space | M Thomas Apple Author Page

Whatever happened to the “spaceplane”?

January 27, 2021
MThomas

NASA ended the US’s interest in spaceplanes when it scrapped the shuttle fleet a decade ago.

But other space agencies and private companies in other countries are very much in the game. ESA, India, even the UK.

And, of course…

Whichever future the spaceplane does have, it will involve China. “We know very little about the launch [of China’s experimental spaceplane],” says Deville. “But it shows that China is serious about developing its spaceplane concepts.”
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210121-spaceplanes-the-return-of-the-reuseable-spacecraft

The One Small Step Act: Only for US?

January 16, 2021
MThomas

It’s a small step. It applies only to companies that are working with NASA; it pertains only to U.S. lunar landing sites; it implements outdated and untested recommendations to protect historic lunar sites implemented by NASA in 2011. However, it offers significant breakthroughs. It is the first legislation from any nation to recognize an off-Earth site as having “outstanding universal value” to humanity, language taken from the unanimously ratified World Heritage Convention.
https://astronomy.com/news/2021/01/neil-armstrongs-bootprint-and-other-lunar-artifacts-are-now-protected-by-us-law

The author believes this shows that “nonpartisan” desire to journey to space and preserve human heritage.

Hmm.

Well, I do agree with the assessment that it’s only a matter of time before the Moon is occupied by multiple political entities (China, India, Russia, the US, ESA…) and probably even a few private enterprises as well. Will the private company-sponsored missions agree to abide by a US law?

We’ll see.

Tardigrads…In…Space…I mean, On the Moon…

December 28, 2020
MThomas

Despite the impact, scientists believe that if anything survived the crash intact, it may well have been the tardigrades. The microscopic creatures were sandwiched between micron-thin sheets of nickel and suspended in epoxy, a resin-like preservative that acts like a jelly — potentially enough to cushion their landing.
https://www.inverse.com/science/tardigrades-may-have-taken-over-the-moon

I, for one, look forward to our lovably cute waterbear overlords…

Amateur Thai astronomer photographs unknown Sungrazer

December 27, 2020
MThomas

This family of comets originated from a large parent comet that broke up into smaller fragments well over a thousand years ago. The sungrazers continue to orbit around the sun today.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/21/world/new-comet-solar-eclipse-scn/index.html

Now this is something I didn’t know. Learn a new thing ever day…

Solar System Likely To Disintegrate Sooner Than Earlier Predictions

December 7, 2020
MThomas

“As per the new simulations, it will take 100 billion years for any remaining planets to run off across the galaxy, leaving the dying Sun far behind.”

Pack your bags, folks!

https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/science/solar-system-likely-to-disintegrate-sooner-than-earlier-predictions-study.html

Nuclear power plants in space!

November 30, 2020
MThomas

The proposal is for a fission surface power system, and the goal is to have a flight system, lander and reactor ready to launch by 2026.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/15/why-nasa-wants-to-put-a-nuclear-power-plant-on-the-moon.html

The goal, apparently, is to generate 10 Kw, or about enough to power “five to eight large households.”

Um. That’s not really enough for an actual lunar base. Try again?

“Beaver Moon” lunar eclipse, if you can stay awake long enough…

November 25, 2020
MThomas

Visible from the Americas, Australia and Asia, the “Beaver Moon” will pass through Earth’s outer shadow (penumbra) at 07:32 Universal Time, causing a slight penumbral lunar eclipse that will see 83% of the Moon visibly darken at 9:42 Universal Time…
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2020/11/22/the-moon-meets-mars-and-the-seven-sister-stars-what-you-can-see-in-the-night-sky-this-week/?utm_medium=40digest.intl.carousel&utm_source=email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=campaign&sh=292a554e7c36

OK, I give up. “Universal Time”?

Similarities between the human brain and galaxies

November 19, 2020
MThomas

…the team’s results suggest that, while the physical processes that drive the structure of the Universe and the structure of the human brain are extremely different, they can result in similar levels of complexity and self-organisation…
https://www.sciencealert.com/wildly-fun-new-paper-compares-the-human-brain-to-the-structure-of-the-universe?fbclid=IwAR1YjxGSpnNrJbgqRMs6_XNrRjiuloJ792UjzfT3L5NmVEEYxljyVcS4TQ8

As above, so below…

And you thought living on Earth in 2020 was bad…

November 7, 2020
MThomas

On the scorching hot planet, hundreds of light-years away, oceans are made of molten lava, winds reach supersonic speeds and rain is made of rocks. Scientists have referred to the bizarre, hellish exoplanet as one of the most “extreme” ever discovered.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/astronomers-discover-hell-planet-k2-141b-rock-rain-lava-oceans/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab6a&linkId=103730808&fbclid=IwAR2W9JqL9gjnrBTJeZ4bMbV4XsnqO_1kScgP0GLq7eYbq__0bDtmqcbH4BM

I think we may have seen this kind of planet before…

Yep, that’s it.

Hey, WordPress, why did you delete my post’s headline?

November 6, 2020
MThomas

According to NASA estimates there are at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, of which about 4 billion are sunlike. If only 7 percent of those stars have habitable planets — a seriously conservative estimate — there could be as many as 300 million potentially habitable Earths out there in the whole Milky Way alone.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/science/astronomy-exoplanets-kepler.html

It takes a while to collect, sort through, analyze, write up, endure peer review, and publish data from scientific projects.

That’s why finally we’re seeing this, 11 years after Kepler was launched to scour the galaxy for exoplanets.

Now the real challenge will be figuring out how to get there…

It’s time to move on the next factor in the Drake equation for extraterrestrial civilizations: the fraction of these worlds on which life emerges. The search for even a single slime mold on some alien rock would revolutionize biology, and it is a worthy agenda for the next half-century as humans continue the climb out of ourselves and into the universe in the endless quest to end our cosmic loneliness.

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