The Space Thread

New solar telescope peers deep into the sun to track the origins of space weather: "Scientists at NJIT's Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) have captured the first high-resolution images of the flaring magnetic structures known as solar flux ropes at their point of origin in the Sun's chromosphere. Their research, published today in Nature Communications, provides new insights into the massive eruptions on the Sun's surface responsible for space weather.

Flux ropes are bundles of magnetic fields that together rotate and twist around a common axis, driven by motions in the photosphere, a high-density layer of the Sun's atmosphere below the solar corona and chromosphere. The NJIT images were taken from observations of the newly commissioned 1.6m New Solar Telescope (NST) at BBSO."

Eagle Nebula: The Pillars of Creation revealed in 3-D: "Astronomers have produced the first complete three-dimensional view of the famous Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, Messier 16. The new observations demonstrate how the different dusty pillars of this iconic object are distributed in space and reveal many new details. Intense radiation and stellar winds from the cluster's brilliant stars have sculpted the dusty Pillars of Creation over time and should fully evaporate them in about three million years."

The Dark Matter 'conspiracy': "Surprising gravitational similarities between spiral and elliptical galaxies have been discovered by an international team, including astronomers from Swinburne University of Technology, implying the influence of hidden forces.

In the first such survey to capture large numbers of these galaxies, researchers have mapped out the motions of stars in the outer parts of elliptical galaxies using the world's largest optical telescope at W M Keck Observatory in Hawaii."

Astronomers use space particles to measure electrical field in thunderstorms: "A very large team of European astronomers has found that they were able to measure the degree of electrical activity in thunderstorms using information derived by collisions of space particles with Earth's atmosphere. In their paper published in Physical Review Letters, the researchers describe how they used data obtained over a several year period from an observatory to calculate thunderstorm voltage activity."

Is NASA one step closer to warp drive?: "Potentially good news for those who want to zip around our solar system, and beyond, at speeds approaching that of light — and maybe even faster.

NASA, according to NASASpaceFlight.com, is quietly claiming to have successfully tested a revolutionary new means of space travel that could one day allow for such insane speed, and to have done it in a hard vacuum like that of outer space for the first time."

edited 1st May '15 12:39:39 AM by rmctagg09

There are no words. We need to increase their budget. Seriously, just give them all the money.

Why did Congress cut NASA's funding, again?

Because a warp drive, while cool, does not make any politician's "throw money after it" subject.

Also, I am not sure if NASA got a funding cut recently.

edited 1st May '15 11:12:04 AM by SeptimusHeap

I was referring to the budget cuts following the end of the Space Race with the now "deceased" Soviet Union.

The words "Peace Dividend".

NASA is a popular target for cuts because there's a perception that it's a luxury, and thus expendable.

The fact that scientific and technological advances tend to arise from research that is aimed at simply increasing our understanding of the universe - rather than the development of a new product or service - is usually completely lost on opponents of basic research.

The usual counter-argument is that the private sector can carry out such research, but of course the short-term gains of basic research are very hard to quantify - let alone monetise - so it is very rare for the private sector to actually fund it.

Another problem that NASA has is that people look at their amazing achievements and fail to realise that it's all done on a fairly small budget. NASA constitutes a tiny fraction of the US annual budget, so any gain from a cut would also be small (compared to the larger expenditures like tax subsidies to massive international corporations). People assume that NASA is expensive, so they instinctively want to cut it even though it's cheap.

The most obvious source of profit from space research is asteroid mining, and that's about ten years out at best (that's the estimation a number of private companies have given, but it's probably higher). So, yeah, politicians kind of ignore it all. I disagree strenuously with that point of view, but I understand it.

But if a warp drive gets perfected, then it's a complete game changer. Even if it's not fast enough to open up other systems for exploration, it will make colonization and exploration of this system far easier. There's no ETA on when this technology will be viable, but we're getting there.

edited 1st May '15 3:10:48 PM by Discar

I don't think a warp drive is actually a very profitable thing. What kind of business could it help with?

Mining objects that are very far away, for one. If you can't fund (and reliably profit from) an asteroid mining operation that takes 30 years to get the yield back to Earth you might still be able to profit from an operation that takes 10 years.

...what I just said? We don't know how it would measure up, cost-wise, to current rocket designs, but if absolutely nothing else it would be faster. A moon colony would be more attractive if it's a few hours away instead of days or weeks. The asteroid belt is roughly three years away right now, but even the conservative estimates for warp drives would drop that down to a few months—still a bit on the long side, but short enough for mining. Not to mention just basically not being stuck on one planet.

It's sort of like the difference between a car and a horse. In a lot of ways it looks like just "what we've already got, but faster," but it's actually a complete game-changer.

'ed a little.

Is thirty years the estimate for how long it takes to get to the asteroid belt (or fifteen both ways)? All I've heard was 2.86, so I rounded up.

edited 1st May '15 3:47:58 PM by Discar

The source for my figures was my hat. I was making a general point, rather than referring to any specific thing that exists.

Actually, the main issue with asteroid mining is all the work that is needed to transport things out of gravity wells and through space. Transport times from what I know are subordinate issues, and a warp drive only addresses the transport times, it doesn't absolve one from the work of shifting stuff around.

Of course, once we're out there, we don't have to bother bringing stuff back. As long as the fuel isn't rocket fuel, pretty much anything can be found in more plentiful quantities in space. Set up asteroid colonies and such using the mined materials.

Do we have any word on that? The power source for the warp drive, I mean? If it's just using electricity, then nuclear power would probably be the way to go.

Lava Lake Loki on Jupiter's moon Io, up close: "Io, the innermost of the four moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610 and only slightly bigger than our own moon, is the most geologically active body in our solar system. Hundreds of volcanic areas dot its surface, which is mostly covered with sulfur and sulfur dioxide. The largest of these volcanic features, named Loki after the Norse god often associated with fire and chaos, is a volcanic depression called patera in which the denser lava crust solidifying on top of a lava lake episodically sinks in the lake, yielding a raise in the thermal emission that has been regularly observed from Earth. Loki, only 124 miles in diameter and at least 373 million miles from Earth, was, up until recently, too small to be looked at in detail from any ground-based optical/infrared telescope."

Long-term galactic cosmic ray exposure leads to dementia-like cognitive impairments: "What happens to an astronaut's brain during a mission to Mars? Nothing good. It's besieged by destructive particles that can forever impair cognition, according to a radiation oncology study. Exposure to highly energetic charged particles — much like those found in the galactic cosmic rays that bombard astronauts during extended spaceflights — cause significant damage to the central nervous system, resulting in cognitive impairments."

Nasa’s New Horizons detects surface features, possible polar cap on Pluto: "For the first time, images from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft are revealing bright and dark regions on the surface of faraway Pluto — the primary target of the New Horizons close flyby in mid-July."

New exoplanet too big for its stars: "The Australian discovery of a strange exoplanet orbiting a small cool star 500 light years away is challenging ideas about how planets form.

'We have found a small star, with a giant planet the size of Jupiter, orbiting very closely,' said researcher George Zhou from the Research School of Astrophysics and Astronomy.

'It must have formed further out and migrated in, but our theories can't explain how this happened.'"

Pulsar with widest orbit ever detected: "A team of highly determined high school students discovered a never-before-seen pulsar by painstakingly analyzing data from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT). Further observations by astronomers using the GBT revealed that this pulsar has the widest orbit of any around a neutron star and is part of only a handful of double neutron star systems.

This impressive find will help astronomers better understand how binary neutron star systems form and evolve."

You talking about the proposed NASA Authorization Act? Yeah it will be a big bummer if it passed.

Evidence of briny water on Mars: "Data collected on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover indicate that water, in the form of brine, may exist under certain conditions on the planet's surface."

Astrophysicists offer proof that famous image shows forming planets: "A recent and famous image from deep space marks the first time we've seen a forming planetary system, according to a study by astrophysicists. The team found that circular gaps in a disk of dust and gas swirling around the young star HL Tau are in fact made by forming planets."

Astronomers unveil farthest galaxy, more than 13 billion years in the past: "Astronomers have pushed back the cosmic frontier of galaxy exploration to a time when the universe was only 5 percent of its present age. Age and distance are vitally connected in any discussion of the universe. The light we see from our Sun takes just eight minutes to reach us, while the light from distant galaxies we see via today's advanced telescopes travels for billions of years before it reaches us — so we're seeing what those galaxies looked like billions of years ago."

NASA records mysterious sounds 36 km above Earth's surface: "A NASA high-altitude balloon experiment run by graduate students in the US has captured some unexplained and strangely complex sounds at 36 km (22 miles) above the surface of Earth. Known as atmospheric infrasound, these sound waves dip below frequencies of 20 hertz, which is beyond the range of human hearing."

Geochemical process on Saturn's moon linked to life's origin: "New work from a team including Carnegie's Christopher Glein has revealed the pH of water spewing from a geyser-like plume on Saturn's moon Enceladus. Their findings are an important step toward determining whether life could exist, or could have previously existed, on the sixth planet's sixth-largest moon."

Anyone watch Spacex's pad abort test for the manned Dragon capsule? It went without a hitch and looked pretty awesome!

Hubble finds giant halo around the Andromeda galaxy: "Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the immense halo of gas enveloping the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest massive galactic neighbor, is about six times larger and 1,000 times more massive than previously measured. What does this mean for our own galaxy? Because we live inside the Milky Way, scientists cannot determine whether or not such an equally massive and extended halo exists around our galaxy. It's a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees. If the Milky Way does possess a similarly huge halo, the two galaxies' halos may be nearly touching already and quiescently merging long before the two massive galaxies collide. Hubble observations indicate that the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies will merge to form a giant elliptical galaxy beginning about 4 billion years from now."

Proto super-star cluster discovered: A cosmic 'dinosaur egg' about to hatch: "Astronomers have discovered what may be the first known example of a globular cluster about to be born: an incredibly massive, extremely dense, yet star-free cloud of molecular gas."

Fresh evidence for how water reached Earth found in asteroid debris: "New research strongly suggests that water delivery via asteroids or comets is likely taking place in many other planetary systems, just as it happened on Earth. The quantity of water on Earth is not unique."

Ancient star raises prospects of intelligent life: "Can life survive for billions of years longer than the expected timeline on Earth? As scientists discover older and older solar systems, it's likely that before long we'll find an ancient planet in a habitable zone. Knowing if life is possible on this exoplanet would have immense implications for habitability and the development of ancient life, one researcher says.

In January, a group led by Tiago Campante—an astroseismology or 'starquake' researcher at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom—announced a discovery of five tiny, likely rocky worlds close to an ancient star. The star is named Kepler-444 after NASA's planet-hunting Kepler mission, which first made a tentative discovery."

'Strange signals' from microwave oven puzzled astronomers for decades: "For 17 years, scientists at the Parkes telescope in central-west NSW were perplexed by a mysterious interference they were picking up. The researchers had been detecting signals called perytons 'within 5km' of the observatory since 1998, CSIRO astrophysicist, Simon Johnston, told The Guardian.

Named after a mythological hybrid beast with the wings of a bird and the head of a stag, perytons are short radio signals that last for just a few milliseconds, and are thought to originate from phenomena down on Earth. The ones Parkes picked up, observed just once or twice a year, were assumed to be caused by lightning strikes."

Ancient Mercury had a magnetic field: "In the 1970s, the first spacecraft to Mercury surprised scientists by discovering that the small world sports a global magnetic field, something Venus and Mars both lack. Now, as planetary scientists report online today in Science, the second spacecraft to Mercury has found that this magnetic field formed billions of years ago."

Another link on the warp drive, this one focused more on the EmDrive, which is that reactionless drive that's been under discussion.

edited 7th May '15 3:14:33 PM by Discar