Saturn Becomes Moon Champion Of The Solar System

Jupiter and Saturn have a lot of moons. Many, many moons. Earlier this year, Jupiter edged ahead of Saturn in the official total, with scientists announcing 12 new moons, bringing its total up to 92, compared with 83 for Saturn. But Jupiter didn't hold onto the crown for long, as scientists have now announced 62 new moons around Saturn. This means Saturn now has 145 official moons, making it the first planet to have more than 100. That is a lot of moons. I distinctly remember growing up learning that Saturn only had 18 moons. And I'm not that old. Naturally, Cassini helped boost the total, but most of the new moons were discovered here on Earth. This batch of 62 came from observations out of an observatory in Hawaii.

Naturally, all of these new moons are tiny, irregular rocks, just a few kilometers across. There are no undiscovered Titans lurking around Saturn. And of course, similar observations of Jupiter could reveal just as many similar moons, if not more. Jupiter may end up taking the title of Moon Champion back. But for now, Saturn is very, very far ahead.

Riding a Wienermobile to the Moon

Okay, not quite, but Oscar Mayer has offered NASA usage of a Wienermobile to transport astronauts up to the Orion rocket from their crew quarters several miles away from the launch pad. Among other potential uses, the Orion rocket will be used for Artemis, or NASA's return to the moon. I don't have much else to say about this, but I kind of want to see the Neil Armstrong of the 21st century walking out of a Wienermobile up to his rocket on his way to the moon. Not exactly profound, but definitely funny.

What Would It Take To Change Earth's Orbit?

Not so long ago, a Republican Representative asked if the U.S. government had the ability to change the Earth's (or the Moon's) orbit to combat global warming. The simple answer is no, it does not. But what if we had unlimited money and resources? What would it take to actually move the planet further away from the sun. Well, someone's taken the time to find out. Basically, it would take 50 nonillion joules (that's 5 followed by 31 zeros) to move the Earth 3 million kilometers further away from the sun. That's a lot, especially when you consider that we produce only 10 quintillion joules a year (1 followed by 19 zeros). And 12 zeros is a lot to be short by. There are ways to get the energy to do this, such as setting off a nuclear bomb every second for 500 years (which would heat the atmosphere, defeating the whole point of moving the planet further out) or literally slingshotting the Moon into space for a speed boost (which would destabilize our climate, also kind of negating the point). There are a couple other methods mentions, but needless to say, none are any more practical, plus it doesn't change the fact that, as long as we continue producing too much greenhouse gas, we'd have to move the planet further out again. If this starting to sound like a Futurama episode, well, that's because it is.

Want to Own Real Estate on the Moon? Here's Your Opportunity

I wish I'd found this a bit earlier in the day, but to celebrate the lunar eclipse tonight, Bagel Bites is currently running a contest that goes until 12:59 AM Eastern Time on Thursday, May 27 for 100 randomly chosen people to own a whole acre of property ... on the Moon. You also get some free Bagel Bites if you win, but that's not very interesting.

Now, you might think that it's ridiculous to own real estate on the Moon, but it's surprisingly not clear cut. The Outer Space Treaty prevents nations from claiming territory in space, but that treaty came into being before commercial space flight became a thing, so it doesn't say what commercial companies can and can't claim. I wouldn't stake your life and future on homesteading on the Sea of Tranquility, but it is possible the winners of this contest may actually own a bit of the Moon. And that's kind of cool.

Want to Design A Moon Toilet?

Try to think of a career that's more bold and exciting than astronaut. But getting to space takes a lot of hard and not so glamorous work. There's a lot of engineering involved in making a spaceship, and not just the engineering you might expect. Take the Lunar Loo Challenge recently announced by NASA, which is exactly what you might expect. Design a toilet that is small and can be used on the moon. The winner gets $35,000, and there's even a junior category if you're a kid who loves space and also enjoys designing bathrooms. Hey, I'm sure there's someone out there who fits that description.

A Special Anniversary

On this day, February 6, 49 years ago, Alan Shepard became the first person to hit a golf ball on the moon. He smuggled the head of a 5 iron and a couple of golf balls on board Apollo 14, and when he was on the moon, he attached the head to an excavation tool and made an admittedly clunky one-handed swing. On Earth, such a swing wouldn't be very impressive, but when you've got one-sixth the gravity, it was enough to send a golf ball "miles and miles." So take that, other sports, you may be more popular, but let us know when someone's beaten golf on the moon.

Apollo 11 And Its Balky Computer

Many, many words have been written about Apollo 11. It is, after all, one of the crowning achievements of the human race. Adding a few thousand more isn't going to add appreciably to the literature, but I doubt so much has been devoted to the guidance computer on board the lunar module. If you know your history, you'll know that Neil Armstrong had to take manual control of the landing procedure as the computer wasn't doing its job. Not surprising, it was 1969, computers weren't exactly powerful at that point.

Anyway, this is the story of that balky computer. Obviously, everyone wants to hear about the human triumph aspect, so I thought it was interesting to hear the tale of the first moon landing from a different perspective, and just how close it came to failure. And while the computer comes out looking pretty bad, Neil Armstrong comes out great. Seriously, he has to be the calmest, most collected human being to have ever lived. I'm not sure anyone else could have done what he did.

SpaceX Wants to Send People Around the Moon in 2018

It's certainly an ambitious plan. Extremely ambitious, considering the manned version of the Dragon spacecraft SpaceX uses hasn't even flown in space yet. Stupidly, insanely ambitious, considering the Falcon Heavy rocket that would be used has also not actually flown yet.

I'm not saying that commercial space flight is a bad thing, it is in all likelihood the future of space travel. What I'm saying is that space is not a nice place, and rushing spacecraft development is not likely to end well for any passengers. Space travel will always carry a certain danger, but rushing development to fit a deadline is just stupid, and will not work. That said, I don't think that's going to happen. No, if this little trip happens at all, it'll be 2020 at the earliest. Even if the rocket and the spacecraft are ready for flight, it still needs FAA approval to fly, and the FAA is a government organization. And government organizations don't know the meaning of the word "quick".

The Moon's Creation May Not Have Been that Simple

And by simple, I mean the standing theory that the Moon was created when the early Earth was smacked by a similarly-sized object, splashing out large amounts of debris, which eventually coalesced into the Moon we know today. This theory does a good job of explaining why the Moon's orbit and the Earth's rotation time are getting longer, but it does have one big flaw. Namely, the whole "rogue planet coming up and hitting the Earth in just the right manner not to destroy it but also splashing out a bunch of debris to form the moon" is an unlikely scenario at best. It's not so much that it couldn't happen, but there may be a more plausible explanation.

To be honest, "Earth gets hit with many smaller objects instead of one really big one" isn't a drastic change in the theory. But it does make a lot more sense. The early solar system was a chaotic place, and a lot of objects hit a lot of other objects. Having a bunch of objects a few hundred or a thousand miles across hitting the Earth over the course of a few million years is perfectly natural considering the state of the early solar system. This isn't a new idea, but the main problem was that it didn't explain why the Moon and Earth were made of basically the same stuff, a problem that the giant impact theory covers. However, the scientists behind this new multiple-impact research believe that over time, the chemical imbalances would work themselves out. It's an interesting take on a surprisingly simple question: Where did the Moon come from?

In other space news, it's the 25th anniversary of the discovery of the very first exoplanets. Old PSR B1257+12 doesn't get a whole lot of credit, since it's a pulsar and the three planets surrounding it are constantly bathed in pulsar radiation (which is quite strong, if you don't know), but they were the very first. If nothing else, it showed that extrasolar planets do actually exist. I mean, of course they existed, but actual evidence is always better than theory. Fun fact, one of the two astronomers responsible for this discovery, Alex Wolszczan, is a professor at Penn State, and I actually was in one of his classes. It was basic astronomy, so it wasn't anything too interesting, but still, neat little tidbit there.

Want to Go to the Moon? Now You Can!

Okay, well, you can't. Nobody has a rocket that could do the heavy lifting necessary to send a spacecraft to the moon, and no one has a spacecraft capable of making the journey. But, the U.S Federal Aviation Administration has given the company Moon Express permission to send commercial cargo to the moon.

In the short term, this really doesn't mean much. But in the long term, it means that future Moon-based commercial ventures will be governed by the same laws as companies conducting business in low Earth orbit. There will be no further bureaucracy or red tape, basically, as long as you can pass the FAA inspection, you can send payloads to the Moon and do business without further government interference.

Now, you might not be so thrilled to hear about how the U.S is opening up space to commercialism, depending on your views on such things. But let's be honest. The future of space is commercial. NASA can't do everything, and it shouldn't do everything. So long as NASA's budget remains small, it should be focused more on exploration, and not on colonization and commercialization. But still, increase NASA's budget. Space exploration is cool, and we should be doing more of it.

Exoplanet with Rings Discovered

What? It most certainly hasn't been two months since the last post, what are you talking about?

And you thought these rings were impressive.

Anyway,  scientists found an exoplanet orbiting the star 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 (what a catchy name) a few years back. Nothing unusual about that, but after a closer look, things got a bit baffling. Ordinarily, when a planet transits in front of a star, the star dims once, and then brightens again. Old J1407, as I am henceforth calling, was not dimming like that. It would dim and brighten many times in succession. They figured out it was a ring system orbiting the planet, J1407b, back in 2012, but at the time, they thought there were only 4 rings.

As it turned out, they slightly underestimated. Apparently this planet has 37 rings, with a radius of 0.6 AU. That means Earth's entire orbit would fit with this ring system. They have an estimated mass of 100 times the mass of the moon, and a gap 0.4 AU out is big enough that a Mars or even Earth-sized object could be orbiting inside. It should be noted that this planet is very young, less than 20 million years, and these rings are not going to last long. Astronomically long, that is. Eventually, those rings will disappear as moons appear, but with that much mass contained in the rings, there could be some pretty big moons. The planet's a bit too far out for any Earth-sized moon to be potentially habitable, which is too bad, but the idea of seeing a ring system that ridiculously oversized would probably make J1407b quite the tourist destination. Now, all we need is interstellar travel...

Orion Test Launch Coming Soon

The first space flight of the new Orion crew capsule is scheduled for this week. It's about time we got this thing going, we've been without manned space capability for too long. And while the space shuttle was cool and all, we haven't had any sort of capability beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo, and that was 40 years ago. Space flight is no cheaper, we have just as many space stations orbiting the planet, and we are about as close to traveling to other planets now as we were then. Hopefully this doesn't get cancelled, like every other time NASA has tried to move the manned space program along with any kind of ambition. We can only hope. This flight will be unmanned, but if all goes well, astronauts should soon be on their way beyond Earth and out into the solar system.

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"Impossible" Lunar Eclipse Happening Tonight

Lunar eclipses happen quite often.  There was one in April, and there are two more occurring in the near future.  There's one happening early Wednesday morning, October 8th.  This one is going to be different, and strictly speaking, impossible.  For a brief period of time along the eastern U.S., it will be possible to view both the lunar eclipse and the sun rising at the same time.  Since a lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth is directly in between the moon and the sun, this shouldn't happen, and if there was no atmosphere, it wouldn't.  But thanks to refraction from the atmosphere as the sun rises and the moon sets, the light from both objects will be visible for several minutes while both in the sky.  The light from the moon will be hanging around after it has set, and light from the sun will appear before it has actually risen.

It promises to be a unique astronomical experience, and I'm actually going to be awake for it.  Unfortunately, it's probably going to be cloudy, so I won't be able to see it.  Which is annoying.  Thanks a lot, weather.

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