Creatures of stardust
There's a science blog that I read, called Centauri Dreams. Its charter, as taken from the website:
In Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster looks at peer-reviewed research on deep space exploration, with an eye toward interstellar possibilities.
He usually updates at least once a day, and it's a nice way to keep up on what's being looked at out there. Mostly he focuses on extra solar research, but he does make note of interesting things going on within our star system.
Today he wrote about extra solar terrestrial planets, and it makes me wonder what I'll see in my lifetime. Will I, by 2050, see a picture of an extra solar planet? Will we have launched a true interstellar probe? Or even an extra solar one? To reach even the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, at the speed of the fastest man made object (Voyager 1) would take 74,000 years. That's at 1/16,000 the speed of light. We need something that goes at least 1,000 times faster then that to be at all useful. And even if we had something that would go that speed, how to slow it down so that it doesn't just shoot through the system and keep on going?
So what then, if interstellar exploration will be limited to telescopes within the solar system during my lifetime? Well, there's still a lot of mystery about our own system. We've only scratched the surface of our own little rocky planet, and have at best stirred up a little bit of dust on the other worlds of the Sol system. Mars is still a tempting target, and I expect I'll live to see humanity set foot on it. Exploration of the asteroid belt I'm willing to bet will turn up some unexpected finds. I also think I'll see some international regulation about space trash, after a tragic loss of life from a stray piece of metal. We'll also find a couple of objects that will pass us closer then the moon.
In the last 2 hours of work the temperature climbed from 22.5 degrees to 25.4. I was sitting there sweating. In scrubs! Ug!!
tigergladys actually called out sick today, and went to the clinic! We'll see if the prescriptions actually work. She has bronchitis with fluid in the lungs (walking pneumonia? they didn't test to be sure) and an ear infection. Lucky her, and guess who gets to go to rally tonight. Lucky me.
In Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster looks at peer-reviewed research on deep space exploration, with an eye toward interstellar possibilities.
He usually updates at least once a day, and it's a nice way to keep up on what's being looked at out there. Mostly he focuses on extra solar research, but he does make note of interesting things going on within our star system.
Today he wrote about extra solar terrestrial planets, and it makes me wonder what I'll see in my lifetime. Will I, by 2050, see a picture of an extra solar planet? Will we have launched a true interstellar probe? Or even an extra solar one? To reach even the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, at the speed of the fastest man made object (Voyager 1) would take 74,000 years. That's at 1/16,000 the speed of light. We need something that goes at least 1,000 times faster then that to be at all useful. And even if we had something that would go that speed, how to slow it down so that it doesn't just shoot through the system and keep on going?
So what then, if interstellar exploration will be limited to telescopes within the solar system during my lifetime? Well, there's still a lot of mystery about our own system. We've only scratched the surface of our own little rocky planet, and have at best stirred up a little bit of dust on the other worlds of the Sol system. Mars is still a tempting target, and I expect I'll live to see humanity set foot on it. Exploration of the asteroid belt I'm willing to bet will turn up some unexpected finds. I also think I'll see some international regulation about space trash, after a tragic loss of life from a stray piece of metal. We'll also find a couple of objects that will pass us closer then the moon.
In the last 2 hours of work the temperature climbed from 22.5 degrees to 25.4. I was sitting there sweating. In scrubs! Ug!!
tigergladys actually called out sick today, and went to the clinic! We'll see if the prescriptions actually work. She has bronchitis with fluid in the lungs (walking pneumonia? they didn't test to be sure) and an ear infection. Lucky her, and guess who gets to go to rally tonight. Lucky me.