ikenbot:

sciencecenter:

35 years later, Voyager spacecraft nearing the edge of the solar system

In the fall of 1977, NASA launched the two Voyager spacecraft, which were designed to study Jupiter and Saturn and then continue on to the limits of the solar system. Today, they are each more than 14 trillion kilometers from the sun and nearing the “bowshock,” the transitional region where the solar wind collides with gas from interstellar space. Within five years, the Voyager crafts should be completely clear of our solar system’s influence. That far, light must travel more than 30 hours from the sun before it reaches the spacecraft.

What’s especially interesting about the Voyager expedition is the backstory behind the mission. Rocket scientists around the time of Sputnik were trying to design a rocket that could overpower the sun’s gravitational pull, a very tough task. A trip of more than a few months using this brute force method was out of the question. Cue Michael Minovitch, who in 1961 set out to solve the three-body problem, the question of how gravity from both the sun and the Earth would impact a third body, in this case the spacecraft. Some of science’s greatest minds, including Newton, were stumped by the task. However, with the use of one of the first computers, Minovitch was able to demonstrate how exploiting the sun’s gravitational field to slingshot a spacecraft deep into space. One of Minovitch’s simulations used this slingshot approach to accelerate using the gravitational fields of the sun as well as Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. The planets were only on the same side of the solar system in 1977, and the same opportunity wouldn’t present itself again for 176 years. Scientists luckily realized the potential in Minovitch’s idea, and launched the Voyager crafts with enough power to last for decades in space and with instruments to study the solar system’s furthest reaches. Today, although the signal from the spacecraft represents only a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a watt once it reaches Earth, the ships keep sending back data and contribute to new discoveries.

Quick Links

• Voyager Mission - NASA
• The Math That Made Voyager Possible - BBC

Crossing my fingers so we don’t return to a back and forth discussion on whether it is or isn’t leaving the solar system’s edge.

ikenbot:

Stop Building Bombs and Start Building Starships

Side Note: To go where no human has gone before.. this may come off as a lengthy read but I would definitely recommend it to any follower who is either into futurism or at least has an interest in where our future ought to head. Scientific American guest blogger Steven P. discusses ways where science and our ever developing technologies can really take us into an age of space exploration. So give it a read or save it on the blog for later, I definitely enjoyed it myself. But then again I’m always up for some interstellar space travel.

Illustration: ‘The Fleet Advances’ by newcmd001

by Steven Ross Pomeroy

In 1969, a great shadow was cast over the United States. That shadow, however, was not one of gloom. Instead of evoking the absence of light, this shadow caused us to look up in wonder at the brightness that created it. When the Saturn V Rocket propelling Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins dashed across the blue, cloud-splotched sky, we did not see a dark present. We glimpsed a bright future.

Elsewhere, however, truly ominous shadows were cast by rockets which never saw the sun. Nestled in silos and buried beneath barren landscapes, “Minuteman” missiles meant not to uplift man, but to deliver the end of man, shrouded much of our world in trepidation.

These two rockets, with two very distinct purposes, bring into focus a problem that has long plagued our nation. We spend far too much money on war, and not enough on science.

Considering that we are nearing the ominously titled “fiscal cliff” — a series of government spending cuts and tax increases that will automatically take effect if Congress and the President do not act to stop it — we have a unique opportunity to review Federal spending and ensure that we are investing our time and wealth to their most productive ends.

I argue that such a review – if guided by reason – would reveal that defense spending should be reduced in order to make way for a world-changing commitment to science and technology, a bold move that will put both the United States and the world on a path to a bright future.

As it stands today, the United States is clearly over militarized. Defense spending in 2011 was estimated at $711 Billion. That’s equal to the combined budgets of the next fourteen top-spending countries, over half of whom are strong U.S. allies. Moreover, a 2011 Government Accountability Office audit of defense spending found that a combined $70 billion was wasted in 2010 and 2009.

This over-the-top spending is indicative of a military-industrial-complex run amok, precisely the scenario that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, perhaps the most revered military commander of the 20th century, warned against in his farewell address. “Together, we must learn how to compose differences not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose,” he avowed.

I can think of no better way to fulfill Eisenhower’s vision than through the pursuit of science.

By intelligently, purposefully, and gradually drawing down the defense budget from 4.7% to 3.0% of GDP (from $709 to $453 billion), and diverting some of those funds to meaningful science projects of both national and global significance, the United States can accomplish the essential goal of protecting its citizens, while simultaneously making the world a safer, healthier place and reinvigorating our economy.

We can begin the funding transition at home by re-committing ourselves to NASA. If we double the space agency’s budget (currently at $17.8 billion), our space accomplishments in ten years will dwarf even the monumental success of this summer, when the Curiosity rover landed on Mars.

We can complete the James Webb Space Telescope, allowing us to peer farther into the Universe than ever before. We can go to Mars by the end of the decade, a mission which astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson insists “would reboot America’s capacity to innovate as no other force in society can.” And with the recent news that warp drive may be more feasible than originally thought, we can focus on researching and eventually engineering interstellar starships that could one day take humans to Gliese 581 g — a potentially habitable Earth-like planet — in a mere two years. Along the way we could solve a myriad of other problems, writes Space.com’s Clara Moskowitz:

“…if human beings can solve the challenges of interstellar spaceflight, in the process they will have solved many of the problems plaguing Earth today, experts said. For example, building a starship will require figuring out how to conserve and recycle resources, how to structure societies for the common well-being, and how to harness and use energy sustainably.”

In addition to funding NASA, we can make fusion energy research a top national priority. Fusion power – an unparalleled energy source that generates electricity by effectively creating a miniature star – has eluded scientists for decades, but researchers now believe that successful fusion is within mankind’s grasp. Before the year is out, scientists at the National Ignition Facility in California hope to fire the world’s most powerful laser into a small test chamber with pea-sized fuel pellets of deuterium and tritium inside. The two isotopes of hydrogen will fuse together and potentially create up to one hundred times more energy than was used to ignite the fuel.

This breakthrough could serve as our “Sputnik Moment” for energy production. If we can put a man on the Moon a mere eight years after deciding to do so, then surely we can master “star power” if we pledge ourselves to the task. Fusion produces no carbon emissions, could provide power for thousands of years, is estimated to be cost-competitive with coal, and is unquestionably the energy source of the future. Yet despite the impressive resumé, fusion energy research is only allotted a relatively paltry $474.6 million.

Why wait for the future to happen later? With additional spending freedom by making cuts in defense, we can fund fusion and make that future happen now.

Continue over at SciAm

sheisintimacy:

NGC 4945

Starburst galaxies are characterized by high infrared luminosities, a sign of the immense light and radiation released from its young massive stars. Although it cannot be observed directly because of obscuring dust and an edge-on orientation, astronomers have good evidence for a central bar within NGC 4945.

A central bar provides a very efficient means of transporting gas inward towards its nucleus thus setting the stage for the formation of nuclear starbursts. The stars are sufficiently old enough to have enriched the central medium with heavier elements and exotic organic compounds.

(Source: ikenbot)

n-a-s-a:

Shadow of a Martian Robot

Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, JPL, NASA

ikenbot:

Enlist in the Space Patrol

fuckyeahspaceexploration:

1962 comparison of Saturn and Nova

fuckyeahspaceexploration:

Himalayas.