Dark Comets

A couple of UK based astronomers just suggested a rather chilling idea that seems to have found favour with the astronomical community. Bill Napier at Cardiff University and David Asher at the Armagh Observatory have claimed that there could be thousands of dark, dormant comets which we cannot see. With scientific estimates placing the likely number of comets in our solar system at around the 3000 mark, and with only 25 accounted for, the theory seems to be a very real possibility. Various space agencies are engaged in a project to try and monitor potentially threatening comets and asteroids. The group effort is known collectively as Spaceguard and many of the leading figures have agreed there may well be a number of dark comets. Dark comets reflect less light than the bright kind because they have no surface water and absorb sunlight. In fact another scientist, Clark Chapman, from a Research Institute in Colorado has suggested that they could possibly be detected because of the heat they emit.

Orbital Collision Sprays Space Junk Everywhere

For years now, experts have been warning about the danger of collisions with space junk in Earth orbit. There is so much "stuff" rattling around up there, both working and not, that it is almost inevitable that a collision will occur. On Tuesday, the first such major collision happened, between an Iridium communications satellite and a Russian satellite. The collision occurred 490 miles above Siberia, and the resulting bits of broken satellite briefly posed a serious threat to the International Space Station, until it was shifted into a higher orbit. The risk to the ISS is now judged as "very small" by a NASA spokesperson. The American satellite, part of the Iridium Satellite network (used to provide mobile phone service to people who roam outside cell phone networks - for example, to Antarctica), is described as weighing about 1,200 pounds, with a body that was 12 feet long (not counting the various rays and antennas). The Russians have not yet released information about their satellite which was destroyed.

M51 Whirlpool and Friend

This is another of my favorite Hubble images, taken in January of 2005. It's an image of the Whirlpool Galaxy, NGC 1594, better known as M51, and, just to its right, its much smaller companion galaxy, NGC 5195. Sometimes the two galaxies are referred to as M51a and b.Technically, the image to the right is a four-color mosaic, composed of 96 slightly overlapping images taken with four different filters (hence the lovely colors). The Whirlpool galaxy, as its name and image suggests, is a spiral galaxy, like Earth's own Milky Way.

Corot Exo 7b Discovered

A French team of astronomers have recently announced the discovery of a new planet. Spotted by their exo-planet hunter, the Corot Satellite, which was launched back in 2006, the new planet has been dubbed Corot Exo 7b. There have been more than 300 so-called exo-planets discovered in our solar system since 1995 but 7b sticks out because the majority of them are gas giants and it appears to be just 1.75 times the width of Earth and is believed to have a similar mass. Speculators have suggested it may be made of rock or water although it may also be composed of liquid lava. Best not to start booking holidays there just yet since the planet is extremely close to its parent star which would put the temperature on the surface at between 1000 and 1500 degrees Celsius. It also orbits the star once every 20 hours and it is 457 light years away from us. Some experts have suggested that it may have begun life as an ice planet and become a water world as it approached the star and began to heat up. The Corot satellite managed to detect the planet by looking for dimming light as it crossed in front of the star, so they basically saw a small silhouette.

Space Burials

Gene Roddenberry was the creator of Star Trek, one of the finest science fiction inventions ever to capture the public imagination. He died back in 1991 and in 1997 some of his ashes were launched into space by a Houston based company called Celestis who specialise in space burials. His widow, Majel Barrett Roddenberry died recently and she was heavily involved in the franchise, appearing in the pilot episode and in various parts throughout the years most recently as the voice of the computer in the upcoming Star Trek film due to be released this summer. As a fitting tribute to the couple their ashes will be launched into space in 2012. Celestis have conducted a number of space burials and the writer Timothy Leary and Start Trek actor James Doohan were both cremated with their ashes being launched into space to orbit the earth.

Methane on Mars

Mars is conventionally described as a cold, lifeless world that's a giant barren desert, because the surface explorations we've made via Mars Rovers pretty much demonstrate that. But NASA's recently released data about Methane on Mars is providing fodder for excitement, and speculation.

Space Travel: Let Them Eat Silkworms

Science Magazine reports that Chinese researchers have decided that silkworms would be the most optimum food source for space travelers on long-distance voyages. This makes perfect sense, from a logical standpoint. Silkworms produce very little excrement (compared to chickens and cows), and are not very sensitive to disturbances or environmental conditions (unlike fish). Silkworms "breed quickly, require little space and water, and generate only small amounts of excrement, which could serve as fertilizer." The researchers also found that silkworms are surprisingly nutritious - chock full of protein and amino acids.

400th Anniversary of Galileo's Discoveries

2009 is the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's cosmos-destroying observations and discoveries. They include the fact that Venus has phases, that Jupiter has moons, and a number of other observations that helped create modern astronomy and encouraged Galileo to support a solar-centric Copernican view, which, of course, did not make him BFF with the Inquisition, or the Catholic church, who favored the inaccurate but comforting geocentric view, which believed that the sun revolved around the earth.

Space Balloons

NASA's remaining shuttle is nearly 30 years old and scheduled to be retired in 2010. NASA's new spaceship, Orion, won't be ready for launch until 2015, according to the current budget and schedule. NASA is reported to be examining alternatives for maintaining space transport, either moving up the completion date for Orion—an expensive strategy—or else extending the current shuttle program (also expensive, and with every trip the aging shuttle runs a higher risk of accident or disaster.)

NASA's quandary is nothing new. In fact, it brings up the same problem we've been looking at pretty much since our first ventures into space: what's the best way to get there? Putting stuff on a big rocket, fueled with super-test fossil-fuels, and blasting it into space by sheer force has worked pretty well, so far. Except it's expensive, and rockets tend to blow up, since . . . well . . . they're explosive by design.

Lunar Base: Living on the Moon

The idea of a lunar base has long been discussed and first reared its head in science fiction. A lunar base could be used as a research centre, a base for further exploration of our galaxy and as a possible location for advanced astronomical telescopes. However any such undertaking would be massively expensive and scientists are still arguing about how useful such a structure would be. In 1998 a NASA space probe sent to the moon discovered high concentrations of hydrogen in deep polar craters on the moon. Some scientists have suggested that there could be large deposits of lunar ice contained in these craters which remain untouched by the suns rays. There have been suggestions that the ice could help support human life on the moon and perhaps even be split into liquid hydrogen and oxygen to produce rocket propellant.

Pages