Earlier this week a schoolgirl from Montana won a National Geographic contest to think of a mnemonic that could be used to memorize the 11 planets of the solar system. Unfortunately for Maryn Smith her fame could be short lived, because it seems that there is yet another mystery planet hiding in the nether reaches of the solar system.
Continue reading
Space
Space Tourism to Rocket?
(Sorry about the headline, couldn’t resist.)
Some academics who specialize in the tourist industry (yes, there are such people) are predicting that space tourism is about to take off (oops, did it again). Apparently by somewhere between 2010 and 2015 space holidays will be affordable (a mere $80k) and by 2025 there will be space hotels. Just like in those funny sci-fi stories.
And who will take these vacations to the stars? Will it be people brought up on Kirk and Spock? Apparently not. It will be “extreme tourism” fanatics who no longer find anything on Earth dangerous enough. Ah well, as long as they grow the market and bring the price down for the rest of us. (And not too many of them manage to get themselves killed.)
And The Answer Is…
Not 42, but 10^122. In the department of “cosmology is even more weird that you thought”, this latest piece from Nature is decidedly spooky.
Oil Bonanza
Forget peak oil. Scientists have just discovered new reserves of liquid hydrocarbons that are 100 times as large as all known reserves on Earth put together. There’s just one problem. They are on Titan.
Did someone say something about the commercialization of space…
Virgin Dare
(Presumably as opposed to Virginia Dare, who is someone else entirely.)
No, what I’m talking about here is Virgin Comics’ re-launch of Dan Dare. I’ve finally managed to get hold of copies of issues #1 and #3. #2 is apparently sold out due to national newspaper attention (and I guess a lower print run than #1).
Continue reading
Lunar Eclipse
And just to prove that Facebook is good for something, today I discovered that there will be a total eclipse of the moon later this month (the 20th, to be exact). Thank you, Nalo!
For me in England it is going to be a middle of the night job, so I might miss it, but if you happen to be in California the timing looks very good indeed, and east coast folks should be OK too as long as they are not having to go to bed early so they can be up at 4:00am for power breakfasts or whatever daft things people do in NY these days.
For more details, here’s NASA.
Strings Spotted in Universe?
Up until now, string theory has been just that, a theory. There has been no way of testing it empirically. Up until now. The latest news is that a group of astronomers studying perturbations in cosmic background radiation have observations that they believe are better explained by string theory than by current models of the structure of the universe. Details here.
The Economist on SpaceShipTwo
Today’s Economist has a long article on SpaceShipTwo and the commercialization of space. Significantly it reports that plans are already underway to use White Knight Two as a launch assistance vehicle for small satellites. And, as expected, work is underway on designing a successor to SpaceShipTwo that will be capable of long sub-orbital journeys and, eventually, a version that can get into orbit.
Fly Me To The Moon
The BBC has pictures of SpaceShipTwo, the Virgin Galactic passenger vessel. One is an artist’s impression, the other from inside the factory where the first prototype is reportedly 60% complete. Got your ticket yet?
Update: See also the New York Times, which has an even better painting.
Dark Here
So how do we know whether dark matter exists when we can’t see it? Why, gravitational lensing, of course. Stitch a bunch of Hubble photos together and you can map where the stuff it. More details in The Guardian.
Positively Positronic
You know that old pulp thing about how our heroes are flying through the galaxy and they see a cloud up ahead, and it turns out to be anti-matter? Well it turns out that there is a big cloud of anti-matter at the center of our galaxy. Truly, we live in a science-fictional world.
Moon Burps
Would you believe it? This article from Nature reveals that some lunar craters were formed by gas eruptions in the recent past. Now admittedly by “recent” they mean the last 10 million years, but compared to previous estimates that the Moon has been geologically inert for 3.2 billion years that’s a major shift. Heck, a new eruption might even happen while we are here to see it.
Mars Update
As you have have seen, NASA has begun to look seriously at the problems posed by sending a manned mission to Mars (hopefully starting by reading Kim Stanley Robinson who has already spent a long time thinking about this stuff). In the meantime, however, a serious morale problem has arisen with their existing staff on the red planet. The Onion has details. (Thanks Oli!)
Race for the Stars
Before I start boring you with some of the weekend’s sporting action, here’s some sports news for science fiction fans. This weekend sees the X Prize Cup Games, a festival of competitions for robots, spacecraft and technologically assisted humans. Here’s Nature with a preview, and Space.com with a report from the opening day. Personally I’m with the Nature journalist – the space elevator competitions are where the action is right now.
Macho Posing
OK, so Dubya thinks he can win a few votes in the mid-term elections by demonstrating that he can out-do Kim Jong-Il in the rogue state game. And what to the Russians do in response to the American claim of hegemony over the whole of space? They announce that they are building a moon rocket, of course. Can a new Fox TV series about Americans and Russians slugging it out for possession of poor little Luna be far behind?
Inside a Quasar
How do you look inside a quasar? Well, you wait until a convenient passing galaxy magnifies the light coming from it. Clever huh? And what do you see inside? Super-massive black holes. Nice for the astronomers when they are proved right.
It’s Not XL5, But It Will Do
Richard Branson unveils the look of the Virgin Galactic spacecraft. The BBC has pictures. Looks like you get a bit more leg room in one of those than in his 747s.
Here’s An Odd One
Astronomers at the Smithsonian have discovered a planet that is 1.38 times the size of Jupiter but only half the mass. As they note, this means it has only about a quarter of the density of water. Very strange.
Excellence in Naming
Remember that little rock called 2003 UB313? You know, the one that turned out to be bigger than Pluto and caused all the fuss that led to a redefinition of planetary status. If so you may recall that it’s discoverer provisionally named it “Xena”. I rather liked the idea, but the astronomers didn’t. They do, after all, have a tradition of naming things after characters from Greek mythology, and Xena doesn’t quite cut it on that level. So the official name for 2003 UB313 is: Eris.
Perfect, just perfect.