Almost exactly 40 years ago in 1969 the world watched with excitement and anxiety as the Saturn V rocket of Apollo 11 shot skyward from Kennedy Space Center. The launch of this rocket was the first step in Apollo 11’s mission of putting NASA astronauts on the Moon, the commitment of a nation to deliver on President Kennedy’s call to do so not eight years previously in 1961. Obviously, this endeavor was incredibly risky, and the astronauts knew very well that there was a significant reality that they would never return. The entire world knew this, too. And yet, we sent them, and they went willingly.

I was born in January of that year, and was almost six months old when Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong would conduct the first ever moonwalk. Obviously, I cannot remember the event, but this single human achievement has played an enormous role, and been of huge influence, on my entire life. It is exciting to be celebrating the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, and I am amazed at how absolutely relevant this achievement still is. I will spare you the history lesson, as there is an abundance of these seemingly everywhere. I will say, though, that it is interesting how things have developed since this historic moment.

Not Yet Four Days Ago.

In a case of either appropriate or ironic timing, depending on your perspective, NASA launched Space Shuttle mission STS-127 on July 15th after several delays. The Space Shuttle has been an important program for NASA, and for all of us, really, but in the shadow of the achievements reached by the thousands of people who were part of the effort to put humans on the moon you cannot help but feel that, for NASA, time has gone backwards. Regardless, the video below of the launch of STS-127 is incredible, and I am pleased that we are still sending brave people into space to help us learn, dream, and explore, even if they never actually leave Earth’s orbit.

Tomorrow evening, at about 9:50PM CST, NASA is launching Kepler (depicted in the animation above), its new planet-hunting space telescope on a mission to find Earth-sized and Earth-like planets that might have liquid water.  This is important, of course, because it means that these planets could be home to life. It is also important as this means these planets might be “habitable”. To understand the significance of this quest, I point you to the recent TED Talks presentation by Jill Tarter of SETI, which is well worth the time to watch:

At the heart of this mission is the effort to determine just how common planets such as our own are. Some fear we are a unique occurrence in the universe, others believe that earths are possibly quite common. Kepler is departing to bring some resolution to this schism.

The Kepler mission is named after Johannes Kepler, astronomer and author of The Laws of Planetary Motion.

The Cassini robotic explorer continues to send back incredible imagery from its mission amongst Saturn and its moons. The latest series of images are part of the Equinox mission to observe the changing seasons on Saturn, and are rendered to expose the incredible detail of the stormy atmosphere underneath the signature rings of the planet. If you look at the lower left corner in the image above you will see an especially well defined storm, seen essentially as a blue dot in Saturn’s atmosphere.

This image was taken with the wide-angle camera on-board Cassini on Dec. 29, 2008 at a distance of approximately 680,000 miles from Saturn.

More on the Cassini Equinox mission. More on the Cassini imaging team. More on my own following of Cassini here on schneiderism.

It’s safe to assume that most all of us are challenged in our understanding of those dimensions that theoretically exist beyond our own, wonderful, and seemingly complete 3rd dimension. This video, somewhat similar in approach to those by Common Craft, does a superb job walking us through dimensions 1-10 in a way that is clear, concise, and pretty incredible to contemplate.

Found via Greg Laden’s Blog.

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote about the concept of a space elevator, and provided some background and motivation for NASA’s pursuit of this very cost effective access to Earth orbit. Quite realistically, if we truly want to create a substantive human presence beyond the surface of our planet it will take something akin to the space elevator to make it happen. Launching rockets into orbit is expensive, time consuming, dangerous, and wasteful. The space elevator will probably be expensive at first, but once it is built and ostensibly powered by solar energy the cost and danger of accessing Earth orbit are enormously reduced, and with the added benefit of much greater frequency. So, the space elevator is potentially a perfect solution for orbital access. It seems we have taken an important step closer with the development of light, long, and stretchy carbon nanotubes by scientists at Cambridge University. This is an important development, as the tether for the space elevator would require upwards of 144,000 miles of these nanotubes. At present, the scientists at Cambridge are able to develop about 1 gram of these carbon nanotubes per day, which can be stretched to 18 miles, but it will require work on creating the industrial production of carbon nanotubes to make the 144,000 mile space elevator tether viable.

It is interesting that something that existed essentially only in the realm of science fiction for many decades may now be actualized in the next ten years or so, this being another testament to the power of science fiction in shaping the direction of our technology.

More on long, stretchy carbon nanotubes at PhysOrg.com

There is no way that I could improve on this beyond just pointing you to Kevin Kelly’s The Cosmic Genesis of Technology. In this piece Kelly writes what is essentially a beautiful overview of the origins of the universe, and adds in some incredibly interesting perspective on these origins, our reality, and how they continue to influence and control all manner of existence, including his theory on the appearance of technology. It is absolutely worth reading the entire article as it is smart, concise, and really well written. Here’s a favorite excerpt:

“While the appearance of any particular form of technology or life is against all odds, the appearance of technology and life as a whole were ordained as soon as the universe began to expand, unpacking room for difference. Technology is the latest in a long line of structures that manifest the expanding potential of difference in the universe with actual differences. The expansion of space/time opened up the universe to the dissipation of entropy, and thus to the appearance of entropy-accelerating forms like life, mind, and mind-life (technology). The mammoth supercollider in CERN and the tiny Intel 8080 computer chip – the big and little of the technium — owe their ultimate origins not to the minds of human engineers, but to the fundamental laws of this existence. The genesis of technology began at the Big Bang. as Weakly syntropic but persistent structures like galaxies and stars exploited entropy to sustain order. In their orbits the first bacteria and later humans extended the ruse. Now the technium delivers differences that life – in all its amazing power – cannot manage. ”

Kevin Kelly from The Cosmic Genesis of Technology

It’s a bit blurry, but the image above is no less incredible. It depicts the shock waves and ejected material from a star going supernova. Recently, compositing images from a range of orbiting and terrestrial telescopes, MIT researchers created the first fully three-dimensional reconstruction of what remained of this star after the explosive, cataclysmic supernova. These remains, referred to as a “supernova remnant”, are now called Cassiopeia A, and they are comprised of a set of intertwined bubble-like shells of debris that were spewed in the midst of the star’s destruction about 330 years ago (the expansion estimated to have begun in 1667).

Shown in the video below is the evolution of Cassiopeia A made using techniques from medical imaging. This animation combines X-ray images from Chandra, NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope, and ground-based, visible-light telescopes to create the first three-dimensional animation of a supernova remnant. In this composite, note that:

• lowest energy X-rays are shown in red
• intermediate energies in green and the highest X-ray energies in blue
• that the explosion’s outer blast wave, moving slower than expected at 18 million kph, is also shown in blue

Remnants of Cassiopeia A (2D) from Science News on Vimeo.

Looking more closely at the aftermath of this massive event, the animation below depicts Cassiopeia A based on data also from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope. As you watch this, note that:

• green indicates mostly X-ray emissions from iron
• yellow reveals mostly X-ray, infrared and visible-light emissions from argon and silicon
• red is the coolest debris, seen in infrared
• blue depicts X-rays from the outer blast wave

Remnants of Cassiopeia A (3D) from Science News on Vimeo.

I watched the video above at change.gov last evening and liked very much how President-elect Obama explains his perspective on the role of science in his administration, and the thinking behind the science and technology team he has assembled. This team will maintain his focus on the value that science offers society and the world, and represents a cross-section of disciplines that is comprehensive (with the notable lack of a biologist…) in the face of the real challenges faced by our nation, challenges that can be addressed through science, innovation, and discovery. This perspective is in stark contrast to the previous eight years, and stands to move science in the United States forward on many, many fronts. A prescient quote from Obama’s presentation:

“The truth is promoting science is not just about providing resources, it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or idealogy. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient. Especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth, and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States.”

Barack Obama

This emphasis on science and the importance of open inquiry is something that President-elect Obama had discussed several times during the campaign. This was a notable difference between himself and essentially all of the other candidates, from both parties. This difference would be one of the many reasons that I ultimately cast my vote with him, and continue to be reminded by the Obama transistion team what an excellent decision that was.

That would be the dark side of Jupiter. Above is an animation of images taken by the Hubble telescope in April of 2007 that show Jupiter’s largest moon moving behind Jupiter. Stunning.

More at Hubblesite.

This is not breaking news, as it dates back to March of this year, but I was excited to read about it earlier this morning. The Cassini team issued a report last March that demonstrated the evidence of a liquid ocean beneath the surface crust of Saturn’s moon Titan. The interesting revelation is that this ocean is thought to be “global” on the moon, and as such indicates that the entire surface crust of Titan is decoupled from the interior of the planet, floating on this ocean. The evidence for this is based on the measurements of how Titan’s crust slides as a result of forces exerted by its atmosphere, as much as a .36 degree shift measured over the course of a year. That is considered to be pretty significant movement.

There is a great article about this at The Planetary Society, and it reports that the empirical evidence of the ocean on TItan, already long suspected by scientists, lends credence to the theory that several other icy bodies in our solar system also have hidden interior oceans. Jupiter’s moons Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede are the most probable candidates for this phenomenon. The image above illustrates the proportion of the internal make-up of several of these satellites, and the relationship between these proportions and the existence of an internal ocean. It is thought by scientists that the existence of oceans in icy satellites may be a common occurance in our solar system.