A Manned Trip to Europa?

Of course, NASA may not be sending humans to Europa anytime soon (nor anywhere else), but Hollywood believes Europa may be a good backdrop for dramatic story-telling. In fact, the movie creators have set up a fun site under the name Europa Ventures LLC where you can watch the crew as the cross the solar system on their three-year journey to Jupiter's moon.  A pretty inventive approach to an interesting film.

The website also includes a mission statement:

For decades, scientists have theorized the existence of liquid water oceans on Jupiter's moon, Europa. We've recently discovered new, captivating evidence that these sub-surface oceans do exist and could support life. 

We've sent six astronauts from space programs throughout the world on a three year journey to Europa to explore its oceans and confirm these findings. 

We're proud to be at the forefront of the effort to prove the existence of extra-terrestrial life within our solar system, within our lifetimes. 

This allows us to have a little bit of fun while the Congress battles over the budget. The film will be released sometime in 2013. Somehow we need to keep NASA in the "forefront" as well.

 Update:  Here is a copy of the Europa Ventures screen if you have not seen it.

Mars Not a Budgetary Priority

The NASA's 2013 budget was recently released and, surprise of surprises, Mars is on the cutting table.  It is not all bad news since the James Web Space Telescope is being funded, as are studies on future trips to Saturn's moon Enceladus as well as Uranus.  However, further work on a Europa mission has been shelved for now as well.  Of course, NASA put a very positive spin on the proposed budget:

"This budget in-sources jobs, creates capabilities here at home -- and strengthens our workforce, all while opening the next great chapter in American exploration," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "And as we reach for new heights in space, we're creating new jobs right here on Earth, helping to support an economy that's built to last."

The NASA budget includes $4 billion for space operations and $4 billion for exploration activities in the Human Exploration Operations mission directorate, including close-out of the Space Shuttle Program, and funding for the International Space Station, $4.9 billion for science, $669 million for space technology and $552 million for aeronautics research. 

It was very important to put that "jobs" piece and "built to last" into this budget spin, with little time for dreaming these days.  However, not everyone is convinced.  The Planetary Society has his own take on this new budget in a press release titled "Proposed FY 2013 Budget Would Devastate Planetary Science in NASA":

NASA’s planetary science program is being singled out for drastic cuts, with its budget dropping by 20 percent, from $1.5 billion this year to $1.2 billion next year. The steep reductions will continue for at least the next five years -- if the Administration’s proposal is not changed. This would strike at the heart of one of NASA’s most productive and successful programs over the past decade. 

If Congress enacts the proposed budget, there will be no “flagship” missions of any kind, killing the tradition of great missions of exploration, such as Voyager and Cassini to the outer planets. NASA’s storied Mars program will be cut drastically, falling from $587 million for FY 2012 to $360 in FY 2013, and forcing missions to be cancelled. The search for life on other potentially habitable worlds -- such as Mars, Europa, Enceladus, or Titan -- will be effectively abandoned.

“People know that Mars and Europa are the two most important places to search in our solar system for evidence of other past or present life forms, said Jim Bell, Planetary Society President, “Why, then, are missions to do those searches being cut in this proposed budget? If enacted, this would represent a major backwards step in the exploration of our solar system.”

It is interesting that one source is talking about exploration in the regions of Saturn and Uranus while another implies an end to all such missions.  And of course this is not the final budget. It is no fun reading these budget documents, but I may give it a try to make some sense of all of this.  The bottom line, of course, is that we have some lean years ahead of us and this White House may be more interested in locating jobs on Earth than life on other planets. This is the new reality (or maybe it has always been thus, but better packaged).

Great Images: Spitzer Captures a Quadruple-Star System

Here is a great image from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

This artist concept depicts a quadruple-star system called HD 98800. The system is approximately 10 million years old, and is located 150 light-years away in the constellation TW Hydrae. 

HD 98800 contains four stars, which are paired off into doublets, or binaries. The stars in the binary pairs orbit around each other, and the two pairs also circle each other like choreographed ballerinas. One of the stellar pairs, called HD 98800B, has a disk of dust around it, while the other pair does not.

Although the four stars are gravitationally bound, the distance separating the two binary pairs is about 50 astronomical units (AU) -- slightly more than the average distance between our sun and Pluto.

Billions of Planets Throughout the Galaxy

A recent issue of Science News noted how scientists are now estimating that the Milky Way galaxy has 100 billion planets or more.  This works out to an average of 1.6 planets per star.  And smaller planets like ours are more common than large planets.  Pretty impressive stuff considering it was only a few years back when we were seeking evidence of any planets outside of our solar system. 

The Science News article states,

To make their estimate, the scientists used data that had been gathered from 2002 to 2007 by surveys looking for the temporary brightening in a distant star’s light caused by the gravity of a body passing in front of it. If that passing body is a star with planets, the system causes a predictable boost in the distant star’s light, revealing the presence of the closer planet.

So my question now is whether this estimate would also include planets that are not circling stars.  It seems unlikely.  Last year NASA reported,

The discovery indicates there are many more free-floating Jupiter-mass planets that can't be seen. The team estimates there are about twice as many of them as stars. In addition, these worlds are thought to be at least as common as planets that orbit stars. This would add up to hundreds of billions of lone planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone...The survey is not sensitive to planets smaller than Jupiter and Saturn, but theories suggest lower-mass planets like Earth should be ejected from their stars more often. As a result, they are thought to be more common than free-floating Jupiters.

So now we are looking at 300 billion or more planets throughout the galaxy.  While we strive for Mars today, the possibilities for the future are mind-boggling. 

Tissint Metorite: Mars Rocks Earth

We have heard a number of theories about comets and meteorites seeding life here on earth, and recently we saw even more evidence of outside interference.  According to The Meteoritical Society, last July the Maritain Tissint meteorite (see photo to right) crashed in the Moroccan desert:

At about 2 am local time on July 18, 2011, a bright fireball was observed by several people in the region of the Oued Drâa valley, east of Tata, Morocco. One eyewitness, Mr Aznid Lhou, reported that it was at first yellow in color, and then turned green illuminating all the area before it appeared to split into two parts. Two sonic booms were heard over the valley. In October 2011, nomads began to find very fresh, fusion-crusted stones in a remote area of the Oued Drâa intermittent watershed, centered about 50 km ESE of Tata and 48 km SSW of Tissint village, in the vicinity of the Oued El Gsaïb drainage and also near El Ga’ïdat plateau known as Hmadat Boû Rba’ ine. The largest stones were recovered in the El Ga’ïdat plateau, whereas the smallest one (a few grams) closer to the El Aglâb Mountains. One 47 g crusted stone was documented as being found at 29°28.917’ N, 7°36.674’ W. 

Are such meteorites odd?  Not really, though eye-witness stories of such landings are odd.  And this particular lot of rocks is pretty sizable, with one meteorite fragment weighing more than 2 pounds.  Back in 2001, a Discover Magazine article noted that "...up to 5 percent of the rocks launched from Mars land on Earth within 10 million years. Many arrive much sooner— some within a few years."  Moreover, one scientific team noted that "...50 billion Martian rocks landed on Earth during the first 500 million years of the solar system. Of those, about 20,000 rocks struck Earth within a decade. And throughout the subsequent 4 billion years, as many as 5 billion more Martian meteoroids journeyed our way. If life ever existed on Mars, it's quite possible that it contaminated Earth repeatedly."  This is an impressive amount of material littering the Earth.

Interestingly enough, you can now buy the Tissint meteorite as well as many other just like it.  Of course, a piece of the Tissint meteorite will cost about 10 times the price of gold.  In fact, it is not too hard to find a place selling meteorites.  Check out Galactic Stone and Ironworks, where you can purchase various meteorite specimens.  For example, to the right is the Bensour meteorite fragments on sale for $6 apiece.  According to the sellers, the meteorite has a similar story to the Tissint meteorite:

In February of 2002, nomads in the remote Saharan desert near the Moroccan-Algerian border saw a shower of meteorites rain down.  These meteorites turned out to be a beautiful LL6 chondrite that is well-known for it's dark black crust and contrasting light-grey matrix with metal flecks.   

It is pretty amazing that NASA and the European Space Agency are still devising a mission to bring back Martian samples while they are literally dropping out of the sky.  Don't tell Congress since they will most likely organize inexpensive rock hunts on Earth rather than billion dollar missions to Mars.