GeekwithEnvy

Space

Possibly a Big Discovery on Mars

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We have been receiving a steady stream of updates from the Mars rover, Curiosity, ever since it left the Earth’s atmosphere and began it’s mission. However, one of the more recent updates, which is being called “earthshaking”, can not be shared at this time.  So what in the world is going on? or to be more precise, what in the Martian world is going on?

Mars
Mars (Source:NASA)

One of Curiosity’s instruments, known as SAM, is able to determine what’s inside a particular sample by analyzing it and then letting us know what it’s made up of. John Grotzinger, who is part of the rover team, has mentioned that they have recently gathered a bit of soil to test with SAM and it has yielded some “Earthshaking”, results.

Unfortunately, we won’t find out exactly what these earthshaking results are until they have confirmed them beyond a shadow of a doubt. After all they don’t want to deliver big news only to have to take it back later and say they were wrong.

The funny thing about scientific discovery is that everybody interprets these sort of things differently. We could very well hear news that a never before seen gas has been found trapped in the soil sample, which would be interesting but not necessarily “earthshaking” to those of us outside the scientific community, with the exception being some of our fellow geeks of course. Either way we remain in state of suspense until we can find out more about whats going on out there. I can’t even begin to speculate myself.

There’s no doubt in my mind that these scientists are basically freaking out about not being able to tell us, and to make things worse, it may be several weeks before we can know. For now we will just have to wait and see what these earthshaking results are and hopefully we are in for a big suprise.

Possibly the Most Distant Object in the Universe and Looking Into the Past

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NASA has recently discovered what they think is the most distant object to ever be observed. This object is actually a galaxy named MACS0647-JD and it’s so far away that normally we wouldn’t be able to see it, even with our best telescopes. So, how are we able to see it then? Well, we lucked out, we got a little help from a cluster of galaxies known as MACS J0647+7015. Large celestial objects like galaxies have such large gravitational influence that they can actually distort and bend light passing near them. In the case of MACS J0647+7015, NASA was able to use this gravitational distortion as kind of a deep space magnifying glass. This effect is what enabled NASA to capture the light of this distant galaxy.

Nasa Most Distant Object
Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Postman and D. Coe (STScI) and CLASH Team.

The light of MACS0647-JD has taken nearly 13.3 billion years to reach Earth. We are essentially looking at an object from the theorized beginning of the universe (the big bang). This amazing discovery actually gets me thinking about the distances between objects in space and how long it takes for light to travel between them.

What if we could somehow instantaneously appear 65 million light years away from Earth, and what if we had a telescope with us that was capable of zooming in all the way to the Earth’s surface. Would we see dinosaurs walking the Earth? Theoretically, yes, we should. This raises some fun ideas about what’s possible in the universe. What if we just went a fraction of our first trip away from Earth? Perhaps we only go far enough away to witness the early  beginnings of human civilization and maybe we could just get it all on video. This video would be our exact history, nothing unchanged or lost from our true story. How amazing would that be?

Assuming that in our hypothetical world we can travel to almost any distance, we could actually watch the beginning of our solar system. We could know truly how the Moon was formed and perhaps even watch our solar system form, maybe even watch the Milky Way form. Of course we would need to somehow move our camera closer to the objects we are observing at a relatively quick rate in order to watch the creation of large objects like the Milky Way form in a reasonable amount of time, basically a galactic time lapse. Just a little food for thought.

To see a full article on the new discovery, head over to the official NASA post.

Amazing New Photo From Mars

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One of the latest images from NASA is a self portrait of Curiosity and by far it is my favorite. Below I have featured a smaller version of the image, you can view the image in it’s full resolution, which I highly recommend, here.

You can see everything in amazing detail, including the logo for the Mars Science Laboratory. It’s hard to wrap your head around this picture. At first glance it’s just an awesome photo from Mars, but once you start to realize that this image is from a completely different planet, a planet which no human has ever set foot, you start to feel different about the martian image.

 

Curiosity Self Portrait
Curiosity Self Portrait (NASA)

 

When we seen landscapes like this we tend to look at it as if it were some random, desolate, place on Earth instead of a planet that at it’s closest known approach was 34.8 million miles (56 million km) miles away from us. Most of the time Mars is much further,  somewhere near 150 million miles (240 million km) away.

There are no cities beyond the mountains and no trees or animals to be found (unless NASA is keeping something from us). It’s not a picture of a volcanic land somewhere along the Pacific Ring of Fire, but rather the view we see photographed is a picture of alien world with human technology as it’s centerpiece. As desolate as it seems, it is still beautiful and inspiring as it stirs up our imagination.

As I look at the full resolution image, I can’t help but look at the ground below Curiosity and ponder the presence of life. It seems that one would only need to dig a hole or flip over a rock to find some type of martian worm or centipede. That red soil must contain some type of bacteria, right? How could it not?

This place looks familiar and in many ways it is. Mars has iron and sulfur core surrounded by molten rock, it also has an outer shell with a heavy coating of iron oxide and volcanic basalt. These are all properties and elements that that can be found on Earth. However, the differenses start to add up rather quickly and then were are reminded again that this is an alien planet, not one of science fiction but one that actually exists. Hopefully one day we will be able to explore this world in person but for now we can all continue to appreciate the efforts of NASA and the Curiosity mission.

Orionid Meteor Shower

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Dust from Halley’s Comet will begin to collide with our atmosphere tonight as Earth’s orbit places us in the path of the debris.Meteors in the Night Sky NASA says that the best time to view the Orionid meteor shower is between  11PM to 3AM EST tonight, October 20 through the early morning of the 21st. The meteor shower will be visible from everywhere in the world.

To best view the shower, make sure to get as far away as you can from local light pollution and then find a good spot to sit and relax. Make sure you get into a position where you don’t put strain on your neck while looking up at the night sky.

If your fortunate enough to have clear weather conditions you should be able to see 15-20 meteors every hour. As the debris hits the atmosphere at over 100,000 miles per hour it will begin to burn up, creating a wonderful cosmic display.

You can watch a LIVE feed of the shower form NASA below.

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