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Tag Archives: Astronomy

Hawking: Warp Drive the Key to Survival

Speaking after being awarded the Copley medal in England last week Prof. Steven Hawking spoke out about the need for mankind to extend its footprint outside the Sol system. His proposed method for making this happen: matter/antimatter annihilation to propel a craft to near-light speeds.  This is the method popularized in the television (and movie) series’ Star Trek.

The key difference between Hawking’s proposal and the Warp Drive technology used in the Star Trek universe is the degree of speed.  Star Trek uses matter/antimatter annihilation to move a craft at many times the speed of light, something which Hawking and most other theoretical physicists consider to be impossible based on the physical universe as we understand it.  In Hawking’s proposal this technology would be used to reach sublight speeds which are very close to the speed of light.

His estimate is that with the ability to travel just below the speed of light, a craft could reach the next nearest star in about 6 years. A vast improvement from the 50,000 years it would have taken the Apollo rocket series (assuming it could ever carry enough fuel).  As far as organizations like NASA are concerned, faster-than-light travel is speculative at best.

Maybe this is yet another one of Gene Roddenberry‘s visions coming one step closer to reality.

A “little” perspective…

I friend of mine sent me a link to this YouTube video recently, his intent I’m sure was for me to marvel at how large some of the entities in our universe are. What happened, is that I realized without any hesitation something else: how small we are.

Most of us have a pretty good idea how much larger Jupiter and the other Gas Giants are than our humble little blue globe. But seeing how much larger the Sun is in comparison to our world can come as something of a surprise to people, particularly those who haven’t studied much astronomy. Sure we all know that the sun is a very long distance from us, and that on average it takes its light a full 8 minutes to reach us… but the scale is still incredible.

So how then do we react when we find out that the largest known star in our galaxy is proportionally larger to our sun than our sun is to Pluto? Watch the movie. Be amazed. Feel small.

Doomed Star Eta Carinae

There’s no good reason for this post except to show a really cool picture of Eta Carinae. This was taken in 1996 and shows the two-bulb nebula attached to the star Eta Carinae. Astronomers feel that this star is a really good candidate for a full-blown supernova.

Sources: APOD

UB313 – Planet ‘X’?

For many years rumours of a tenth planet in our solar system have been the stuff of tabloids and science-fiction writers. In 2003 a new planetoid was discovered beyond the orbit of Pluto. Officially named 2003 UB313 this small chunk of rock and ice is about 30% more massive than Pluto.

Now that it has been discovered, the real controversy begins. There is great debate around whether UB313 should be classified as a planet. Since it’s even larger than Pluto, some have even called into question Pluto’s status as a planet. One suggestion is that anything orbiting further out than Neptune and against the regular plane of the solar system be classified a Kuiper Belt Planet.

The final decision on whether or not to classify UB313 as a planet rests with the International Astronomical Union and is expected to be made in September 2006.

Sources: APOD, Wikipedia, Space.com

Water on Enceladus

The Cassini space-probe has recently completed a fly-by of Saturn and its moon Enceladus.  Early indications are that the moon contains pockets of liquid water only tens of metres below the surface.  The stunning image from the APOD site shows the “tiger-stripe” crevasses from which plumes of debris are being emitted.  The suspected cause: liquid water.  If the discovery pans out it will certainly be exciting, but it isn’t the first instance of liquid water detected outside of Earth.