Video: Flyover of Pluto's majestic mountains and icy plains July 17, 2017 by Bill Keeter In July 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft sent home the first close-up pictures of Pluto and its moons – amazing imagery that inspired many to wonder what a flight over the distant worlds' icy terrain might be like. Pluto flyover. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Paul Schenk and John Blackwell, Lunar and Planetary Institute The topographic relief is exaggerated by a factor of two to three times in these movies to emphasize topography; the surface colors of Pluto and Charon also have been enhanced to bring out detail. Digital mapping and rendering were performed by Paul Schenk and John Blackwell of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. All feature names in the Pluto system are informal. Charon flyover. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Paul Schenk and John Blackwell, Lunar and Planetary Institute Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-video-flyover-pluto-majestic-mountains.html#jCp
Alien radio signals are at the bottom of the list of explanations, but they are on the list. Strange Signals from the Nearby Red Dwarf Star Ross 128 posted Jul 12, 2017, 1:31 PM by Abel Mendez [ updated Jul 17, 2017, 10:35 AM ] We are conducting a scientific campaign from the Arecibo Observatory to observe red dwarf star with planets. These observations might provide information about the radiation and magnetic environment around these stars or even hint the presence of new sub-stellar objects including planets. So far, we observed Gliese 436, Ross 128, Wolf 359, HD 95735, BD +202465, V* RY Sex, and K2-18. Only Gliese 436 and K2-18 are known to have planets. Observations were done between April and May 2017 in the C-band (4 to 5 GHz). Two weeks after these observations, we realized that there were some very peculiar signals in the 10-minute dynamic spectrum that we obtained from Ross 128 (GJ 447), observed May 12 at 8:53 PM AST (2017/05/13 00:53:55 UTC). The signals consisted of broadband quasi-periodic non-polarized pulses with very strong dispersion-like features. We believe that the signals are not local radio frequency interferences (RFI) since they are unique to Ross 128 and observations of other stars immediately before and after did not show anything similar. We do not know the origin of these signals but there are three main possible explanations: they could be (1) emissions from Ross 128 similar to Type II solar flares, (2) emissions from another object in the field of view of Ross 128, or just (3) burst from a high orbit satellite since low orbit satellites are quick to move out of the field of view. The signals are probably too dim for other radio telescopes in the world and FAST is currently under calibration. Each of the possible explanations has their own problems. For example, Type II solar flares occur at much lower frequencies and the dispersion suggests a much farther source or a dense electron field (e.g. the stellar atmosphere?). Also, there are no many nearby objects in the field of view of Ross 128 and we have never seen satellites emit bursts like that, which were common in our other star observations. In case you are wondering, the recurrent aliens hypothesis is at the bottom of many other better explanations. Therefore, we have a mystery here and the three main explanations are as good as any at this moment. Fortunately, we obtained more time to observe Ross 128 next Sunday, July 16, and we might clarify soon the nature of its radio emissions, but there are no guarantees. We will also observe Barnard’s star that day to collaborate with the Red Dots project. Results from our observations will be presented later that week. I have a Piña Colada ready to celebrate if the signals result to be astronomical in nature.
Cutting-edge Adaptive Optics Facility sees first light August 2, 2017 The coupling of the AOF (Adaptive Optics Facility) with MUSE (Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer) gives access to both greater sharpness and a wide dynamic range when observing celestial objects like planetary nebulae. These new observations of IC 4406 revealed shells that have never been seen before, along with the already familiar dark dust structures in the nebula that gave it the popular name the Retina Nebula.This image shows a small fraction of the total data collected by the MUSE using the AOF system and demonstrates the increased abilities of the new AOF equipped MUSE instrument. Credit: ESO/J. Richard The Unit Telescope 4 (Yepun) of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has now been transformed into a fully adaptive telescope. After more than a decade of planning, construction and testing, the new Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF) has seen first light with the instrument MUSE, capturing amazingly sharp views of planetary nebulae and galaxies. The coupling of the AOF and MUSE forms one of the most advanced and powerful technological systems ever built for ground-based astronomy. The AOF, which made these observations possible, is composed of many parts working together. They include the Four Laser Guide Star Facility (4LGSF) and the very thin deformable secondary mirror of UT4. The 4LGSF shines four 22-watt laser beams into the sky to make sodium atoms in the upper atmosphere glow, producing spots of light on the sky that mimic stars. Sensors in the adaptive optics module GALACSI (Ground Atmospheric Layer Adaptive Corrector for Spectroscopic Imaging) use these artificial guide stars to determine the atmospheric conditions. One thousand times per second, the AOF system calculates the correction that must be applied to change the shape of the telescope's deformable secondary mirror to compensate for atmospheric disturbances. In particular, GALACSI corrects for the turbulence in the layer of atmosphere up to one kilometre above the telescope. Depending on the conditions, atmospheric turbulence can vary with altitude, but studies have shown that the majority of atmospheric disturbance occurs in this "ground layer" of the atmosphere. "The AOF system is essentially equivalent to raising the VLT about 900 metres higher in the air, above the most turbulent layer of atmosphere," explains Robin Arsenault, AOF Project Manager. "In the past, if we wanted sharper images, we would have had to find a better site or use a space telescope—but now with the AOF, we can create much better conditions right where we are, for a fraction of the cost!" The corrections applied by the AOF rapidly and continuously improve the image quality by concentrating the light to form sharper images, allowing MUSE to resolve finer details and detect fainter stars than previously possible. GALACSI currently provides a correction over a wide field of view, but this is only the first step in bringing adaptive optics to MUSE. A second mode of GALACSI is in preparation and is expected to see first light early 2018. This narrow-field mode will correct for turbulence at any altitude, allowing observations of smaller fields of view to be made with even higher resolution. "Sixteen years ago, when we proposed building the revolutionary MUSE instrument, our vision was to couple it with another very advanced system, the AOF," says Roland Bacon, project lead for MUSE. "The discovery potential of MUSE, already large, is now enhanced still further. Our dream is becoming true." One of the main science goals of the system is to observe faint objects in the distant Universe with the best possible image quality, which will require exposures of many hours. Joël Vernet, ESO MUSE and GALACSI Project Scientist, comments: "In particular, we are interested in observing the smallest, faintest galaxies at the largest distances. These are galaxies in the making—still in their infancy—and are key to understanding how galaxies form." Furthermore, MUSE is not the only instrument that will benefit from the AOF. In the near future, another adaptive optics system called GRAAL will come online with the existing infrared instrument HAWK-I, sharpening its view of the Universe. That will be followed later by the powerful new instrument ERIS. "ESO is driving the development of these adaptive optics systems, and the AOF is also a pathfinder for ESO's Extremely Large Telescope," adds Arsenault. "Working on the AOF has equipped us—scientists, engineers and industry alike—with invaluable experience and expertise that we will now use to overcome the challenges of building the ELT." Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-cutting-edge-optics-facility.html#jCp
Pretty cool. Even just watching the lightening storm. Jet lightening from the Keck Observatory. https://www.space.com/37650-jet-lightning-blue-jets-gemini-observatory-video.html
Cool overview of Saturn's water containing moons and others in the solar system. Spoiler PLANETS Cassini Mission to Saturn Reveals Where Life Might Be Possible on Its Moons The conditions needed to support life as we know it may be present on several of the planet’s 53 confirmed moons. BY DAVE BRODY, SPACE.COM AUGUST 10, 2017 7:00 AM EDT Geysers from tiger-stripe fissures: This mosaic of two Cassini images shows water plumes emanating from four cracks in the surface of the southern polar region of the Saturn moon Enceladus. From left to right, the fractures are named Alexandria, Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus. |NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute The complex choreography of Saturn's numerous moons displays beautiful physics, but only a few of the worlds may be friendly to life. Oceans of liquid water, deep beneath the icy crusts of three of Saturn's natural satellites, may satisfy the conditions needed for "life as we know it," scientists say. The small, bright-white Enceladus and Dione, and the giant, orange, haze-enshrouded Titan each probably contain such subsurface seas. But the unique structure and contents of each ocean represent a different possible solution to the life equation. The Cassini-Huygens mission — a collaboration of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency — has been a prolific pioneer of Saturn's moons. When the mission launched in 1997, 18 moons were known to orbit the planet, and 13 more were suspected. But the number of confirmed moons now stands at 53, with another nine marked as "conditional." Cassini's data revealed seven entirely unknown moons that are not observable from Earth. [The Rings and Moons of Saturn in Pictures] This elaborate system of moons forms a complex clockwork of gravitational resonances; they perturb one another's orbits and constantly sculpt Saturn's rings. And the massive planet gravitationally disrupts the moons, warming some of them to the point of possibly swaddling life beneath their surfaces. The first hints that something wonderful might be going on beneath the surface of the small moon Enceladus came during the 1981 flyby mission of NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft. Enceladus appeared remarkably bright and unusually smooth, with comparatively few craters. This 314-mile-wide (505 kilometers) moon turned out to be the whitest object in the solar system. In 2005, Cassini's magnetometer readings of Enceladus raised researchers' eyebrows: The moon's magnetic signature looked more like that of a comet than that of a typical spherical satellite. The field lines seemed to bend around Enceladus's southern pole. On a pass where Enceladus was seen against the black background of space, Cassini's cameras caught plumes of water emanating from that polar region. Several Cassini flybys confirmed that the area was about 180 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) warmer than the rest of the moon's surface. The heat source was aligned with four prominent "tiger stripe" features. These turned out to be fissures — cracks in the icy crust through which geysers shoot water into space at about 800 mph (about 1,300 km/h). Tiger stripe on Enceladus |NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute Cassini sailed within 31 miles (50 km) of Enceladus's south pole on March 12, 2008. During that flyby, the probe sampled the plumes, and found that they were made of water laced with ammonia, methane, and carbon dioxide. More flybys were planned. By April 2014, it was clear that some of the geyser particles were salty and flavored with potassium and sodium, very similar to Earthly sea spray. Hydrogen gas was detected in the jets, as were silicate crystals, which could only have been formed in boiling water, scientists said. [Photos: Enceladus, Saturn's Cold, Bright Moon] This evidence, taken together, suggests the presence of a salty ocean of liquid water under the ice, in contact with a hot, rocky seafloor through which mineral-laden hot water flows. It is easy to imagine hydrothermal vents there, very similar to the "black smokers" and "white smokers" found on the bottom of Earth's oceans, where they form oases for communities of life. Enceladus seems to be begging us to return with instruments capable of detecting amino acids, fatty acids and long-chain carbon molecules — and perhaps even imaging equipment to photograph any possible microorganisms themselves. Titan, which is 10 times wider than Enceladus, is also a world of liquids. But the fluids flowing on Titan's surface are hydrocarbons, not water. At Titan's surface temperature, water is rock-hard. But methane, ethane, and propane slosh around in all three states: solid, liquid, and gaseous. The surface of this moon is nearly impossible to see from space at visual wavelengths; thick, orange smog pervades the place. This hazy atmosphere is rich with organic compounds. Fortunately, Cassini can see in infrared and radar wavelengths. And the Cassini orbiter carried a lander called Huygens, which touched down on Titan's surface in January 2005. Huygens carried cameras down through the atmosphere. And, upon soft-landing on the shore of a hydrocarbon lake, it sent close-ups of rounded pebbles, which were probably made of water. The landforms on Titan are eerily familiar; they look a lot like coastlines and river lands on Earth. Titan, too, must be warm inside. This moon changes shape as it orbits Saturn once every 16 days. Cassini measured Titan's tidal bulging, finding the surface rising and falling on the order of 30 feet (9 meters). If Titan were completely solid, those tides would be at least 10 times less pronounced, scientists have said. A slice of Titan: Radio-science studies using Cassini signals sent to NASA's Deep Space Network suggest that this moon harbors a global ocean lying between a frozen water-ice crust above and a high-pressure ice layer below. The silicate core of Titan is likely infused with water as well. |A. Tavani/NASA But the floor of Titan's subsurface ocean may be compacted and frozen, not warm, scientists have said. This could prevent warm liquid water from receiving the complex mix of minerals necessary for life to arise, at least from below. Therefore, it's critical to know if the organic-rich surface of Titan can "communicate" with the subsurface seas. One great mystery about Titan is how so much methane can be present at its surface. Methane breaks down quickly, so something must be replenishing it. If there are deep cracks, or cryovolcanic vents, through which ammonia from a salty underground ocean may rise, sunlight would break down the molecules, thus liberating lots of methane. That same pathway could let surface material and atmospheric organic material seep or slide down to the waters beneath. In that case, life may be possible within Titan's interior ocean, even if its floor is frozen. [Amazing Photos: Titan, Saturn's Largest Moon] Like Enceladus and Titan, the Saturnian moons Dione and Tethys are subject to the warping and twisting effects of Saturn's tidal gravity. And both of these worlds show bright, relatively smooth and roughly circular surface patches where ponds of liquid water appear to have frozen across craters. They would make nice skating rinks. These events likely happened relatively recently on geologic time scales. Dione in front of Saturn: Cassini's wide-angle camera shot three images — through blue, green and infrared filters — as the spacecraft flew 24,200 miles (39,000 km) from the moon to produce this photo. |NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI Dione is similar to Enceladus but, at 700 miles (1,100 km) in diameter, is about two times larger. Dione's icy crust is much thicker than that of Enceladus, boasting a substantial 60 miles (100 km) of crystallized water. But a recent study based on Cassini's gravity measurements suggests that a tremendous quantity of liquid water sloshes beneath that shell. The floor of Dione's subsurface ocean is probably the rocky core of the moon itself, according to the study. A future submarine probe may find many sources of heat and mineral nutrients to sustain life, if biology ever began there — or was seeded from afar. Dione's waters likely have been liquid through most of the moon's history, adding the vital element of time for biology to evolve and differentiate, researchers have said. Snow-globe worlds: Observations by the Cassini-Huygens mission suggest that three Saturn moons harbor liquid-water oceans beneath their icy shells. |NASA/JPL-Caltech Such "snow-globe worlds" — bodies with cold crystal exteriors housing warm liquid oceans full of particles cascading and mixing — are not unique to Saturn. The dwarf planet Pluto may enclose such an ocean. Pluto and its largest moon Charon, which is about half as wide as the dwarf planet itself, can be considered a binary system. Their mutual attraction may heat up their interiors, and parts of Pluto seem to have been resurfaced in the recent past, scientists have said. Giant Jupiter exerts massive tidal forces on the four large moons first noted by Galileo Galilei four centuries ago. The innermost of these moons, Io, almost seems to be turning inside out. More than 400 active sulfur volcanoes blast this moon's guts into space. Its core of molten iron singes the surface from below. Of the worlds in our solar system, Io may bear the closest resemblance to classical notions of hell. All of its water long since lost, it's the driest object in the solar system. There are no water oceans on Io. But each of its three siblings — Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto — encloses a sea beneath its surface. Europa, which is slightly smaller than Earth's moon, holds a thin oxygen atmosphere. This world sports the smoothest surface in the solar system, with very few impact craters, implying that it's being repaved with water ice from inside, scientists have said. Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have spotted hints of water-vapor plumes emanating from Europa that may be similar to the "cryogeysers" of Enceladus. Saturn's ocean-harboring moons get most of the press, but the ringed planet's many dry satellites are fascinating in their own right. Each Saturnian moon is a unique jewel in the majestic planet's necklace. Some of these moons, like Mimas, look like the results of ancient, catastrophic collisions. Shady Phoebe, with its inky-black surface, pours matter out into space. It tints the rings and stains one hemisphere of Iapetus, the "next moon in" toward Saturn, with dark reddish shading. Sparky Hyperion is lightweight and spongy — almost like a giant piece of volcanic pumice — and electrically active. A few moons apparently are captured asteroids, visitors from deep space that strayed too close. And Cassini has spotted clumpy cocoons within the rings where tiny future moons may be growing. Together, the many moons of Saturn form an enthralling exhibit of nature's creativity. For a deeper look into all that Cassini has found in its 13 years in the Saturn system, watch the 73-minute documentary "Kingdom of Saturn — Cassini's Epic Quest," available at Amazon XiveTV.
Awesome landing by spacex todag. The feed is the best I've seen of a landing since they were bringing it back to cape canaveral.
Cloudy Waves (False Color) Clouds on Saturn take on the appearance of strokes from a cosmic brush thanks to the wavy way that fluids interact in Saturn's atmosphere. Neighboring bands of clouds move at different speeds and directions depending on their latitudes. This generates turbulence where bands meet and leads to the wavy structure along the interfaces. Saturn’s upper atmosphere generates the faint haze seen along the limb of the planet in this image. This false color view is centered on 46 degrees north latitude on Saturn. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on May 18, 2017 using a combination of spectral filters which preferentially admit wavelengths of near-infrared light. The image filter centered at 727 nanometers was used for red in this image; the filter centered at 750 nanometers was used for blue. (The green color channel was simulated using an average of the two filters.) The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 750,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale is about 4 miles (7 kilometers) per pixel. The Cassini Solstice Mission is a joint United States and European endeavor. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini Solstice Mission visit http://ciclops.org, http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute http://ciclops.org/view/8566/Cloudy-Waves-False-Color?js=1
siap, but highly recommended: http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/20...d-celebrating-40-years-of-the-voyager-mission
APL proposes Dragonfly mission to explore potential habitable sites on Saturn's largest moon August 24, 2017 by Khadija Elkharbibi The Dragonfly dual-quadcopter, shown twice here in an artist’s rendering, could make multiple flights to explore diverse locations as it characterizes the habitability of Titan's environment. Credit: JHUAPL/Mike Carroll The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory has submitted a proposal to NASA outlining a daring New Frontiers-class mission concept that would use an instrumented, radioisotope-powered dual-quadcopter to explore potential habitable sites where life could be developed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. "Seems pretty straightforward," quipped Dragonfly project manager Peter Bedini in a video presentation of the proposal. The concept, called Dragonfly, would capitalize on the rapid advances made in recent years to autonomous aerial systems—sometimes referred to as the "drone revolution." The increased reliability and capability these systems would enable Dragonfly to make numerous flights, moving from one geologic setting to another on the moon's surface. Titan has diverse, carbon-rich chemistry on a surface dominated by water ice, as well as an interior ocean. It is one of a number of "ocean worlds" in our solar system that hold the ingredients for life, and the rich organic material that covers the moon is undergoing chemical processes that might be similar to those on early Earth. Dragonfly would take advantage of Titan's dense, flight-enabling atmosphere to visit multiple sites by landing on safe terrain, and then carefully navigate to more challenging landscapes. "This is the kind of experiment we can't do in the laboratory because of the time scales involved," said APL's Elizabeth Turtle, principal investigator for the Dragonfly mission. "Mixing of rich, organic molecules and liquid water on the surface of Titan could have persisted over very long timescales. Dragonfly is designed to study the results of Titan's experiments in prebiotic chemistry." Credit: Johns Hopkins Universit With Titan's dense atmosphere and low gravity, flight is substantially easier than on Earth, giving Dragonfly a very broad range of capability. While there is enough sunlight at Titan's surface to see, there is not enough to use solar power efficiently, so Dragonfly would be powered by a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, or MMRTG. At each site, Dragonfly would sample the surface and atmosphere with a suite of carefully selected science instruments that will characterize the habitability of Titan's environment, investigate how far prebiotic chemistry has progressed, and search for chemical signatures indicative of water- and/or hydrocarbon-based life. These measurements include: Mass spectrometry, which would reveal the composition of the surface and the atmosphere; Gamma-ray spectrometry, which would measure the composition of the shallow sub-surface; Meteorology and geophysics sensors, which would measure atmospheric conditions such as wind, pressure, temperature, as well as seismic activity and other factors; and A camera suite that would characterize the geologic and physical nature of the moon's surface, and help find subsequent landing sites. "We could take a lander, put it on Titan, take these four measurements at one place, and significantly increase our understanding of Titan and similar moons," said Bedini. "However, we can multiply the value of the mission if we add aerial mobility, which would enable us to access a variety of geologic settings, maximizing the science return and lowering mission risk by going over or around obstacles." Later this fall, NASA is expected to select a few of the New Frontiers mission proposals for further study. Only one will be chosen for flight as the fourth mission in the planetary exploration program; the APL-led New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt was the first New Frontiers mission ever selected. Final mission selection is expected in mid-2019. Explore further: Titan ripe for drone invasion Provided by: Johns Hopkins University
I heard from a buddy that there was some kind of a "black holes could delete the universe" video out there on the Netscapes. I don't suppose any of you guys have seen it, have you?
I've decided that I can't be friends with anyone who doesn't think the Falcon 9 making it to space then self landing on boat in the ocean is the coolest shit ever. Science rules. With that being said...
That's 99% of my rockets in Kerbal Space Program when I'm trying to get into orbit. A nice big parabola into space and back.
I’m watching Hidden Figures and I cannot believe the level of “holy shit we’ve never done ANYTHING like this before” these guys were dealing with. And how it was utterly commonplace like 15 years later.
Heating ocean moon Enceladus for billions of years November 6, 2017 Over time, cool ocean water seeps into the moon's porous core. Pockets of water reaching deep into the interior are warmed by contact with rock in the tidally heated interior and subsequently rise owing to the positive buoyancy, leading to …more Enough heat to power hydrothermal activity inside Saturn's ocean moon Enceladus for billions of years could be generated through tidal friction if the moon has a highly porous core, a new study finds, working in favour of the moon as a potentially habitable world. A paper published in Nature Astronomy today presents the first concept that explains the key characteristics of 500 km-diameter Enceladus as observed by the international Cassini spacecraft over the course of its mission, which concluded in September. This includes a global salty ocean below an ice shell with an average thickness of 20–25 km, thinning to just 1–5 km over the south polar region. There, jets of water vapour and icy grains are launched through fissures in the ice. The composition of the ejected material measured by Cassini included salts and silica dust, suggesting they form through hot water – at least 90°C – interacting with rock in the porous core. These observations require a huge source of heat, about 100 times more than is expected to be generated by the natural decay of radioactive elements in rocks in its core, as well as a means of focusing activity at the south pole. The tidal effect from Saturn is thought to be at the origin of the eruptions deforming the icy shell by push-pull motions as the moon follows an elliptical path around the giant planet. But the energy produced by tidal friction in the ice, by itself, would be too weak to counterbalance the heat loss seen from the ocean – the globe would freeze within 30 million years. As Cassini has shown, the moon is clearly still extremely active, suggesting something else is happening. Dramatic plumes, both large and small, spray water ice out from many locations along the 'tiger stripes' near the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The tiger stripes are fissures that spray icy particles, water vapour and organic …more "Where Enceladus gets the sustained power to remain active has always been a bit of mystery, but we've now considered in greater detail how the structure and composition of the moon's rocky core could play a key role in generating the necessary energy," says lead author Gaël Choblet from the University of Nantes in France. In the new simulations the core is made of unconsolidated, easily deformable, porous rock that water can easily permeate. As such, cool liquid water from the ocean can seep into the core and gradually heat up through tidal friction between sliding rock fragments, as it gets deeper. Water circulates in the core and then rises because it is hotter than the surroundings. This process ultimately transfers heat to the base of the ocean in narrow plumes where it interacts strongly with the rocks. At the seafloor, these plumes vent into the cooler ocean. One seafloor hotspot alone is predicted to release as much as 5 GW of energy, roughly corresponding to the annual geothermal power consumed in Iceland. Such seafloor hotspots generate ocean plumes rising at a few centimetres per second. Not only do the plumes result in strong melting of the ice crust above, but they can also carry small particles from the seafloor, over weeks to months, which are then released into space by the icy jets. Moreover, the authors' computer models show that most water should be expelled from the moon's polar regions, with a runaway process leading to hot spots in localised areas, and thus a thinner ice shell directly above, consistent with what was inferred from Cassini. This movie sequence of images is from the last dedicated observation of the Enceladus plume by Cassini. The images were obtained over approximately 14 hours as Cassini's cameras stared at the active, icy moon. The view during the entire …more "Our simulations can simultaneously explain the existence of an ocean at a global scale due to large-scale heat transport between the deep interior and the ice shell, and the concentration of activity in a relatively narrow region around the south pole, thus explaining the main features observed by Cassini," says co-author Gabriel Tobie, also from the University of Nantes. The scientists say that the efficient rock-water interactions in a porous core massaged by tidal friction could generate up to 30 GW of heat over tens of millions to billions of years. "Future missions capable of analysing the organic molecules in the Enceladus plume with a higher accuracy than Cassini would be able to tell us if sustained hydrothermal conditions could have allowed life to emerge," says Nicolas Altobelli, ESA's Cassini project scientist. A future mission equipped with ice-penetrating radar would also be able to constrain the ice thickness, and additional flybys – or an orbiting craft – would improve models of the interior, further verifying the presence of active hydrothermal plumes. "We'll be flying next-generation instruments, including ground-penetrating radar, to Jupiter's ocean moons in the next decade with ESA's JUICE mission, which is specifically tasked with trying to understand the potential habitability of ocean worlds in the outer Solar System," adds Nicolas. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-11-ocean-moon-enceladus-billions-years.html#jCp
Video is cool. Astounds me every time how they find this shit. Hubble spots expanding light echo around supernova November 9, 2017 Light from Supernova Bouncing Off Giant Dust Cloud Light from a supernova explosion in the nearby starburst galaxy M82 is reverberating off a huge dust cloud in interstellar space. The supernova, called SN 2014J, occurred at the upper right of M82, and is marked by an "X." The supernova was discovered on Jan. 21, 2014. The inset images at top reveal an expanding shell of light from the stellar explosion sweeping through interstellar space, called a "light echo." The images were taken 10 months to nearly two years after the violent event (Nov. 6, 2014, to Oct. 12, 2016). The light is bouncing off a giant dust cloud that extends 300 to 1,600 light-years from the supernova and is being reflected toward Earth. SN 2014J is classified as a Type Ia supernova and is the closest such blast in at least four decades. A Type Ia supernova occurs in a binary star system consisting of a burned-out white dwarf and a companion star. The white dwarf explodes after the companion dumps too much material onto it. The image of M82 reveals a bright blue disk, webs of shredded clouds, and fiery-looking plumes of glowing hydrogen blasting out of its central regions. Close encounters with its larger neighbor, the spiral galaxy M81, are compressing gas in M82 and stoking the birth of multiple star clusters. Some of these stars live for only a short time and die in cataclysmic supernova blasts, as shown by SN 2014J. Credit: NASA, ESA, and Y. Yang (Texas A&M University and Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel) Acknowledgment: M. Mountain (AURA) and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Located 11.4 million light-years away, M82 appears high in the northern spring sky in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. It is also called the "Cigar Galaxy" because of the elliptical shape produced by the oblique tilt of its starry disk relative to our line of sight. The M82 image was taken in 2006 by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The inset images of the light echoalso were taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys. This video sequence takes the viewer into the nearby starburst galaxy M82, where a shell of light surrounding an exploding star is moving through interstellar space. The light was emitted from supernova SN 2014J, which was first observed in January …more Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-11-hubble-echo-supernova.html#jCp