SPACE

[benedictw]

If these dustbins can automatically search and dock by themselves, why can't the space shuttle?

30 year old technology, innit. Besides, the I'm pretty sure the Soyuz spacecraft also has automatic docking.

[WiteWulf]

I'm sure the docking computer only cost something like 100C in Elite, surely some of the guys at NASA could club together and buy one?

[axel000]

Astronomers capture first images of new planets

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/11/1 ... index.html

The first-ever pictures of planets outside our solar system were released today in two studies.

Using the latest techniques in space technology, astronomers at NASA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used direct-imaging techniques to capture pictures of four newly discovered planets orbiting stars outside our solar system.

"After all these years, it's amazing to have a picture showing not one but three planets," said physicist Bruce Macintosh of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.

[Darkflame]

This stunning infrared image of Saturn's northern region shows a luminous aurora with the planet's mottled rings below. The aurora appeared in an area that the Hubble Space Telescope can't see, so no one knew it was there until Cassini spotted it recently.

Looks like a massive arc-reactor to me

[axel000]

STS-126 night time launch vid

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2 ... launch.cnn

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

This stunning infrared image of Saturn's northern region shows a luminous aurora with the planet's mottled rings below. The aurora appeared in an area that the Hubble Space Telescope can't see, so no one knew it was there until Cassini spotted it recently.

Looks like a massive arc-reactor to me

It's the Medusa cascade!

[axel000]

from space.com



Burried Glaciers Found on Mars

Mars has vast glaciers hidden under aprons of rocky debris near mid-latitude mountains, a new study confirms, pointing to a new and large potential reservoir of life-supporting water on the planet.

"Altogether, these glaciers almost certainly represent the largest reservoir of water ice on Mars that's not in the polar caps," said John Holt of the University of Texas at Austin and the main author of the study. "Just one of the features we examined is three times larger than the city of Los Angeles and up to one-half-mile thick, and there are many more."

The team used MRO's Shallow Radar instrument to penetrate the rocky debris flows that lie in the Hellas Basin region of Mars' southern hemisphere. They examined the radar echoes to see what lay beneath the surface. All signs pointed to ice, and lots of it.

So there we have it then, an abundant reservoir of fresh water available for colonization, when that day comes (I put a permanent human presence there within 100 years).

Scientists aren't exactly sure during which past ice age the glaciers may have formed, but by counting the number of impact craters in the overlying debris, they estimate them to be about 100 million years old.

Also, ice core sampling could tell us alot about past conditions on Mars, and probably provide the best method yet to find traces of ancient microbial life...

Ancient ice layers in glaciers on Earth preserve the signature of the current atmosphere at the time that they formed. Head thinks the same could be true of the Martian glaciers. In particular, small bubbles that form as the ice layers are deposited could have "samples of the atmosphere at that time," he said.

A lander capable of drilling down several meters could be able to sample the ice in the glaciers.

[Darkflame]

excelent stuff.

[WiteWulf]

Bring on the giant worms and terra-forming

[zip accident]

Via /. how Mars' atmosphere was/is lost.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008 ... smoids.htm

[axel000]

Wow what a week for science and extrasolar planet research.

Carbon dioxide detected on faraway world

Carbon dioxide, a potential fingerprint of life, has been discovered for the first time in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star.

However, the planet, HD 189733b, is too hot to be habitable.

But the discovery nonetheless has scientists excited, because carbon dioxide is one of four chemicals that life can generate, so being able to detect it shows that astronomers have the ability to find the signs of life on other worlds.

"This is the first detection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet, which means that three of the Big Four biomarkers for habitable/inhabited worlds have now been seen: water, methane, and now carbon dioxide," explained Alan Boss, a planet-formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington who was not involved in the finding. "The only one that has not yet been detected is oxygen/ozone."

Boss told SPACE.com that the detections provide "proof of concept" for what astronomers would search for in looking at an Earth-like world. The detection of carbon dioxide, Boss said, was made with a low degree of resolving power, the sort that could be provided by NASA's planned Terrestrial Planet Finder.

Count me impressed, we had the first images of extrasolar planets in the past week, now we have a CO2 detection. Geez at this rate we'll be confirming likely habitable planets in a decade

[zip accident]

Wow what a week for science and extrasolar planet research.

Carbon dioxide detected on faraway world

Carbon dioxide, a potential fingerprint of life, has been discovered for the first time in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star.

However, the planet, HD 189733b, is too hot to be habitable.

But the discovery nonetheless has scientists excited, because carbon dioxide is one of four chemicals that life can generate, so being able to detect it shows that astronomers have the ability to find the signs of life on other worlds.

"This is the first detection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet, which means that three of the Big Four biomarkers for habitable/inhabited worlds have now been seen: water, methane, and now carbon dioxide," explained Alan Boss, a planet-formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington who was not involved in the finding. "The only one that has not yet been detected is oxygen/ozone."

Boss told SPACE.com that the detections provide "proof of concept" for what astronomers would search for in looking at an Earth-like world. The detection of carbon dioxide, Boss said, was made with a low degree of resolving power, the sort that could be provided by NASA's planned Terrestrial Planet Finder.

Count me impressed, we had the first images of extrasolar planets in the past week, now we have a CO2 detection. Geez at this rate we'll be confirming likely habitable planets in a decade

The atmosphere of Venus is mainly CO2, and the probability of life there, or ever having been there, is low. Notice that they say "extra-solar", not "excluding Earth". It's nice that they can detect it, but it probably doesn't mean that much.

Ah, yes , reading again, they say, in your quote, it's one of four, all four of which would be expected before there was any hope of life.

[axel000]

Its just a proof of concept - they can now detect unique chemical signatures of the atmospheres of planets in other solar systems. This is a big step forward in planetary science.

[Darkflame]

Seems overwhelmingly positive to me.

Slowly over the last few decades just about everything supposedly unique or special about earth is turning out not to be.
It wasn't long ago where planets around other stars wernt even accepted as fact.

Its just a question of finding things in combination really.

That said...

[quote=zip accident]all four of which would be expected before there was any hope of life.[/quote]

...as we know it, maybe.
We only have a sample range of one planet at the moment, we have no clue how diverse life can be.

Anything that replicates with potential for change/evolution is life in my book, and I don't think that necessarily has to be oxygen-breathing carbon-based creatures we know.

[zip accident]

Seems overwhelmingly positive to me.

Oh yeah, me too, just seemed a little early to go saying "we've found extra-solar life", which it turned out the article wasn't saying at all.

all four of which would be expected before there was any hope of life.

...as we know it, maybe.
We only have a sample range of one planet at the moment, we have no clue how diverse life can be.

Anything that replicates with potential for change/evolution is life in my book, and I don't think that necessarily has to be oxygen-breathing carbon-based creatures we know.

I thought that at one time, but it turns out that the molecular bonding of carbon is much more flexible and dynamic than that of, say, silicon. Carbon's pretty common, anything else is going to be much less probable.