All Things Space

[Antimatter]

Well, considering we lost the original thread for good, and I still love Space, we need to start a new one!

And there is no better reason for that than the Aremis I mission that took flight just today.

 

[alice_ashpool]

hi, i am a physics teacher

 

[alice_ashpool]

lmao, imagine wasting valuable lesson time which could be spent learning about forces and space

 

[m7600]

Is it true that all the cool kids are doing solid-state physics instead of quantum mechanics nowadays? : D

 

[alice_ashpool]

Is it true that all the cool kids are doing solid-state physics instead of quantum mechanics nowadays? : D

nah, they're into vaping

 

[Antimatter]

The white thing is Earth. The red dot is a camera artifact.

 

[Antimatter]

Here is a spacesuit to wear on the Moon. We haven't seen anything like that for 50 years.

 

[mlnevese]

The progress of technology is evident when we compare this new suit with the bulky stuff they used the first time humans went to the moon.

 

[Antimatter]

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The successful launch marks the beginning of an ambitious voyage to uncover the secrets of the ocean worlds around giant planet Jupiter.

Thanks to the legacy of previous Jupiter missions it's known that three of the planet’s largest moons – Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – hold quantities of water buried under their surfaces in volumes far greater than in Earth’s oceans. These planet-sized moons offer hints that conditions for life could exist other than here on our planet, and Juice is equipped to bring us one step closer to answering this alluring question.

 

[Antimatter]

Today, to celebrate the 20th birthday of ESA’s Mars Express, we've got the chance to get as close as it’s currently possible to a live view from Mars directly from the Visual Monitoring Camera on board ESA’s long-lived and still highly productive martian orbiter.

“This is an old camera, originally planned for engineering purposes, at a distance of almost three million kilometres from Earth – this hasn’t been tried before and to be honest, we’re not 100% certain it’ll work,” explained James Godfrey, Spacecraft Operations Manager at ESA’s mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany.

“But I’m pretty optimistic. Normally, we see images from Mars and know that they were taken days before. I’m excited to see Mars as it is now – as close to a Martian ‘now’ as we can possibly get!’

Turned out, it was possible! The delay was only from 3 to 22 mins.

First livestream from the Red Planet

On Friday, to celebrate the 20th birthday of ESA’s Mars Express, you’ll have the chance to get as close as it’s currently possible get to a live view from Ma...

www.youtube.com

 

[mlnevese]

Seriously? Now we have to set better holographic generators around your silly robots...

 

[m7600]

A bit of ambience for this thread

 

[mlnevese]

James Webb finds evidence of Dark Matter Stars.

 

[m7600]

Ok, let's start placing bets on what there could be under the ice in Europa.

I'm betting 5 copper pieces that there are living microbes, at the very least.

I'm also placing a bet of 3 copper pieces that there is something similar to plant life. Sessile organisms of some sort, even if they're not plants in a genetic sense.

Finally, I'm betting 1 copper piece that there is something similar to animals. Organisms capable of mobility. I expect them to be small but not microscopic, maybe similar to small crustaceans.

 

[OrlonKronsteen]

@m7600 Possibly the Sea-Monkey home-world?

 

[OrlonKronsteen]

… and the hostile high surface radiation…

I never thought of that. Would there not be radiation under the ice?

 

[m7600]

I never thought of that. Would there not be radiation under the ice?

Maybe... But since we're speculating, if there are alien lifeforms, some of them might find radiation beneficial, just as some deep-sea organisms find volcanic vents beneficial.

If there really are alien lifeforms, they could be unlike anything that we have here on Earth. Maybe they don't have cells. Maybe they aren't carbon-based...

 

[mlnevese]

I don't think life would have problems with a radioactive environment...

Frontiers | Living at the Extremes: Extremophiles and the Limits of Life in a Planetary Context

Prokaryotic life has dominated most of the evolutionary history of our planet, evolving to occupy virtually all available environmental niches. Extremophiles...

www.frontiersin.org

 

[mlnevese]

Extremophiles show we know nothing about life requisites. They often exist in places where no life should exist.

There was a strong movement a few years ago that we should stop looking for life signs only on Earth-like planets and extend our search to any planet where the conditions match our own extremophiles. To them we would be extremophiles, living in a world with a corrosive/explosive atmosphere, surrounded by one of the most potent solvents in existence

 

[m7600]

I highly recommend the following video. It honestly blew my mind when I saw it. It was made by MelodySheep, who also makes the Symphony of Science videoclips.