Sunday 19 March 2017

The Whole Earth Telescope, Snarky Submersibles, and Actual Spaceports


Further proof that we are living in the future with the normalisation of the sci-fi phrase ' spaceport '.
Not quite on a par with Mos Eisley, but slowly...
Canada is working towards its first ever spaceport , to be created in Nova Scotia.
Meanwhile NASA is re-purposing Cape Kennedy as a commercial spaceport , capable of supporting multiple launches from private companies .

Messier 87 imaged by Chandra xray observatory

The origins and appearance of black holes beyond supposition and CGI are totally unknown , but soon, we may have an actual image of one.
Using a group of ten telescopes known as EHT, scientists plan to finally get a look at the black hole at the centre of our galaxy .
They are so confident that they predict any image will be in the top ten of all time.
Whether that's the top ten of black hole images, I'm not sure - after all , there's no competition.
Enough of my cynicism , though - if that's not enough, they also aim to image the supermassive black hole (don't you just love these superlatives) at the centre of galaxy M87 .
This monstrosity is equal to 6.6 billion of our sun , and has eaten another galaxy in the last billion years.
Luckily, it's 50 million light years away, although, on a cosmic scale, that's probably too close.
The Event Horizon Telescopes should be functional from next month, April 2017, as soon as telescopes in the Antarctic and the Altacama desert are added to the circuit .

High in the Atacama desert, Chile, a lone rover scours the scorched plains in search of life.
With an average rainfall of less than 1mm a year, the Atacama is the driest place on Earth.
The intrepid rover has to drill into the surface to find those elusive microbes...
The signs are good for the probe KREX 2 , but will it be superceded by PUFFER ?
The rather nippy little ' puffer ' drones would surely be ideal foils for Krex2, or the slow, lumbering, Curiosity rover on Mars...
...speaking of Mars, it appears there may be health problems for humans travelling there.
Scientists are worried about the potential danger of long distance, deep space flight.
Even ' locally ' there could be health issues. 
Esa have started looking into the creation of living units for Mars...
By the way, if you are in the 'Twitter-sphere', a good source of images and entirely spurious / snarky comments is The Sarcastic Rover


Mars - a barren wasteland, or prime real estate ?

High above Mars, the joint ESA / Roskosmos endeavour , the Exomars Orbiter, has commenced its year long aerobraking which will enable it to settle into a circular orbit , some 400 km above the surface.

On the icy Saturnian moon Enceladus, there is evidence of heat beneath the surface in the South Pole - possibly an ocean which interacts with the moons core.
The obvious exploration candidate would be an AUV, possibly working with a surface - based probe as a signal relay.
Perhaps a different name though, eh ?

FUN FACT
Apparently, in naval terms, a submersible is also considered a boat, so the name Boaty McBoatface is perfectly acceptable, although I personally prefer ' Big Metal Floaty Thingy'




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