FYI 'Golden Record' Sent to Aliens Now Available on Earth By Hanneke Weitering, Staff Writer-Producer | September 29, 2016 05:01pm ET A Kickstarter campaign recreated the golden records to make them available to the public for the first time ever. Credit: Lawrence Azerrad/Ozma Records In 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft that would venture far out into deep space, each carrying a golden record with a message from Earth for any aliens the vessels might encounter. Now, for the first time ever, that record will be available to people on Earth. A new Kickstarter campaign is making copies of that golden record available to the public. Other than the two copies on NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft, only 10 copies exist, most of which are on display in NASA facilities. Even Carl Sagan, who led the golden record project, could not get his hands on a copy. But now, David Pescovitz from the website Boing Boing and Institute for the Future, Timothy Daly of Amoeba Music, and designer Lawrence Azerrad have come together to create near-exact replicas of the gold-plated phonograph records to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Voyager launches. Reserving a copy of the golden record costs $98, but the campaign also offers smaller, Voyager-themed gifts for smaller donations of $10 and up. The Voyager Golden Record remake comes in a set of 3 gold vinyl LPs. Credit: Lawrence Azerrad/Ozma Records A $98 box includes three translucent gold vinyl LPs, a hardbound book, a digital download card for all the audio and a lithograph of the iconic Voyager Golden Record cover diagram. The original gold-plated copper records contain sounds and images that represent the human race and explain the spacecraft's Earthly origin. They feature 27 tracks of music from around the world, with artists ranging from Beethoven to Chuck Berry. The audio includes greetings in 55 different languages and natural sounds like thunderstorms, erupting volcanoes, crashing ocean waves, a crying baby and several animal calls. The Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition Kickstarter campaign is accepting contributions until Oct. 20, and the records are expected to ship in August 2017. So far, the record has been a hit, as the project has raised almost four times its initial goal of $198,000. Meanwhile, the twin Voyager spacecraft continue to carry the two original golden records farther than any record, or spacecraft, has ever gone. Voyager 1 left the solar system and entered interstellar space in 2014. Voyager 2 has not yet made it to interstellar space and is currently exploring the outskirts of the solar system.
Can you guys imagine sending a fucking submarine to the bottom of the ocean on Europa and scoping a fucking sea floor with a camera for shit? Are we even capable of creating a vessel that can travel under 11 miles of water pressure?
Are we capable of blasting something into space on a rocket that will fly for roughly 6 years at a speed of hundreds of miles per second only to safely enter Europa's atmosphere and land inside Europa's slight atmosphere where it will drill through a dozen miles of rock hard ice before it plunges miles and miles deep into a dark ocean where it's supposed to take pictures and readings of its surroundings and send them all the way back to us? Yeah, we can probably do that.
Astrobiology, Europa A Submarine for Europa Article Updated: 26 Dec , 2015 by Nancy Atkinson Many planetary scientists believe that Jupiter’s moon Europa is our solar system’s best contender to share Earth’s distinction of harboring life. Evidence gathered by the Voyager and Galileo spacecrafts suggests Europa contains a deep, possibly warm ocean of salty water under an outer shell of fissured ice. In a paper published in the July 2007 Journal of Aerospace Engineering a British mechanical engineer proposes sending a submarine to explore Europa’s oceans. Carl T. F. Ross, a professor at the University of Portsmouth in England offers an abstract design of an underwater craft built of a metal matrix composite. He also provides suggestions for suitable power supplies, communication techniques and propulsion systems for such a vessel in his paper, “Conceptual Design of a Submarine to Explore Europa’s Oceans.” Ross’s paper weighs the options for constructing a submarine capable of withstanding the undoubtedly high pressure within Europa’s deep oceans. Scientists believe that this moon’s oceans could be up to 100 kilometers deep, more than ten times deeper than Earth’s oceans. Ross proposes a 3 meter long cylindrical sub with an internal diameter of 1 meter. He believes that steel or titanium, while strong enough to withstand the hydrostatic pressure, would be unsuitable as the vessel would have no reserve buoyancy. Therefore, the sub would sink like a rock to the bottom of the ocean. A metal matrix or ceramic composite would offer the best combination of strength and buoyancy. Ross favors a fuel cell for power, which will be needed for propulsion, communications and scientific equipment, but notes that technological advances in the ensuing years may provide better sources for power. Ross concedes that a submarine mission to Europa won’t occur for at least 15-20 years. Planetary scientist William B. McKinnon agrees. “It is difficult enough, and expensive, to get back to Europa with an orbiter, much less imagine a landing or an ocean entry,” said McKinnon, professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. “Sometime in the future, and after we have determined the ice shell thickness, we can begin to seriously address the engineering challenges. For now, it might be best to search for those places where the ocean has come to us. That is, sites of recent eruptions on Europa’s surface, whose compositions can be determined from orbit.” The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is currently working on a concept called the Europa Explorer which would deliver a low orbit spacecraft to determine the presence (or absence) of a liquid water ocean under Europa’s ice surface. It would also map the distribution of compounds of interest for pre-biotic chemistry, and characterize the surface and subsurface for future exploration. “This type of mission,” says McKinnon, “would really allow us to get the hard proof we would all like that the ocean is really there, and determine the thickness of the ice shell and find thin spots if they exist.” McKinnon added that an orbiter could find “hot spots” that indicate recent geological or even volcanic activity and obtain high-resolution images of the surface. The latter would be needed to plan any successful landing. Slightly smaller than Earth’s moon, Europa has an exterior that is nearly craterless, meaning a relatively “young” surface. Data from the Galileo spacecraft shows evidence of near-surface melting and movements of large blocks of icy crust, similar to ice bergs or ice rafts on Earth. While Europa’s midday surface temperatures hover around 130 K (-142 C, -225 degrees F), interior temperatures could be warm enough for liquid water to exist underneath the ice crust. This internal warmth comes from tidal heating caused by the gravitational forces of Jupiter and Jupiter’s other moons which pull Europa’s interior in different directions. Scientists believe similar tidal heating drives the volcanoes on another Jovian moon, Io. Seafloor hydrothermal vents have also been suggested as another possible energy source on Europa. On Earth, undersea volcanoes and hydrothermal vents create environments that sustain colonies of microbes. If similar systems are active on Europa, scientists reason that life might be present there too. Among scientists there is a big push to get a mission to Europa underway. However this type of mission is competing for funding against NASA’s goal of returning to our own moon with human missions. The proposed Jupiter Icy Moon Orbiter (JIMO) a nuclear powered mission to study three of Jupiter’s moons, fell victim to cuts in science missions in NASA’s Fiscal Year 2007 Budget. Ross has been designing and improving submarines for over 40 years, but this is the first time he’s designed a craft for use anywhere but on Earth. “The biggest problem that I see with the robot submarine is being able to drill or melt its way through a maximum of 6 km of the ice, which is covering the surface,” said Ross. “However, the ice may be much thinner in some places. It may be that we will require a nuclear pressurized water reactor on board the robot submarine to give us the necessary power and energy to achieve this” While Ross proposes using parachutes to bring the submarine to Europa’s surface, McKinnon points out that parachutes would not work in Europa’s almost airless atmosphere. Ross has received very positive responses to his paper from friends and colleagues, he says, including notable British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore. Ross says his life has revolved around submarines since 1959 and he finds this new concept of a submarine on Europa to be very exciting. McKinnon classifies the exploration of Europa as “extremely important.” “Europa is a place is where we are pretty sure we have abundant liquid water, energy sources, and biogenic elements such as carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, etc,” he said. “Is there life, any kind of life, in Europa’s ocean? Questions don’t get much more profound.” Written by Nancy Atkinson
Boeing CEO Vows to Beat Musk to Mars Julie Johnsson October 4, 2016 — 3:23 PM EDT https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...o-beat-musk-to-mars-as-new-space-race-beckons
yesssssss competition motherfuckers everyone is all mars mars this that bitch build the fucking rockets and prove it
I'd imagine there would be different probes for different tasks. I'm not sure if they'd send the probes at the same time or not. I just think the first would be doing the drilling and the second would be for underwater exploration.
The worst thing that ever happened to space exploration is the cold war ending. I'm all about throwing some competition into the mix here.
SPACE RACE Love that in the modern era, the space race is between corporations...and not political ideologies.
From what I remember of a previous discussion about this, the initial idea was to send them all at once but for the craft to eventually segment to land separately (but close together) and then be initialized and used when needed. I believe that relied on parachutes though. Not sure how feasible it'd be to do it considering the fuel expended but a jet propulsion controlled landing like the Curiosity platform might be the best bet.
videos in link. http://www.space.com/34340-project-blue-alpha-centauri-earthlike-alien-planet.html Project Blue: Private Space Telescope to Hunt for Alien Earth at Alpha Centauri By Sarah Lewin, Staff Writer | October 11, 2016 07:02am ET An exoplanet could orbit in the habitable zone of our neighboring binary star system, Alpha Centauri, as depicted in this illustration. Alpha Centauri A is the larger star, and B is the smaller one. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/Nick Risinger A new initiative called "Project Blue" aims to spy on our interstellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri, to capture an unprecedented visible-light image of any Earth-like planets that might orbit there. The project, which hopes to launch a lightweight telescope into Earth orbit by 2019, was announced today (Oct. 11). The two stars of Alpha Centauri, along with the associated red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, are the closest stars outside our solar system — and the Alpha Centauri stars are by far the closest sun-like stars to Earth's system. While the dual system makes imaging a challenge, the stars' extraordinary closeness means that a relatively small and inexpensive space telescope could potentially view them directly. [A Quick Trip to Alpha Centauri (Video)] "There is an extremely high level of urgency and desire on the part of the astronomical community to get out there and find exoplanets that we can actually image and characterize around nearby stars," said Jon Morse, CEO of the BoldlyGo Institute, one of the project's leaders. "We know we need to go to space for many of the hardest measurements to make, especially to directly image small planets around nearby stars that are Earth-class terrestrial planets, and the scientists all have this idea of finding Earth 2.0," Morse told Space.com. "Let's take that Pale Blue Dot image around another star." Morse was referring to a famous image, taken by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1990, that showed the Earth from afar as a small, faint, blue-tinged pinprick. Our first direct view of a planet around Alpha Centauri by telescope would look similar, he said. Along with the BoldlyGo Institute, a New York-based nonprofit organization dedicated to privately funded space missions and research, "Project Blue" is led by Mission Centaur, a new nonprofit devoted to searching for planets around Alpha Centauri. The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute and the University of Massachusetts Lowell are also collaborating on the project. A simulation of what data from Project Blue might look like — a blue dot indicating the distant light of a potentially Earth-like planet around Alpha Centauri; the first such direct view. Credit: Jared Males Funding is to be determined — "We will have, hopefully, some further announcements that we're not quite ready to talk about," Morse said — but the project will stay low-cost by using commercially available launch systems and instrumentation. Funds for the project, which could cost between $10 million and $50 million over its lifetime, will come from community involvement, sponsorships and other agreements, he said. The project would consist of two high-altitude balloon flights testing similar instruments, with NASA's support, and then a satellite with a refrigerator-size telescope/instrument package, which would be in space between 2019 and 2022 collecting data. "The approach here is not taking a very expensive project and removing things you don't need, like sculptures do," Project Blue team member Supriya Chakrabarti, an astrophysicist at the University of Massachussetts Lowell, told Space.com. "We're trying to start with a fairly low-cost system that we have proven, and then try to see what we need to make this thing tailored for a very specific task as fast as we can and as low-cost as we can." Chakrabarti is the director of the Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology at the university. Why Alpha Centauri? Alpha Centauri is a tantalizing target because of its sheer closeness to Earth. The binary system is just 4.3 light-years away, which is 270,000 times the distance from the Earth to the sun. (The next nearest sun-like star is more than twice as far away.) When it comes to Alpha Centauri, "We don't need a big giant telescope that's at least a meter [3.3 feet] in size or larger-type project that NASA's currently doing, like the WFIRST mission — we're able to keep this telescope to roughly half a meter, and we can still explore that habitable zone," Morse said, referring to the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, a mission that NASA aims to begin in the mid-2020s. But what of Proxima Centauri, the red dwarf star slightly closer to Earth where researchers found a planet whose minimum size is near Earth's in August? That star is much dimmer and smaller than the sun, and the habitable zone around it — where liquid water can exist — is therefore too close in to be distinguished visually from the star, the researchers said. And the planet's surroundings are much different than Earth's because of the star it circles. Researchers detected the planet around Proxima Centauri by noticing the tiny wobbles in the star caused by the planet's gravity, and most observations of worlds outside our solar system rely on similar indirect evidence that a star harbors orbiting passengers. NASA's Kepler space telescope, for instance, detects the slight dimming that occurs when a planet passes across a star's face. Project Blue, instead, would rely on direct imaging — essentially photographing the planet with a powerful-enough telescope. "It's a very daunting challenge [because] we're trying to image the planets in the visible light, the light that we can see with our eyes," Chakrabarti told Space.com. "The planets are a billion, or maybe 10 billion, times dimmer than the stars themselves. Certainly, our sun is 10 billion times brighter than our Earth. "What you have to do is devise an instrument that could selectively turn off the light of the star, and not do anything to the light of the planet — or something only minimal," Chakrabarti said. He compared this device to the Deluminator in the "Harry Potter" series, which selectively darkens nearby streetlights. Rendering of the telescope Project Blue aims to put in space to search for planets around the nearby star system Alpha Centauri. Credit: Project Blue Space.com reported on a talk last year by Ruslan Belikov, an astronomer based at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, about methods for imaging Alpha Centauri to search for a planet. This effort comes with unique challenges, Belikov said, because of the potentially complex orbit of a planet around two stars and the need to block out the light of both stars to spot any planetary specks. Morse said he hopes to use similar methods — described in Belikov's and other studies — to use deformable mirrors and star shades to cancel out the stars' glare. And the rest of the technology, like that required to hold the telescope steady enough in space to image the star system, has made rapid strides lately, Chakrabarti said. Such advances should make Project Blue possible on a smaller budget than ever — and it's a project that would be extremely difficult to do on more general-purpose telescopes, like Hubble, team members said. "The opportunity here is the confluence between the technology development that's been occurring, the scientific urgency, not only for exoplanets in general but the announcement of a super-Earth-class planet around Proxima Centauri in the same stellar group," Morse said. A rendering of the satellite assembly that would carry Project Blue's telescope to space to try and directly image Alpha Centauri. Credit: Project Blue Reach for the dot A rendering of the telescope and satellite Project Blue would launch into space to search for planets orbiting Alpha Centauri. Because of the target's nearness to Earth, the telescope and instruments can be around the size of a refrigerator. Credit: Project Blue The project is a gamble, the researchers said, and requires making fiendishly difficult measurements. But it's possible to do Project Blue relatively inexpensively due to the stars' lucky location, and it'd have the potential to reveal an Earth-like planet very close to home orbiting a star like ours, even if in a much more complicated star system. Kepler's observations suggest that pretty much every star in the sky hosts at least one planet, and alien worlds have been found in a number of two-star systems. So there's a good chance Project Blue would find something, Morse said. "The good thing is that we have two sun-like stars, and therefore two chances," he said. "Some people want to put the probability of finding at least one planet in one of the systems as high as 80 percent or more." If all went well, they'd be poised to catch sight of blue and greenish wavelengths — just enough to tell if any planet around Alpha Centauri is indeed a "pale blue dot" like Earth viewed from afar. Just a visible-light detection can tell researchers about the planet's mass and a little bit of its composition — reflectivity could indicate clouds, for instance. And the next steps of research could characterize the planet further. "Once something like this is found, all kinds of other people would look at it in different colors — infrared, which could then give you some idea of temperature and so forth," Chakrabarti said. "We're taking the first step. After that, there will be a lot more detailed investigations, which will tell us a lot more." The next steps, then, would be to characterize the planet, determine what it's made of and what it's like using other instruments and then — maybe — to send a robotic emissary to get an up-close look. Editor's Note: This article was corrected at 11:30 a.m. EDT to remove a reference to University of Arizona, who is not a partner on Project Blue.
European Spacecraft Prepares to Land on Mars Next Week By Samantha Mathewson, Space.com Contributor | October 10, 2016 03:06pm ET Ready for descent — deploy thrusters! The Schiaparelli spacecraft, part of the European Space Agency's (ESA) ExoMars mission to Mars, has received its landing commands for its expected Oct. 19 touchdown on the Red Planet, and a new video shows how the spacecraft will descend. Launched on March 14, the ExoMars mission rocketed two connected spacecraft, the Trace Gas Orbiter and its Schiaparelli lander, toward Mars. The two spacecraft are expected to separate on Sunday (Oct. 16), and if all goes according to plan, the Schiaparelli lander will descend on the Martian surface three days later. While the Schiaparelli lander is on the Martian surface, the Trace Gas Orbiter will orbit the Red Planet and study its atmosphere. The new video details the spacecraft's landing commands, which include discharging the front and back aeroshells and deploying the craft's descent sensors, braking parachute and thrusters for a controlled landing. [Gallery: Europe's ExoMars Missions in Pictures] This image is an artist's impression of the Schiaparelli spacecraft on the surface of Mars. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab The Schiaparelli spacecraft is set to land in Mars' Meridiani Planum region, close to the planet's equator. It will enter the Martian atmosphere at about 13,000 mph (21,000 km/h) and will have 6 minutes to brake to a safe speed for landing, ESA officials said in a statement. To ensure the challenging descent goes according to plan, the lander's sensors will monitor its height above the Martian surface, starting at 4 miles (7 kilometers). When the spacecraft is about 6.5 feet (2 meters) above the surface, it will hover for a moment, cut its thrusters and fall freely to the ground, as shown in the video. This graphic from the European Space Agency shows the stages of the ExoMars Schiaparelli probe's landing on Mars set for Oct. 19, 2016. Credit: European Space Agency/ATG Medialab The uploading of the landing commands to ESA's ExoMars spacecraft marked a major milestone in preparing Schiaparelli for its touchdown on Mars. The commands were uploaded in two sets — one on Oct. 3 and another on Oct. 7. Once safely on the ground, Schiaparelli will study Mars' wind speed and direction, humidity, pressure, air temperature and more. Then, the spacecraft's measurements will be sent to the Trace Gas Orbiter above. The main goal of this mission is to pave the way for the life-hunting ExoMars rover, scheduled to launch in 2020. Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect that as of May 2016, the next ExoMars mission has been moved to 2020 from 2018.
Observable Universe contains ten times more galaxies than previously thought October 13, 2016 Among other data, scientists used the galaxies visible in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) to recalculate the total number of galaxies in the observable Universe. The image was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope …more Astronomers using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescopes and other telescopes have performed an accurate census of the number of galaxies in the Universe. The group came to the surprising conclusion that there are at least 10 times as many galaxies in the observable Universe as previously thought. The results have clear implications for our understanding of galaxy formation, and also help solve an ancient astronomical paradox—why is the sky dark at night? One of the most fundamental questions in astronomy is that of just how many galaxies the Universe contains. The Hubble Deep Field images, captured in the mid 1990s, gave the first real insight into this. Myriad faint galaxies were revealed, and it was estimated that the observable Universe contains about 100 billion galaxies. Now, an international team, led by Christopher Conselice from the University of Nottingham, UK, have shown that this figure is at least ten times too low. Conselice and his team reached this conclusion using deep space images from Hubble, data from his team's previous work, and other published data. They painstakingly converted the images into 3-D, in order to make accurate measurements of the number of galaxies at different times in the Universe's history. In addition, they used new mathematical models which allowed them to infer the existence of galaxies which the current generation of telescopes cannot observe. This led to the surprising realisation that in order for the numbers to add up, some 90% of the galaxies in the observable Universe are actually too faint and too far away to be seen—yet. "It boggles the mind that over 90% of the galaxies in the Universe have yet to be studied. Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we observe these galaxies with the next generation of telescopes," explains Christopher Conselice about the far-reaching implications of the new results. In analysing the data the team looked more than 13 billion years into the past. This showed them that galaxies are not evenly distributed throughout the Universe's history. In fact, it appears that there were a factor of 10 more galaxies per unit volume when the Universe was only a few billion years old compared with today. Most of these galaxies were relatively small and faint, with masses similar to those of the satellite galaxies surrounding the Milky Way. These results are powerful evidence that a significant evolution has taken place throughout the Universe's history, an evolution during which galaxies merged together, dramatically reducing their total number. "This gives us a verification of the so-called top-down formation of structure in the Universe," explains Conselice. The decreasing number of galaxies as time progresses also contributes to the solution of Olbers' paradox—why the sky is dark at night. The team came to the conclusion that there is such an abundance of galaxies that, in principle, every point in the sky contains part of a galaxy. However, most of these galaxies are invisible to the human eye and even to modern telescopes, owing to a combination of factors: redshifting of light, the Universe's dynamic nature and the absorption of light by intergalactic dust and gas, all combine to ensure that the night sky remains mostly dark. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-10-universe-ten-galaxies-previously-thought.html#jCp
Approx 30 minutes from now At 10:42am EDT (2:42pm GMT), the lander is expected to make a ballistic entry into Mars’ atmosphere, at a speed of approximately 13,000 mph (21,000 kph). After a few minutes of fiery free-fall during which the lander’s precious instruments are protected by a slowly-vaporizing aeroshell, Schiaparelli will have slowed to around 1056 mph (1,700 kph) and be situated 6.8 miles (11 km) above the surface. At this point, a parachute deploys. The heat shield is released, and the craft’s Doppler radar is activated in order to determine distance to the ground and relative velocity, information that’ll later be used to activate the thrusters. Finally, at an altitude of a little over 0.6 miles (1 km) and a speed of 155 mph (250 kph), Schiaparelli jettisons its parachute, ignites its three hydrazine thrusters, and descends to a height of 6.5 feet (2 meters) above the surface. The thrusters are then cut, and the lander drops, crunching into the ruddy soil at approximately the speed of an average runner. Start to finish, the entire sequence takes just under six minutes.
the orbiter to study mars' atmosphere and gas and biological etc. is in orbit the lander thing is still MIA
Wasn't trying to be cunty. P sure they flew a lander to a comet and misjudged its touchdown speed and it went flying several football fields past where it was supposed to land, straight into a crevasse that was mostly shielded from light thus rendering a number of its functions unusable. Europe sucks at space and they should just outsource it all to us. I could be wrong on some of this but I believe its loosely what happened.
That right. Forgot about Philae landing under a ridge and being fucked with no sunlight. You're right, Europe sucks at space.
Speaking of people who don't suck at space..Merica... Planet 9 starting to gain steam... http://www.space.com/34455-planet-nine-discovery-coming-soon.html simply amazing if/when this happens...
Finally got around to listening to Elon's Mars talk, so fucking excited. They really seem to be well on their way, i think the part that got me the most is that they plan to send something to Mars on every rendezvous cycle starting in 2018. That's every 26 months. We gonna have some nice shit waiting for us when we get there.
If he gets something to the moon or towards Mars by '20, we could tell the masses to make him a write-in and he'd win by a landslide.