Snippets! – Page 6 – astroengine.com

How Long Would it Take to Travel to Proxima Centauri?

This is one of those articles I’ve been meaning to write for a long time: How long would the interstellar transit be from Earth to the nearest star (and no, I don’t mean the Sun)? It turns out that there is no practical way, using today’s available technology that we can travel to Proxima Centauri (a red dwarf star, 4.33 light years from the Solar System). This is a shame as there are so many stars and so many exoplanets to explore, which space enthusiast wouldn’t want to envisage interstellar space travel? However, there may be help at hand, using modern technology and materials; we might be able to mount a manned expedition to Proxima lasting a little under a century…
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Why is the LHC so Important? I’ll let Brian Cox Explain…

I’ve only just stumbled on this fantastic presentation Brian Cox did in Monterey, California in March this year explaining the stunning science behind CERN’s newest addition. I have followed the progress of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) intently and I personally cannot wait until the accelerator is turned on. There has been much debate about the safety of the LHC and there have been some seriously nutty theories about the bad things that the LHC could (never) do. So, rather than waste any more time on the (impossible) negatives, let’s take a look into how the LHC is going to alter mankind’s view on the Universe forever with the help of Brian Cox at his best…
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Yes, Phoenix has Found Water on Mars

Finally, proof that water has been found on Mars. The Phoenix Mars lander took a scoop of regolith on Sol 20 (June 19th), exposing a white powdery substance. Immediately, scientists announced that the substance was either some form of ice or salt deposits. The prime mission objective for Phoenix is to look for evidence for water, past and present, in the uppermost layers of the surface. Although tests on excavated material are ongoing inside the onboard oven instrument (the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer, or TEGA), baking the sample and analysing the vapour produced, Phoenix scientists have discovered water ice simply by taking two photographs four days apart…

I found the “Got Water?” image very apt and the T-shirt design can be found over at Tastes Funny…
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NASA and Disney-Pixar Promote Space Exploration with WALL-E

As a science public outreach advocate, I am totally behind a new deal between NASA and animation experts Disney-Pixar. Using the new movie WALL-E, a story about the last robot-rover on Earth exploring space (with all the fuzzy, heart-warming Disney stuff in between), NASA has signed a deal with the film making heavyweight to promote NASA’s science and technology to school children. Too many times have I seen kids cartoons characters used to sell junk food, this move is very refreshing. Promoting science education though a cute robot is great in my books and may dispel any doubts in the younger generation that space exploration is dull.

Great move NASA, looks like a superb film Pixar! WALL-E will be released in the US on June 27th and in the UK on July 18th…
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A Fractal Representation of Pi… In a Crop Circle

In the south of the UK, crop circles are a common event. These strange, flattened patterns appear suddenly and without explanation in farmland throughout the county of Wiltshire. Skeptics will argue that these patterns have been made by pranksters or by enthusiasts wanting to create large-scale crop graffiti. Others will argue it is an attempt by extraterrestrial beings to communicate with us by stamping their presence into a field. I’m keeping an open mind as to the source of these features, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with either “skeptic” or “believer”. And this is the reason why. The UK’s most complex crop circle appeared in a field earlier this month, and it took an astrophysicist to decipher what it meant…
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Solar Flare, CME and Tsunami Generated by a “Blank Sun”

Even during solar minimum, the Sun can be surprisingly dynamic. We are currently observing a sunspot-less solar disk, but on Saturday the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) observed a noteworthy X-ray flare. It was a B3.8 flare, producing a coronal mass ejection (CME), sending vast quantities of hot plasma into interplanetary space. Admittedly, it is strange to witness CMEs of this size at this time in the solar cycle, but what is even weirder is that the flare was produced by a region devoid of sunspot activity (see image). SOHO captured the CME event with its LASCO instrument and the two-probe Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) captured an incredible “solar tsunami” (or Sun Quake) as the flare caused the Sun’s surface to ripple. And all this without an intense magnetic field and sunspot pair…
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Aliens More Likely to Pick Up Our NEO Radar Transmissions than Radio

When you stop to think about it, sending transmissions via radio into space in the hope to contact aliens is a bit silly. The intention behind the 16 transmission we have directed into space is to a) make contact with extraterrestrials, b) advertise our presence in the cosmos, and c) tell ET something useful about mankind. We know we are leaking transmissions into space all the time (i.e. radio and TV), but we assume they don’t travel that far or are too weak for aliens to detect. But wait one second… We are constantly blasting radar into space, tracking near earth asteroids; will aliens pick up those transmissions? Well, these radar transmissions have covered 2000 times more sky than radio and last 500 times longer. And since the 1960’s we’ve sent 1400 radar transmissions into space. So, what’s the verdict? Aliens are one million times more likely to receive the tracking signal from NEO tracking radar than radar intended for aliens…
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What Happens When Two Galaxies Collide?

So what does happen? Will the stars crash into one another, sending out huge emissions of gamma radiation and gravitational waves? The effects of two galaxies meeting and colliding are actually a little more elegant than that – for starters, it’s most likely that none of the stars will meet due to the huge distances between star systems. Also, the merging of the systems will spark a huge campaign of star creation within the newly formed fertile gas clouds. So what will we see long after the galaxies have ripped each other apart? Simulations show huge arcs of tidally-formed dust and stars, looking strangely like the precursors to the galactic ghosts recently observed…
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Astronaut Photographers Take Stunning Pictures of Earth Too

We may have some of the best, high resolution robotic cameras looking down on Earth from orbit, but you can’t beat the human eye for choosing the right shot. This spectacular image is a view of Harrat Khaybar, about 140 kilometres to the northeast of the city of Medina, Saudi Arabia. Old volcanic calderas, deserts and ancient lava flows can be seen. This picture was taken by a member of NASA’s Expedition 16 crew on October 10th, 2007, but has only just been released as part of the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment. We pay so much attention studying the Martian landscape and peering into galactic cores, sometimes it’s nice to turn the lenses around and see the complex geology of Planet Earth. There’s a lot more pictures where this one came from…
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Human Space Exploration: Essential for our Survival

So what is the point of exploring space anyway? We have famine, disease and disaster here down on Earth, why the hell should we direct funds toward manned exploration of the Solar System and beyond? The answer is far from simple, but my personal answer is: to explore the undiscovered…
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