Space Stuff

Sorry, Elon: Nuking Mars’ icecaps won’t geoengineer planet
Carbon dioxide's the main greenhouse gas on Mars, and most of it was lost to space.
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Enlarge / It's a lot of ice, but not enough to make an atmosphere.
Mars clearly had a warm and wet past, a time when streams, lakes, and even an ocean were present on its surface. Currently, however, most water on the planet appears to be locked in its icy poles, and the atmosphere is so thin that water would quickly evaporate even if temperatures were held at Earth-like levels. But could we go back to the future? Is there enough material on Mars to form a dense atmosphere filled with enough greenhouse gasses to keep things warm enough for liquid water?

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attracted a bit of attention when he suggested that we could get there simply by nuking Mars' poles, liberating the ice (both water and carbon dioxide ices) into the atmosphere. When asked about the prospects for the plan, a scientist said, "Whether it would really work, I don't think anyone has worked up the physics in enough detail to say it would." Now, a couple of planetary scientists have accepted the challenge of working up the physics, and they have bad news for Musk.
 
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More delays...
Boeing shifts schedule for Starliner, calls 2019 crew launch “realistic”
"These development programs are hard. Especially for human spacecraft."
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An artist's view of the Starliner spacecraft en route to the International Space Station.

On Wednesday, Boeing's John Mulholland, who manages the company's commercial crew program, provided an update on Boeing's development of its Starliner spacecraft. And, as was widely expected, the company moved its schedule to the right.

Now, instead of August 2018, Boeing will target the end of this year (or early 2019) for an uncrewed, orbital flight test of its Starliner vehicle. And the first flight of the spacecraft with astronauts aboard, which had been set for November 2018, will slip to mid-2019, Mulholland said. He added that NASA is working toward these dates as well, and he said that the company believes they are realistic.
 
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How can NASA return to the Moon? By making everything reusable, chief says
"We want the entire architecture between here and the Moon to all be reusable."
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On Thursday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, left, was shown the Orion test crew capsule that will be used for the Ascent Abort-2 test. NASA's Jon Olansen, second from left, speaks as Orion Program Manager Mark Kirasich looks on.
 
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Yeah, you kind of knew this sort of thing was coming.

It's Now Clear That Colonizing Mars Is Unlikely — And A Bad Idea

The possibility that there currently could be life on the red planet was raised last week as scientists reported the discovery of a salt water lake beneath Mars’ surface. The lake would be 1.5km below the south polar cap and at least 20km in diameter. This was found from analysis of subsurface radar data from the Mars Express spacecraft. The water is thought to be briny, with the likely magnesium, calcium, and sodium perchlorate salts acting as an antifreeze down to temperatures of perhaps 200K (-73.15°C).

This is exciting as it is the first definitive detection of liquid water on Mars, and it is possible that there may be further deep lakes elsewhere on the planet. This means there is a real possibility of current life on Mars.

We already knew life could have existed on Mars in the past. There are several pieces of evidence indicating that Mars was habitable 3.8-4 billion years ago. Data from recent missions – including Mars Global Surveyor, Odyssey, Opportunity, Curiosity and Mars Express – have provided mounting evidence that water was present on the surface in streams and lakes with reasonable acidity and that the right chemistry for life to evolve existed there around the time that life was evolving on Earth.

But Mars lost its magnetic field, which would have protected life from harsh radiation from space, 3.8 billion years ago. This also meant its atmosphere started leaking into space, making it increasingly inhospitable. So living organisms may not have survived.

But while the new discovery may fuel aspiring colonisers’ dreams that the water in the subsurface lake might be usable to sustain a human presence, the reality is very different.

The risk of contamination means we shouldn’t send humans there until we know for sure whether there is naturally evolved life – something that could take years to decades. We will need to drill under the surface and to analyse samples, either in-situ or from material returned to Earth, and find suitable biomarkers to be sure.
 
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New Horizons eyeballs Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule, its next flyby goal
The snaps are the most distant images taken from the Sun since "Pale Blue Dot"

Ultima Thule is a small object floating amongst all the comets, asteroids, and icy rocks in the Kuiper Belt. It was discovered in June 2014 by the Hubble Space Telescope, and was given the unexciting official name of (486958) 2014 MU69 before being renamed in a public contest.

As New Horizons continued on its journey past Pluto, it spied Ultima Thule on 16 August and used its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) to capture a series of images.

The picture might not look like much at first, but it’s impressive when you realize that it was taken from over 100 million miles away. It's also the most distant image ever taken from the Sun, breaking the record set by Voyager 1 for its famous "Pale Blue Dot" image of Earth and it's own record in 2017 when it imaged Pluto.


The left picture is a composite image containing a background of stars. The right picture is a close up of the yellow region highlighted in the previous image. Ultimate Thule is in the yellow cross hairs and is slightly above and to the left of a bright star.
 
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Opportunity rover still MIA as dust settles on Mars
The rover has not checked in as controllers are getting ready to trigger contact.
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One of the largest dust storms we've ever seen on Mars is finally winding down, raising hopes that the Opportunity rover will soon be able to obtain enough power to resume normal contact with Earth. At this point, there's been no contact with the rover since June, and controllers are getting ready to attempt to get the rover to respond to commands sent over NASA's Deep Space Network.

Unlike the larger Curiosity rover, Opportunity is solar-powered. And as the current dust storm gradually grew to encompass the entirety of Mars' atmosphere, the sunlight that powered it gradually faded out. For several months, Opportunity hasn't been getting enough power to maintain normal function, causing it to shift into a hibernation mode. Once it underwent this shift back in June, the rover has been waiting for enough power to start checking in with its operators here on Earth.

Based on the atmospheric conditions, those operators expect that power is likely to be sufficient in the very near future. There are a number of uncertainties regarding the rover's condition that could mean it won't be making contact as expected, however. The simplest possibility is that the storm deposited enough dust on the rover's solar panels to keep them from reaching sufficient power levels. That could delay its return from hibernation until the last of the dust is out of the atmosphere, or it could even cause the power to stay low until local winds clean the panels off.

All that, of course, assumes everything's working normally. There's a good chance that Opportunity's power dropped so low that its on-board clock shut down. If that's the case, then there's no way of knowing when the rover will try to re-establish contact. That's one of the reasons that operators are preparing to send it commands to establish contact rather than waiting for the rover to try to check in.
 
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Robert said:
:(:missing:

Opportunity rover still MIA as dust settles on Mars
The rover has not checked in as controllers are getting ready to trigger contact.
8364_PIA21723-16b-800x450.jpg


One of the largest dust storms we've ever seen on Mars is finally winding down, raising hopes that the Opportunity rover will soon be able to obtain enough power to resume normal contact with Earth. At this point, there's been no contact with the rover since June, and controllers are getting ready to attempt to get the rover to respond to commands sent over NASA's Deep Space Network.

Unlike the larger Curiosity rover, Opportunity is solar-powered. And as the current dust storm gradually grew to encompass the entirety of Mars' atmosphere, the sunlight that powered it gradually faded out. For several months, Opportunity hasn't been getting enough power to maintain normal function, causing it to shift into a hibernation mode. Once it underwent this shift back in June, the rover has been waiting for enough power to start checking in with its operators here on Earth.

Based on the atmospheric conditions, those operators expect that power is likely to be sufficient in the very near future. There are a number of uncertainties regarding the rover's condition that could mean it won't be making contact as expected, however. The simplest possibility is that the storm deposited enough dust on the rover's solar panels to keep them from reaching sufficient power levels. That could delay its return from hibernation until the last of the dust is out of the atmosphere, or it could even cause the power to stay low until local winds clean the panels off.

All that, of course, assumes everything's working normally. There's a good chance that Opportunity's power dropped so low that its on-board clock shut down. If that's the case, then there's no way of knowing when the rover will try to re-establish contact. That's one of the reasons that operators are preparing to send it commands to establish contact rather than waiting for the rover to try to check in.
Click to expand...

Maybe of the Mars' Bigfoot will be kind enough to go wipe off the panels.

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NASA's Kepler probe rouses from its slumber, up and running again
The old space telescope isn't giving up
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NASA’s planet-hunting spacecraft, Kepler, is back scanning the stars after an period of hibernation and repair.

After the spacecraft downloaded a wad of data - codenamed Campaign 19 - in late August, it powered down for a snooze in sleep mode. Now, it’s back up and running after NASA has fixed up one of its thrusters.
 
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NASA says it’s building a gateway to the Moon—critics say it’s just a gate
“It is the next giant leap into quicksand."
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A rendering of NASA's proposed lunar gateway.

It is the year 2026. A veteran astronaut, Nicole Mann, leads her crew of four through a hatch from the Orion spacecraft onto a small space station near the Moon. Inside, it smells something like a new car. Outside, all is splendor. Below the station, half of the Moon reflects the sunlight—shimmering, silvery, and silent. The depths of space blacken the other half of the orb. In the distance, a blue and green Earth also basks in the Sun’s glow. Humanity’s cradle and its future among the stars share the vista.
 
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Why things can look like they’re moving faster than light
"Superluminal" motion is old news to astronomers, but surprised our readers.
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Alpha Centauri, which features prominently in our explanation.
Earlier this week, we covered astronomers' discovery of fast-moving jets of particles, produced by the object that resulted from a collision of neutron stars. The jets were imaged at two different time points, roughly half a year apart. During that time, the jets appeared to be moving faster than light itself when viewed from Earth.

In the article itself, I mentioned the "viewed from Earth" part to indicate that this apparent speed was a matter of perspective and that the jets were not actually outpacing light. I did that because I would need a separate full-length article to explain how that works. But, naturally, I got called on this in the comments—everyone knows nothing moves faster than light, so how could I possibly just skip over the fact that something looked like it was doing so?

As I said, an explanation would demand a full-length article. So that's what you're getting.
 
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