Tag Archives: solar system

national news, science news

Life imitates art?

Life is imitating art at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which could be a very good thing for Planet Earth if the need ever arises to do this again … for real.

I mean, they’ve made movies about this stuff!

NASA crashed a DART rocket into a 500-foot-diameter asteroid millions of miles from Earth last night. As NASA administrator Bill Nelson noted, for a small spacecraft to hit such a small target so far away, well, that’s “pretty good shootin’.”

NASA crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid – photos show the last moments of the successful DART mission (yahoo.com)

Indeed, NASA wanted to hit the rock to test its ability to fend off a potentially cataclysmic collision if they ever detect a large asteroid heading straight for Earth. The mission was successful. It might have been the first time in space agency history when folks cheered the instant they lost telemetry from a spacecraft.

The spacecraft hit the asteroid traveling at a speed of 14,000 mph.

Now comes the question: Will NASA be able to develop a large enough space vehicle to knock an asteroid off a collision course with Earth in time to avoid Doomsday? 

Get busy, NASA.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

science news

No doubt about it: There’s life out there — somewhere

It can be said of many retired people that we have too much time on our hands and too much time to fill our heads with goofy thoughts.

So, when NASA announced the demise of the Mars rover Opportunity the other day, I was filled with just a touch of sadness, but also with gratitude that the 90-day mission lasted 15 years and that NASA was able to collect mountains of data from the Red Planet.

My wife joked that Opportunity didn’t spot any “little green men” traipsing around the Martian surface..

Then I began thinking as I’ve done my entire life. I believe with every fiber of my being that there is life “out there, somewhere, deep in the void.”

I know what the Bible says about God creating humankind in his image. And I believe those words. I also believe the Great Creator was capable of placing life well beyond little ol’ Earth, an insignificant speck in the vast expanse of space.

I cannot even begin to grasp the size of the universe. I mean, “forever” is, well, a distance that none of us can fathom. I’ll just leave it at that.

Therefore, my limited understanding of statistical probabilities tells me that somewhere out there — way, way beyond anything we’ve ever laid eyes on — there must be a planet orbiting a star that has atmospheric conditions capable of sustaining life.

What does it look like? Beats me. Would that life necessarily be oxygen/nitrogen breathing life? Not necessarily. Does that life necessarily mean it is more advanced than we are? No. It might be mere vegetation. Or some sort of creature we cannot define.

Has this life visited Earth? I don’t believe for one second that we have been seen up close by any extraterrestrials.

Opportunity bit the Martian dust after fulfilling its mission far beyond what scientists had hoped it would accomplish. It didn’t see anything. Just remember: Even a journey of tens of millions of miles into “deep space” hardly constitutes a journey that covers the expanse of our universe.

Look at this way: How many grains of beach sand would it take to fill the oceans? Yep, it’s likely even bigger than that out there!

science news

Opportunity declared dead; mission more than accomplished

That had to be the longest 90 days in human history.

A machine that landed on Mars 15 years ago was intended to be on duty for three months. Then the rover named “Opportunity” just kept on collecting data.

Yes, for 15 years the rover traipsed across the Martian surface sending data back to NASA scientists who had launched the ship.

Opportunity went silent eight months ago. NASA tried for most of the past year trying to awaken the rover. It was unable to do so.

This week, NASA “called it,” declaring Opportunity officially dead. The space agency won’t try any more to resuscitate the machine.

Mission accomplished, Opportunity

I have to say that as much as I love the notion of human beings traveling into space, I am mighty impressed with the work being done these unmanned probes that NASA launches.

They fly into the sun, they orbit Venus and Mercury, they fly to the farthest reaches of our solar system, probing Jupiter and Saturn, the asteroid belt. They send back amazing data and make incredible discoveries — such as evidence of water on Mars!

Opportunity performed its mission . . . and then some!

All that said, I hope I am still around to watch the first human beings thrown off from Earth and toward Mars.

That, I believe, would be a seriously “giant leap for mankind.”

national news

We are not alone … are we?

I answered one of those online, totally unscientific “polls” that asks if we believe there is extraterrestrial life out there. I said “yes.”

Then I learned that 64 percent of respondents answered the same way. Good. I am not the only one.

Nor are we the only living beings inhabiting the universe. In my view, at least.

I heard the other day that scientists monitoring an orbiting telescope believe they believe they have found evidence of a star way out yonder that has planets orbiting it. I believe they counted possibly eight planets. What they have found, allegedly, is another solar system — similar to ours.

What does it mean?

I haven’t a clue, other than it might affirm what I’ve believed since I was boy, which is that it is a virtual statistical certainty that — given the infinite size of the universe — that there must be some form of life out there that might rival little ol’ Earth’s life forms.

This does not mean any of these beings have called on Earth. I don’t believe in the notion that the government found evidence of ETs landing at Roswell and have covered it up for however long ago it allegedly occurred.

Do I believe the universe contains life other than what was created here on Earth? Sure. Why disbelieve something only because we haven’t seen it for ourselves?

As for whether there is life as “intelligent” as what has evolved on this planet, I am not holding my breath that humankind ever will know with absolute certainty.

It’s a long, long, long way to infinity, folks. Just as it is impossible for us to get there, it’s equally impossible for “them” to get here.

But … they’re out there. I believe it. So should you.

Uncategorized

Give planet status back to Pluto!

pluto

My friend Dan has it right.

Pluto deserves planet status. None of this dwarf planet nonsense.

The picture here is taken from a spacecraft that any day now is going to zoom right past the ninth planet in our solar system.

It’s small. It’s cold — as in, well, beyond frigid! It doesn’t have life, that we know of.

Astronomers demoted Pluto some years back. They called it a dwarf planet.

But it has five moons orbiting it. How many does Earth have? Just one. We’re a planet, though. Pluto is a dwarf.

We’re about to get an up-close-and-personal look at Pluto.

I echo my friend: Return it to planet status! As Dan says: “Don’t listen to those astrologers! Pluto is real!”

 

Uncategorized

Umm, heads up: Earth revolves around the sun

Nicolaus Copernicus is spinning in his grave.

This is not a matter of “may be spinning.” I’m convinced he’s actually doing it. Surely, wherever he is, the Renaissance mathematician and astronomer has heard the latest from National Public Radio, which is that 26 percent of Americans believe the sun revolves around Earth.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/14/277058739/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-survey-says

The National Science Foundation conducted a survey and discovered what — I believe at least — to be a shocking lack of knowledge about one of the basic foundations of our world.

Copernicus formulated the theory about Earth’s role in the solar system, dispelling what had been common “knowledge” for many previous centuries. The ancient Greeks — who had their own cadre of scientists and mathematicians — had thought the sun circled Earth. Along came the Romans, who bought into the Greeks’ notion of our solar system.

The Dark Ages settled in after the fall of the Roman Empire. Then came the Renaissance and the emergence of the likes of Copernicus, who hailed from what we know now as Poland.

It is utterly amazing that six centuries later, after Copernicus’s theory has been so well-established and taught in virtually every elementary, middle, junior high and high school in the nation, that slight more than a fourth of Americans apparently don’t get that the sun is the center of our solar system.

Isn’t it interesting that we call it the “solar system,” which carries by its very name the connotation that the sun is at the center?

As a friend of mine noted while sharing this tidbit on Facebook, “We have some work to do.”

 

national news

Thrill returns at rocket launch

A curious feeling came over me this morning as I watched the television screen.

A rocket took off from a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla. It was carrying — on its maiden flight — the Orion spacecraft. The Delta rocket roared to life, spewing flame and roaring like a thousand freight trains, and then it lifted off slowwwwly into the sky.

I began muttering under my breath: Come on, come one, come on.

Then I realized something. I was smiling broadly, ear to ear. I was feeling a thrill similar to what I had watching astronauts blasting into space aboard their Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and space shuttle craft.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/orion-clears-first-hurdle-in-getting-to-mars/

Hey, this was a big launch today.

Orion is being developed as the United States’s long-range vehicle that eventually will carry astronauts into deep space. I’m talking about Mars. Or perhaps to one of Jupiter’s moons. Or maybe to an asteroid.

It flew two orbits around Earth this morning, then splashed safely and on target into the Pacific Ocean.

Mission accomplished.

I’ll admit to being a sap when it comes to space flight. I’ve wept at the sight of rockets launching and at the sight of spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere. Heck, I’ve watched the film “Apollo 13” about, oh, 20 or 30 times and I still get misty when Jim Lovell tells NASA ground controllers that the spacecraft is coming home safely after that harrowing rescue mission in April 1970.

Orion’s first manned flight is years away. Its maiden voyage to the great beyond is even farther into the future.

I hope to be around to watch it take humans into our solar system. Yes, I’ll be crying.