Deep Space Deets

"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each..."

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:22:35 -0400

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

- John Adams

Now here’s a picture that’ll get you pumped for some...

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:18:00 -0400

Now here’s a picture that’ll get you pumped for some stargazing.

The Hubble team just released this photo of two galaxies called ARP 273 sitting 300 million light years away. You can see they’re each putting some tidal forces on each other and making this beautiful shape that looks a lot like, well, a rose.

Scientists say the companion galaxy at the bottom, known as UGC 1813, likely traveled right through the other one. Talk about a cosmic collision.

Oh, by the way, the same kind of collision is expected to happen between our Milky Way galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy in about 3 to 5 billion years. Let’s hope our end result is also this beautiful.

Sixth planet from the Sun

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 22:37:28 -0400

I don’t know about you, but being the first person to look at Saturn through a telescope seems like a pretty neat claim to fame. Galileo Galilei got that honor 402 years ago, but his telescope was so weak he couldn’t see the gnarly rings. In fact, he thought it was actually three separate planets. Take a look at his drawings – he might as well have been sketching Mickey Mouse.

Today we have much better telescopes, and the advantage of a spacecraft actually orbiting the planet. Seriously, think about that. Just 400 years after Galileo looked at Saturn through a telescope, we sent a machine to fly around the planet! And thanks to the Cassini spacecraft, we have images like the one below that really give you a sense of just how beautiful and amazing the cosmos are.

Our future in the stars

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:06:43 -0400

It was good enough when we got news last week that a few adventurous folks would be teaming up to start mining asteroids. Everybody hopped on the Planetary Resources bandwagon – because, well, everybody loves space.

And then today, some of the world’s best planetary scientists say they’re going to help out one of the contenders for the Google Lunar X PRIZE. Moon Express is convinced there’s plenty of platinum scattered across the Moon because of asteroid impacts. There’s also pretty good evidence that our lunar neighbor has big pockets of water – which could be broken down and used as rocket propellant. They want to be the first ones to get there and dig it all out.

Combine that with the fact that in under a month the first commercial spacecraft is set to dock with the International Space Station and usher in a new age of commercial spaceflight. Virgin Galactic already has more than 500 ticket holders in line for their sub-orbital flights. Dozens of other companies are also making plans to send citizens into space, and there are now ten space agencies across the world with launch capabilities.

And it’s all obvious why space is become a burgeoning industry. It is the next obvious frontier. There’s nowhere else on earth (besides the deep sea) to explore and conquer. Humanity’s future lies in the stars.

"I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this..."

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:34:00 -0400

““I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars.””

- Neil deGrasse Tyson

A belt of asteroids

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:16:24 -0400

Space is big. Really big. Fly out past Mars and before you get to Jupiter you’ll find yourself in an interesting little zone occupied by about 440,000 known asteroids. Some describe it as a ring or belt of asteroids. An asteroid belt, if you will.

This little guy is Eros. Just 21 miles across. Enough to do some damage here on Earth.

But even if you lumped all those rocks together, their mass would only be about 4% of the Moon’s mass. That’s because some are as small as a grain of dust, while others are as big as 590 miles across.

But like I said – space is really big. Even with all those rocks, NASA says the chance of a spacecraft running into one is less than one in a billion. Take that, asteroid belt.