GeekwithEnvy

Space

Another Cosmic Catastrophe Avoided

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Eros
Eros (Credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL)

It seems that we have survived several “end-of-the-world” scenarios but now you can add another reason to celebrate to your list. Another massive asteroid named ‘2011 AG5’ was expected to possibly hit Earth sometime around the year 2040. The asteroid was discovered early in 2011 and ever since we have been keeping track of it’s movement to see if it really could be a world-ender.

Space is a massive place and it can be truly difficult to pinpoint whether or not a single chunk of space rock will hit Earth, but University of Hawaii at Manoa astronomers along with the help of NASA, can safely say that the asteroid is not on a collision course with Earth.

It’s good to know that somebody is watching the skies above us. Now we can only hope that when we are in the path of a giant, we can do something about it. There are a few methods being drawn up about how to avoid an impact. Some of these ideas include crashing spacecraft into astroids to alter their course and steer them away from our planet. However, there are not any solid plans in place at this time to help avoid such impacts.

If there are any space projects that are going to be put together, you would hope that one of the top priority missions would include saving our planet. I would like to see missions that focus on landing on asteroids and studying them, with the ultimate goal being to understand how to alter their trajectory. It sounds simple enough but it takes a lot of force to move these giant and all of this would have to be controlled over long distances. Again, it’s a case of us knowing so much but knowing so little. For now it seems that we have a little more time to figure things out, let’s hope we do before we absolutely have to.

The North Star Closer Than We Thought

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Well this is embarrassing, but researchers using Russia’s 6-Meter Telescope have found that the North Star (Polaris) is actually much closer than we had previously thought. Originally it was believed that Polaris was approximately 434 light-years away from Earth but now it is believed that the star is more like 323 light-years away. That’s a big difference!

Polaris

What makes this discovery even more significant is that we have been using our North Star to help us with measuring other distant objects in space, so now we may have to recalculate the actual distances of many other celestial objects. We have long used the North Star to aid in navigation as it never seems to move from it’s position in the sky. The main reason behind Polaris keeping it’s position is that it is aligned with Earth’s North axis.

Get more details on this new discovery at National Geographic News.

A Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 3 Miles Wide To Pass Earth Tonight

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A potentially hazardous asteroid named “Asteroid 4179 Toutatis”,  is about 3 miles wide  and will be flying by Earth in a cosmic “near-miss”. The asteroid will be about 4.4 million miles away from Earth at it’s closest approach, that’s about 18x the distance of the Moon. Fortunately, the asteroid will be just passing by but if it were to collide with Earth, it would most certainly be catastrophic.

Toutatis Asteroid
Toutatis Asteroid (Source:NASA)

This isn’t the only asteroid getting up close and personal with Earth as another smaller asteroid (about 2.1 miles wide) named 2012 XE54 just squeezed between Earth and the Moon earlier today at a distance of just 141,000 miles from Earth. This pass was much much closer, close enough for Earth to be able to cast it’s shadow on the asteroid.

Video of Asteroid Toutatis Orbit 2012 – courtesy NASA JPL

This is a live feed of the 4179 Toutatis event, you get more detailed information information including the abillity to switch channels at www.slooh.com.

Big NASA Discovery On Mars? Not So Much

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About a week ago we received news that NASA was possibly on the brink of a major discovery, in fact it was mentioned that it could be for the “History Books”. Well, unfortunately it doesn’t seem like were going to get that kind of news from Mars anytime soon.

This discovery that apparently never happened is being described as a “big misunderstanding”. Here is the original report that I read from NPR. Planet Mars Viewed From Space

“Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the analysis shows something remarkable. “This data is gonna be one for the history books. It’s looking really good.”

“Grotzinger can see the pained look on my face as I wait, hoping he’ll tell me what the heck he’s found, but he’s not providing any more information.”

This was from an interview between science correspondent Joe Palca and scientist John Grotzinger. Apparently, what were being told now is that John meant to say that the mission in it’s entirety is historical and that in the next couple of years we expect to make great discoveries.

Something sound a bit strange here? This was big news that made it’s way quickly around the world and that means NASA had to have heard it too. The big question here is if NASA did hear this report earlier then why didn’t they try to correct this earlier?

They were still sampling soil at the time of the interview and were anxiously waiting for results, but apparently they weren’t “History Worthy”. Either way you look at this, it’s still a bit of let down. I guess we will just have to keep our hopes up for future discoveries on Mars.

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.