Category Archives: Space

Comet Holmes

Posted on November 17, 2007 | Comments Off on Comet Holmes

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The moon has all but obscured Comet Holmes’ big fuzzball, but it was still dazzling in this Nov. 11 view from southern France. The streak on the left is the track of a satellite. Speculation here on why Holmes’ dust cloud is so big.

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Space needs men (and women)

Posted on November 15, 2007 | Comments Off on Space needs men (and women)

Robots, alone, no matter how perfectly programmed, will never do:

"The station’s cost and complexity dwarfs any other international technical project in history. But such machines, built by people, are imperfect, and now and then, they will break down. To make the station work, we’ll need capable people on the spot. No robot we can build can cope with the complexity of what we’ve already built, what we’re now attempting in orbit."

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Bigger than the sun?

Posted on November 15, 2007 | Comments Off on Bigger than the sun?

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That’s Comet 17P/Holmes (left), at least in the 1.4 million kilometer diameter of its dust cloud. But it’s nowhere near the mass of the sun, of course, compared here to Saturn. Thank goodness. Got a little scary there for a minute, right? It’s also an unaided-eye fuzzball in the Constellation Perseus.

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Still waiting for the elevator

Posted on October 30, 2007 | Comments Off on Still waiting for the elevator

Wrapping up the 2007 space elevator games. It ain’t rocket science, but it ain’t easy either.

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Space race

Posted on October 24, 2007 | Comments Off on Space race

Not us and the Russians. Japan, India and China. Japan’s moon probes entered lunar orbit earlier this month, China’s launched today and India is planning one for next April. Competition is good. Especially in space. Somebody needs to shake us out of our low-orbit inertia.

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Ruler of the solar system

Posted on October 11, 2007 | Comments Off on Ruler of the solar system

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Just when you think oft-photographed Jupiter won’t yield any more secrets, a new space probe flies by and coughs up spectacular new shots of the solar system’s dominant planet. The New Horizons robot, enroute to Pluto, imaged "super bolts" of lightning at Jupiter’s poles and made a video of an eruption on the volcanic moon Io, shown here orbiting its master. The blue light at the top of the moon is the eruption. I presume the video is closer-up, but I haven’t found a link to it yet.

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That Peruvian meteorite

Posted on October 8, 2007 | Comments Off on That Peruvian meteorite

A closer look, in PDF, via spaceweather.com. Where did all the water come from? The impact crater is below the water table. As for the mystery illnesses? Arsenic-tainted ground water.

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