Because It Is There

Ocean Exploration

2009-09-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

In contrast to the excitement of moon exploration and the colonization of outer space, there is less interest in a realm closer to home: the ocean. (Seaquest) Our oceans are less well known than the moon.When will ocean exploration be accessible to more people? When will ocean exploration become tourism? There is so much exploration left to be done, so many canyons, geolocgical strucutres (underwater volcanoes, sinkholes, mountains) and so many species left to discover and understand. There are lots of resources like minerals, energy, underwater forests. New species to be found and geological structures to be understood.

MIR submersibles, for example, can dive to a maximum depth of 6,000 metres (19,685 ft). This makes them two of only seven manned submersibles in the world that can dive beyond 3,000 metres (9,843 ft), the others being the US submersibles Alvin, Sea Cliff and Deepstar 20000, the Japanese owned Shinkai and the French owned Nautile. Up to 98% of the world’s oceans are under 6,000 metres deep.

In the mid 1990s and early 2000s, the MIR vehicles were used by American producer James Cameron to film the wreck of the RMS Titanic, resting at a depth of 3,821 metres, for his 1997 film Titanic and documentaries such as Ghosts of the Abyss, and to film the wreck of the Bismarck, resting at a depth of 4,700 metres, for his 2002 documentary film Expedition: Bismarck. In July 2008 both Mirs initiated a two-year expedition to Lake Baikal, the world's largest freshwater reservoir. The expedition is being led by the Russian Academy of Sciences.[10] During the expedition around 160 descents are planned to the bottom of the lake, which is largely unexplored to this point.

Another interesting research vessel is the RSS James Cook.

John Delaney at the University of Washington: The approach, dubbed the Neptune Project, would string 10 semiautomated geobiological labs across the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate off Washington, 8,000 feet underwater. The approach, dubbed the Neptune Project, would string 10 semiautomated geobiological labs across the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate off Washington, 8,000 feet underwater. Each would have cameras, lights, robots, and sensors, all connected to the surface via optical cable to transmit data on everything from the biomass of microbes to the effects of ocean temperature on weather

Astronomy Applets

2009-08-29T06:37:00.000-07:00

Solar System
Jupiter

Galaxies

2009-06-04T15:47:00.000-07:00

Understanding the motion, shape, structure, density and quantity of galaxies in the universe is the largest scale scientific pursuit of mankind with many questions still remaining.

At the level of the galaxy itself, astronomers have found that stars revolve around the center of galaxies at a constant speed over a wide range of distances from a galaxy's center. This behavior was not expected, assuming a free Newtonian potential. This contradiction has led scientists to speculate on the existence of extra mass called Dark Matter or the need for extra parameters in for Modified Newtonian Dynamics.

Other astronomical models predict that small galaxies in the early Universe evolved into the massive galaxies of today by coalescing. Recent observations by the Hubble Space Telescope have found some of these early galaxies, existing only 100 years after the big bang. Scientists were surprised to see their density so low raising many questions about how the early galaxies must have formed. Three of the galaxies appear to be slightly disrupted – rather than being shaped like rounded blobs, they appear stretched into tadpole-like shapes. This is a sign that they may be interacting and merging with neighbouring galaxies to form larger, cohesive structures. Other observations using wide field telescopes looking back to a time when it was a fifth of its present age have revealed an enormous string of galaxies about 300 million light-years long. This new structure defies current models of how the Universe evolved, which can't explain how a string this big could have formed so early.

Space X Launch

2009-05-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

Space X successfully launched into orbit earlier this year, making it the first private industry to do so. I'm just a little late in reporting this.

Iran's Satellite Completes Mission

2009-03-22T11:46:00.001-07:00

here.

Sout Korea's First Rocket Launch

2009-03-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

here.

Space Elevator

2009-02-24T09:30:00.000-08:00

NASA offers $4M in prizes for bold technology that leads to space elevator.

Steep Terrain Rover

2009-02-06T11:15:00.001-08:00

The Past and Future of NASA

2009-01-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

The transition to a new president marks a new era for NASA and space exploration. While NASA begins to outsource more of its missions to private companies, current NASA projects are threatened due to possibly more urgent matters.

2008-12-03T18:30:00.000-08:00

Ah the sun, giver of light and heat and energy that sustains life on Earth. While the earth-sun system is ideally suited to support life, many other suns are not so fortunate.

What other types of "suns are out there? The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram describes much of the types of stars out there and the probabilities of each type.

A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass (roughly 0.5–10 solar masses) that is in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius immense and the surface temperature low, somewhere from 5,000 K and lower.
A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. As white dwarfs have mass comparable to the Sun's and their volume is comparable to the Earth's, they are very dense
Brown dwarfs are sub-stellar objects with a mass below that necessary to maintain hydrogen-burning nuclear fusion reactions in their cores, as do stars on the main sequence, but which have fully convective surfaces and interiors, with no chemical differentiation by depth. Brown dwarfs occupy the mass range between that of large gas giant planets and the lowest mass stars; this upper limit is between 75[1] and 80 Jupiter masses (MJ).
A neutron star is a type of remnant that can result from the gravitational collapse of a massive star during a Type II, Type Ib or Type Ic supernova event. Such stars are composed almost entirely of neutrons, which are subatomic particles with zero electrical charge and roughly the same mass as protons.
A quasar (contraction of QUASi-stellAR radio source) is an extremely bright and distant active galactic nucleus. They were first identified as being high redshift sources of electromagnetic energy, including radio waves and visible light that were point-like, similar to stars, rather than extended sources similar to galaxies. While there was initially some controversy over the nature of these objects, there is now a scientific consensus that a quasar is a compact halo of matter surrounding the central supermassive black hole of a young galaxy

Enceladus via Cassini

2008-12-01T11:38:00.000-08:00

Good stuff here.

Keck

2008-11-24T21:21:00.001-08:00

Keck Observatory

The Great Observatories

2008-11-24T21:05:00.000-08:00

The Great Observatories Program consists of:

* The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) primarily observes visible light and near-ultraviolet. A 1997 servicing mission added capability in the near-infrared range. It was launched in 1990 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery during mission STS-31.
* The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) primarily observed gamma rays, though it extended into hard x-rays as well. It was launched in 1991 aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis during STS-37. It was deorbited in 2000 after failure of a gyroscope.
* The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO) was initially named the Advanced X-ray Astronomical Facility (AXAF). It primarily observes soft x-rays. It was launched in 1999 aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia during STS-93.
* The Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) was called the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) before launch. It observes the infrared spectrum, and was launched in 2003 aboard a Delta II rocket.

International Activity

2008-10-23T00:41:00.000-07:00

India isn't the only country involved in new space endeavors. The UK is due to continue its upgrade of military satellite communications systems with the launch of a new spacecraft. WHile Israel is poised to launch their own spy satellite, Russia plans to launch their own 13. China plans to build their own space station, aptly named: Project 921-2. Even countries like Nigeria can profit from space exploration. Sadly, Korea lost communication with the country's first multipurpose satellite launched last December.

Mars Lander Detects Falling Snow

2008-10-20T17:12:00.001-07:00

Article found here.

Saturn's Moons

2008-09-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

Mars Soil

2008-09-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

The Pheonix Lander's wet chemistry lab has discovered that Mar's soil is mostly a percholate composed of chlorine and oxygen. This finding neither decreased nor increased the potential for life on Mars but does hint at the reason for the disappearance of water from the planet's surface.

Earlier news watched how quickly exposed patches of white (ice) evaporated:

Hello Mars!

2008-05-26T17:54:00.001-07:00

My favorite picture this year

Pheonix Mars Rover Update

2008-05-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

You can watch live coverage beginning today at 3 p.m. eastern time from NASA TV. The first successful transimssion is expected back at around 5 p.m. Fingers crossed...

Exploring Mars

2008-04-16T07:37:00.000-07:00

Mars has enticed mankind since the dawn of civilization, but we have only recently begun to explore on missions including Viking and Pathfinder. Our most recent mission, Odyssey, which includes the Spirit and Opportunity rovers have had the greatest success in our exploring and aiding our understanding of the planet. However, these rovers face massive new challenges as the perilous third winter approaches and Nasa threatens to cut funding for basic operations.

Europe has been following close behind with the Mars Express orbiter mission and the planned ExoMars mission in 2013. Russia and China likewise have teamed up for a future joint mission.

The next U.S. mission, called Scout, has its first explorer, Phoenix planned to land sometime next month, as its makes small corrections in its trajectory. Following Phoenix, the next rover Scout has been delayed until 2013 from scheduling overlaps.

International Activity

2008-04-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

There has been considerable international buzz in space activity lately. For one the United Kingdon is upgrading its military communications system with the launch of a new spacecraft, the Skynet 5B. Sadly Korea has had its woes with its first multipurpose satellite when communications with it were lost earlier this year. Israel is planning to launch its own spy satellite while Russia plans to launch a whopping 13 satellites over the year. The Chinese are discussing prospects for building another space station. The increase in "outer space market" may even have significant advantages for third world countries like Nigeria.

Two Down, Four More To Go

2008-03-26T18:57:00.000-07:00

The 12 day mission of Endeavor included five spacewalks to install a Japanese laboratory to the ISS, before landing safely back in Florida.

How probable is a planet?

2008-03-13T16:57:00.000-07:00

The question of whether planets are the exception or the rule in the case of each and every star in our universe is fundamental. The Nebular Hyothesis helps explain some recently astonishing discoveries including a five planet system, potential habitable zones and a scaled down version of Jupiter and Saturn. Future research into the existence of planets lies on the shaky ground of TPF, SIM, CoRoT and Darwin. You can follow all of the planet finding activity at this blog.

The Private Satellite Industry

2008-03-08T21:22:00.001-08:00

The last two decades of the private satellite industry tells a rather sad story. After internet and mobile communications boomed in the mid 1990s, it seemed like there was no limit for satellites to provide the services through the S Band. But even the biggest companies: Teledesic, Globalstar and Iridium all faced near bankruptcy following the dotcom crash. Space Systems Loral seems to have fared best in persisting in this unpredictable market.

Earth Satellite Viewer

2008-02-28T10:20:00.001-08:00

This data visualization is really fantastic.