Space Stuff Sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men often go wrong. That is precisely what happened when NASA sent the InSight lander to Mars. Oh, it got there okay, but it is its mission that is suffering. The InSight was to deploy its heat probe on Mars and digging device, and use it to dig into the ground. The InSight contained something called a Physical Properties Package. The idea looked very good on paper. The probe would dig up stuff and it would be examined for structure and other things, and heat could be used for other experiments. The probe never made it out completely. It had been constructed to come out of InSight to a length of 16 inches but got stuck about two-thirds of the way out. NASA tried again but still no progress. It seems the InSight is leaning about 15 degrees, and rocks or gravel are stopping the probe from coming all the way out. All is not lost however; the probe is still able to send heat under the ground to see how long before it dissipates, which will help NASA figure out what material they are dealing with. NASA is calling the probe, the mole. By now we all know the Chinese have a rover on the moon. The rover is named Yutu-2 or Jade Rabbit-2. It landed in the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole known as SPA Basin. The really interesting part of this is the Jade Rabbit-2 is on the far side of the moon, which is the side which is never visible to earth. Traditionally rovers travel very slowly and this one is no exception. The Chinese turn it on and off depending on the temperature. It also has a dormant mode. One of the things the Chinese said they want to discover is the age of the stones on the moon. They want to know if the stones are actually related to the formation of the moon or were crashed there from meteorites and asteroids. There has been speculation about the moon from several different scientific quarters and investigators. Some believe the moon is hollow with others taking this even further and saying the moon is not only hollow but is a spaceship. This is laughed at by most people. Astronauts have reported seeing strange light in some of the craters of the moon, so there is probably still a lot more to be discovered about it. There is a possibility many of the rocks on the moon are from a suspected event which occurred about 3.9 billion years ago when it is thought there was heavy asteroid action taking place. Many scientists believe asteroid impacts wiped out the dinosaurs and yet there are those who believe it was disease or parasites. The scientists who believe in the asteroid impacts claim we are headed for another big one and it is only a matter of time before it happens again. One scientist recently even thought it is a matter of time, that time cannot be figured out. There are too many imponderables to ever say this for sure anymore. We know the earth is a target, but as technology advances this danger, if it doesn’t happen soon, might never happen because we probably would have figured out how to prevent it in the future. I am assuming technology keeps advancing at the same or faster pace. Science plods along and theories change as new discoveries are made. A very good example of this may be what scientists just discovered about the planets Jupiter and Saturn. Microwave probes were used to peer into the planets and the information the scientists got back surprised them and may change the theories on how the solar system and indeed how the planets were formed. Two spacecraft were used to accomplish this task, Juno and Cassini. One scientist said they are going to have to come up with an unorthodox explanation for the creation of planets. This is just another rethinking of scientific theory which scientists have believed explained planet formation. It is said ground breaking magnetic and gravitational data was received. An audit of SETI the Search for Extraterrestrial Life has been conducted by the Inspector General and SETI seems to be using its funds in authorized ways. The audit seems to have been routine, and it did show the funds were used in the proper way. I was reading an article one time where someone speculated an alien spaceship, if they existed, might be powered by a black hole abet a very small one. Can you imagine the power this might exert on a ship? With the right advanced technology, it might be able to power a ship between solar systems or even galaxies in a reasonable amount of time. It seemed like science fiction at the time but now scientists want to build powerful gamma ray telescopes to see if they can detect ships like this. This is one of the problems with science. If they want to try and detect alien spacecraft, they shouldn’t try to do it to find one very specific type unless they somehow know these ships do exist. So far one scientist has published two papers over the years on this subject. Sometimes you find something totally unexpected and it might even be right in front of you all the time before it is noticed. Such was the case with a huge cave which was found on the moon. The Japanese found this cave and have said they think it is an ideal place to put a future lunar base. The cave is in a crater and that crater is thought to have a lava tube in it. It is known as Marius Hills. Scientists like lava tubes because they are under the surface of the moon so they give protection from the Sun’s radiation. The tubes are left from when lava first formed on the moon and cooled. They came to the conclusion this area would be perfect when they examined the data from the Japanese space craft known as SELENE which orbited the moon for three years. They said, “Since the insides of lava tubes are shielded from meteorite bombardment, cosmic radiation, or particle implantation, they are expected to be in pristine condition, an environment with preserved lava composition, textures and even volatiles.” I can’t help myself I have to bring up again the fact many believe there are ruins on the moon and that material from the moon was used to create a very strong glass which many are made from. If this is true, we may not have to hang out underground at all, because we could construct our own structures from this material and maybe even be able to find buildings there in good enough condition to reoccupy.
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