestant for extra-terrestrial life in our own solar system.
Just imagine those enormous subterrene oceans, seeing Jupiter-rise on the icy shore...
The pics back would be amazing!

[goodwije]

whats the final message in 2010? style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif

[Sargoth]

LOL! That's been a running joke ever since the theories of Europa's habitibility have sprung up. You've gotta love the irony!

[cj790]

Just don't put me in the first probe sent there style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif

[cj790]

Not sure if this is the place to put this (it's not 'our system' at all), but lacking a 'universe' thread here goes:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4408187.stm

[Revan]

Out of many planets the scientists discovered,there have to be some where life is present and some who can be inhabited by humans.The only problem would be how to get there!

[Cassus Fett]

I read somewhere that they had discover a 10th planet in our soloar system but i havent heard anything since

[Talcy]

It was a tiny body beyond Pluto which was called Sedna. Scientists are still arguing over whether it should be classed as a planet due to its size. Looks like they're stilla rguing, and probably always will. Jeez, they're still arguing over whether Pluto should be classified as a planet. There's no pleasing some people.

[cj790]

^ True. Actually they have found lots of large bodies outside Pluto in a region called the Kuiper Belt (a large asteroid belt, basically), in which many very large bodies exist. None of them are as big as Pluto though, and some have erratic orbits; hence they are not classed as planets.

[cj790]

This is interesting:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4414481.stm

[cj790]

Hope this happens:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4423883.stm

[cj790]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4501323.stm

[Sargoth]

NASA tests solar sail technology
Monday, May 16, 2005 Posted: 12:05 PM EDT (1605 GMT)


(CNN) -- A solar sail that scientists believe could power missions into deep space has passed its first major test.

A 20-meter square sail was deployed and its orientation controlled in a vacuum chamber designed to mimic space at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Ohio, developers ATK Space Systems said in a press release.

NASA has described the tests as a "crucial milestone" in the development of a unique propulsion technology that could be used to send probes to study the sun and the rest of the solar system.

Solar sail propulsion uses energy from the sun in the same way that a sailing boat is powered by the wind, reducing the need for a spacecraft to carry heavy fuel reserves.

A stream of solar energy particles bounce off giant reflective sails made of lightweight material 100 times thinner than a piece of writing paper, providing sufficient momentum to send a spacecraft speeding through space.

A spacecraft powered by a solar sail would require no onboard propellant, increasing its range of mobility and enabling it to hover at a fixed point in space for longer periods of time.

"A spacecraft utilizing solar sail propulsion can deploy a large, lightweight reflector -- up to tens of meters long, but very, very lightweight -- that can reflect sunlight," said Les Johnson of NASA's In-Space Propulsion Technology Office.

"As it reflects the Sun's energy, the sail will move and carry a small payload or a spacecraft along with it. As long as there's sunlight, there can be propulsion."

ATK scientist Dave Murphy told the New Scientist magazine that the first deployment of the solar sail, which weighs just 23 kilograms, had gone "flawlessly." The series of tests continue until July.

Murphy said a solar sail spacecraft would need a wingspan of 80 to 160 meters to gain sufficient momentum from the sun, depending on the mass of the craft.

Since the spacecraft would continue to accelerate, reaching speeds of tens of thousands of miles an hour, it could theoretically reach the edge of the solar system faster than a conventionally fueled craft.

NASA is not alone in recognizing the potential of solar sail propulsion.

Japan has already deployed two solar sails in space, while the Planetary Society, a non-profit U.S. group dedicated to promoting space exploration, hopes to launch its first solar sail from a Russian submarine in the next few weeks.

[cj790]

^ good work style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

Intriguing stuff.

[Sargoth]

Solar Sail Reported Missing (http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/06/21/russia.cosmos.reut/index.html)


style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif

[cj790]

If it's entered low orbit then it will burn up anyway style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif

A shame - but there are other solar sail developments going on at the moment. This won't be the last test for the tech.

[Cassus Fett]

its a shame but an expensive and funny shame lol

[cj790]

Yeah, it's a real hoot when we try to better our ability to explore and we sadly fail...
style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif

[T-bone]

http://www.enterprisemission.com/moon6.htm

[Sargoth]

^ That's no moon! style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/vader.gif

[cj790]

^ style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/scratchchin.gif


I see Discovery is still set for a July launch! style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsup.gif

[Sargoth]

A Lake on Titan? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4633043.stm)

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/scratchchin.gif

[cj790]

^ good find.

Here's two more interesting things:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4640641.stm

[Sargoth]

Yes, the Cassini-Huygens mission has arguably produced some of the best science of the decade. I can't believe it's been a year already. I remember my Wife and I glued to NASA TV when the first pictures were being described to the press.

[Luminara Skye]

Here's a link if anyone wants to watch Deep Impact tomorrow night...or morning which ever the case may be. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

NASA TV (http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Breaking.html)

[cj790]

^ style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsup.gif

[Master Magnus]

I'm so glad that Deep Impact succeeded.

[cj790]

Great news!

Some very cool pics up on BBC News right now...

[Luminara Skye]

It was spectacular to see! NASA has a lot of pics up.

Deep Impact: A Smashing Success (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main/index.html)

[leiaorgana]

I saw it on the news!!!!

Awsome!

[Sluggo]

Originally posted by Luminara Skye@Jul 4 2005, 08:56 PM
It was spectacular to see! NASA has a lot of pics up.

Deep Impact: A Smashing Success (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main/index.html)
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>


This looks promising for NASA. They should have movie studio cross-promotions more often. They could really save some money. I can't wait for Space Probe: Armageddon.

If they had launched this probe 25 years ago, would the mission been titled Sudden Impact? style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohhlala.gif

[Luminara Skye]

^ style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif When I told my brother about it he asked, "that's that movie with Elijah Wood, isn't it?" I had to back up and clarify! style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/hehe.gif

[Luminara Skye]

The Shuttle is set to launch in just under 4 hours! NASA TV will be airing it online at: NASA TV (http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/main/index.html?skipIntro=1). And I think Discovery Channel is suppose to have coverage.

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

[cj790]

Good luck to the Discovery crew, and NASA!

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsup.gif

[Master Cephus]

Just reported...they are canceling the flight today style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/banghead.gif

[Luminara Skye]

^Yeah, bad sensor on the full tank. It's for the best. They've learned not to push their luck. Maybe tomorrow! style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

[Sluggo]

NASA officials said that the earliest they could launch was by Saturday. They have the whole month of July to launch during this current launch window. The next launch window is in September.

[Luminara Skye]

I was watching NASA TV when they are getting the astronauts all strapped in. They were almost done getting them in there and they announced they were scrubbing the launch. I suppose patience is a good thing to have in that line of work.

[Sluggo]

Just heard they have postponed the launch indefinitely. At least until they figure out what happened to that fuel sensor. If it is a wiring problem, then it is an easy fix. If it is the actual sensor, then they have to roll the shuttle back to the assembly building and detatch the main tank to fix it.

[cj790]

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/banghead.gif

This needs to happen soon - we are just holding ourselves back...
I'm very disappointed.

[Filoviridae]

They've been showing live shuttle footage here:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

[cj790]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4723109.stm

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/banghead.gif

[Talcy]

Do we have yet another planet in the solar system?

Large object found orbiting Sun (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4726733.stm)

For the record, I personally consider Sedna a planet.

[cj790]

I saw that too - very interesting - although the orbit sounds a little too erratic for a planet, doesn't it?

[Talcy]

It could be thought of as strange, but there's another planet, I think it might be Neptune, whose orbit intersects with Pluto and actually goes farther out than Pluto for a time.

[cj790]

True. But then there's debate about whether Pluto should be classed as a planet too.

Personally I think that Pluto is a planet, but objects like Sedna and that other one named after the Hawaiian goddess are too far into the Kuiper Belt region, and too small to be considered planets. I wouldn't be surprised if this new object came from there too, maybe attracted by the gravity of another body early in it's existence.

[cj790]

Wow!
And this is not the same object!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4730061.stm

[cj790]

And something else exciting too - athough not in the same league as a '10th planet':

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4727847.stm

[The Arbiter]

^ That's exciting news.

[cj790]

Damn right it is.
I wonder why so few else think so?

[JediJaina]

I think there's been so much negativity surrounding space exploration that people don't get as excited about stuff like the discovery of a 10th planet. It's very sad.

[cj790]

Yes - just like the focus on NASA's failings recently, without looking at the severe budgetary cutbacks that forced them to tighten their belts without losing their capabilities; now everyone is blaming them for being dangerous because it's easy to be negative about things, and not look at the broader picture.

[Master Magnus]

Originally posted by JediJaina@Aug 1 2005, 07:02 PM
I think there's been so much negativity surrounding space exploration that people don't get as excited about stuff like the discovery of a 10th planet. It's very sad.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

I'm pretty excited, but there's still some debate about it. Since the object (well, planet) could be a Kuiper belt object, not all are willing to accept it as a planet.

[Filoviridae]

I think part of it may be too that people see all this cash being spent on space exploration and wonder if it's really worth it or if it should be put to a different use. Wouldn't it be nice if the only thing we had to worry about in the world is some sort of space race to put someone on a different planet?

[Talcy]

Originally posted by Master Magnus@Aug 1 2005, 05:50 PM
I'm pretty excited, but there's still some debate about it. Since the object (well, planet) could be a Kuiper belt object, not all are willing to accept it as a planet.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

I was under the impression that it was a lot further out than the Kuiper Belt. In any case, scientists always seem to either play it safe and not celebrate too quickly or just don't ever agree on these things.

If it's not part of the Kuiper Belt, then it'll most likely be classified a planet - eventually. But if that happens, it'll provide ammo for the "Pluto Isn't A Planet!" crowd, as it's bigger than Pluto.

[Master Magnus]

Originally posted by Talcy+Aug 2 2005, 11:17 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Talcy @ Aug 2 2005, 11:17 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-Master Magnus@Aug 1 2005, 05:50 PM
I'm pretty excited, but there's still some debate about it. Since the object (well, planet) could be a Kuiper belt object, not all are willing to accept it as a planet.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

I was under the impression that it was a lot further out than the Kuiper Belt. In any case, scientists always seem to either play it safe and not celebrate too quickly or just don't ever agree on these things.

If it's not part of the Kuiper Belt, then it'll most likely be classified a planet - eventually. But if that happens, it'll provide ammo for the "Pluto Isn't A Planet!" crowd, as it's bigger than Pluto.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>
[/b][/quote]
There seems to be some differences between the object and Kuiper Belt objects. The albedo seems to indicate that the surface is covered with methane ice (the same is true for Pluto), something it's believed that Kuiper Belt objects are missing.

[Sargoth]

Godspeed, Discovery. Here's to a safe trip home!

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsup.gif

[cj790]

Let's hope they get better weather tomorrow!

[Tresk Im'nel]

The Discovery has landed safely: style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif

http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2...asa-050809.html (http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/08/09/discovery-nasa-050809.html)

[cj790]

Good job.
Now let's get some more shuttles back up there asap, we shouldn't have to wait another two and a half years to fix this problem with the foam (at least if the administration stopped cutting NASA's budget we wouldn't have to wait so long...).

[Sargoth]

Originally posted by Tresk Im'nel@Aug 9 2005, 06:31 AM
The Discovery has landed safely: style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif



style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif

[leiaorgana]

Woohooo!!! I could see it on the net at work!!! yeay!!! style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happydance.gif

[Master Cephus]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>Now let's get some more shuttles back up there asap, we shouldn't have to wait another two and a half years to fix this problem with the foam (at least if the administration stopped cutting NASA's budget we wouldn't have to wait so long...).[/b][/quote]

I tell you what I would like...

would be the EU space program, the Japenese space program, or even the Chinese Space program to get into a space race with us to get to Mars. I would like for NASA and the other side to actually mean what they say and us get into a space race.

The reason I would like this is because the space program can foster so much innovation, and it will give everyone a reason to jump onboard and support such endeavors. I fully believe that if another "race" was started, then it would leap frog us into getting a man to mars within 10-20 years.

[cj790]

I see where you are coming from but I would prefer a joint endeavour between nations, as with the ISS, rather than nationalism infringing on extra-terrestrial exploration, personally.

More Martian endeavours:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4134300.stm

[Master Cephus]

but the problem with joint ventures seems to be that it's stagnant.

To really get moving, people need to jump aboard...this means the media needs to cover it. It sells alot more when you have a "space race" than a "joint venture"

I agree that it reaks of nationalism, but I don't think there is nothing wrong with that. People root for sports teams all the time...nationalism is the same on a different level.

But I don't think anyone should be jumping on Mars and declaring it US soil, or Chinese soil, but I do want a race to give the program a boost.

[Momin327]

I was so thrilled to see Discovery land this morning. I've been a NASA buff since I saw Apollo 13 ten years ago.

[Master Magnus]

Originally posted by Master Cephus@Aug 9 2005, 07:13 PM
but the problem with joint ventures seems to be that it's stagnant.

To really get moving, people need to jump aboard...this means the media needs to cover it. It sells alot more when you have a "space race" than a "joint venture"

I agree that it reaks of nationalism, but I don't think there is nothing wrong with that. People root for sports teams all the time...nationalism is the same on a different level.

But I don't think anyone should be jumping on Mars and declaring it US soil, or Chinese soil, but I do want a race to give the program a boost.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

I believe it was Arthur C. Clarke (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that once said that "We can't bring our borders into space". That's something that is very true.

Oh, I'm also so glad that Discovery landed safely today (not that I had any doubts it wouldn't).

[James William Alexander Atreides]

Yeah, but the shuttles are outmoded. It's time to get some new tranports and new missions.

[Sargoth]

Originally posted by cj790@Aug 9 2005, 11:02 AM
I see where you are coming from but I would prefer a joint endeavour between nations, as with the ISS, rather than nationalism infringing on extra-terrestrial exploration, personally.


Agreed. Although I also see a lot of benifit to MC's perspective. Competition breeds innovation. Look at what Space Ship One accomplished last year.

While I think the ISS is a tremendous testament to what we can do when we work together, it was the US that had to foot the bill several times to keep Russia on track. A little rivalry between nations can be good. If it weren't for the Cold War, there would probably be no footprints on the moon.

Bottom line for NASA - space exploration needs corporate sponsorship or privatization. I find it truely Ironic that (formerly socialist) Russia can subsidise their missions by having their cosmonauts wear Pizza Hut logos on their space suits, but such commercialization is against NASA regulations for American astronauts. If putting a Nike Swoosh on the side of the Space Shuttle will get us to Mars five years faster, I'm all for it.

[cj790]

^ Agreed.
It's the only realistic way that space exploration will get the necessary funding these days. Competition is all well and good - isn't the old phrase 'neccessity is the mother of invention?' - but with the global climate as it is I can't forsee any real nationalistic cmpetition arising (even if China does decide to try and capitalise on their recent achievements). We might as well be putting Pizza Hut logos on our spaceships now - just as long as corporate flags aren't planted at the same time as 'first steps'...


And I see the Nasa Mars mission I posted about earlier has been delayed by at least a day...

[Cassus Fett]

Originally posted by James William Alexander Atreides@Aug 10 2005, 06:15 AM
Yeah, but the shuttles are outmoded. It's time to get some new tranports and new missions.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>


I agree its about time not just Nasa but the world come together to help in putting more humans into space with more advanced equipment.

Lets face it the shuttles day has come and gone, its time for the next one. I'm sure ive seen somewhere of pictures and discussions about new transports.

[cj790]

But who is going to foot the bill? No-one wants that job.
Without the shuttle it'll be a long time before there is any serious human presence in space style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif

[Master Cephus]

I think as far as "footing the bill" people have to look long term. If you look at the inventions, innovations that sprang from the space program, a company might see that down the road it will pay off in ways not yet dreamed of.

I agree Sargoth, privatization (is always a good thing style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif ) is a good thing for the space program. I have no problem with a pizza hut logo on the space ship that lands on Mars, because bottom line...we landed on Mars!

Private Sector has shown that it can get into space (but they did it for a prize), I just hope that companies could see the potential in it.

[Sargoth]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>We might as well be putting Pizza Hut logos on our spaceships now - just as long as corporate flags aren't planted at the same time as 'first steps'...
[/b][/quote]

Oh, come on. You know a tasty Egg McMartian Value Meal sounds delicious right about now. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rofl.gif


Originally posted by Master Cephus@Aug 10 2005, 06:50 AM
Private Sector has shown that it can get into space (but they did it for a prize), I just hope that companies could see the potential in it.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>


Mark my words, Whoever is the first to successfully mine Asteroids will be set for life after just one trip. Some of the large (and relatively close) asteroids contain more raw iron ore than is mined worldwide in an entire year!! This industry will spawn a new generation of Rockefellers and Carnegies. Any Venture Capatalists in the Senate tonight? style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

[cj790]

Originally posted by Sargoth@Aug 11 2005, 03:29 AM
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>We might as well be putting Pizza Hut logos on our spaceships now - just as long as corporate flags aren't planted at the same time as 'first steps'...


Oh, come on. You know a tasty Egg McMartian Value Meal sounds delicious right about now. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rofl.gif
[/b][/quote]

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif




Looks like the Martian probe is ready to launch today...

[Master Cephus]

I did not know that Sargoth....all I have to do is watch Armageddon (sp?) and take notes, and then make a presentation to some money men!

[Talcy]

Mars Probe Delayed By Another Day (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4134300.stm)

Is that your teeth grinding together I hear, CJ?

[cj790]

Lol

Thankfully... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4134300.stm

[Filoviridae]

Would you buy a ticket into space from this guy?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050810/ap_on_...s/space_tourism (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050810/ap_on_re_us/space_tourism)

[cj790]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4177064.stm

I hope no-one has bought any Moon-plots style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif

[cj790]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4197686.stm

Very intriguing data on Enceladus.

[Luminara Skye]

^Indeed. Odd that it has a warm spot at the pole but is cold at the equater. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/scratchchin.gif

[Cassus Fett]

very odd

[cj790]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4206348.stm

Mars still fascinates me.

[Luminara Skye]

This one is for you, CJ. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif

Mars Rover Crests Hill, Sees New Terrain (http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050829/marsspirit.html)

[cj790]

Cool beans style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif
Many thanks!

[cj790]

Active volcanoes a possibility on Mars...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4219858.stm

[Cassus Fett]

Wow!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>"Mars is a planet that was very recently active - maybe one, or two, or three million years ago"

Dr Gerhard Neukum, Free University[/b][/quote]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>Fresh cones

The cones appear to be fresh with no discernible evidence of cratering. Dr Neukum admitted it was possible the cones could be ancient features that have been eroded by wind, but added that this was unlikely.
[/b][/quote]

Possibility that they might not be active.

[Luminara Skye]

Venus, Jupiter and the Moon are gathering for a beautiful sunset sky show. (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/26aug_sunset.htm)

[cj790]

I'll try looking tonight style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif





http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4226236.stm

[cj790]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4237800.stm

[James]

Originally posted by Luminara Skye@Sep 7 2005, 02:41 PM
Venus, Jupiter and the Moon are gathering for a beautiful sunset sky show. (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/26aug_sunset.htm)
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>


wow wish i could've been there style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/shocked.gif

[cj790]

Man to (hopefully!) go back to the moon before 2020!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4261522.stm

[Master Cephus]

it's exciting...I just hope people will realize just what a worthwile project this could be!

[cj790]

Absolutely!
The pursuit of further knowedge, the exploration of the solar system (and beyond), and the amibtion toward extra-terrestrial colonisation are aims that really stike a chord with me; I believe it is imperitive for humankind to reach out into space (not least because of the rate we are uing up the resources of our own planet, and causing severe damage to it), and really hope that these goals are realised.
We acheive so much more when we stretch ourselves that little bit more.
And no Earth-bound national situation should adversely affect the ambitions and achievements of mankind as a whole.

[cj790]

Strethgening the debate for 'Planet Xena' (good lord, what a terrible name!):


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4304048.stm

[Anguirus111]

I think it's funny.

[Kommandant Felix]

a name after a warrior princess...that's stupid.

[cj790]

At least the discovery is worthwhile though style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

[Sluggo]

Originally posted by Kommandant Felix@Oct 4 2005, 08:23 AM
a name after a warrior princess...that's stupid.
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>


Yeah. Leia is the only warrior princess we need. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/trooperz.gif

[Master Magnus]

Originally posted by cj790@Oct 3 2005, 09:18 PM
Strethgening the debate for 'Planet Xena' (good lord, what a terrible name!):


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4304048.stm
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

It's an unofficial name (as is the name of its moon, Gabrielle).

[cj790]

Although unofficial names ahave a habit of becoming official because of laziness...

[Luminara Skye]

Originally posted by cj790@Oct 3 2005, 02:18 PM
Strethgening the debate for 'Planet Xena' (good lord, what a terrible name!):


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4304048.stm
<div align="right">Quoted post</div>

Yes, that is a terrible name. They say