MAIN ARTICLE: Team Develops New Way to Discover Alien Oceans.
Page 2: Facing Mars
Page 3: Russian rocket docks at space station
Poll Results: A very strong turnout for yesterday's poll.
Star Trek: In the News. Star Trek, highest grossing film for 2009
Yesterday's Comments: "If you want people to take that one-way ride, I think you'd better find some beer on Mars" - Crashing Vor
Today's Poll: Would you take a trip to Mars?
THE PALE BLUE DOT:
The image on the right, from NASA, was taken by Voyager at a distance of 4 billion miles. I added a white square around the blue dot and then enlarged it in the bottom square so you can see the blue dot better.
EPOXI Team Develops New Method to Find Alien Oceans
"Astronomers have found more than 300 alien (extrasolar) worlds so far. Most of these are gas giants like Jupiter, and are either too hot (too close to their star) or too cold (too far away) to support life as we know it.
Sometime in the near future, however, astronomers will probably find one that's just right – a planet with a solid surface that's the right distance for a temperature that allows liquid water -- an essential ingredient in the recipe for life.
But the first picture of this world will be just a speck of light. How can we find out if it might have liquid water on its surface? If it has lots of water – oceans – we are in luck.
NASA-sponsored scientists looking back at Earth with the Deep Impact/EPOXI mission have developed a method to indicate whether Earth-like extrasolar worlds have oceans.
"A 'pale blue dot' is the best picture we will get of an Earth-like extrasolar world using even the most advanced telescopes planned for the next couple decades," said Nicolas B. Cowan, of the University of Washington. "So how do we find out if it is capable of supporting life? If we can determine that the planet has oceans of liquid water, it greatly increases the likelihood that it supports life. We used the High Resolution Imager telescope on Deep Impact to look at Earth from tens of millions of miles away -- an 'alien' point of view -- and developed a method to indicate the presence of oceans by analyzing how Earth's light changes as the planet rotates. This method can be used to identify extrasolar ocean-bearing Earths."
Cowan is lead author of a paper on this research appearing in the August 2009 issue of the Astrophysical Journal. Our planet looks blue all the time because of Rayleigh scattering of sunlight by the atmosphere, the same reason that the sky appears blue to us down on the surface, points out Cowan. "What we studied in this paper was how that blue color changes in time: oceans are bluer than continents, which appear red or orange because land is most reflective at red and near-infrared wavelengths of light. Oceans only reflect much at blue (short) wavelengths," said Cowan."
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PAGE 2:
Who We Are
"The John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science, also known as The Health Museum, is Houston's most interactive science learning center and a member institution of the world-renowned Texas Medical Center."
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So what does a health museum have to do with Mars and space travel? They have an exhibit now where you can experience some of the aspects of visiting Mars. If there is anyone in the Texas area that visits this display it would make a great diary. (take a lot of pictures)
Facing Mars
"May 30 - September 7 Discover the Challenges of Mars
The exploration of Mars lies on our horizon. Alien, yet familiar, the Red Planet exerts a gentle tug on our collective urge to explore. Facing Mars is an exhibition about that urge to test our limits, to venture into new frontiers. This exhibit will fire your imagination and curiosity about the possibilities that exploring Mars may hold for the future of humankind.
Would You Go?
Would you leave behind your family, friends, and familiar surroundings to risk your life on a three-year, round-trip voyage to Mars? In Facing Mars, you have the chance to answer this question twice: as you enter the exhibition and again as you exit. While exploring each of the twenty-eight, thought-provoking exhibits, take opportunity to reflect on your initial answer and some of the ethical questions about human exploration of Mars.
Should we even go to Mars?
Are we ready as a species – will it be a global affair, a corporate venture or an expression of nationalism? Will humans go to Mars for scientific or financial gain? You can actively explore some of the thornier questions about life – and death – in space."
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PAGE 3:
A Russian Soyuz has docked at the International Space Station, this brings the total permanant crew size to six.
Russian rocket docks at space station
"MOSCOW, May 29, 2009 (Reuters) — Russia's Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft docked successfully with the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, a spokesman for Russian mission control said.
"The docking was achieved automatically and without any problems," spokesman Valery Lyndin said. "Everything went very smoothly, it went very well."
The Soyuz rocket is carrying Belgian Frank de Winne, Canadian Robert Thirsk and Russian Roman Romanenko, who will double the permanent crew of the space station to six for the first time.
They join Russian Gennady Padalka, U.S. astronaut Michael Barratt and Japan's Koichi Wakata."
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POLL RESULTS:
Yesterday's poll was three votes short of being the highest turnout for a space survey. DKOS members, who participated, are confident that Mars is the sweet spot for the search for extra-terrestrial liquid water.
Star Trek is the highest grossing film for 2009. Show Bix Datais reporting that "STAR TREK" from "PARAMOUNT" grossed 194,828,380.
YESTERDAY'S COMMENTS:
"space exploration is a total complete waste of time and resources. perhaps when we get our shit together on this planet. We need to allocate resources to remove poverty from the planet, to adequately develop into a self-sustaining biosphere and completely eradicate war before the aliens will come and rescue us." - innereye
"Reasons for one way mission have nothing to do with:
... hardships for their own sake, or for the sake or emulating some kind of historic heroism for its own sake.
That is just the reason to expect no shortage of volunteers. The reason for a one way mission is that it is significantly easier that a round trip mission. Getting back is a hell of a lot harder than getting to Mars, and even a round trip mission is highly likely to be one way in a catastrophic sense. A planned one way trip with the explorer(s) being delivered supplies regularly from Earth is pretty easy. And, eventually those supply drops could include fuel production and a return craft, but we could get to Mars a lot sooner by deferring the round trip part until later.
Not to mention a planned round trip mission is highly likely to be one way anyways. The current round trip plans include something like a 6 month stay on Mars to wait for a low energy return trip. Between the trip to and the stay on Mars it is probably 50-50 at best that there would be anyone alive to use the return trip." - donner
"Columbus did not undertake a one-way trip It's a false comparison when you raise the question of the early settlers of North America. They did not die alone. They died among a new community, in a place that was already settled by other native humans.
If we continue space exploration then, undoubtedly, there will come a day when we undertake one-way trips like the early European settlers of the Americas did. That won't come until after some explorers have returned to show it can be done." - Fish Fry
THE SPACE FUNNY PAGE:
Submitted to the comments section by JekyllnHyde.
TODAY'S POLL:
Today's Page Two article, Facing Mars, asks an intriguing question. "Would you go?". That brings us to today's poll, would you be willing to give up hearth and home, friends and family, everything you know and love, on what could be a one way trip to the red planet?
A recent diary about a one way trip to Mars brought a great debate on the topic with some fine comments on both sides of the issue.
Read other NASA and Space diaries on DKOS.