The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy and is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. It was originally named the Andromeda Nebula and is cataloged as Messier 31, M31, and NGC 224. Andromeda has a D25 isophotal diameter of about 46.56 kiloparsecs (152,000 light-years) and is approximately 765 kpc (2.5 million light-years) from Earth. The galaxy's name stems from the area of Earth's sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda, which itself is named after an Aethiopian princess in Greek mythology.
The virial mass of the Andromeda Galaxy is of the same order of magnitude as that of the Milky Way, at 1 trillion solar masses (2.0×1042 kilograms). The mass of either galaxy is difficult to estimate with any accuracy, but it was long thought that the Andromeda Galaxy was more massive than the Milky Way by a margin of some 25% to 50%. However, this has been called into question by early 21st-century studies indicating a possibly lower mass for the Andromeda Galaxy and a higher mass for the Milky Way. The Andromeda Galaxy has a diameter of about 46.56 kpc (152,000 ly), making it the largest member of the Local Group of galaxies in terms of extension.
The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are expected to collide with each other in around 4–5 billion years, merging to potentially form a giant elliptical galaxy or a large lenticular galaxy. The Andromeda Galaxy is known to harbor a dense and compact star cluster at its very center, similar to our own galaxy. There are approximately 460 globular clusters associated with the Andromeda Galaxy. The most massive of these clusters, identified as Mayall II, nicknamed Globular One, has a greater luminosity than any other known globular cluster in the Local Group of galaxies. It contains several million stars and is about twice as luminous as Omega Centauri, the brightest known globular cluster in the Milky Way. Globular One (or G1) has several stellar populations and a structure too massive for an ordinary globular. As a result, some consider G1 to be the remnant core of a dwarf galaxy that was consumed by Andromeda in the distant past. Like the Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy has smaller satellite galaxies, consisting of over 20 known dwarf galaxies. The Andromeda Galaxy's dwarf galaxy population is very similar to the Milky Way's, but the galaxies are much more numerous.
The Andromeda Galaxy is approaching the Milky Way at about 110 kilometres (68 miles) per second. Andromeda Galaxy's tangential or sideways velocity concerning the Milky Way is relatively much smaller than the approaching velocity and therefore it is expected to collide directly with the Milky Way in about 2.5–4 billion years. A likely outcome of the collision is that the galaxies will merge to form a giant elliptical galaxy or possibly large disc galaxy. Such events are frequent among the galaxies in galaxy groups. The fate of Earth and the Solar System in the event of a collision is currently unknown. Before the galaxies merge, there is a small chance that the Solar System could be ejected from the Milky Way or join the Andromeda Galaxy.
Humans have lived on Earth for millennia, but one day that will change. The stars are calling us, and their pull is far too strong for us to ignore. We have already put our feet on the Moon; one day we will be back. Then perhaps we will head to Mars and beyond. When we do, it will change us. Leaving the pull of Earth will alter how we think and feel. It will affect our spirituality and our psyche — and perhaps even redefine humankind. A multi planetary species that can travel to different planets and solar systems within the Milky Way.. Mankind needs to be realistic as space is a very big ocean, Maybe it will be possible in the future to travel to are next closest solar system. Our neighbouring solar system is an odd one by any measure. It’s a triple system consisting of Alpha Centauri A, which is about 10 percent more massive than our Sun and 50 percent more luminous, and Alpha Centauri B, which is just the opposite, 10 percent less massive and 50 percent dimmer. Those two stars orbit a common centre of gravity, while the third star in the system, Proxima Centauri, is a faint red dwarf (M star) about 0.2 light-years away from the others.
Alpha Centauri is a star system with components 4.2 to 4.4 light-years from Earth and comprises three stars. It is the closest star system to the solar system, and one of its stars is the nearest star to our planet other than the sun.
Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star with a mass of around 12.5% of the sun and a diameter of about 14% of our star's. However, Proxima Centauri is around 33 times denser than the sun, according to Star facts. This red dwarf is a main sequence star, which means that, like the sun, it is still turning hydrogen to helium at its core via nuclear fusion, with this acting as Proxima Centauri's main source of energy. With a luminosity of 0.17% that of the sun, Proxima Centauri is producing energy at a lower rate than the sun. That means that, while our star is predicted to have a main sequence lifetime of around 10 billion years, of which around 5 billion years remain, Proxima Centauri will stay on this branch of stellar evolution for another 4 trillion years — around 300 times the current 13.8 billion-year age of the universe.
Although Proxima Centauri will outlive the sun, it will eventually experience a similar fate: When its supply of hydrogen is exhausted, Proxima Centauri will end its life as a smoldering white dwarf star, lacking the mass sufficient to become a neutron star or a black hole.
During the first quarter of 2016, an international team of astronomers started an intensive and very public campaign to observe the red dwarf of the α Centauri system known as Proxima Centauri. Called the Pale Red Dot, the purpose of this project was to follow up on earlier radial velocity measurements which suggested that Proxima Centauri was orbited by a planet in a short-period orbit. After almost two weeks of unconfirmed reports and rumors, a team led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé (Queen Mary University of London) announced on August 24, 2016 that they had discovered a planet now called Proxima Centauri b. Not only did they confirm the existence of the previously suspected extrasolar planet, they found that it was an approximately Earth-mass planet orbiting comfortably inside the habitable zone (HZ) of its star. Proxima Centauri b is an exoplanet that is located outside of the solar sytem..Proxima Centauri b is believed to be a potentially Earth-like planet. Proxima Centauri b is the closest exoplanet to Earth, at a distance of about 4.2 ly (1.3 parsecs). It orbits Proxima Centauri every 11.186 Earth days at a distance of about 0.049 AU, over 20 times closer to Proxima Centauri than Earth is to the Sun.
Proxima b's parent star Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, radiating only 0.005% of the amount of visible light that the Sun does and an average of about 0.17% of the Sun's energy. Despite this low radiation, due to its close orbit Proxima Centauri b still receives about 70% of the amount of infrared energy that the Earth receives from the Sun. That said, Proxima Centauri is also a flare star with its luminosity at times varying by a factor of 100 over a timespan of hours, its luminosity averaged at 0.155±0.006 L☉ (as of the Sun's).
Proxima Centauri b is located within the classical habitable zone of its star and receives about 65% of Earth's irradiation. There are two likely scenarios for an atmosphere of Proxima Centauri b: in one case, the planet's water could have condensed and the hydrogen would have been lost to space, which would have only left oxygen and/or carbon dioxide in the atmosphere after the planet's early history. However, it is also possible that Proxima Centauri b had a primordial hydrogen atmosphere or formed farther away from its star, which would have reduced the escape of water. Thus, Proxima Centauri b may have kept its water beyond its early history.
Even the fastest spacecraft built by humans would take a long time to travel interstellar distances; Voyager 2 would take about 75,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri. Among the proposed technologies to reach Proxima Centauri b in human lifespans are solar sails that could reach speeds of 20% the speed of light; problems would be how to decelerate a probe when it arrives in the Proxima Centauri system and collisions of the high-speed probes with interstellar particles. Among the projects of travelling to Proxima Centauri b are the Breakthrough Starshot project, which aims to develop instruments and power systems that can reach Proxima Centauri in the 21st century.
Solar sails use a phenomenon that has a proven, measured effect on astrodynamics. Solar pressure affects all spacecraft, whether in interplanetary space or in orbit around a planet or small body. A typical spacecraft going to Mars, for example, will be displaced thousands of kilometers by solar pressure, so the effects must be accounted for in trajectory planning, which has been done since the time of the earliest interplanetary spacecraft of the 1960s. Solar pressure also affects the orientation of a spacecraft, a factor that must be included in spacecraft design. For trips within the inner Solar System, they can deliver payloads and then return to Earth for subsequent voyages, operating as an interplanetary shuttle. For Mars in particular, the craft could provide economical means of routinely supplying operations on the planet. Solar sails can travel to and from all of the inner planets. Trips to Mercury and Venus are for rendezvous and orbit entry for the payload. Trips to Mars could be either for rendezvous or swing-by with release of the payload for aerodynamic braking.
Nasa is hoping to use the solar sail technology on future missions
The minimum transfer time to Jupiter for ac of 1 mm/s2 with no departure velocity relative to Earth is 2 years when using an indirect transfer (solar swing-by). The arrival speed (V∞) is close to 17 km/s. For Saturn, the minimum trip time is 3.3 years, with an arrival speed of nearly 19 km/s. In the future, fabrication of Solar Sails could take place in orbit inside large frames that support the sail. This would result in lower mass sails and elimination of the risk of deployment failure.
Traveling among the stars has long been a dream of both science fiction enthusiasts and scientists who study either rocketry or the universe. The daunting distances in both space and time, however, have kept humans planted on their tiny rock orbiting a nondescript sun. Some space enthusiasts now say that the technology required to send eyes and ears to the nearest star system already exists. Thanks to the latest in laser optics, the mission could yield results within a scientist’s lifetime.
The roadmap to the stars proposed by the Breakthrough Initiative challenges sounds both breathtakingly simple and dauntingly complex. Scientists would assemble a “light beamer” operating at a near-infrared wavelength that easily penetrates Earth’s atmosphere. Controllers would steer hundreds or thousands of ultra-low-mass “starchips” or “nanocraft,” equipped with sails only a few hundred atoms thick, into the gigawatt-class beam, which, in seconds or minutes, would propel them to relativistic velocities. The tiny spacecraft would spend 20 years getting to the nearest extrasolar planet and another 4.25 years sending back its data—rather than the hundreds or thousands of years that chemically propelled rockets would require.
NASA Genius Invents A Light Speed Engine To Visit Alpha Centauri.
In February 2017, a Belgium-based team found that another dwarf star, Trappist-1, has several Earth-sized planets within its habitable zone. Obviously, we do not know whether any of these extrasolar planets hosts life, intelligent or otherwise, and the first flotilla of robotic investigators from Earth may not answer the question. Nevertheless, at distances of 4.25 light-years (Proxima b) and 40 light-years (the Trappist-1 planets), these extrasolar systems are close enough to tantalize us.
The notion that light can push corporeal objects dates back four centuries, to Johannes Kepler’s observation that the tails of comets always point away from the Sun. The hypothesis that electromagnetic radiation has momentum, and therefore generates pressure, gained credence with James Clerk Maxwell’s equations in the 19th century as well as experiments performed at the dawn of the 20th century.
Squeezing every instrument needed for an interstellar trip into a gram-scale package may seem daunting, but as Starshot researchers point out, recent advances in silicon photonics should allow designers to place phased-array communications lasers, imagers, accelerometers, gyroscopes and other microelectromechanical-system devices in a single wafer. Loeb believes that getting the starchips down to a gram or so is eminently realistic, because even today the guts of a smartphone weigh only a few grams—everything else is battery power, user interfacing and packaging.
The Sunjammer - This novella from legendary sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke was first published in the March 1964 issue of Boys’ Life.
In the 1960s, science fiction authors Arthur C. Clarke and Robert L. Forward penned stories of solar-sail races in outer space. Forward, a physicist who died in 2002, also published technical studies of potential technologies for interplanetary and interstellar travel, including laser propulsion.
In 1985, Forward drew up plans for Starwisp, a hypothetical low-mass spacecraft pushed along by a microwave beam. Starwisp had several technical difficulties, including the unwieldy size of the craft’s sail, due to the 3-mm wavelength of the beam.
When the starchips eventually arrive at Proxima Centauri or any other planetary system, they would be whizzing along at 0.2c. At that speed, the spacecraft would cover the equivalent of the Earth-Moon distance in a mere 6 seconds or the Earth-Sun distance in 42 minutes—not much time to perform observations after so many years of waiting. To convert a quick flyby into an extended mission, the starchips would need to decelerate without firing retrorockets, which again would require a heavy fuel payload. Each StarChip nanocraft would have Five sub-gram scale digital cameras, each with a minimum 2-megapixels resolution. Four sub-gram scale processors are planned. Four sub-gram scale photon thrusters, each minimally capable of performing at a 1W diode laser level, are planned. A 150 mg atomic battery, powered by plutonium-238 or americium-241, is planned. A coating, possibly made of beryllium copper, is planned to protect the nanocraft from dust collisions and atomic particle erosion. The light sail is envisioned to be no larger than 4 by 4 meters (13 by 13 feet), possibly of composite graphene-based material. The material would have to be very thin and be able to reflect the laser beam while absorbing only a small fraction of the incident energy, or it will vaporize the sail. The light sail may also double as power source during cruise, because collisions with atoms of interstellar medium would deliver 60 watt/m2 of power.
Breakthrough Starshot was founded in 2016 by Yuri Milner, Stephen Hawking, and Mark Zuckerberg.
Interstellar travel is the hypothetical travel of spacecraft between star systems. Due to the vast distances between the Solar System and nearby stars, interstellar travel is not practicable with current propulsion technologies.
To travel between stars within a reasonable amount of time (decades or centuries), an interstellar spacecraft must reach a significant fraction of the speed of light, requiring enormous energy. Communication with such interstellar craft will experience years of delay due to the speed of light. Collisions with cosmic dust and gas at such speeds can be catastrophic for such spacecrafts. Crewed interstellar travel could possibly be conducted more slowly (far beyond the scale of a human lifetime) by making a generation ship. Hypothetical interstellar propulsion systems include nuclear pulse propulsion, fission-fragment rocket, fusion rocket, beamed solar sail, and antimatter rocket.
Life on an Interstellar Ark Ship
Life on an Interstellar Ark Ship
A generation ship, generation starship or world ship, is a hypothetical type of interstellar ark starship that travels at sub-light speed. Since such a ship might require hundreds to thousands of years to reach nearby stars, the original occupants of a generation ship would grow old and die, leaving their descendants to continue traveling.
Such a ship would have to be entirely self-sustaining, providing life support for everyone aboard. It must have extraordinarily reliable systems that could be maintained by the ship's inhabitants over long periods of time. This would require testing whether thousands of humans could survive on their own before sending them beyond the reach of help. Small artificial closed ecosystems, such as Biosphere 2, have been built in an attempt to examine the engineering challenges of such a system, with mixed results.
Constructed between 1987 and 1991, Biosphere 2 was originally meant to demonstrate the viability of closed ecological systems to support and maintain human life in outer space as a substitute for Earth's biosphere. It was designed to explore the web of interactions within life systems in a structure with different areas based on various biological biomes. In addition to the several biomes and living quarters for people, there was an agricultural area and work space to study the interactions between humans, farming, technology and the rest of nature as a new kind of laboratory for the study of the global ecology. Its mission was a two-year closure experiment with a crew of eight humans. Long-term it was seen as a precursor to gaining knowledge about the use of closed biospheres in space colonization. As an experimental ecological facility it allowed the study and manipulation of a mini biospheric system without harming Earth's biosphere.
Its seven biome areas were a 1,900-square-meter (20,000 sq ft) rainforest, an 850-square-meter (9,100 sq ft) ocean with a coral reef, a 450-square-meter (4,800 sq ft) mangrove wetlands, a 1,300-square-metre (14,000 sq ft) savannah grassland, a 1,400-square-meter (15,000 sq ft) fog desert, and two anthropogenic biomes: a 2,500-square-meter (27,000 sq ft) agricultural system and a human habitat with living spaces, laboratories and workshops. Below ground was an extensive part of the technical infrastructure. Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems and passive solar input through the glass space frame panels covering most of the facility, and electrical power was supplied into Biosphere 2 from an onsite natural gas power plant.
Biosphere 2 was only used twice for its original intended purposes as a closed-system experiment: once from 1991 to 1993, and the second time from March to September 1994. Both attempts ran into problems including low amounts of food and oxygen, die-offs of many animals and plants included in the experiment (though this was anticipated since the project used a strategy of deliberately "species-packing" anticipating losses as the biomes developed), group dynamic tensions among the resident crew, outside politics, and a power struggle over management and direction of the project. The second closure experiment achieved total food sufficiency and did not require injection of oxygen.
This Is The Largest Earth Science Experiment. What Went Wrong?
This Is The Largest Earth Science Experiment. What Went Wrong?
The crew enters the main air lock of Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona..
The agricultural system produced 83% of the total diet, which included crops of bananas, papayas, sweet potatoes, beets, peanuts, lablab and cowpea beans, rice, and wheat. Especially during the first year, the eight inhabitants reported continual hunger. Calculations indicated that Biosphere 2's farm was amongst the highest producing in the world "exceeding by more than five times that of the most efficient agrarian communities of Indonesia, southern China, and Bangladesh". Some of the domestic animals that were included in the agricultural area during the first mission included: four African pygmy goat does and one billy; 35 hens and three roosters (a mix of Indian jungle fowl (Gallus gallus), Japanese silky bantam, and a hybrid of these); two sows and one boar Ossabaw dwarf pigs; and tilapia fish grown in a rice and azolla pond system originating millennia ago in China.
Medical markers indicated the health of the crew during the two years was excellent. They showed the same improvement in health indices such as lowering of blood cholesterol, blood pressure, enhancement of immune system. They lost an average of 16% of their pre-entry body weight before stabilizing and regaining some weight during their second year. Subsequent studies showed that the biospherians' metabolism became more efficient at extracting nutrients from their food as an adaptation to the low-calorie, high nutrient diet.
A cow is seen grazing around Biosphere 2
There was controversy when the public learned that the project had allowed an injured member to leave and return, carrying new material inside. The team claimed the only new supplies brought in were plastic bags, but others accused them of bringing food and other items. The oxygen inside the facility, which began at 20.9%, fell at a steady pace and after 16 months was down to 14.5%. This is equivalent to the oxygen availability at an elevation of 4,080 metres (13,390 ft). Since some biospherians were starting to have symptoms like sleep apnea and fatigue, Walford and the medical team decided to boost oxygen with injections in January and August 1993. The oxygen decline and minimal response of the crew indicated that changes in air pressure are what trigger human adaptation responses. These studies enhanced the biomedical research program.
Managing CO2 levels was a particular challenge. Daily fluctuation of carbon dioxide dynamics was typically 600 ppm because of the strong drawdown during sunlight hours by plant photosynthesis, followed by a similar rise during the nighttime when system respiration dominated. As expected, there was also a strong seasonal signature to CO2 levels, with wintertime levels as high as 4,000–4,500 ppm and summertime levels near 1,000 ppm. The crew worked to manage the CO2 by occasionally turning on a CO2 scrubber, after realizing that activating and de-activating the desert and savannah through control of irrigation water, cutting and storing biomass to sequester carbon, and utilizing all potential planting areas with fast-growing species to increase system photosynthesis, wouldn't be enough to sustain human life. In November 1991, investigative reporting in The Village Voice alleged that the crew had secretly installed the CO2 scrubber device, and claimed that this violated Biosphere 2's advertised goal of recycling all materials naturally. Others pointed out there was nothing secret about the carbon dioxide device and it constituted another technical system augmenting ecological processes. The carbon precipitator could reverse the chemical reactions and thus release the stored carbon dioxide in later years when the facility might need additional carbon.
A model of 'folded' space-time illustrates how a wormhole bridge might form with at least two mouths that are connected to a single throat or tube. (Image credit: edobric | Shutterstock)
Elon Musk has ambition to build a Mars base where humans can permanently live, China also has plans to build a base on the Moon.. Those these projects are exciting they don't solve the problem of safely living on another planet that is similar to Earth.. Mars is a hostile planet with very cold temperatures, no air and trillions of tons of a red sand which is irritant to human skin.. Not to forget sand storms and high radiation from the thin atmosphere.. Light speed is the better option where mankind can reach suitable habitat that does not require a base to live....
An artists view of what a base on Mars could look like..
A wormhole is a hypothetical structure which connects disparate points in spacetime. It may be visualized as a tunnel with two ends at separate points in spacetime (i.e., different locations, different points in time, or both). Wormholes are based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations. Specifically, they are a transcendental bijection of the spacetime continuum, an asymptotic projection of the Calabi–Yau manifold manifesting itself in anti-de Sitter space.
Wormholes are consistent with the general theory of relativity, but whether they actually exist is unknown. Many scientists postulate that wormholes are merely projections of a fourth spatial dimension, analogous to how a two-dimensional (2D) being could experience only part of a three-dimensional (3D) object. A well-known analogy of such constructs is provided by the Klein bottle, displaying a hole when rendered in three dimensions but not in four or higher dimensions.
In 1995, Matt Visser suggested there may be many wormholes in the universe if cosmic strings with negative mass were generated in the early universe. Some physicists, such as Kip Thorne, have suggested how to make wormholes artificially.
Another way to imagine wormholes is to take a sheet of paper and draw two somewhat distant points on one side of the paper. The sheet of paper represents a plane in the spacetime continuum, and the two points represent a distance to be traveled, but theoretically, a wormhole could connect these two points by folding that plane (i.e. the paper) so the points are touching. In this way, it would be much easier to traverse the distance since the two points are now touching.
SpaceX Mars colonization program (colloquially also referred to as Occupy Mars) is a planned objective of the company SpaceX and particularly of its founder Elon Musk to colonize Mars. The main element of this ambition is the plan to establish a self-sustained large scale settlement and colony on Mars, claiming self-determination under direct democracy. The main motivation behind this is the belief that the colonization of Mars allows humanity to become multiplanetary and therefore secures the long-term survival of the human species in case of Earth being rid of human life.
Because the risk of a WW3 scenario looms over the human race it would be of great advantage that mankind lived on Mars.. To prolong the species and to ensure human kind continues and becomes better people.. Russia and other countries will also be thinking about Mars and colonisation, after all I don't think Elon Musk is the only person with a plan to live on Mars.. It will take a special kind of person to give up Earth and go live on Mars as it is a very serious commitment..
Colonization is to be achieved via the development and use of reusable and mass-produced super heavy-lift launch vehicles called Starship. Starship has been referred to as the "holy grail of rocketry" for extraplanetary colonization. These plans for colonization have garnered both praise and criticism, being supported as a result of public excitement for further human involvement beyond Earth and a desire to prefer human longevity, and being questioned for its existential perspective, execution, livability and legality.
Local challenges to settlement include the intense ionizing radiation that impacts the Martian surface, and the fine, toxic dust that covers the planet. Mars has an atmosphere, but it is unbreathable and thin. Surface temperatures fluctuate widely, between −70 and 0 °C (−94 and 32 °F). While Mars has underground water and other resources, conditions do not favor power production using wind and solar; similarly, the planet has few resources for nuclear power. Mars' orbit is the third closest to Earth's orbit, though far enough from Earth that the distance would present a serious obstacle to the movement of materiel and settlers. Settlers on Mars surface will need to grow there own food and will have to rely on Mars resources.. Plants need 16 essential elements to grow, including macronutrients like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
These plants have grown well in simulated Martian soil include:
Sweet potatoes
Carrots
Onions
Kale
Dandelions
Basil
Garlic
Hops
1. Garden cress
2. Rocket
3. Tomato
4. Radish
5. Rye
6. Quinoa
7. Chives
8. Pea
9. Leek
10. Spinach - unsuccessful
Fruits and vegetables will also need water if they are to grow..Is there water on Mars and if so how do you retrieve it.. If you visited Mars today, you'd find a dry, inhospitable desert. But billions of years ago, Mars was very different, and may even have looked a lot like Earth (via NASA). Researchers think that it had abundant liquid water on its surface, which formed rivers, lakes, and even oceans. In fact, the Perseverance rover is currently exploring the dried-up bed of an ancient lake, as this is a place that could once have hosted life (via MIT). In 2018, scientists announced they had possibly found a reservoir of water beneath Mars’ south polar cap. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft used its radar to detect bright reflections coming from beneath the polar cap, indicating a potential subsurface lake. The planet Mars has two permanent polar ice caps of water ice and some dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide, CO2). Above kilometer-thick layers of water ice permafrost, slabs of dry ice are deposited during a pole's winter, lying in continuous darkness, causing 25–30% of the atmosphere being deposited annually at either of the poles. When the poles are again exposed to sunlight, the frozen CO2 sublimes. These seasonal actions transport large amounts of dust and water vapor, giving rise to Earth-like frost and large cirrus clouds.
Perspective view of Mars north polar ice cap. The ice-rich polar cap (the quasi-circular white area at center) is approximately 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) across. The white cap is riven with dark, spiral-shaped bands. These are deep troughs that are in shadow. They do not reflect sunlight as well or have more internal layers exposed. To the right of center, a large canyon, Chasma Boreale, almost bisects the ice cap. Chasma Boreale is about the length of the United States' famous Grand Canyon and up to 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) deep. The ice cap in the north is of a lower altitude (base at −5000 m, top at −2000 m) than the one in the south (base at 1000 m, top at 3500 m). It is also warmer, so all the frozen carbon dioxide disappears each summer. The part of the cap that survives the summer is called the north residual cap and is made of water ice. This water ice is believed to be as much as three kilometers thick. The much thinner seasonal cap starts to form in the late summer to early fall when a variety of clouds form. Called the polar hood, the clouds drop precipitation which thickens the cap. The north polar cap is symmetrical around the pole and covers the surface down to about 60 degrees latitude. The equator is more hospitable than the poles, with temperatures that can reach 20°C on a nice day. However, water would need to be extracted from the surface soil, which would be a lot of work. Surface temperatures may reach a high of about 20 °C (293 K; 68 °F) at noon, at the equator, and a low of about −153 °C (120 K; −243 °F) at the poles.
UNDERGROUND tunnels on Mars could serve as the perfect natural hiding place for the planet's first human base, according to scientists.
The hidden chambers, located under an area called the Hellas Planitia, would help protect astronauts from huge swings in temperature and damaging radiation that they would be exposed to on the Martian surface.
The Real Problem with Growing Plants in Lunar and Martian Soil
The Real Problem with Growing Plants in Lunar and Martian Soil
In June 2008, the Phoenix lander returned data showing Martian regolith to be slightly alkaline and containing vital nutrients such as magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride, all of which are ingredients for living organisms to grow on Earth. Scientists compared the regolith near Mars' north pole to that of backyard gardens on Earth, and concluded that it could be suitable for growth of plants.
Phoenix was an uncrewed space probe that landed on the surface of Mars on May 25, 2008, and operated until November 2, 2008. Phoenix was operational on Mars for 157 sols (161 days). Its instruments were used to assess the local habitability and to research the history of water on Mars. The mission was part of the Mars Scout Program; its total cost was $420 million, including the cost of launch.
As space is very large considerable thought must go into the types of transport available and in research, one type of rocket power is fusion.. A fusion rocket is a theoretical design for a rocket driven by fusion propulsion that could provide efficient and sustained acceleration in space without the need to carry a large fuel supply. The design requires fusion power technology beyond current capabilities, and much larger and more complex rockets.
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Pulsar Fusion, a UK startup, is creating a fusion rocket to cut Mars travel time.
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Current space travel poses health risks from extended exposure to microgravity and radiation.
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Using nuclear fusion, Pulsar’s rocket could dramatically increase travel speeds, aiming for tests by 2025 and fusion temperatures by 2027.
“Humanity has a huge need for faster propulsion in our growing space economy, and fusion offers 1,000 times the power of the conventional ion thrusters currently used in orbit,” said CEO Richard Dinan. How it works: Fusion occurs when two atoms merge. This releases a tremendous amount of energy, without generating harmful emissions — that’s long made harnessing nuclear fusion a holy grail of clean energy research.
By containing super hot plasma within electromagnetic fields, several groups have managed to trigger fusion reactions — briefly. The challenge now is figuring out how to sustain them.
“Scientists have not been able to control the turbulent plasma as it is heated to hundreds of millions of degrees and the reaction simply stops,”
Pulsar Fusion’s plan is to create a fusion rocket, using the atomic reaction to create exhaust speeds that ultimately propel the spacecraft forward at a blistering 500,000 mph — the fastest a crewed rocket has ever flown is 24,791 mph.
This is a hugely ambitious goal, but it might actually be easier to sustain a fusion reaction in the super-cold vacuum of space than on Earth. If Pulsar can pull it off, its fusion rocket could slash the amount of time it takes to send people and uncrewed machines throughout the solar system.
“[A] fusion rocket could allow us to send people to Mars and bring them back in weeks, not months or years,” said Adam Baker, a Pulsar propulsion engineer. “It could allow us to do round trips to the outer planets of the solar system, to send people to see the rings of Saturn or the moons of Jupiter.”
A still more speculative concept is antimatter-catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion, which would use antimatter to catalyze a fission and fusion reaction, allowing much smaller fusion explosions to be created. During the 1990s an abortive design effort was conducted at Penn State University under the name AIMStar. The project would require more antimatter than can currently be produced. In addition, some technical hurdles need to be surpassed before it would be feasible.
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Other celestial objects that could be viable to support human life are moons that orbit planets.. One such example is Europa an icey moon that travels around the planet Jupiter.. Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa is made of silicate rock and has a water-ice crust and probably an iron–nickel core. It has a very thin atmosphere, composed primarily of oxygen. Its geologically young white-beige surface is striated by light tan cracks and streaks, with very few impact craters. In addition to Earth-bound telescope observations, Europa has been examined by a succession of space-probe flybys, the first occurring in the early 1970s. In September 2022, the Juno spacecraft flew within about 320 km (200 miles) of Europa for a more recent close-up view.
Europa has the smoothest surface of any known solid object in the Solar System. The apparent youth and smoothness of the surface is due to a water ocean beneath the surface, which could conceivably harbor extraterrestrial life, although such life would most likely be that of single celled organisms and bacteria-like creatures. The predominant model suggests that heat from tidal flexing causes the ocean to remain liquid and drives ice movement similar to plate tectonics, absorbing chemicals from the surface into the ocean below. Sea salt from a subsurface ocean may be coating some geological features on Europa, suggesting that the ocean is interacting with the sea floor. This may be important in determining whether Europa could be habitable. The scientific consensus is that a layer of liquid water exists beneath Europa's surface, and that heat from tidal flexing allows the subsurface ocean to remain liquid. Europa's surface temperature averages about 110 K (−160 °C; −260 °F) at the equator and only 50 K (−220 °C; −370 °F) at the poles, keeping Europa's icy crust as hard as granite. The atmosphere of Europa can be categorized as thin and tenuous (often called an exosphere), primarily composed of oxygen and trace amounts of water vapor. Europa is one of the few moons in our solar system with a quantifiable atmosphere, along with Titan, Io, Triton, Ganymede and Callisto.
Despite the presence of a gas torus, Europa has no weather producing clouds. As a whole, Europa has no wind, precipitation, or presence of sky color as its gravity is too low to hold an atmosphere substantial enough for those features. Europa's gravity is approximately 13% of Earth's. It is hypothesized that because of radioactive and tidal heating there are points in the depths of Europa's ocean that may be only slightly cooler than Earth's oceans. Studies have also concluded that Europa's ocean would have been rather acidic at first, with large concentrations of sulfate, calcium, and carbon dioxide. But over the course of 4.5 billion years, it became full of chloride, thus resembling our 1.94% chloride oceans on Earth.
What NASA Discovered on Jupiter’s Icy Moon Europa Is Stunning!
What NASA Discovered on Jupiter’s Icy Moon Europa Is Stunning!
Pioneer 10
Exploration of Europa began with the Jupiter flybys of Pioneer 10 and 11 in 1973 and 1974, respectively. The first closeup photos were of low resolution compared to later missions. The two Voyager probes traveled through the Jovian system in 1979, providing more-detailed images of Europa's icy surface.
There are 95 moons of Jupiter with confirmed orbits as of 5 February 2024. This number does not include a number of meter-sized moonlets thought to be shed from the inner moons, nor hundreds of possible kilometer-sized outer irregular moons that were only briefly captured by telescopes. All together, Jupiter's moons form a satellite system called the Jovian system. The most massive of the moons are the four Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, which were independently discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei and Simon Marius and were the first objects found to orbit a body that was neither Earth nor the Sun.
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second-largest in the Solar System. It is the only moon known to have an atmosphere denser than the Earth's and is the only known object in space—other than Earth—on which there is clear evidence that stable bodies of liquid exist. Titan is one of seven gravitationally rounded moons of Saturn and the second-most distant among them. Frequently described as a planet-like moon, Titan is 50% larger in diameter than Earth's Moon and 80% more massive. It is the second-largest moon in the Solar System after Jupiter's Ganymede and is larger than Mercury; yet Titan is only 40% as massive as Mercury, because Mercury is mainly iron and rock while much of Titan is ice, which is less dense. The atmosphere of Titan is mainly nitrogen and methane; minor components lead to the formation of hydrocarbon clouds and heavy organonitrogen haze. Its climate—including wind and rain—creates surface features similar to those of Earth, such as dunes, rivers, lakes, seas (probably of liquid methane and ethane), and deltas, and is dominated by seasonal weather patterns as on Earth.
The First and Only Photos From Titan, Saturn's Largest Moon - What Did We See? (4K)
The First and Only Photos From Titan, Saturn's Largest Moon - What Did We See? (4K)
Subsequent studies have shown that even if you somehow managed to turn 100% of the CO2 on Mars into atmospheric gas - it wouldn’t be enough to warm Mars up significantly…so right there, the whole chain of reasoning falls apart. But additionally: Algae needs more than just CO2, water and sunlight to grow. They need nitrogen…and there is very little of that in Mars atmosphere or soil or water. No earthly plants can survive without nitrogen. Green plants only turn CO2 into oxygen when there’s sunlight. In darkness - they do the reverse - consuming oxygen and emitting CO2…so at the outset of trying to get algae to make oxygen - they’ll all literally suffocate overnight. Poisons in Mars soil and water will also kill pretty much all Earthly life.
Elon Musk the Space X founder has said before that he has an idea to detonate nuclear bombs onto the ice cap poles of Mars in an effort to terraform the desolate and freezing planet.... The idea is to apply a great deal of energy (a “nuke” - or multiple nukes) to the Martial polar ice caps - vaporizing them…this would create a great deal of extra CO2 and water vapor into the Martian upper atmosphere - creating a greenhouse effect - and warming the planet. That warming trend would melt more CO2 “dry ice” - creating more greenhouse effect - and gradually thickening the atmosphere. As the atmosphere becomes denser - water ice would start to melt and remain liquid - so there would be lakes and oceans, clouds and rain. Now you dump earthly algae into these new oceans and they start photosynthesizing, turning CO2 into oxygen. Now you have a warm, wet Mars, with a dense, oxygen rich atmosphere - and you can set about planting trees - releasing cute bunny rabbits and on and on.
Mars is a delicate planet and the closest to Earth that mankind can land on.. Nuclear explosions will destroy the science that would be lost..Firing nuclear warheads at this planet is madness and will only contribute to the distruction of the planet..
1 - It will not appreciably add to the temperature of the planet
2 - The heat provided will quickly leak away into space
3 - It will contaminate the area around the blast site and make it out of bounds for a few thousand years at least. Seriously, some people cannot see a perfectly good planet without blowing it up.
Water will become iradiated and poisonous to human life.. The soil will become bad and will not grow food..Melting the poles will change weather patterns on Mars while releasing CO2 in the process. This new CO2 suspension will not stay airborne for very long. It will create snows of CO2 probably in blizzard proportions.
Olympus Mons Latin for 'Mount Olympus') is a large shield volcano on Mars. It is over 21.9 km (13.6 mi; 72,000 ft) high as measured by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), about 2.5 times the elevation of Mount Everest above sea level. It is Mars's tallest volcano, its tallest planetary mountain, and is approximately tied with Rheasilvia on Vesta as the tallest mountain currently discovered in the Solar System. It is associated with the volcanic region of Tharsis Montes. It last erupted 25 million years ago. Calcium perchlorate seems to be everywhere on Mars in quantities that would be very dangerous to people. Up to 1% of the Martian soil is calcium perchlorate which is an extremely strong oxidizer. In low quantities it interferes with the thyroid, which controls your body's endocrine system, and in high quantities, it burns the lungs and eyes and skin. Martian dust is everywhere, tiny tiny particles of it constantly blowing around the planet. These particles, which contain perchlorate salts, are so tiny that it would be extremely difficult to wash of suits.
All the nuclear weapons ever built, even if modified to direct most of their energy into the ground instead of the air, would not be remotely enough to melt Mars’s polar caps. Planets are big. Humans and their toys are tiny. Maybe in the future if Nuclear weapons are dismantled they could be ejected into the deep belly of space and leave Earth for good..
Total Recall tells the story of Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger), a construction worker who receives an implanted memory of a fantastical adventure on Mars. He subsequently finds his adventure occurring in reality as agents of a shadow organization try to prevent him from recovering memories of his past as a Martian secret agent aiming to stop the tyrannical regime of Martian dictator Vilos Cohaagen (Cox).
Total Recall 4K HDR | Start The Reactor
Total Recall 4K HDR | Start The Reactor
A moon habitat module.. Relocate your Microwave Comm away from Habitat
A moon base seems more realistic that a Mars base at this time, A moon base will teach scientists how to conduct and build a stable base on Mars in the future.. The moon is considerably closer and getting supplies to and from the moon will be somewhat easier.. The lunar surface experiences extreme temperatures, ranging from -173°C to 127°C, as well as high levels of radiation and abrasive lunar dust. These conditions can damage network equipment and degrade signal quality, requiring robust and resilient infrastructure. The distance between the Earth and the Moon results in communication delays of up to several seconds. This delay can impact real-time communication and coordination, requiring network systems to be autonomous and capable of operating with minimal human intervention.
ISS Space Station - EnableIT PoE Enabled -Enable-IT’s Ethernet/PoE extenders are specifically designed to withstand the extreme temperatures, radiation, and dust encountered on the Moon. Their rugged construction and advanced thermal management ensure reliable performance in the harsh lunar environment. As humanity looks and races back towards establishing a permanent presence on the Moon and other Space bases, the need for more extreme, robust and reliable network infrastructure becomes paramount to support a range of communications and life supporting functions for any lunar endeavors.
Ethernet and Power over Ethernet (PoE) extenders play a crucial role in extending network connectivity, powering devices, and transmitting data over long distances in the challenging lunar and space environment. https://enableit.com/
Living on the moon is not science fiction but only a few short years away..
Xors Moon Base project is a lunar habitat which seems feasible within the next ten years and able to accommodate 2-3 crews at one time, will be presented by Innspace team members. The project took 4th place in the Moon Base Design Contest. The base consists of 4 living modules and 2 additional ones covered with a thick layer of lunar regolith using 3D printing technology, which would provide additional protection against radiation. The group will present their solution of the habitat’s life support systems. A mix of specially selected micro-organisms, including bacteria, cyanobacteria and microalgae, will perform the function of purifying wastewater and other waterborne pollutants. Specially selected microalgae in the form of wall panels will also provide oxygen. To better mimic sunlight, the team used lamps that emit not only visible light but also infrared light and UV-A and UV-B light. Xors is located near Shackleton Crater at the south pole. This is one of the most interesting places on the Moon, because of the places that the Sun illuminates almost all the time, as well as those that the light never reaches. Thanks to this location at the south pole, the habitat has gained access to water, which is trapped in the form of ice on, as well as under, the Moon’s surface. The details of the project and all subsystems will be presented during the conference.
RedPlanetLive -- Sergii Iakymov, MDRS Director
RedPlanetLive -- Sergii Iakymov, MDRS Director
Design of Xors Moon Base - Innspace Team - 2021 Mars Society Virtual Convention
Design of Xors Moon Base - Innspace Team - 2021 Mars Society Virtual Convention
How to Build A Lunar Base
How to Build A Lunar Base
The Images That Will Change Your View of Our Moon Forever (And Blow Your Mind) | LRO 4K
The Images That Will Change Your View of Our Moon Forever (And Blow Your Mind) | LRO 4K
As the Moon's fine surface layer, lunar regolith is picked up by even weak natural phenomena active at the Moon's surface, allowing it to be part of the Moon's scant atmosphere. It is easily disturbed and poses a significant hazard to exposed equipment and human health. The fine lunar regolith is made of sharp and very adhesive particles, with a distinct gunpowder taste and smell. Lunar regolith is prospected as a lunar resource, particularly for lunar in situ utilization, such as a lunar building material and regolith for growing plants on the Moon.
Using the moons natural resources such as the regolith dust will prove advantageous.. Roads and infrastructure could be built from the moons regolith shaping and increasing the moon base without the need for materials from Earth.. Due to a myriad of meteorite impacts (with speeds in the range of 20 km/s), the lunar surface is covered with a thin layer of dust. The dust is electrically charged and sticks to any surface with which it comes in contact. Calcium, silicon, and oxygen can be found in lunar soil, a pressurised building would be needed to set the concrete.. Concrete similar to Portland has been made from simulated moon regolith with great results..
The moon was believed to be completely dry after analysis of Apollo mission soil samples; it was understood that any water vapor on the surface would generally be decomposed by sunlight, leaving hydrogen and oxygen lost to outer space. However, subsequent robotic probes found evidence of water, especially of water ice in some permanently-shadowed craters on the Moon; and in 2018 water ice was confirmed in multiple locations.
Researchers have found evidence for a substantial underground cave on the moon that is accessible from the surface, making the spot a prime location to build a future lunar base.
The cave appears to be reachable from an open pit in the Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility), the ancient lava plain where the Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first set foot on the moon more than half a century ago.
Analysis of radar data collected by Nasa’s lunar reconnaissance orbiter (LRO) revealed that the Mare Tranquillitatis pit, the deepest known pit on the moon, leads to a cave 45 metres wide and up to 80 metres long, an area equivalent to 14 tennis courts. The cave lies about 150 metres beneath the surface. Lorenzo Bruzzone, of the University of Trento in Italy, said the cave was “probably an empty lava tube”, adding that such features could serve as human habitats for future explorers as they were “a natural shelter against the harsh lunar environment”.
Sunita Williams, 59, and Butch Wilmore, 61, who have been stuck in space for 180 days, revealed they will be feasting on brussels sprouts, butternut squash and smoked turkey that was dehydrated before heading to the ISS.
The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope in the United States, then used to support the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The signal appeared to come from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius and bore expected hallmarks of extraterrestrial origin. Astronomer Jerry R. Ehman discovered the anomaly a few days later while reviewing the recorded data. He was so impressed by the result that he circled on the computer printout the reading of the signal's intensity, "6EQUJ5", and wrote the comment "Wow!" beside it, leading to the event's widely used name. The entire signal sequence lasted for the full 72-second window during which Big Ear was able to observe it, but has not been detected since, despite many subsequent attempts by Ehman and others. Several hypotheses have been advanced on the origin of the emission, including natural and human-made sources.
Scientists believe that doughnut-shaped planets exist, even though they have never found one. Such objects are called toroid planets because “toroid” is the mathematical name for the shape of a doughnut. Planets are generally spherical because gravity pulls them inward. However, they could become toroids if an equal amount of force coming from their centers counters that gravitational force.If they exist, toroid planets will not be very fun to live on. First, the planet will be spinning so fast that a day will only be a few hours long. Gravity will also be notoriously weak at the equator and extremely strong at the poles. So you could lose a lot of weight just by taking a vacation at the equator. However, the climate will also be terrible—with heavy winds and disastrous storms. Meanwhile, the temperature will vary greatly in different areas of the planet.
With over 400 active volcanoes, Io is the most geologically active object in the Solar System. This extreme geologic activity is the result of tidal heating from friction generated within Io's interior as it is pulled between Jupiter and the other Galilean moons—Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Several volcanoes produce plumes of sulfur and sulfur dioxide that climb as high as 500 km (300 mi) above the surface. Io's surface is also dotted with more than 100 mountains that have been uplifted by extensive compression at the base of Io's silicate crust. Some of these peaks are taller than Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth's surface. Unlike most moons in the outer Solar System, which are mostly composed of water ice, Io is primarily composed of silicate rock surrounding a molten iron or iron sulfide core. Most of Io's surface is composed of extensive plains with a frosty coating of sulfur and sulfur dioxide. Io's volcanism is responsible for many of its unique features. Its volcanic plumes and lava flows produce large surface changes and paint the surface in various subtle shades of yellow, red, white, black, and green, largely due to allotropes and compounds of sulfur. Numerous extensive lava flows, several more than 500 km (300 mi) in length, also mark the surface.
Jupiter’s Moon Io Really Is a Hellish World! These Are the Closest Images Ever Taken
Jupiter’s Moon Io Really Is a Hellish World! These Are the Closest Images Ever Taken
Io is slightly larger than Earth's Moon. It has a mean radius of 1,821.3 km (1,131.7 mi) (about 5% greater than the Moon's) and a mass of 8.9319×1022 kg (about 21% greater than the Moon's). It is a slight ellipsoid in shape, with its longest axis directed toward Jupiter. Among the Galilean satellites, in both mass and volume, Io ranks behind Ganymede and Callisto but ahead of Europa.