Clipmarks | tabsey's 'space' clips

Faster than the Speed of Light? A New Theory Says, "Yes" -A Galaxy Classic

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:21:42 GMT

clipped by: tabsey

A brilliant young physicist João Magueijo asks the heretical question: What if the speed of light—now accepted as one of the unchanging foundations of modern physics—were not constant?

Magueijo, a 40-year old native of Portugal, puts forth the heretical idea that in the very early days of the universe light traveled faster—an idea that if proven could dethrone Einstein and forever change our understanding of the universe. He is a pioneer of the varying speed of light (VSL) theory of cosmology -an alternative to the more mainstream theory of cosmic inflation- which proposes that the speed of light in the early universe was of 60 orders of magnitude faster than its present value.

Solving the most intractable problems of cosmology in one brilliant leap, Magueijo’s varying-speed-of-light theory (VSL) would have stunning implications for space travel, black holes, time dilation, and string theory—and could help uncover the grand unified theory that ultimately eluded Einstein.

Tags: space

NASA Going to the Sun

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:32:06 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Need to visit the source to be amazed at what they plan.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Our Sun has been the focus of astronomers for many centuries, and humanity for much longer. So for the first time, NASA will be sending a mission, labeled as Solar Probe+ (Solar Probe plus) to study our star.

"We are going to visit a living, breathing star for the first time," says program scientist Lika Guhathakurta of NASA Headquarters. "This is an unexplored region of the solar system and the possibilities for discovery are off the charts."

At its closest approach, Solar Probe+ will be 7 million kilometers from the sun, witnessing the Sun at 23 times wider than what we see it from Earth. The vessel will have to withstand temperatures greater than 1400 degrees Celsius, and suffer radiation bursts that no other Earth vessel has ever encountered.

Tags: space

New Studies Show Microbial Hitchikers Can Survive Millions of Years in Outer Space

Mon, 19 May 2008 14:01:13 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Microbes with interesting stories.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

In a unique experiment on a galactic scale, millions of bacterial spores have been purposely exposed to space, to see how solar radiation affects them and the results supported the idea that not only could life have arrived on Earth on meteorites, but that considerable material has flowed between planets.

Closer to home, scientists have analyzed aerial dust samples collected by Charles Darwin and confirmed that microbes can travel across continents without the need for planes or trains - rather bacteria and fungi hitch-hike by attaching to dust particles. Their results clearly show that diverse microbes, including ascomycetes, and eubacteria can live for centuries and survive intercontinental travel.

In a paper published in Environmental Microbiology, Dr. Anna Gorbushina (Carl-von-Ossietzky University, Oldenburg, Germany), Professor William Broughton (University of Geneva, Switzerland) and their colleagues analyzed dust samples collected by Charles Darwin and others almost 200 years ago.

Tags: space

Coolest Star Ever Detected

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:35:51 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: The photo alone is "cool" enough for a look.

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Ambiguous Star

April 11, 2008 -- A dim, lonely, weakling star with the lowest stellar temperature yet recorded has been found just 40 light-years from Earth.

The brown dwarf star is between 15 and 30 times the mass of Jupiter and has a surface temperature of a mild 660 degrees Fahrenheit (350 Celsius) -- about the surface temperature of the planet Mercury at the equator and much cooler than the surface of Venus.

The spectacularly unspectacular object is of special interest because it falls right smack in the middle of the final frontier that divides mega-planets from the puniest stars. Stars in that realm theoretically qualify as an entirely new stellar type -- what's called a Y class dwarf.

"This would be the last spectral type between stars and planets," said stellar researcher Loic Albert of the Canada France Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii.

Tags: space

Does the Moon have a volcanic surprise in store?

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:07:28 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Spooky

Clip Source: space.newscientist.com

PICTURE the scene. Aristarchus crater on the near side of the moon, 20 July 2019. It's only a few hours since NASA's Altair 2 landing craft touched down and astronauts are walking on the lunar surface for the first time in almost half a century. Suddenly, a large area of the crater floor begins to convulse and a titanic eruption of gas knocks the astronauts off of their feet. They look back to see their landing craft has disappeared in a cloud of dusty debris.

That's what Arlin Crotts fears could happen to the next crew that lands on the moon. Crotts, an astrophysicist and cosmologist at Columbia University in New York, has analysed over 1500 accounts of strange lights on the moon, dubbed transient lunar phenomena. For decades, researchers have argued over whether TLPs are real or merely tricks of the imagination. Now Crotts says he has ...

Tags: space

Boomerang returns, even in space

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:57:38 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Boomerang was made in China.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

In an unprecedented experiment, a Japanese astronaut has thrown a boomerang in space and confirmed it flies back, much like on Earth.

Astronaut Takao Doi "threw a boomerang and saw it come back" during his free time on March 18 at the International Space Station (ISS), a spokeswoman at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.

Mr Doi threw the boomerang after a request from compatriot Yasuhiro Togai, a world boomerang champion.

"I was very surprised and moved to see that it flew the same way it does on Earth," the Mainichi Shimbun daily quoted the 53-year-old astronaut as telling his wife in a chat from space.

The space agency said a videotape of the experiment would likely be released later.

Doi travelled on US shuttle Endeavour on the March 11 blast-off and successfully delivered the first piece of a Japanese laboratory to the ISS.

Tags: space

Google Joins MIT in Search for Earth-like Planets

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 04:51:05 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: You can have my seat.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

"When starships transporting colonists first depart the solar system, they may well be headed toward a TESS-discovered planet as their new home."

George R. Ricker, senior research scientist at the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research at MIT

Google has joined MIT scientists who are designing a satellite-based observatory -the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)- that they say could for the first time provide a sensitive survey of the entire sky to search for earth-like planets outside the solar system that appear to cross in front of bright stars. Google will fund development of the wide-field digital cameras needed for the satellite.

"Decades, or even centuries after the TESS survey is completed, the new planetary systems it discovers will continue to be studied because they are both nearby and bright," says George Ricker, leader of the project.

Tags: space, travel, planets

First Methane Spotted On A Distant Planet

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:26:32 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Might have some of the ingredients but it is way too hot.

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Planet HD 189733b

March 19, 2008 -- Astronomers on Wednesday announced they had detected methane in the atmosphere of a planet 63 light-years away, boosting prospects for identifying any life that exists beyond our solar system.

The team also confirmed previous suspicions that the planet, known by the tag of HD 189733b, has water in its atmosphere.

Reporting their work in the weekly British journal Nature, astronomers from NASA's (JPL) used the orbiting U.S.-European Hubble telescope to get an infrared spectroscopic signature of the planet's atmosphere.

Spectroscopy entails breaking light into its components to reveal the "fingerprints" of chemicals it contains.

They found an unmistakable signature for methane, a molecule of carbon and hydrogen that can in some conditions play a key role in creating the conditions for life.

In this case, life on HD 189733b is almost certainly out of the question.

Tags: space

Want to know where you are? (In space)

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:22:50 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: I thought I was lost.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Tags: space

New Cosmic Theory Unites Dark Forces

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:34:41 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Space certainly keeps theorists busy. Wonder what would happen if they put those wonderful minds to conspiracy theories.

Clip Source: www.space.com

The two biggest mysteries in cosmology may be one. A new theory says that dark matter and dark energy could arise from a single dark fluid that permeates the whole universe. And this could mean Earth-based dark matter searches will come up empty.

Dark matter, as originally hypothesized, is extra hidden mass that astrophysicists calculate is necessary for holding together fast-turning galaxies. The most popular notion is that this matter is made of some yet-to-be-identified particle that has almost no interactions with light or ordinary matter. Yet it seems to be everywhere, acting as a scaffolding for galaxy clusters and the whole structure of the universe.

On the other hand, dark energy is needed to explain the more recently-discovered acceleration of the universe's expansion. It supposedly exists all throughout space, delivering a pressure that counteracts gravity.

Tags: space

Saturn visualising software a 3D thrill

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:58:28 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Looks excellent. Needs windows 2000, which stuffs me.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

You can virtually ride along with the Cassini spacecraft as it explores Saturn and its moons by downloading new NASA software.

Called Cassini at Saturn Interactive Explorer (CASSIE), the program has three different modes that allow the user to get up close and personal with Cassini and the Saturnian system.

The coolest one is called "Mission Overview". This one lets you ride along with the Cassini spacecraft as it weaves and bobs its way around Saturn and its moons. The default setting has you watching the action from a distance, but if you click on the spacecraft button at the top left corner of the screen, you can ride along with the spacecraft itself.

Tags: space

Black hole 'bully' blasts galaxy

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 06:22:58 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Marvellous stuff, this.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A powerful jet of particles from a "supermassive" black hole has been seen blasting a nearby galaxy, according to findings from the US space agency.

Galaxies have been seen colliding before, but it is the first time this form of galactic violence has been witnessed by astronomers.

This could have a profound effect on any planets in the jet's path and could also trigger a burst of star formation.

Tags: space

'Dark energy' may mean the end of the Universe

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 05:15:18 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: And, they believe, a strange, yet-to-be-detected form of energy called dark energy pervades the Universe, which would explain why the sum of all the visible sources of energy fall way short of what should be out there.

Dark energy, goes the thinking, is a result of the Big Bang and is accelerating the Universe's expansion.

If so, the Universe is not in a nice, stable zero-vacuum state but simply another "false vacuum" state that may abruptly decay again - and with cataclysmic consequences.

The energy shift from the decay would destroy everything in the Universe, "wiping the slate clean," says Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Clip Source: www.theage.com.au

This undated image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a ghostly ring of dark matter in a galaxy cluster designated Cl 0024+17.
Photo: Reuters

Astronomers may have unwittingly hastened the end of the Universe by simply looking at it, according to a theory reported in next Saturday's New Scientist magazine.

The novel idea is being aired by two US physicists, who attack the notion that the Universe, believed to have been created in the "Big Bang" some 13.7 billion years ago, will go on, well, forever.

In fact, the poor old cosmos is in a rather delicate state, they say.

Until recently, a common idea was that the energy unleashed in the Big Bang happened when a "false vacuum" - a bubble of high energy with repulsive gravity - broke down into a safe, zero-energy "ordinary" vacuum.

But recent evidence has emerged that places a cosmic question-mark over this cosy thought.

For one thing, cosmologists have discovered that the Universe is still expanding.

Tags: space

Planet discovery boosts alien life hopes

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 07:43:32 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Let's send a few ( no, all) politicians and the top 5% of the rich elite there to see how they would cope. No. Let's just send them there and forget them.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

US scientists announced the discovery of a new planet orbiting a star beyond the solar system, raising further hopes that life may one day be found elsewhere in the universe.

Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena said a fifth planet had been found circling 55 Cancri, a star located 41 light years from Earth in the Cancer constellation.

Geoff Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, said the discovery showed that other solar systems similar to the one in which Earth is located might be discovered in other reaches of outer space.

"This discovery of the first ever quintuple planetary system has me jumping out of my socks," Mr Marcy told a teleconference call.

"The significance is marvellous. We now know that our sun and its family of planets is not unusual.

"It shows that our Milky Way contains billions of planetary systems ... we strongly suspect that many of these planetary systems harbour Earth-like planets."

Tags: space

Evidence of extra-terrestrial life near, says NASA scientist

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 13:03:18 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Do we assail them because they maybe aren't christians or whatever.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

A NASA rocket scientist says new technology may be able to provide a definitive answer to the question of whether there's extra-terrestrial life within our generation.

Dr Jack Bacon says that the strong evidence of microbial life on Mars indicates that Earth is not the only planet capable of sustaining life.

"I am personally convinced that it is abundant and possibly near," he said.

"I doubt that we see U-F-O's flying around our skies, but I believe that within the generation we will probably find very significant evidence of its existence."

Tags: space, religion