Space, What is New? Many scientists believe if there is water, there is a good chance finding life. This is not a given however. Titan, a moon of Saturn has oceans under the ice and for quite a while it was thought this was a good target to search for life. Just recently this idea is being reversed. Why you might wonder? Scientists are saying there is not enough amino acids in the water to support life. They could be correct, but they could also be wrong because alien life might not need as many or even any amino acids. I personally don’t think they should give up entirely on Titan, maybe just move it back on the list of places to explore. Speaking of extraterrestrial water, NASA, for the first time, has found water on asteroids. This is an incredible find and increases the places we might find life at. The asteroids are Iris and Massalia. Both asteroids are under 200 kilometers in diameter. These two asteroids are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Wouldn’t that be something if the asteroid belt was teaming with life. Let’s not forget however alien life might have completely different chemistry and not need water. I think it is safe to say, but can’t be 100 percent certain only microscopic life could exist on such small asteroids. SETI stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. They usually search the universe for signals which seem to come from an intelligence source. It started around 1960. They have a new way to search which has been added to their tools. They are concentrating on an egg-shaped area of space where they believe the light from a supernova star explosion can reach. I don’t understand this method but I think it would entail the extraterrestrials somehow using the power of the explosion to create an intelligent signal. I do know one thing for sure, SETI is looking in the area when the explosion happened to where the light reached to see if any civilization synchronized a signal to match the explosion. Sort of sounds like pie in the sky, doesn’t it? It just seems to me they are really reaching on this one. Doctors have shown they don’t have to be on the Space Station to perform operations on astronauts or cosmonauts who are on board. A surgical robot can be used. It is similar to using robots in operations now. The robot is radio controlled by the doctor and is on a sort of internet. The doctor can be anywhere on earth as long as he can connect to this internet. The problem still is the further away from earth the person being operated on the more impractical this method is because the signals from earth only travel at the speed of light. After the Apollo missions and those on the shuttles, NASA realized those bulky spacesuits had to be modernized. They put out a contract to Collins Aerospace and it took years to perfect new suits. Now there has been a test of the new spacesuits. It has been said they were designed for use in low earth orbit. In other words, they will be used on a space station and could be used on orbiting vehicles. They were not tested in space, but rather on a commercial microgravity aircraft which can produce weightlessness for up to 20 seconds by executing certain maneuvers. The next tests will be conducted in a vacuum chamber, then onto the NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory which uses a 40-foot-deep pool of water. A new telescope will be launched in 2025 by NASA. Mounted to the scope will be an incredibly large camera which is said to be as big as an SUV. As of the writing of this article the United States’ SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is finishing it up. The camera stands 5.5 feet tall and weighs 6,200 pounds. The new telescope will be located high in the mountains of Chile at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. The camera is over 12 feet long. The photos it takes should be spectacular. The camera will be mounted on the 27.5-foot Simonyi Survey Telescope. Another of Saturn’s moons may have an ocean. The moon is Mimas and has been called the Death Star Moon, because it resembles the Death Star in Star Wars. The French have done a study of the moon and they think it could have an ocean 20 miles below the surface. The reason it was thought it had an ocean because French scientists think that might be the only thing to account for its odd orbit. It seems to fall behind in every orbit in a counterclockwise spiral. Will this ocean if found be more like one on earth or more like Titan? There is orbital friction from this orbit which serves to provide some heat so the ocean, if it exists, might be warmer than expected, further increasing the chances for life. When humans decide to try to colonize planets and moons it seems they might have helpers with them. While these helpers will not be alive in the human sense, they will be very useful and might even be able to make some decisions on their own. I am talking about what we now call robots, but in the future might be called something else. If they are fitted with AI, they could become very capable and might even be able to build and repair structures on their own, among other duties. We might even have medical robots which can diagnose diseases and eventually perform operations on their own without a doctor controlling them. Astronomers have gotten very excited over the fact an earth size planet which they call relatively near us, is orbiting a star much like our sun. Relatively near in this case means 73 light years away, a distance much too far to travel right now, but in the future, who knows? The scientists are very happy about the find because even though we can’t get to it right now; we can study it from afar. Perhaps they will get lucky and detect some sign of civilization such as chemical indications in the atmosphere which point to industrialization. That would have to be one of the greatest finds in the history of mankind. NASA has found 17 planets which possibly have oceans and could contain life. Two of the planets are said to be close enough for telescopic observations. NASA believes if planets have water under their crust and heat, there is a much better chance of finding life on them even if they are outside what is considered the habitable zone.
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