Cosmic Collisions

January 24, 2009

Cosmic collisions. If those two words don't send your neurons into a tizzy, I question whether you are human.

You should imagine asteroids smacking into the Earth, fire and destruction, and all of that other Armageddon goodness we humans are oh-so-fascinated with. Which is why the Discovery Channel decided to bring you a great three-part special called, well, "Cosmic Collisions."

Click here for the schedule which you can ask to send you an e-mail reminder. Cool right? Very useful for forgetful types (e.g. myself).

As of this posting, the first episode called "Galaxies" is set to air Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 10:00 p.m. ET.

And for the behind-the-scenes scoop on what the show covers, visit the Wide Angle I put together.

You can test your know-how by taking this quiz, browse real and imagined outer space smashups in a slide show, find out what comets have to do with life on Earth, discover the difference between asteroids and meteorites, and investigate what will happen to life on Earth after Andromeda whacks our host galaxy in a few billion years.

By the way: the show's timing couldn't be better! Ever heard of how a Mars-sized object gave Earth the kiss of death about 4.5 billion years ago, resulting in the created of the moon?

Well, get a load of this new story -- we now know the moon cooled from an "ocean of magma" into the solid body we look up at today about 100 million years after obliterating early Earth. That's more than twice as good as the estimate we had before, thanks to a little zircon crystal in a moon rock (which you can bet is more valuable than those impostor diamond rings).

Anyhow, feel free comment about the show below. And for reading all the way to the end of this post enjoy this special treat. It's a little something we cooked up but haven't officially put up on Discovery Space!

Photo: Don Davis, NASA

A Martian Methane Bomb on Earth

January 16, 2009

We writer types sometimes use a very unwelcome term, and I'd like to use it now:

Pack journalism.

Other variations: Herd journalism, "me-too" journalism.

Today, I'm using it to refer to the recent news about methane plumes discovered on Mars.

Thing is, we knew about this in October 2008. Nearly 3 months ago. Not to toot the horn of our very own blogger Ray Villard, but read it for yourself.

But back to pack journalism: What's the harm?

I'm not certain its damage physically measurable, but consider this: Seeing the same story written 1,000 different ways, yet saying the same boring thing (we don't know if there's life on Mars), in every media outlet from here to Timbuktu. That's a perfect recipe to whack a few confidence points off of the media scorecard. Ouch.

Thankfully here at Discovery Space, we're somewhat insulated from "the pack." We are not a news site -- but we do get behind it, blow it up and expand on the most interesting pieces. Take, for instance, our Wide Angle about life on Mars -- which we threw together after tabloids started publishing stories such as this, this and this.

Speaking of which... Er, really? NASA did not say there was past or present life on Mars.

Too late to stop the misinformation train, though -- people across the planet began freaking out about and wondering why this story is not in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, etc. etc. etc.

...enter pack journalism.

Because a few media outlets incorrectly report that we've found life on Mars, the unfortunate party begins. Every journalist and their mother is ordered to have a story about Martians filed a.s.a.p., setting off a feverish race to address claims of alien microbes when, really, the news is really just one incremental step in the search for life beyond Earth.

That said, I'm not knocking on the scientific findings here. They are very interesting and exciting. And I'm not knocking my colleagues, either -- there are some great pieces about this out there.

Yet NASA knows better than anybody that "alien" and "life" in the same sentence is a touchstone of interest for any human being -- so they'll drum up as much publicity as they can, when they can. Talk about stealing the spotlight: the space agency held their own TV press conference for what was a report in Science magazine.

Ok, so NASA isn't innocent when it comes to such publicity stunts, but I understand why they do it. To them, any widely-publicized advancement in the search for life could be that straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak, to get support -- public, political, financial and otherwise -- to explore the solar system *coughAllanHillsmeteoritecough*.

Is there a solution to these problems? I'm not sure there is, but I'm sure the planet would appreciate any ideas -- feel free to leave 'em in the comments section below.

P.S. Seeking a superior breakdown of how science news shapes up? Don't miss Charlie Petitt's blog, the Knight Science Journalism Tracker -- one of my personal favorites that deserves its spot in the "VIB" (Very Important Blogs) folder of my Google Reader account. Petitt has a great inventory of the "Martian methane bomb" in this post.

Photo: NASA/Wikimedia Commons/Dave Mosher

Your Venus, Jupiter and Moon Conjunction Photos...

December 04, 2008

...are posted!

You can check out the Discovery Space gallery/slide show/whatchamacallit by clicking here.

Phoenix Is Dying

October 30, 2008

Woe is me...

I don't like breaking the bad news, but our plucky friend -- the Phoenix Mars Lander -- is beginning to freeze to death. As Nancy Atkinson over at Universe Today has pointed out, it entered safe mode (translation: that's bad) but is at least still Twittering... for now.

Sooner or later the cruel Red Planet will claim yet another robotic life, and NASA folks are saying anywhere from days to weeks at this point. I know... I hear you shouting "Why?!" Hush, hush now -- below is an answer.

Let's talk temperature.

We're lucky to live on a planet that has an average temperature of about 15 °C (59 °F). Well above the freezing point of water, human bodies, car battery juice and electronic circuit boards.

What about Mars?

On average, the planet is about -60 °C (-76 °F) -- cold enough to chill radon or chlorine gas into a liquid and freeze a mercury thermometer solid. During a dustless Martian summer you'd be lucky to feel temperatures above 20 °C (68 °F), and it can quickly drop below about -140 °C (-220 °F) during winter nights.

Well, Phoenix is on top of Mars and sunlight is becoming scarcer by the hour -- just as it does during winter at high latitudes on Earth (Alaska, Sweden, Greenland, etc.). Temperatures in the Phoenix spacecraft's dusty hood are presently about -96 °C (-141 °F) at night and peak only at -45 °C (-50 °F) during the day.

If you remember chemistry 101 class, you'll recall that cold stuff shrinks and warm stuff expands (ice is one of those exceptions). Metals are the most susceptible to shrinkage in the cold.

Now let's put all of this together...

• Phoenix needs sunlight to power its gizmos and charge its batteries. That sunlight is fading.
• During the night, those batteries power heaters. There's gradually less power available.
• The heaters warm the batteries and other electronics. Phoenix scientists are now turning off some heaters to conserve power.
• Most Martian spacecraft* "prefer" to have their robotic guts above -40 °C (-40 °F) -- but can dip as low as -55 °C (-67 °F). Uh oh...
• Below that temperature, the metallic material in electronic circuits may shrink enough to snap. Bye-bye robot.

So there you have it: Phoenix is currently between a big red rock and a very cold place.

And no matter how much scientists micro-manage its power to keep it alive, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will soon freeze, snow down and bury Phoenix for months -- plenty of time to kill it.

It's been slightly more than five months since Phoenix landed, and (as we know from the Mars Exploration Rovers) you can keep going for years making discoveries on the Red Planet.

I simply can't believe Phoenix is already dying. What a cruel, merciless red-hued world.

In honor of Phoenix' eventual death, I offer you this tune:

Wish I could change the lyrics, though:

Across the city solar system you'll sleep alone, I followed
Lying wide awake until it the carbon dioxide ice comes, tomorrow(?)

And you're the one who cared enough to break carry out the extended plans made for us you

You're freezing up
You're freezing
And you're freezing up with no good reason again because your energetic juice is low

You're freezing up
You're freezing
You're freezing up with no good reason again because your energetic juice is low

* As for robots that fly among the stars -- such as Ulysses? They risk having their hydrazine fuel frozen solid by temperatures below just 2 °C (36°F) -- a more or less a dooming event for a spacecraft zooming through space on a precise path.

Photos: Dave Mosher, Discovery Space; NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Max Planck Institute

What Up, Holmes?

October 15, 2008

Remember last year when Comet Holmes burst onto the scene and became visible to the naked eye, prompting amateur astronomers to shout, cry and perform end-zone touchdown celebrations?

Ok, a bit of an exaggeration.

Most of you have probably never heard of it and are thinking "Comet Holmes?" Nope, not the slang word -- Holmes as in Edwin Holmes of the 19th century, who discovered it.

This bad boy (which also goes by the less sexy name of Comet 17P) periodically swings around Earth just about every 7 years. It's normally a an unexciting little thing, but in November 2007 it brightened about 500,000-fold in two days -- the fastest, brightest change on record for a comet.

Astronomers weren't exactly sure of the cause, but know an explosion of some sort was responsible; after all, only tons of reflective gas and dust tossed into space could brighten the thing so quickly.

Leading theories for the burst include:

• It violently farted out gas and dust
• A rogue meteoroid smacked into it
• The Heaven's Gate cult crash-landed on the wrong comet

Now there's a new tool to help scientists out. As this brand-new release from the infrared-seeing Spitzer Space Telescope explains, we can now see the inside of the comet's fuzzy coma -- the shell of gas and dust blown around by the Sun's radiation.

The photos:

First up is the false-color version from Spitzer showing the comet in all of its glory.

You can clearly see the coma (which was about 2 miles wide when Spitzer took this pic in February 2008).

Second is the "contrast-enhanced" version, which I think looks like a shot out of "The Matrix" movie.

This image shows filaments of dust particles trailing the nucleusand the comet's round outer shell.

If you look closely, you can see a dotted trail coming out of the nucleus from right-to-left.

Third is the fun version.

I Photoshopped the images on top of one another so you can see how they match up, giving you "big picture" look at the insides fit to the coma and nucleus.

(I aligned the images to the stars, so yep -- this is a perfect overlay.)

After all of this, you'd think astronomers would know why Holmes blew up in November 2007 -- but if you read the release, they're still in the dark. I'm hoping someone will figure it out soon, but we might need to visit another one (like we did with the Stardust spacecraft).

Why? More and more, comets are seen as a critical element in helping life arise on terrestrial planets. If you think of them as little frozen droplets of water that helped build up Earth's oceans and deliver the organic precursors of life, you'll understand why there's such a push to know more about them.

Photos, top to bottom: Wikimedia Commons - Johnpane; NASA/JPL-Caltech/B. Reach (Spitzer Science Center)

Signs of Life CAN Survive in Meteorites

September 24, 2008

Remember back in 1996, when a group of scientists thought they found fossilized bacteria on a Martian meteorite? Debate about the rock -- also known as ALH 84001 -- still goes on to this day. Most scientists are convinced it's not a fossilized remnant (too small to be bacteria, they argue), but others remain optimistic.

Now that you have that picture zipping around in your brain, read this (emphasis added):

STONE-6 ARTIFICIAL METEORITE SHOWS MARTIAN IMPACTORS COULD CARRY TRACES OF LIFE

An artificial meteorite designed by the European Space Agency has shown that traces of life in a martian meteorite could survive the violent heat and shock of entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

First of all, WOW.

Second, before your imagination runs too wild, the experiment did not show that life could survive the fiery reentry to Earth (even beneath about an inch of rock). That's still up for debate.

What it did show, however, is that the bacteria turn into nice carbon outlines on the rocks they ride on. (To get an idea of how this works, check out the picture at left -- it's a permanent shadow left by someone who was vaporized during the Hiroshima atomic blast).

Ok, now let's back up a bit: What the heck is STONE-6? It's one of a couple experiments packed into a small FOTON M3 capsule that launched last year from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

Scientists created their own lava-like and sedimentary rocks, infusing them with bacteria and some really old fossils in the process. Then they strapped the rocks to the capsule's heat shield; when it returned to Earth, presto! A fine simulation of Martian rock making a fiery atmospheric entry.

Most Martian meteorites are spotted in Antarctica, and it's because their black color stands out in the snow and ice. Problem is, bacterial remnants burned onto the rocks (at 3,100 degrees Fahrenheit) don't show up on black meteorites very well... They're totally camouflaged.

Here's what Frances Westall, leader of the experiment, had to say:

"The STONE-6 experiment shows that sedimentary martian meteorites could reach Earth.  The fact that we haven't found any to date could mean that we need to change the way we hunt for meteorites ...  In this experiment we found that the sedimentary rocks developed a white crust or none at all. That means that we need to expand our search to white or light-coloured rocks."

In other words, we need to start finding more  needles in a haystack that is Antarctica. White rocks, not black ones. That's where we'll find signs of life, if anywhere.

Easier said than done, but it's a promising lead in figuring out if life has ever existed in the Solar System other than on our home planet.

NOTE: This post went up prematurely last week, so my apologies if you're seeing it again.

Photos, top to bottom: NASA; Department of Defense

It's Always Sunny on Discovery Space

August 28, 2008

Admit it -- You know the sun is freakin' awesome.

Because of its awesomeness, I've helped cook up some super-sunny stuff during the past couple of weeks for you to watch, poke through and read!

Check out the list below, and don't forget your sunglasses... Ok, that was really lame. Your condescending hatemail can be addressed to DiscoverySpace@Discovery.com

• Gallery: Hottest Solar Images - Ooo la la, what have we here? Some of the hottest images of the Sun ever. You know you wanna peek...

• My Take: Solar Pains in the @$$ - What could happen to our petty little civilization during a solar storm? Check out this expert's take on the situation.

• Video: Solar Maximum - Solar maximum is upon us in a couple of years. What the dilly-o does that mean, though? Watch this video.

• Video: SDO Shines Light on the Sun - Scientists use nifty spacecraft to monitor the Sun, but they ain't got nothin' on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory that's being readied to launch.

That's it for now -- stay tuned for more cool space stuff!

Tyson: Sykes "Going Down" at Great Planet Debate

August 14, 2008

I can see it already at today's Great Planet Debate...

Ladies and gentlemen, in the red corner we have Neil DeGrasse Tyson, famous astrophysicist and reigning champion over Pluto's status as a non-planet.

In the blue corner is Mark V. Sykes, the underdog who wishes to muster the scientific community toward consensus on Pluto remaining a planet.

Gentlemen, let's have a nice clean fight!

Ok, a bit of a stretch on my part -- especially the image -- and I suppose I did lead Tyson into saying that Sykes is "going down."

But a lot really is at stake in the name of science here.

Tyson put the magnitude of the event to me half-jokingly during our chat on Tuesday in City Hall Park. (If you want to listen to our entire conversation, check out the end of this post for an MP3.) Here's what he said:

"It puts great pressure on Mark Sykes and me to solve all the problems of the universe."

Perhaps. If I were to pick two guys to help solve the problems of the universe, though, Sykes and Tyson would be in my top ten. Both are extremely well-informed and in great positions to communicate the issues, both as professional scientists and directors of various institutions. Most importantly, each has a great sense of humor.

Back to what's at stake, though.

I asked Tyson about why anyone should care if people use the word "planet" or some other term to describe celestial bodies. His response:

1. Words can influence how you think about a problem
2. Agreeing on terminologies enables scientists to speak the same language (so they can make more frequent, better and thorough discoveries)

He offered up the analogy of a person from 100 years ago seeing a car today: it's a horse-drawn carriage without the horses to that person. That makes sense to me.

In fact, it reminds me of 9th grade trigonometry...

I couldn't figure out how to simplify one of those wicked, tortuous, evil sin/cos/tan problems for the life of me. At least not the way my teacher taught the class. Seeing me struggle, a smarty-pants sitting behind me (who, in my rose-colored glasses, I imagine she had a crush on me) revealed a shortcut to solve the problem. And the floodgates of understanding opened up.

So I suppose what I'm saying is this: I might be giving up my "belief" that Pluto should remain a planet.(Wouldn't be the first of my beliefs to go by the wayside.) It seems to make more scientific sense.

The Bad Astronomer Phil Plait appears to be in the same boat as me after his chat with Alan Stern. Phil offers some first-hand perspective as a former professional astronomer on the planet/no-planet issue in a recent post (see here).

It's good to know I'm not alone on the "dark side" of possibly supporting the reclassification of the Solar System -- but I'm still very, very curious to see how Sykes defends himself today at 4:30 pm ET, live on the Web.

The registration page for picking up the video feed has closed, but there may be  away I can supply you with the goods to watch :) if you find yourself in this cold, lonely place of not having a way to watch, shoot an e-mail over to DiscoverySpace@Discovery.com.

As promised, here's the MP3 of my interview with Tyson: I'm a 10.7MB file, so download me with care. The quality is intentionally crummy, but you can still hear everything perfectly. Including weed-wackers, crazy New Yorkers, and irate cab drivers.

Photos: Associated Press/American Museum of Natural History/Planetary Science Institute; Dave Mosher, Discovery Space

Calling All Pluto Protestors!

August 12, 2008

In case you haven't heard, the Great Planet Debate is going down this week in Laurel, Maryland at Johns Hopkins University. It's at their Applied Physics Laboratory, which is just about smack-dab between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD.

A ton of planetary scientists should be there to wrestle with the definition of a planet, among other geeky matters, but at the center is a Thursday night throw-down between Tyson and Sykes.

Not good ol' Mike Tyson, but Neil DeGrasse Tyson -- a major popularizer of science and an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, here in New York City.

Sykes = Mark Sykes, director for the Planetary Society Institute, whom I've chatted with a few times. (Here's one of our conversations on the Dawn mission to the Asteroid Belt.)

As you can tell from the photo at left, they look really mean. At any rate, the whole point of this post:

I might be there I won't be there -- but will you? Discovery Space blogger and Hubble Space Telescope guy "Cosmic" Ray Villard will definitely be ringside to bring you the minute-by-minute shenanigans, so be sure to say "hi" to him, if not to both of us.

***IMPORTANT! CALLING ALL PLUTO PROTESTERS!*** If you're going to be protesting about Pluto (for or against it being a planet), please, please, please let me know right away. I would love to chat with you about doing something special!

You can drop me a line in the comments of this post, or if you'd like e-mail me at DiscoverySpace@Discovery.com.

Photos: NASA/Planetary Society Institute

It's Time for the Perchlorator!

August 07, 2008

I've been brooding for a few days as to what I could add to my post on the "Phoenix Flap," "Perchlorate Kerfuffle," or whatever catchy title everyone is using out there to summarize the frenzy of news last weekend.

Alas, there are some great posts out there covering the gamut -- see here, here, and here -- as well as a great story or two. Short of inventing a time machine to get us through some more Martian samples and peer-reviewed science, I'm not sure what I could add to our collective knowledge.

Well, I've been called the "space party boy" before (which I take no offense to). So in that spirit I offer you the something I haven't seen anywhere else: Something really, really funny.

Check it out:

P.S. This has to be the geekiest thing I've ever created, and am ready for my public flogging.