There may be a lot of them. I think that this is a good example of how little we know about planet formation.
Category Archives: Space Science
The End Of The Aztecs’ Fourth Sun
Was it caused by an impact event in the mid-Atlantic?
Does Earth Have More Than One Moon?
Maybe, but only temporary ones.
The Phobos Mission
Can anything be salved from it, scientifically? Some thoughts from one of the scientists. If we were really a spacefaring nation, we’d have someone on their way to it right now, or soon, to retrieve or fix it.
[Update a while later]
The latest from Emily Lakdawalla. As she says, unless there’s a change in the situation, not much more to report until it comes down, either on its own or with assistance from the ground. I also agree with her that it’s strange that anyone thinks they can predict an entry date at this point.
[Update a few minutes later]
Alan Boyle: “NASA’s Nicholas Johnson tells me @PhobosGrunt isn’t projected to re-enter till next month; too early to be more specific right now.”
That’s right.
Phobos-Grunt
What a name. Anyway, I have an article about it up over at Popular Mechanics.
[Update a while later]
Here’s some more info. According to that piece, it’s dropping in altitude a little over a mile per orbit, but that will accelerate as it gets lower in the coming weeks, if they can’t get it on its way.
[Update a few minutes later]
Emily Lakdawalla has the latest. It’s not looking good, according to sources in Russia.
Thoughts On Cosmology
…and early German movies, from Lileks.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Ain’t it the truth? Dispatches from Venus, and Mars.
A Hypernova?
Eta Carinae could kill us all next year. I hate when that happens:
Mario Livio, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland warns that Eta Carinae could be “seen to explode at any time.” [BBC News]
Esteemed NASA scientist Stefan Immler at the Goddard Space Flight Center thinks Eta Carinae could very well explode in our lifetime, or even in the next few years.
Well, maybe Earth has a little more time, right? Well, maybe not.
Some astrophysicists at the European Space Agency have suggested it’s quite possible, based on observational analysis, that the killer star has already gone hypernova thousands of years ago and the speeding death rays could inundate Earth in as little as a year.
How exciting. Of course, that something is “possible” is not to say that it is likely. The problem with this kind of event is that getting off the planet is no protection, per se, though if we were spacefaring, we could at least have shelters ready, and put out pickets in the outer solar system to give us some warning, since there’s some evidence that gamma rays are subluminal.
Putting the SLS On Hold
…is not “putting human spaceflight on hold.”
The SLS is in fact the antipathy, the nemesis of human spaceflight for NASA.
Frankly, I would cancel both Webb and SLS, and rethink how to do Webb with a bigger launcher, such as Falcon Heavy.
The Telescope That Ate Space Science
I have some thoughts on Webb over at Pajamas Media this morning.
How Would Other Planets Look?
…if they were the same distance from earth as the moon?
Jupiter is pretty scary. Of course, in the case of the gas giants, to first order, we’d be orbiting them, not them orbiting us.