Frida Space

So here you go! Dawn has observed a series of curved gullies on the surface of Vesta which scientists think have been caused by short-lived water flows. The water was probably buried under the ground in the form of ice, maybe brought by collisions with comets. New collisions, however, heated up the ice, melting it and causing the water to flow out of the crater walls and into the crater, depositing a bunch of materials in an alluvial fan. The gullies observed have been formed in the last two million years or so, so relatively very recently, so these processes might still be happening today. Obviously, because the temperature and the surface pressure are so low, the water probably evaporated soon after. Source: the JPL website isn't loading on my computer at the moment, but whenever it does I'll leave the link here. It was one of the most recent articles, if not the most recent of all.

The question isn't, "Is it really impossible to solve climate change?", but rather, "does every advanced civilization have to face a climate disaster, independently from whether they manage to deal with it or not?"

But here it's mentioned as climate disaster, not simple climate change.

Important note: this thread doesn't focus on Earth's climate change, whether it is manmade or not or whether it even exists, so please let's avoid the topic So, I just read an article by Adam Frank from the University of Rochester on The New York Times. The title is, 'Is a climate disaster inevitable?', and it immediately attracted my attention. Here are a few snippets, although if you have ten minutes I suggest you read the full article. The article introduces Fermi's paradox, which is basically the "Where is everybody?" question. With the Milky Way alone containing probably billions of planets, how is it possible that no other civilization has yet contacted us? Just thought it could be a good cause for reflection, so here it is.

According to the MPC, it has a dual definition. However, it is quite ambiguous as in 2006 the IAU didn't address whether its new classification as dwarf planet prevented it from being an asteroid, nor did they give a precise definition of asteroid.

Could the white dot be a cryovulcano? I was reading some comments and a guy mentioned it. Not that I believe it (I personally think it's more likely to be a fresh crater, but it's way too early to know for sure), but I was wondering, it's a fascinating scenario.

Why should they make it pay tho? I'd prefer a website full of ads, where maybe you have to watch a video or something before reading a paper, but it should be free. Science is free

Could also call it the "Year of the Ex-Planets!"

This is what Ceres looks like from 383 000 km away! It is 27 pixels wide. I guess we have little time left to speculate what its surface might be like!

LORRI resolution Pluto: ~100 m/pixel Charon: ~260 m/pixel Nix: ~460 m/pixel (95 pixels across) Hydra: ~1.1 km/pixel (55 pixels across) Kerberos: ~3.2 km/pixel (4 pixels across) Styx: ~3.2 km/pixel (3 pixels across) Source: www.boulder.swri.edu/pkb/ssr/ssr-lorri.pdf

The most widely accepted theory on the formation of Titan is that it resulted from a series of giant impacts against Saturn and a series of Galileian-like satellites. These would explain its high orbital eccentricity and its Oort Cloud-like atmospheric nitrogen.

Yes, according to the current capture hypothesis for the two Martian moons, their orbits have been circularized and brought to an inclination of almost 0 degrees thanks to a combination of atmospheric drag + tidal forces. These latter ones in particular would have been enhanced by a binary asteroid. The only problem is time.

Quick update on the mission: ++++++++ ...the mission’s science, engineering and spacecraft operations teams have configured the piano-sized probe for distant observations of the Pluto system, starting with a long-range photo shoot that begins Jan. 25. Snapped by New Horizons’ telescopic Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager, known as LORRI, those pictures will give mission scientists a continually improving look at the dynamics of those moons. And they’ll play a critical role in navigating the spacecraft as it covers the remaining 135 million miles (220 million kilometers) to Pluto. Over the next few months, LORRI will take hundreds of pictures of Pluto against star fields to refine the team’s estimates of New Horizons’ distance to Pluto. Though the Pluto system will resemble little more than bright dots in the camera’s view until May, mission navigators will use those data to design course-correction maneuvers that aim the spacecraft toward its flyby target point this summer. The first such maneuver could occur as early as March.

I'm studying the Divine Comedy at school right now (in Italy we study it for three years!), so I could probably come up with at least 50 hell-related names.

Found! http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro2013411.html

It's not a problem of waking up again now  it can't. Transmitting to Earth requires all of the solar panels deployed, and it doesn't appear to have done so.

From what I understood and what my (very limited) experience tells me, there's no way we can regain control of it. Although we don't know how it failed, it probably had enough power to communicate in the first place, but it simply couldn't either because of a hard landing or because of some other engineering issue. - - - Updated - - - And what do you mean by "think about what Rosseta's been through until it reached its target"? Rosetta has never lost contact with ground control. If you are referring to Philae, well the landing was a success, so again I don't know what you mean.

BTW, speaking about more serious stuff, New Horizons' encounter started today! New Horizons is now taking 24x7 dust & plasma data on the local environment. Imaging starts Jan 25th, but first releases will be only a week later and only dots.

Pluto is a nicer guy than Venus

The Mars Cube One (MarCO) cubesats will hitch a ride on NASA's InSight lander, which will launch to Mars next year. The two 6U cubesats will provide communications for InSight during its landing phase, as MRO, MAVEN and Odyssey will all be unavailable at the time of landing. Depending on remaining fuel, the two MarCO probes might continue on to visit a small body. NASA hasn't made available an official press release yet, but, according to rumors, the two cubesats might have a few instruments on them too. Will these be the first interplanetary Cubesats? I can't remember whether or not there have been others before. Thanks!

Having read space-news for many years now, I have to say that the second one, althought less intuitive (for me, that is), is often the most used, especially by NASA & Co.

The sensors detect an anomaly related to the pressure in the cooling system, but probably no leak.

There hasn't been any leak, nor any fire. Just a false positive, I guess.

That's cool!

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it. :-)