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Anyway, there could not have been life yet because that was mere few hundred million years after Earth's formation

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Some scientists believe life existed prior to the formation of the moon, and they have some evidence to back it up. LINK

... you'd almost forget that a certain MS exec is bankrolling the private race for space.

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /rutan_flight_040318.html

Well, if they give us 10-20 years' warning (which is not at all absurd, given that these rocks are not under power and thus utterly predictable) we can mount an expedition to deflect the thing, crush it to small pieces that shouldn't cause serious trouble, or just mine it out of existence.

Hmm, except that this one was detected Monday. 3 days notice isn't enough to do anything. Larger ones should be detected earlier but how much earlier?

If it's a solid lump of rock (ie, not permeated with ice or some other frozen gaseous substance) it could make it, possibly. A solid lump of metal - sure. From what I recall about several other asteroid studies, including the one of the "potato" (Quail's having a flashback) is that they are an amalgam of dust, rocks, etc. Such an object should explode/come apart when heated sufficiently by entry into the atmosphere. A few pieces probably will hit the ground, but they should be of insufficient size to cause significant harm unless you're in its path or a car.

Any astronomers out there know if this will have a measurable gravitational affect on the planet? I know it's awfully small on a planetary scale -- but it's mass might be great. And, as I understand it, we're pretty good at detecting gravitational shifts. I know there won't be high tides or coastal flooding -- just if an object that small will have ANY noticable effect.

It's important not to provide a working link. or else 'they' can track your every movement.

But I'm feeling reckless today

Dinosaurs on Sedna? I think they'd just fly off, there couldn't be enough gravity on a rock 2000meters wide to hold down those "gentle giants"

First, for fans who came to the game late: the quote "What next? Drill Sedna for oil?" was in the original version of the story, but was removed after a few minutes. This is known in the business as "closing the barn door after the cat is out of the bag and turning your butt into hamburger."

Anyway, back to the oil. This story about Sedna's discovery points out that the planet(oid) is very dark and very red. Don't forget the far-out but plausible theory that Earth's hydrocarbons came from comets, not dinosaurs.

Now imagine... what if Sedna is a big ball of frozen, red transmission fluid? I see NASA getting some new funding for KBO research real quick!

I'd like to see the leaky probe that could rival Jupiter itself in bombarding Europa with radiation.

Awww, don't look so down. I'm sure there are plenty of other snide quips to be made about our foolish, short-sighted engineers wiping out Life As We Don't Know It.

Consider the possibility of a dihydrogen monoxide leak, for example...

Apparently, Scaled Composites is one of two teams to have applied for a permit from the FAA to launch a spaceflight. The other is Armadillo Aerospace, run by John Carmack of Doom fame. It's interesting to compare and contrast the two companies. Rutan has a sleek ship with lots of cool round windows that launches from a funky big plane, and they have some good solid live testing. The Armadillo team's site really shows you the nitty-gritty of building something that flies in your spare time, with pictures of them welding engines together, making a crew capsule out of whatever they could find, and building a landing gear with some thick cable springs. I'm guessing that Rutan will win, but I'll hold out hope that the garage engineer can pull off at least some type of flight to give courage to that old entrepreneurial spirit....

Ya ya, I'm being silly.

You're being silly, but the tin-foil hat crowd is going to have a field day with this baby. Consider the links that they'll find to their planet-killing Nemesis object:

* Highly eccentric orbit with a period ~10k years. They'll make up a mass extinction event to match the planetoid's period, you watch.

* According to this article, Sedna is the reddest object found in the solar system except for Mars. Watch the Nemesisians find deep significance in this fact -- we could start a pool to guess when they start calling it "blood red".

* In the "just enough facts to be dangerous" department, they'll point out that its size can't be determined directly -- that it depends on assumptions about the planet's albedo. If it's darker than expected, then it'll be bigger than expected. Ergo, the scientists are conspiring (as usual) to make it smaller than Pluto. Their "scientific" conclusion: it's the brown dwarf companion to Sol that they've been predicting all along.

Interestingly (to me at least), I submitted this story as soon as I saw it... and it was rejected almost as quickly. I suspect the editors were looking for a submission without tinfoil hat references -- a laudable goal. But even if we Slashdotters are gathered to discuss the real science, our less-informed Internet brethren haven't had much to talk about since the Martians quit shooting down spacecraft...

Ya ya, I'm being silly.

You're being silly, but the tin-foil hat crowd is going to have a field day with this baby. Consider the links that they'll find to their planet-killing Nemesis object:

* Highly eccentric orbit with a period ~10k years. They'll make up a mass extinction event to match the planetoid's period, you watch.

* According to this article, Sedna is the reddest object found in the solar system except for Mars. Watch the Nemesisians find deep significance in this fact -- we could start a pool to guess when they start calling it "blood red".

* In the "just enough facts to be dangerous" department, they'll point out that its size can't be determined directly -- that it depends on assumptions about the planet's albedo. If it's darker than expected, then it'll be bigger than expected. Ergo, the scientists are conspiring (as usual) to make it smaller than Pluto. Their "scientific" conclusion: it's the brown dwarf companion to Sol that they've been predicting all along.

Interestingly (to me at least), I submitted this story as soon as I saw it... and it was rejected almost as quickly. I suspect the editors were looking for a submission without tinfoil hat references -- a laudable goal. But even if we Slashdotters are gathered to discuss the real science, our less-informed Internet brethren haven't had much to talk about since the Martians quit shooting down spacecraft...

Risks of dying in car: 1 in 100
Risks of dying in plane:1 in 20,000
Risks of dying from asteroid 1 in 20,000 to 100,000

Source

May I just get somebody to help me pay off my student loans and make sure that there is enough social security to cover my health when I get old?

AC

Ah yes, the I've heard this one before. The Russians have superior technology, US killed MIR, yada yada yada. Bullshit.

I'm talking economics, bub. When you have people to feed and a country to rebuild, spaceflight is not necessarily the first thing on your mind.

Ok. So first of all, Soyuz is definitely more reliable. That I'll agree with. But it is in no way shape or form more capable. It's a three-person capsule (or, robotically, a limited cargo delivery vehicle). I'm hopeful that the six person soyuz will actually be seen through, but it will likely only be through external funding. For instance, last year, Russia had to petition other countries for money to continue funding Soyuz. And another. And more.

Russia's space program is less stable than the Soyuz launch record would indicate. How long they can keep it up, well, that's anybody's guess.

As far as MIR: granted, it was -- bar none -- the most successful space station ever. But these things have a half-life. The longest running Salut -- the previous generation Russian station -- was only in orbit for nine years. Mir, on the other hand, was up for fifteen years, and near the end there were some major problems. Fifteen years is a damn good run, but it was time for it to be retired. Law of diminishing returns and such. Especially considering there was a better option. And yes, I'm referring to the ISS.

There's definitely manpower in Russia. What I'm not so sure about is the money. And furthermore, why should we just give up on our own manned programs and rely on another nation for access to space? It is politically a very real possibility that the friends of today will be the enemies of tomorrow, whether through changes to the political structure in another country or the arrogant stance the US has been taking lately.

And there was this guy, whose idea might be workable with a single high power installation rather than a million-zillion laser pointers.

Actually, I thought that O'Keefe stated that service mission 4 was cancelled due to safety concerns.

You have to remmember that the surface of mars is at a nice -81 F (-63 C) and there is no oxygen
, so an internal combustion or any other "burning" propellant to produce motion is out of the question. You're stuck with either bringing your own energy, or having to rely on solar cells to power your vehicle.

Not everything that works so well on Earth will work on other planets. I'd recommend reading a part of this article (search for "thermal expansion" and read that paragraph).

In the space.com article, there is some truly astonishing information about the sensitivity of these instruments:

Photons of light from the very faintest objects arrived at a trickle of one photon per minute, as opposed to millions of photons per minute from nearer galaxies.

Um, wow. I think they will be hard pressed to find objects fainter than these.

-molo

1) quite possibly. Jury is still out.

2) No. Big bang is still the best bet and universe definitely appears to be finite (which doesn't mean there is a boundary or edge, just that it doesn't go on forever).

3) Yes, space curves back on itself. That is the only way to have a boundless finite universe.

References:

Physics 110 cosmology FAQ

No Edge, No Centre

Will better images ever show the edge of the universe?

How old is the universe? Finite or infinite? Have an edge?

I'm hoping the next rover (or the next one to built) will sport some elegant new hack suggested by some Jane Average.

The next planned Mars rover is the Mars Science Laboratory to be launched in 2009. It will be five times larger than the current rovers and will be powered by a plutonium RTG, giving it at least a year, probably more, of operation. Check out the link for details on its proposed landing method. Very cool.

That's good that they are winning the efficiency battle, but if "OLEDs begin to fade after 3,000-to-4,000 hours" vs LCDs which "generally have a life expectancy of around 100,000 hours", then we are still very much in the interesting-but-not-quite-useable stage as far as computing is concerned. However, they seem to be fine as light bulb replacements, especially if production costs are low. Note that my figures are from an article from August 2003. Anyone have more recent statistics?

Don't be ridiculous. An RTG with twice the power output would have weighed far less than the batteries, solar panels, and mounting.

I need to burn some Karma

exobiology experiments

odd rock formation

seemed to be specific plans for a long-term Mars rover with a reactor, to be launched in 2009

Two reactors in fact. One of the most detailed public articles can be seen here.

And if JPL knows what's good for them, a good chunk of the software will be in Java!

The two rovers cost $820 million together, see here. I understand that the parent was meant to be funny, but I found the amount mind-boggling, and had to look it up.

another funny

=)

Other images show the rover tracks clearly are being made in "mud", with water being pressed out of that material, Levin said. "That water promptly freezes and you can see reflecting ice. That's clearly ice. It could be nothing else," he said, "and the source is the water that came out of the mud."

Why they are all talking about the water of the past and not about the "mud" which is more exciting news about the "current" water. Also why nobody asking the question regarding this?

stated in this article last year

Oh I love being able to set a caption from within the URL!

Link for the lazy

Here is the photo with the Rotini pasta thingy pointed out

NASA's Pioneer 6 was launched on December 16, 1965. It was contacted in December 2000, when it was 35 years old. NASA doesn maintain regular contact with it but it's quite possible it's still functional. It was designed for a six-month mission to study the solar wind, magnetic field and cosmic rays. It is in solar orbit at about 0.8 AU.

It is often... though not often enough... pointed out that the singular of "data" is not "anecdote".

Similarly, "fact" is not merely an emphatic form of "theory".

I might as well theorize that black holes don't exist at all; who owes what now? Oh, right, nothing changes, because theories aren't facts .

Mick Ohrberg, why don't you grow out of Physics Fanboydom and take some time to learn some real stuff? For starters, why don't you being with Science 101 and learn the definition of "theory", and "equation", and other such basic terms?

I am now sure that NASA has found fairly conslusive evidence of water on Mars. Not becuase of the article sited in this story, but because NASA is having a press conference to announce "significant findings" tomorrow at 2:00 PM EST.

I think it's a pretty safe bet that there is water on Mars. Long John Silvers better be ready to pay up. I want my free shrimp and I want it tomorrow!

Here is an easier to read summary. More keep appearing on Google news. Try this search. It already brings up a link to a space.com article, and to one in the Los Angeles Times for those of you who have a subscription (I don't).

But they aren't perfect spheres.

If they were solidified droplets of molten rock, the surface should be a great deal smoother. The surface on the spheroids in contrast have considerable detail, and these details appear to be consistent with a long lifetime of tiny impacts with other spheroids/rocks, gradually creating the spherical shape we are observing today.

Here's the mannequin. I seriously doubt that they use human bones, since animal bones of comparable size would interact with radiation in the same way.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting with ground-up bones... an ossified version of particle board?

Okay, here's a picture of the Phantom test object if anyone's interested...

The NEAR spacecraft landed on the asteroid Eros over 3 years ago. Eros is rather eccentric, spinning, and small by our usual standards.

an old launch pad (boy, the anchor bolt refurb on that UT was a BASTARD, nevermind any of the rest of it), into a fairly useful facility, but the new new rocket was a piece of shit and they finally decided to just blow the whole damned facility to hell and be done with it, but we sure had some fun there with it for a while.

I find it strange that scientists 'believe' in dark matter. ... I think dark matter doesn't exist.

Dark matter does not necessarily mean exotic matter. There have already been detections of white dwarf stars at the edges of a galaxy. These are just very very dim stars. This discovery means that a significant part of the mass attributed to dark matter could be ordinary matter in dead stars that are no longer radiating at currently detectable levels.

The moon should be able to home self sustaining colonies; energy is abundant and apparently water is present. From the Moon to Mars and beyond.. It'll take a huge scientific breakthrough to escape the solar system, but it's only a century ago people first took to the skies.

Here's an in-depth article describing that phenomenon. I never thought of it this way, but indeed it's analogy is striking!

The Popular Mechanics article uses the X-33 as a major justification for Area 6413. But according to this article, the X-33 is dead, at least as far as NASA is concerned.

Are there indications that the Air Force has the X-33, or any other supposedly dead NASA projects, on life support?

Also, the Popular Mechanics article makes Area 51 out to be totally dead (7 years ago, at least). I force myself to take this with a grain of salt, since Popular Mechanics wants to sell magazines. All my web searches have turned up little about A51 that isn't sensationalistic, so does anybody know any concrete info about recent activity at Area 51?

Perhaps this page may shed a little light upon your question.

So these weapons will float up there without an enemy (at the moment)

How about China?

In case anyone hasn't noticed, they're picking up where the USSR left off. They're just doing it more subvertly than the North Koreans.

The threads info and photo can be found here.

Could these be the worm tubes you are refering to? More on them here and here. The worm tubes are a heck of a lot larger than the microscopic images from the rovers. As mentioned in the linked articles, Arthur C. Clark, proposed the glass worm tubes idea.

NASA already has some tangential evidence of permafrost on Mars, where it looks like molten rock has encountered subterranean ice and places where it looks like something is is seeping to the surface.

NASA did choose these landing sites for evidence of water in the recent past, so perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised that something is going on.

But I guess our best hope is to wait for Mars Express to point its instruments at the landing site. So fingers crossed until then!

Best wishes,
Mike.

The parent is right; the "+5 informative" grandparent is just wrong. We have known for some time that at least the north polar cap was composed mostly of water ice.

References:
http://www.nature.com/nsu/030210/030210-9.html
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/express_water _040123.html

What with the floating debris, gases from leaks and thrusters, vibrations (from astronauts, equipment, and unknown sources), and the high albedo of that bright shiny albatross, the ISS is the last place I'd put a telescope.