23 January 2009
Carnival of Space #87
Posted by Ryan Anderson
Welcome to the Martian Chronicles blog and the 87th Carnival of Space! I’m finishing up this post while sitting in the planning meeting for the Spirit rover (after doing my part, of course!), and would like to point out that this weekend marks Sol 1800 of our 90 sol mission. That’s right, Spirit has lasted 20 times longer than its nominal mission and is still going. Woohoo!
Now without further ado, your carnival of space!
Mars Methane
Last week, a paper published in Science confirmed the detection of methane on Mars. Why such a big stink about such a small molecule? Is it really proof of life on Mars? What the heck is serpentinization? The answers you seek await you in the blogosphere!
Timothy Neale at Tomorrow is Here keeps it short and sweet, but most of us couldn’t help ourselves. I dove in and summarized the paper, and Markus Hammonds over at Supernova Condensate provides an excellent and detailed discussion from an astrochemist’s perspective.
Some bloggers sounded off on the media’s handling of this big news. Chris Lintott pointed out that this paper is not the first detection of methane, as the press release might lead you to believe; that credit goes to the ESA’s Mars Express mission. Carolyn Petersen voiced the collective frustration of science writers and scientists everywhere by calling out all the silly, breathless headlines about “Life on Mars” that this methane business brought about, and urged people to be skeptical of headlines and actually read the articles.
Humans in Space
Not everyone got caught up in the Mars methane maelstrom though! We have a bunch of great posts about the past, present and future of humans in space and the (awesome) technology that we might use.
OrbitalHub has an interesting article about the historic Soyuz 4/5 mission, which successfully carried out the first docking and crew transfer between two spacecraft 40 years ago.
Collectspace has the answer to the age-old question: “What do the first American to command five space missions, the first commander of the ISS and the first satellite repairman have in common?”
Over at the awesomely named Potentia Tenebras Repellendi, Alexander DeClama will tell you all about the very cool Chariot lunar rover which made an appearance in the inaugural parade. It can drive sideways!
Speaking of the Obama administration, Bruce Cordell at 21st Century Waves outlines ten space trends for 2009 and speculates about how the current issues facing the administration will influence the near-future of the space program.
Sometime in the slightly-less-near future, we will be back on the moon, so before you buy your one-way ticket to the moon base, you will want to take a look at Out of the Cradle and Ken Murphy’s review of a new book about the challenges of establishing a lunar outpost. (Hint: Driving the Chariot rover is the easy part)
Given the new administration’s commitment to energy independence and sustainability, the sun may be shining on Space-Based Solar Power. Alex and Ralph at The Discovery Enterprise have a posted their very interesting debate about whether Space-Based Solar Power is really feasible.
Solar power may also be crucial for our return to the moon, but the long lunar night makes it somewhat problematic. To hear about some ideas to work around this problem, check out the summary of a 1989 paper on “Solar Power for the Lunar Night” at Altair VI.
The problem with all these ambitious plans in space is that it’s really hard, and therefore rather pricey, to launch things into orbit (and beyond). That’s why I was happy to read over at Next Big Future that a Cambridge University team is making progress on creating carbon nanotube ribbons, a vital component of that coolest-of-cool ideas, the space elevator.
Once we have unlimited, cheap access to space, and clean, endless power from space-based solar arrays and are cruising around on the surface of the moon, will we be satisfied? Heck no! We’re going to Mars! And when we get there, we’re going to terraform it! It’s easy! Ethan Siegel over at Starts With a Bang concludes that there are only three things that we would really need to do.
And then, once we have settled Mars and are getting really cocky, we’ll want to start looking for other planets outside our solar system. And after all the work of terraforming, we’ll probably want to just skip that step and look for habitable planets. Luckily, Paul Gilster at Centauri Dreams reports that vegetation on distant planets is detectable!
Black Holes and Holograms and Podcasts, Oh My!
Of course, there’s more to space than Mars and human exploration! If you were wondering where the rest of the universe was, wonder no longer; it’s right here.
I’ll start this section off with the more down-to-earth, less mind-blowing posts and gradually increase the bamboozle factor. First off is this very nice article from Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log about “Pluto’s Pals”: kids who were born the same day that the New Horizons probe launched toward Pluto. They’ll be nine years old when it gets there!
Next up, did you hear that the Higgs boson has been discovered?! By Higgs himself?! Well, if not, you’d better go check out Ian O’Neill’s post about it at AstroEngine.
Ok, after that excitement, you may need to relax for a bit, so head over to Riding with Robots and watch the absolutely fantastic video of the highlights of robotic space exploration in 2008.
Cool wasn’t it? Know what else is cool? the star R Coronae Borealis. I would even go so far as to say that this star is outta sight! Head over to Simostronomy and let Mike Simonsen tell you more about this interesting giant of a star.
Moving beyond our own galaxy, over at Bad Astronomy Phil Plait reports on our latest advance in understanding the mysterious goings-on in the heart of young galaxies.
If the black-hole wind from Phil’s post didn’t blow your mind, I promise this will: Steinn Sigurdsson reports on new results that may imply that our universe is holographic. Did you hear that exploding sound? It was my brain. My holographic brain.
Now, after reading all of these posts, all these big ideas and grand plans give me a hankering for some science fiction, so I’m glad that our last post is from Rob Simpson at Orbiting Frog, promoting a new podcast called “Science or Fiction”. In the podcast, scientists discuss sci-fi shows, not to debunk them but to have interesting discussions about how plausible the ideas in the shows are. Sounds awesome, in fact, I think I’m going to go listen to one right now!
That wraps up our carnival for the week! Thanks for reading, and thanks to Fraser for letting me host again!
[…] because you never know what new evidence is going to come up! And speaking of what comes up, the new Carnival of Space is up, and the Martian Chronicles is hosting. How appropriate that I just wrote about terraforming Mars! […]
[…] Carnival of Space #87 […]
Interesting and nicely done!
[…] Carnival of Space is being hosted this week at The Martian Chronicles Blog. It is the 87th Carnival of Space. I’ve been a little slow […]
Hey, thanks for the link! 🙂 I was so happy that Higgs met Higgs, I couldn’t hold it all in 🙂
Really nice Carnival, I’ll be studying this and reporting on your entries next week in my little radio show 🙂
Just one little thing, two of the letters in O’Neill got switched… 😉
Cheers, Ian
Oops, sorry Ian! It’s fixed now.
[…] If you want to keep up with HiRISE and all the amazing pictures it takes, your best bet is to follow it on Twitter. That’s how I found this image. And speaking of Mars, this week’s Carnival of Space is being held at Martian Chronicles. […]
[…] Chronicles (not affiliated, AFAIK, with the Ray Bradbury works of the same name). This week’s Carnival of Space features over a score of articles on all things […]
[…] Carnival of Space #87 « The Martian Chronicles. […]
[…] week’s Carnival of Space is now live, over at the Martian Chronicles blog. The Carnival is the best way to find new writers about everything astronomy and space online, […]
[…] Carnival of Space #87 is hosted at The Martian Chronicles by Ryan Anderson. […]
THAT WAS INTERESTING WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING AT. AMEN
[…] Carnival of Space #87 […]
[…] Forgotten Carnival of Space… … and the new one. They are number 86, 87 and […]
[…] #87 at The Martian Chronicles. […]
[…] so check out CoS #89 (The Moon Society Blog), CoS #88 (The Spacewriter’s Ramblings), and CoS #87 (The Martian […]
wauow….amazing
Hi I love the pictures there awsome. I have a question for you is it scary to go to space? I thing it would be very scary for me. And people are talking about if theres water on the moon there has to be life on there like aliens. I think thats stupid just becaouse theres water there doesnt mean that theres life on there. It could just be there becouse of the atmosphere.
I can always see space in books but I would always stay with my family because the world is coming to an END I will stay and sourport my family we were born here we will die here
nowadays we r facing d very tremendous life.isn’t all happening becoz of these science & technology? hey not only this,why we just study the other planet leaving behind our loving earth?isn’t there any appropriate alternatve resolution to [protect our earth.
Tell every one to keep envoirment good and surely we live in earth planet till human dead
ALL THE SPACE ATTRACTION TO HUMAN MAKE HUNGRY ABOUT TO MAKE DREAM HOUSE IN MOON PLANET CAN WE DO?
gu
space is largest thing that ever nor be destroyed neither be created. It is wonderful in our human nature. space made up different colour to saw how nature was. Nothing beautiful then that.
carent
tanks
talebpoor
wtf
I have used several of your images for my wiki. I am looking for someone to edit the section they are contained in every two days with the old images being kept in a library for viewers to see.
sorry
omg that is kool!!!!!!
[…] so check out CoS #89 (The Moon Society Blog), CoS #88 (The Spacewriter’s Ramblings), and CoS #87 (The Martian […]
i want to join isro so what is the qualification required and what i have to do give me some example.
Thanks
I’m not associated with ISRO at all so I wouldn’t know exactly. I suggest you search their website and try to contact someone within ISRO.
Good luck!
I like these, nice lines!
Interest in the universe is an interest to me.Any facts or findings can be commented on with SIRU at
[email protected] let’s live.Thank you.
[…] from here. 43.547982 […]
Where did you grow up?
wow
Thank you for every other wonderful post.
Where else may anybody get that type of information in such a perfect approach of writing?
I’ve a presentation subsequent week, and I am on the look for such information.
Save All Paperwork: Whatever paperwork arrives with your parts or which
is provided from the seller should be maintained.
It won’t take you extremely long to work out what way to employ it. You can make corrections directly instead of having to search mistake through the code, if something does not seem OK for you.