It is a follow-up Thursday here in the weather blog.
Not too long ago I decided to stop doing space exploration updates. I love keeping an eye on the latest efforts, but I didn’t know how much it thrilled the blog reading audience, and no one commented on the decision so I figure it must be ok. However, I hate to leave any loose ends out there and media outlets do not do follow-ups very often so here are a couple of stories that I previously followed.
The first update is from Japan and their space agency JAXA. Japanese scientists are now quite sure that the Hyabusa satellite did collect small grains of material from an asteroid.If this is confirmed, it will be the first ever sample returned from an asteroid. At one point, I am pretty sure JAXA was lobbying for designation in the Guinness World Book of Records. If confirmed, it would be a pretty amazing feat for a satellite/probe that had so much trouble during its mission. At one point, it didn’t even look like Hayabusa would make it back to earth.
Another space follow up here: People are getting very optimistic about the soon-to-open Spaceport America. This is the commercial spaceport that is being built in New Mexico. The first private astronauts will be people riding aboard Virgin Galactic’s suborbital flights. Read more about the progress here. Have any readers out there purchased a ticket? Would you want to take a sub-orbital flight (if it was cheap enough)?
Bad news here, the replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has run into cost overruns and delays. The cost overrun is more than a billion. This is very bad news in this economy. If the JWST is to be completed, it will most likely have to take money away from other NASA projects, as the government and taxpayers are pretty much stretched to the limit.
On the Mars front, more and more people are suggesting the newest robotic Mars Rover Curiosity (not launched yet) should be built with the capability to search for life on the Red Planet. I am glad to see this development. This is the 6th robotic surface mission to Mars (if I have counted correctly), and it is about time we start searching more diligently for signs of life, otherwise what is the point. Movie director James Cameron suggested the rover should have a high definition video camera as well, to which I would say of course! I can’t believe NASA would even consider sending another probe to Mars without some sort-of video capability.
In the past I have discussed the threat of asteroids hitting the earth in the context of humans protecting the planet. So often it is said that humans are awful, are destroying the planet, are a cancer on the earth, are like a virus making everything sick. I counter that view with the fact that if a large asteroid was headed for the earth, there is nothing that could save the planet except humans. If it was up to mother nature we would all perish in that scenario. When it comes to stopping a planet killing asteroid it turns out there are many possible ways but they are all fairly difficult. At least world governments have recently started joint discussions on how such a threat would be addressed.
What about the mystery “missile launch” in California last week? I said I would need more evidence before completely believing that it was a jet contrail instead of a missile launch. I remarked that there should be records of an airplane flight in that area during that time. Apparently, a flight from Hawaii has now been fingered. Satellite images also show a jet contrail in that area around that time.
Lastly, one of my favorite emerging technology stories: cloaking (like StarTrek and Harry Potter). Scientists have theorized a way of making 3D cloaking for large objects. I would like to explain it in more depth here, but this article has already done it well. Be sure to read about the analogy with the cars/traffic in order to understand how this would work.
Have a good Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.