CodeRedR51
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Has been pushed back to 9:00pm EDT.
Space In General
- Thread starter BubbleBelly542
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CodeRedR51
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Dotini
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Yes, there is life on Mars. But can we handle the truth? No, NASA doesn't think so, and hasn't for long, long time.
(CNN)NASA's next mission to Mars will be its most advanced yet. But if scientists discover there was once life -- or there is life -- on the Red Planet, will the public be able to handle such an extraterrestrial concept?
NASA chief scientist Jim Green doesn't think so.
"It will be revolutionary," Green told the Telegraph. "It will start a whole new line of thinking. I don't think we're prepared for the results. We're not."
NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green thinks news of life on Mars is coming soon, and the public isn't prepared to hear it.
The agency's Mars 2020 rover, set to launch next summer, will be the first to collect samples of Martian material to send back to Earth. But if scientists discover biosignatures of life in Mars' crust, the findings could majorly rock astrobiology, said Green, the director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA.
"What happens next is a whole new set of scientific questions," he said. "Is that life like us? How are we related?"
The Mars 2020 rover, along with the European Space Agency's ExoMars rover, will drill into the Martian crust. The surface of the Red Planet is believed to be radioactive, so if there is life on Mars, it likely lives below ground.
"We've never drilled that deep," he told the Telegraph. "When environments get extreme, life moves into the rocks."
The principle's been proven on our home planet: After drilling miles into the Earth, researchers found more life in the Earth's crust than on its surface, he said.
"The bottom line is, where there is water there is life."
And if the agencies' new rovers find proof that water once flowed on Mars, he said, the confirmation could come weeks or months of landing -- so buckle up, space lovers. The realm of possibility might get much wider very soon.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/30/us/nasa-life-on-mars-jim-green-scn-trnd/index.html
(CNN)NASA's next mission to Mars will be its most advanced yet. But if scientists discover there was once life -- or there is life -- on the Red Planet, will the public be able to handle such an extraterrestrial concept?
NASA chief scientist Jim Green doesn't think so.
"It will be revolutionary," Green told the Telegraph. "It will start a whole new line of thinking. I don't think we're prepared for the results. We're not."
NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green thinks news of life on Mars is coming soon, and the public isn't prepared to hear it.
The agency's Mars 2020 rover, set to launch next summer, will be the first to collect samples of Martian material to send back to Earth. But if scientists discover biosignatures of life in Mars' crust, the findings could majorly rock astrobiology, said Green, the director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA.
"What happens next is a whole new set of scientific questions," he said. "Is that life like us? How are we related?"
The Mars 2020 rover, along with the European Space Agency's ExoMars rover, will drill into the Martian crust. The surface of the Red Planet is believed to be radioactive, so if there is life on Mars, it likely lives below ground.
"We've never drilled that deep," he told the Telegraph. "When environments get extreme, life moves into the rocks."
The principle's been proven on our home planet: After drilling miles into the Earth, researchers found more life in the Earth's crust than on its surface, he said.
"The bottom line is, where there is water there is life."
And if the agencies' new rovers find proof that water once flowed on Mars, he said, the confirmation could come weeks or months of landing -- so buckle up, space lovers. The realm of possibility might get much wider very soon.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/30/us/nasa-life-on-mars-jim-green-scn-trnd/index.html
BobK
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Yes, there is life on Mars. But can we handle the truth? No, NASA doesn't think so, and hasn't for long, long time.
(CNN)NASA's next mission to Mars will be its most advanced yet. But if scientists discover there was once life -- or there is life -- on the Red Planet, will the public be able to handle such an extraterrestrial concept?
NASA chief scientist Jim Green doesn't think so.
"It will be revolutionary," Green told the Telegraph. "It will start a whole new line of thinking. I don't think we're prepared for the results. We're not."
NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green thinks news of life on Mars is coming soon, and the public isn't prepared to hear it.
The agency's Mars 2020 rover, set to launch next summer, will be the first to collect samples of Martian material to send back to Earth. But if scientists discover biosignatures of life in Mars' crust, the findings could majorly rock astrobiology, said Green, the director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA.
"What happens next is a whole new set of scientific questions," he said. "Is that life like us? How are we related?"
The Mars 2020 rover, along with the European Space Agency's ExoMars rover, will drill into the Martian crust. The surface of the Red Planet is believed to be radioactive, so if there is life on Mars, it likely lives below ground.
"We've never drilled that deep," he told the Telegraph. "When environments get extreme, life moves into the rocks."
The principle's been proven on our home planet: After drilling miles into the Earth, researchers found more life in the Earth's crust than on its surface, he said.
"The bottom line is, where there is water there is life."
And if the agencies' new rovers find proof that water once flowed on Mars, he said, the confirmation could come weeks or months of landing -- so buckle up, space lovers. The realm of possibility might get much wider very soon.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/30/us/nasa-life-on-mars-jim-green-scn-trnd/index.html
There's an awful lot of "if"s in all that. Sure maybe there is or was life on Mars. But I don't see how we're on the verge of discovering life there. On the verge of discovering if there was water on Mars maybe, but it's still a big step to life.
As for the "can't handle the truth" part, that's pure balderdash. An alleged scientist should know better.
I'll throw this in here anyway though:
Dotini
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There have been some very significant recent discoveries. One is the annual methane cycle, rising in the summer, shrinking in the winter.
I don't think NASA would send a mission to Mars that was specifically designed and funded to confirm life without already believing very strongly the mission would succeed.
Edit:
The 2nd major very recent discovery:
"...the planet’s crust is much more powerfully magnetic than scientists had previously supposed and that there is what appears to be a layer about two and a half miles thick, well below the planet’s surface, which is highly conductive of electricity. Although it’s too early to know for sure, it’s been speculated that the layer in Mars may be composed of liquid water, which would certainly explain its conductivity, and it may even cover the globe."
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2019/09/25/mars-magnetic-water/
https://gizmodo.com/magnetic-field-on-mars-mysteriously-pulses-at-night-na-1838369222
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Dotini
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Today's edition of spaceweather.com has two related articles worth posting.
The 2nd one below notes that on some commercial airline flights, you will receive over 20-70 times the radiation you would receive at sea level.
COSMIC RAYS ARE NEARING A SPACE AGE RECORD: Solar Minimum is underway, and it's a deep one. Sunspot counts suggest it is one of the deepest minima of the past century. The sun's magnetic field has become weak, allowing extra cosmic rays into the solar system. Neutron monitors at the Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory in Oulu, Finland, show that cosmic rays are percentage points away from a Space Age record:
Researchers at the Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory have been monitoring cosmic rays since 1964. When cosmic rays hit Earth's atmosphere, they produce a spray of secondary particles that rain down on Earth's surface. Among these particles are neutrons. Detectors in Oulu count neutrons as a proxy for cosmic rays.
As the top panel shows, cosmic rays naturally wax and wane with the 11-year solar cycle. During Solar Maximum cosmic rays are weak; during Solar Minimum they are strong. The Space Age record for cosmic rays was set in late 2009-early 2010 near the end of a very deep Solar Minimum.
Records, they say, are meant to be broken. As 2019 comes to a close, neutron counts at Oulu are approaching the very high levels seen in 2009-2010. A new record could be just weeks or months away. This is important because excess cosmic rays pose a health hazard to astronauts and polar air travelers, affect the electro-chemistry of Earth's upper atmosphere, and may help trigger lightning.
---------------
E-RAD--short for Empirical RADiation model. We are constantly flying radiation sensors onboard airplanes over the US and and around the world, so far collecting more than 22,000 gps-tagged radiation measurements. Using this unique dataset, we can predict the dosage on any flight over the USA with an error no worse than 15%.
E-RAD lets us do something new: Every day we monitor approximately 1400 flights criss-crossing the 10 busiest routes in the continental USA. Typically, this includes more than 80,000 passengers per day. E-RAD calculates the radiation exposure for every single flight.
The Hot Flights Table is a daily summary of these calculations. It shows the 5 charter flights with the highest dose rates; the 5 commercial flights with the highest dose rates; 5 commercial flights with near-average dose rates; and the 5 commercial flights with the lowest dose rates. Passengers typically experience dose rates that are 20 to 70 times higher than natural radiation at sea level.
To measure radiation on airplanes, we use the same sensors we fly to the stratosphere onboard Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloons: neutron bubble chambers and X-ray/gamma-ray Geiger tubes sensitive to energies between 10 keV and 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.
Column definitions: (1) The flight number; (2) The maximum dose rate during the flight, expressed in units of natural radiation at sea level; (3) The maximum altitude of the plane in feet above sea level; (4) Departure city; (5) Arrival city; (6) Duration of the flight.
SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: Approximately once a week, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus fly space weather balloons to the stratosphere over California. These balloons are equipped with radiation sensors that detect cosmic rays, a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in the general population. Our latest measurements show that cosmic rays are intensifying, with an increase of more than 18% since 2015:
The data points in the graph above correspond to the peak of the Reneger-Pfotzer maximum, which lies about 67,000 feet above central California. When cosmic rays crash into Earth's atmosphere, they produce a spray of secondary particles that is most intense at the entrance to the stratosphere. Physicists Eric Reneger and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.
En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes:
In this plot, dose rates are expessed as multiples of sea level. For instance, we see that boarding a plane that flies at 25,000 feet exposes passengers to dose rates ~10x higher than sea level. At 40,000 feet, the multiplier is closer to 50x.
The radiation sensors onboard our helium balloons detect X-rays and gamma-rays in the energy range 10 keV to 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.
Why are cosmic rays intensifying? The main reason is the sun. Solar storm clouds such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays when they pass by Earth. During Solar Maximum, CMEs are abundant and cosmic rays are held at bay. Now, however, the solar cycle is swinging toward Solar Minimum, allowing cosmic rays to return. Another reason could be the weakening of Earth's magnetic field, which helps protect us from deep-space radiation.
The 2nd one below notes that on some commercial airline flights, you will receive over 20-70 times the radiation you would receive at sea level.
COSMIC RAYS ARE NEARING A SPACE AGE RECORD: Solar Minimum is underway, and it's a deep one. Sunspot counts suggest it is one of the deepest minima of the past century. The sun's magnetic field has become weak, allowing extra cosmic rays into the solar system. Neutron monitors at the Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory in Oulu, Finland, show that cosmic rays are percentage points away from a Space Age record:
Researchers at the Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory have been monitoring cosmic rays since 1964. When cosmic rays hit Earth's atmosphere, they produce a spray of secondary particles that rain down on Earth's surface. Among these particles are neutrons. Detectors in Oulu count neutrons as a proxy for cosmic rays.
As the top panel shows, cosmic rays naturally wax and wane with the 11-year solar cycle. During Solar Maximum cosmic rays are weak; during Solar Minimum they are strong. The Space Age record for cosmic rays was set in late 2009-early 2010 near the end of a very deep Solar Minimum.
Records, they say, are meant to be broken. As 2019 comes to a close, neutron counts at Oulu are approaching the very high levels seen in 2009-2010. A new record could be just weeks or months away. This is important because excess cosmic rays pose a health hazard to astronauts and polar air travelers, affect the electro-chemistry of Earth's upper atmosphere, and may help trigger lightning.
---------------
E-RAD--short for Empirical RADiation model. We are constantly flying radiation sensors onboard airplanes over the US and and around the world, so far collecting more than 22,000 gps-tagged radiation measurements. Using this unique dataset, we can predict the dosage on any flight over the USA with an error no worse than 15%.
E-RAD lets us do something new: Every day we monitor approximately 1400 flights criss-crossing the 10 busiest routes in the continental USA. Typically, this includes more than 80,000 passengers per day. E-RAD calculates the radiation exposure for every single flight.
The Hot Flights Table is a daily summary of these calculations. It shows the 5 charter flights with the highest dose rates; the 5 commercial flights with the highest dose rates; 5 commercial flights with near-average dose rates; and the 5 commercial flights with the lowest dose rates. Passengers typically experience dose rates that are 20 to 70 times higher than natural radiation at sea level.
To measure radiation on airplanes, we use the same sensors we fly to the stratosphere onboard Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloons: neutron bubble chambers and X-ray/gamma-ray Geiger tubes sensitive to energies between 10 keV and 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.
Column definitions: (1) The flight number; (2) The maximum dose rate during the flight, expressed in units of natural radiation at sea level; (3) The maximum altitude of the plane in feet above sea level; (4) Departure city; (5) Arrival city; (6) Duration of the flight.
SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: Approximately once a week, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus fly space weather balloons to the stratosphere over California. These balloons are equipped with radiation sensors that detect cosmic rays, a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in the general population. Our latest measurements show that cosmic rays are intensifying, with an increase of more than 18% since 2015:
The data points in the graph above correspond to the peak of the Reneger-Pfotzer maximum, which lies about 67,000 feet above central California. When cosmic rays crash into Earth's atmosphere, they produce a spray of secondary particles that is most intense at the entrance to the stratosphere. Physicists Eric Reneger and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.
En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes:
In this plot, dose rates are expessed as multiples of sea level. For instance, we see that boarding a plane that flies at 25,000 feet exposes passengers to dose rates ~10x higher than sea level. At 40,000 feet, the multiplier is closer to 50x.
The radiation sensors onboard our helium balloons detect X-rays and gamma-rays in the energy range 10 keV to 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.
Why are cosmic rays intensifying? The main reason is the sun. Solar storm clouds such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays when they pass by Earth. During Solar Maximum, CMEs are abundant and cosmic rays are held at bay. Now, however, the solar cycle is swinging toward Solar Minimum, allowing cosmic rays to return. Another reason could be the weakening of Earth's magnetic field, which helps protect us from deep-space radiation.
Dotini
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From today's edition of Spaceweather.com:
CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH A GIGANTIC JET: When you see lightning, run! That’s what NOAA advises in lightning safety brochures. On Oct. 15th, however, pilot Chris Holmes had no place to go when lightning started to crackle in thunderstorms around his aircraft.
"I was flying 35,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico near the Yucatan Peninsula when a super cell started pulsing with light," he says. "It wasn't just ordinary lightning, though. The cell was creating lots of sprites and jets leaping up from the thunderhead." At a distance of only 35 miles, he video-recorded this:
"It was the most amazing thing I've seen in my aviation career," he says.
Holmes had a close encounter with a Gigantic Jet. Sometimes called "Earth’s tallest lightning," because they reach all the way to the ionosphere ~50 miles high, the towering forms were discovered near Taiwan and Puerto Rico in 2001-2002. Since then, only dozens of Gigantic Jets have been photographed. In previous images taken by cameras on the ground, it's almost always impossible to see the base of the jet over the edge of the thundercloud. That’s why Holmes’s video is special. He was filming above the storm at practically point-blank range.
"His clip shows very nicely the top of the cloud where the jet emerges, which is usually hidden from view," says Oscar van der Velde of the Lightning Research Group at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya who examined the footage. "I split the video into individual frames so we can see exactly what happens."
Van der Velde’s deconstruction reveals the order of events: “First, relatively cool blue filaments spring up. These are streamers akin to Saint Elmo’s Fire,” he explains. “Next, after the Jet reaches its maximum height, another feature crawls more slowly out of the cloudtop–a white-hot ‘lightning leader.'”
Turns out, this is a bit of a surprise. For years, some researchers thought that Gigantic Jets could reach such extreme heights only if their streamers got a boost from the lightning leader. Holmes’s video shows just the opposite: The Gigantic Jet reaches the ionosphere before the lightning leader even leaves the cloud.
“This suggests that there may be a much more powerful electric configuration inside the thunderstorm than was previously thought–perhaps as much as 200 million volts," says van der Velde.
It just goes to show, we still have a lot to learn about Gigantic Jets.
CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH A GIGANTIC JET: When you see lightning, run! That’s what NOAA advises in lightning safety brochures. On Oct. 15th, however, pilot Chris Holmes had no place to go when lightning started to crackle in thunderstorms around his aircraft.
"I was flying 35,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico near the Yucatan Peninsula when a super cell started pulsing with light," he says. "It wasn't just ordinary lightning, though. The cell was creating lots of sprites and jets leaping up from the thunderhead." At a distance of only 35 miles, he video-recorded this:
"It was the most amazing thing I've seen in my aviation career," he says.
Holmes had a close encounter with a Gigantic Jet. Sometimes called "Earth’s tallest lightning," because they reach all the way to the ionosphere ~50 miles high, the towering forms were discovered near Taiwan and Puerto Rico in 2001-2002. Since then, only dozens of Gigantic Jets have been photographed. In previous images taken by cameras on the ground, it's almost always impossible to see the base of the jet over the edge of the thundercloud. That’s why Holmes’s video is special. He was filming above the storm at practically point-blank range.
"His clip shows very nicely the top of the cloud where the jet emerges, which is usually hidden from view," says Oscar van der Velde of the Lightning Research Group at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya who examined the footage. "I split the video into individual frames so we can see exactly what happens."
Van der Velde’s deconstruction reveals the order of events: “First, relatively cool blue filaments spring up. These are streamers akin to Saint Elmo’s Fire,” he explains. “Next, after the Jet reaches its maximum height, another feature crawls more slowly out of the cloudtop–a white-hot ‘lightning leader.'”
Turns out, this is a bit of a surprise. For years, some researchers thought that Gigantic Jets could reach such extreme heights only if their streamers got a boost from the lightning leader. Holmes’s video shows just the opposite: The Gigantic Jet reaches the ionosphere before the lightning leader even leaves the cloud.
“This suggests that there may be a much more powerful electric configuration inside the thunderstorm than was previously thought–perhaps as much as 200 million volts," says van der Velde.
It just goes to show, we still have a lot to learn about Gigantic Jets.
Danoff
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This is cool. Space-plane lands on runway after 2 years of orbiting.
https://www.space.com/x-37b-space-plane-otv5-lands-after-780-days.html
https://www.space.com/x-37b-space-plane-otv5-lands-after-780-days.html
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- Rallywgn81
I am really not sure that anything short of aliens landing in central park in view of everybody is going to have any sort of immidiate impact on society. Definitely not something bacteria like found on in a dusty rock on Mars. I agree with Bob, that hyperbole Green was spewing is quite unbecoming.Yes, there is life on Mars. But can we handle the truth? No, NASA doesn't think so, and hasn't for long, long time.
(CNN)NASA's next mission to Mars will be its most advanced yet. But if scientists discover there was once life -- or there is life -- on the Red Planet, will the public be able to handle such an extraterrestrial concept?
NASA chief scientist Jim Green doesn't think so.
"It will be revolutionary," Green told the Telegraph. "It will start a whole new line of thinking. I don't think we're prepared for the results. We're not."
NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green thinks news of life on Mars is coming soon, and the public isn't prepared to hear it.
The agency's Mars 2020 rover, set to launch next summer, will be the first to collect samples of Martian material to send back to Earth. But if scientists discover biosignatures of life in Mars' crust, the findings could majorly rock astrobiology, said Green, the director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA.
"What happens next is a whole new set of scientific questions," he said. "Is that life like us? How are we related?"
The Mars 2020 rover, along with the European Space Agency's ExoMars rover, will drill into the Martian crust. The surface of the Red Planet is believed to be radioactive, so if there is life on Mars, it likely lives below ground.
"We've never drilled that deep," he told the Telegraph. "When environments get extreme, life moves into the rocks."
The principle's been proven on our home planet: After drilling miles into the Earth, researchers found more life in the Earth's crust than on its surface, he said.
"The bottom line is, where there is water there is life."
And if the agencies' new rovers find proof that water once flowed on Mars, he said, the confirmation could come weeks or months of landing -- so buckle up, space lovers. The realm of possibility might get much wider very soon.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/30/us/nasa-life-on-mars-jim-green-scn-trnd/index.html
CodeRedR51
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Starship Mk1 (lower half) has been moved to the launch site and is about to be put on the launch platform.
Dotini
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I have been following the Voyager mission for quite a long time. Launched 42 years ago, they are still working and have left the solar system for interstellar space. In the last few years, some amazing data has come in. This vid does a nice job in summarizing the findings.
- There is an actual barrier between our solar system and interstellar space.
- Radiation from cosmic rays is much higher, the heliosheath shielding out about 70% of them.
- The magnetic field of interstellar space is oriented (north/south) the same way.
- The magnetic field out there is many times stronger.
- The size and strength of the heliosphere seems related to our 11 year solar cycles.
- The plasma density ranges under ~0.005 within the heliosphere, but surprisingly above 0.1 outside it.
- The temperature of the plasma outside the heliosheath increased most surprisingly to 30,000-50,000 Kelvin.
- There is an actual barrier between our solar system and interstellar space.
- Radiation from cosmic rays is much higher, the heliosheath shielding out about 70% of them.
- The magnetic field of interstellar space is oriented (north/south) the same way.
- The magnetic field out there is many times stronger.
- The size and strength of the heliosphere seems related to our 11 year solar cycles.
- The plasma density ranges under ~0.005 within the heliosphere, but surprisingly above 0.1 outside it.
- The temperature of the plasma outside the heliosheath increased most surprisingly to 30,000-50,000 Kelvin.
- 23,439
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I wonder if he was implying it in a religious context without actually stating it that way. If any potential basic life shares DNA with that found on earth, then it has great implications in contradicting religious creation texts.
Dotini
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We may be drifting off topic here. But I agree with your thought. In my opinion, the basic structure of the DNA molecule to be found on Mars will be the same as on Earth, merely coded a bit differently. It will have major implications for astrobiology, evolution theory, and religion. The ancient texts will be rewritten, to be sure.
https://gizmodo.com/would-finding-life-on-mars-really-change-anything-1838667771
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Sounds about right...
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I certainly feel the same about the context of what Green was saying. I just dont think finding simple life on a different planet is really going to have any implications, societal or religious, that's going to cause a big kerfuffle. Microbiology and space scientists are going to have a field day, religious scholars maybe sweat a bit. But at the end of the day, the public at large aren't going to lose their collective $#!&'s. No pandemonium, no riots in the streets, just another blip on the 24 hour news cycle map. Maybe a week or two of coverage and updates and life will go on.
CodeRedR51
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Some updates:
SpaceX just put the first 60 Starlink satellites into orbit and the next 60 are scheduled to go up in the next 2-3 weeks. Followed closely by the in-flight abort sometime in December. The capsule they will use for that abort test was static fired this week.
Side note: the booster used for the Starlink launch landed safely on the drone ship out in the Atlantic, and this was it's 4th launch/landing, a new record. The fairings used were also recovered previously and this was their second flight. An attempt to catch them again was scrubbed due to rough seas.
Also, Rocket Lab's 10th mission coming up around the 25th of this month is the first time one of their boosters will be equipped with hardware for future recover efforts. (guidance and navigation hardware + reaction control system for atmosphere re-entry) Exciting times ahead.
SpaceX just put the first 60 Starlink satellites into orbit and the next 60 are scheduled to go up in the next 2-3 weeks. Followed closely by the in-flight abort sometime in December. The capsule they will use for that abort test was static fired this week.
Side note: the booster used for the Starlink launch landed safely on the drone ship out in the Atlantic, and this was it's 4th launch/landing, a new record. The fairings used were also recovered previously and this was their second flight. An attempt to catch them again was scrubbed due to rough seas.
Also, Rocket Lab's 10th mission coming up around the 25th of this month is the first time one of their boosters will be equipped with hardware for future recover efforts. (guidance and navigation hardware + reaction control system for atmosphere re-entry) Exciting times ahead.
CodeRedR51
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This hasn't gone well...
But that's why we test. It will not be rebuilt, they will move on to the next iteration.
But that's why we test. It will not be rebuilt, they will move on to the next iteration.
CodeRedR51
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^^^ Small update on that. The Boca Chica TX location will move forward with construction of the Mk3 Starship ASAP. The Florida location that was also building a Starship is actually on hold at the moment because they are moving to a different location closer to the cape.
For now, the CRS-19 ISS cargo launch is tomorrow (Wednesday) at 12:51pm EST. We should also see the in-flight abort test before the end of the month, as well as another Starlink launch.
For now, the CRS-19 ISS cargo launch is tomorrow (Wednesday) at 12:51pm EST. We should also see the in-flight abort test before the end of the month, as well as another Starlink launch.
CodeRedR51
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Scrubbed for today due to high upper level winds. Trying again tomorrow at 12:29pm EST.
CodeRedR51
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Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 2 is officially open for business.
CodeRedR51
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SpaceX launch tonight, 7:10pm EST. Booster has been flown twice before and will be recovered again along with both fairing halves. The recovery boats are in position and waiting.
CodeRedR51
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Mission mostly a success. Fairing catching boats were unable to complete their mission.
CodeRedR51
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Dotini
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At least one astronomer say probably not. Not a supernova.
An interesting related topic are recurrent novae, in which stars go nova on a cycle of even just a few years - not exploding entirely.
There is some (not much) evidence to suggest that our own Sun may undergo a sort of micro-nova on a cyclical basis.
https://www.pnas.org/content/105/18/6520
Edit:
Three nearby stars could go supernova. None is said to pose much threat beyond being able to read a book at night.
There are a handful of stars much closer than Betelgeuse which are know to superflare or micro nova which potentially could cause problems on Earth.
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I wouldn't trust SuspiciousObservers. He's... suspicious. Creates his own words like "micro-nova", "electroquakes", "climate forcing" and "Earthspots".
He also has his own theory about space weather and denies the existence of dark matter.
He's basically a pseudoscientist.
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CodeRedR51
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Might have one hell of a week coming up for SpaceX. Starlink satellite launch scheduled for Monday the 6th at 9:19pm EST. Weather is currently 90% GO. Then the in-flight abort test is currently scheduled for Saturday the 11th. No confirmation on that one at the moment.
Dotini
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From today's edition of speaceweather.com,
ELECTRICITY SURGES THROUGH THE SOIL OF NORWAY: Yesterday, Jan. 6th, something unexpected happened in the soil of northern Norway. "Electrical currents started flowing," reports Rob Stammes, who monitors ground currents at the Polarlightcenter geophysical observatory in Lofoten. This chart recording shows the sudden surge around 1930 UT:
"It seemed to be some kind of shockwave," says Stammes. "My instruments detected a sudden, strong variation in both ground currents and our local magnetic field. It really was a surprise."
NASA's ACE spacecraft detected something as well. About 15 minutes before the disturbance in Norway, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) near Earth abruptly swung around 180 degrees, and the solar wind density jumped more than 5-fold. Earth may have crossed through a fold in the heliospheric current sheet--a giant, wavy membrane of electrical current rippling through the solar system. Such crossings can cause these kind of effects.
While currents flowed through the ground, auroras filled the sky. Rayann Elzein photographed the corresponding outburst of lights from Utsjoki, Finland:
"What a surprise!" says Elzein. "The auroras were sudden and dynamic, with fast-moving green needles and several purple fringes!"
The auroras and ground currents were caused by the same thing: Rapidly changing magnetic fields. High above Earth's surface, magnetic vibrations shook loose energetic particles, which rained down on the upper atmosphere, creating auroras where they struck. Just below Earth's surface, magnetic vibrations caused currents to flow, triggering Rob Stammes' ground sensors.
"We couldn't see the auroras in northern Norway because of cloud cover," says Stammes, a little ruefully. "We had to be satisfied with the electricity underfoot."
ELECTRICITY SURGES THROUGH THE SOIL OF NORWAY: Yesterday, Jan. 6th, something unexpected happened in the soil of northern Norway. "Electrical currents started flowing," reports Rob Stammes, who monitors ground currents at the Polarlightcenter geophysical observatory in Lofoten. This chart recording shows the sudden surge around 1930 UT:
"It seemed to be some kind of shockwave," says Stammes. "My instruments detected a sudden, strong variation in both ground currents and our local magnetic field. It really was a surprise."
NASA's ACE spacecraft detected something as well. About 15 minutes before the disturbance in Norway, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) near Earth abruptly swung around 180 degrees, and the solar wind density jumped more than 5-fold. Earth may have crossed through a fold in the heliospheric current sheet--a giant, wavy membrane of electrical current rippling through the solar system. Such crossings can cause these kind of effects.
While currents flowed through the ground, auroras filled the sky. Rayann Elzein photographed the corresponding outburst of lights from Utsjoki, Finland:
"What a surprise!" says Elzein. "The auroras were sudden and dynamic, with fast-moving green needles and several purple fringes!"
The auroras and ground currents were caused by the same thing: Rapidly changing magnetic fields. High above Earth's surface, magnetic vibrations shook loose energetic particles, which rained down on the upper atmosphere, creating auroras where they struck. Just below Earth's surface, magnetic vibrations caused currents to flow, triggering Rob Stammes' ground sensors.
"We couldn't see the auroras in northern Norway because of cloud cover," says Stammes, a little ruefully. "We had to be satisfied with the electricity underfoot."
CodeRedR51
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