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 By Lonecat
Hello again, everybody! This is Lonecat whizzing through space on his second orbit of good old Earth. Yes, I suppose you could say that I am “far out” as each orbit takes a week, during which I have time to get a good view of events in space both near and far.
This orbit has been quite exciting, not least for the confirmation, at long last, of the existence of water on the planet Mars. It has long been considered that water must exist on Mars, in view of visible changes in the sides of craters which match those caused by water activity on Earth and you have only to take a look at the vast number of “dry creeks and rivers to deduce that water must have existed, at least in the past, even thousands of years ago. But no: water not only has existed on Mars but it still exists there in the form of ice and water vapour.
I was intrigued to learn that, in its natural state on the red planet, at least near the surface, water can exist only in those two states. Because of the very low temperatures that prevail, water ice passes directly from the solid state to the vaporous. I wonder if, once the ice has changed to water vapour in the martian atmosphere, as it did when uncovered by Phoenix, it can ever change back into ice. I suppose that when Man finally reaches Mars and begins his usual activities, a lot of hidden ice will be disturbed and pass into the atmosphere. That should be interesting to watch. For the Friday posting about water on Mars, http://tinyurl.com/6lqrtd
Before I go backwards any further through the week, I had better mention that when I posted a link about yesterday’s total eclipse of the Sun I was unaware that the subject had been posted elsewhere. This meant that it was moved. If you want to refer to it again, here is the link:click here
Although this could not be seen in Europe or the USA, I am sure that the Chinese found that the coincidence with the Olympic Games came in very handy for publicity purposes. In case you wonder, I could not see the eclipse from orbit, either. You have to be in the right place at the right time.
One of the beautiful things about the Earth that can be seen from Earth-orbit is the display of the “Northern Lights” or Aurora Borealis. However, I think they are better viewed from the northern regions of Earth proper as they look so huge when seen from close up.
Here now is a foretaste of the article, followed by a direct link to the original posting:
“Turbulent storms on the Sun generate extremely bright auroral displays, but even in quieter times, smaller events known as substorms still generate the lights. “They happen every three or four hours,” said Vassilis Angelopoulos, a professor of earth and space sciences at University of California, Los Angeles, and principal investigator of a NASA mission called Themis, short for Time, History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms. “The Earth’s environment stores energy. Then all of a sudden it releases it.
Each substorm generates a current of about one million to two million amps over one to two hours, or a total energy equivalent to a magnitude-5 or magnitude-6 earthquake, Dr. Angelopoulos said”.
Now read the article and you will not need glasses to read the text:
What triggers it all?
Black holes seem to fascinate just about all of us. First they existed only in theory, then they were proven to exist, then lots of them were found and since then a lot more has been learned about them and the aren’t nearly so simple as was once believed. Astronomers have now found a way of observing accretion discs around black holes, using specially designed filters. If you’d like to check on it the link is here:
http://tinyurl.com/5l6mpr
This week I found that NASA has launched a new website whipromised to display a whole panoply of space-connected photographs. Unfortunately, when I first clicked onto the website the home page was there and looked really impressive but when I clicked onto any of the varied galleries of photos they were empty as the site was “Still under construction”. However, only a short time afterwards I tried again and found that the construction had been completed. So, you can now browse through a fascinating collection of photos of all kinds, from galaxies and planets of the Solar System to astronauts and their space-craft. You could spend quite a while browsing this new NASA website, so, if you want to start right away, here is the link to it: http://www.nasaimages.org/
We frequently hear and read about the dangers of outer space. Most people are so distracted by their Earthly affairs that they rarely think about what a dangerous situation this planet is in. Apart from natural disasters on Earth itself, our planet is also exposed to a number of dangers from outer space. The foremost danger to Earth, although by no means imminent is that of collision with one of the many large asteroids which have very erratic orbits. There has been much discussion as to what measures could be taken by humans to save ourselves from such a disaster. Hollywood films are apt to make the solution seem simple if heroically dangerous. Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart claims that using nuclear weapons is not the answer to blow up an asteroid or deflect it from its trajectory is not the answer. If you want to read about what he has to say, then click onto this link: Nukes not best option . While you are there you will find a quite a lot of other interesting links to check through, too.
Bbefore I have to attend to an attitude correction for my space-craft and there are a lot other observations to be made as well, I’ll draw your attention to a posting by Savannahskye with links to websites on which you can actually hear Jupiter and the Earth!
Yes you heard right. I can’t leave you without mentioning this but I must warn you at times you may not hear the sounds. It all depends on your computer…I think. Anyway, I finally got to hears these very, literally unearthly sounds and was able to distuingish what really sounds like a human voice of some kind. Or maybe it’s not so human after all.
“Beautiful sounds from the planets..
From an original CD: JUPITER NASA-VOYAGER SPACE SOUNDS (1990) BRAIN/MIND Research: a fascinating recording of Jupiter sounds (electromagnetic "voices") by NASA-Voyager. The complex interactions of charged electromagnetic particles from the solar wind, planetary magnetosphere etc. create vibration "soundscapes". It sounds very interesting, even scary.
YouTube
The earth hums...
Well, I have to go now as there an attitude-control-thruster (A.C.T.) on this orbital vehicle (O.V.) which is not behaving as it should (displaying anomalous activity = D.A.A.) and needs to be corrected (Correction required= C.R.)
So, To express that in modern NASA-speak, I suppose I should simply say: “ A.C.T. on O.V. is D.A.A.. C.R.! Perhaps, after all, I could just say, instead of B.N.W….Back next week!
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