On This Day, But In 1974 The NASA Spacecraft Mariner 10 Made Its Closest Approach To Venus.

Venera

The Venera series space probes were developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather data from Venus, Venera being the Russian name for Venus. As with some of the Soviet Union’s other planetary probes, the later versions were launched in pairs with a second vehicle being launched soon after the first of the pair.

Ten probes from the Venera series successfully landed on Venus and transmitted data from the surface of Venus, including the two Vega program and Venera-Halley probes. In addition, thirteen Venera probes successfully transmitted data from the atmosphere of Venus.

Among the other results, probes of the series became the first human-made devices to enter the atmosphere of another planet (Venera 4 on October 18, 1967), to make a soft landing on another planet (Venera 7 on December 15, 1970), to return images from the planetary surface (Venera 9 on June 8, 1975), and to perform high-resolution radar mapping studies of Venus (Venera 15 on June 2, 1983). The later probes in the Venera series successfully carried out their mission, providing the first direct observations of the surface of Venus. Since the surface conditions on Venus are extreme, the probes only survived on the surface for durations varying between 23 minutes (initial probes) up to.

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The 4 Terrestrial Planets

ASTEROID DAY 2018

On 30 June 1908, 110 years ago, a 40 m asteroid struck the Earth over Tunguska, Siberia.

Destroying an area of forest the size of Greater London, this was the most significant impact event in Earth’s recent history.

Now recognised by the United Nations as Asteroid Day, 30 June marks a global opportunity to raise awareness of the threat and opportunity posed by the numerous rocky bodies traversing space.

Since 2009, ESA has played a leading role in the global hunt for risky asteroids and comets – known formally to astronomers as near-Earth objects (NEO) – and is currently developing cutting-edge widefield telescopes that will have the ability to scan the entire sky in just 48 hours.

ESA also carries out crucial analysis as part of its Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme and mobilises observatories and astronomers worldwide through its SSA NEO Coordination Centre at the Agency’s ESRIN facility in Italy.

Each year, Asteroid Day is broadcast live across the globe with a packed programme that brings together astronauts, rock stars and scientists.

Highlighting our potentially vulnerable place in space, the live event also describes the many ingenious and yet not-far-from scifi potential solutions to these dangerous roaming rocks.

Each year hundreds of regional events also take place, with 78 countries so far having hosted concerts, community events, lectures and much more.

Venus is the second closest planet to the Sun and has the highest surface temperature of any planet in our solar system, with an orbital period of about 225 Earth days. Because of its similar gravity and size, it is sometimes known as Earth’s “sister planet.” However, besides these two aspects, the two planets have almost nothing in common. With the densest atmosphere on any terrestrial planet in the solar system, the surface pressure on Venus is about 92 times that of Earth; the same pressure one kilometer beneath Earth’s oceans.

Even though Venus is comparatively much further away from the Sun than Mercury, it is the hotter planet with a surface temperature of around 462 °C; this is because of its dense atmosphere of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. One remarkable aspect of the atmosphere of Venus is the precipitation of liquid sulfuric acid. The surface geology of the planet has been observed by NASA for over twenty years now, and it is seen that there is extensive and violent volcanism at the surface.

(image sources: NASA; http://www.the8planets.com/wp-content/gallery/planet-venus/venus-atmosphere.jpg, http://www.boskowan.com/blanensko/)

Venus as seen from the Mariner 10 probe taken in 1974

Night sky just after sunset on March 24, 2012 with crescent moon and backlight, Jupiter, Venus and the Pleiades.

by Ritzelmut

Stephen Hawking: a brief history of genius

London (AFP) March 14, 2018 Stephen Hawking, who has died aged 76, was Britain’s most famous modern day scientist, a genius who dedicated his life to unlocking the secrets of the Universe. Born on January 8, 1942 - 300 years to the day after the death of the father of modern science, Galileo Galilei - he believed science was his destiny. But fate also dealt Hawking a cruel hand. Most of his life was spent in Full article

So NASA won the internet today…

Could we create dark matter?

85% of the matter in our universe is a mystery. We don’t know what it’s made of, which is why we call it dark matter. But we know it’s out there because we can observe its gravitational attraction on galaxies and other celestial objects. 

We’ve yet to directly observe dark matter, but scientists theorize that we may actually be able to create it in the most powerful particle collider in the world. That’s the 27 kilometer-long Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, in Geneva, Switzerland.

So how would that work? In the LHC, two proton beams move in opposite directions and are accelerated to near the speed of light. At four collision points, the beams cross and protons smash into each other.

Protons are made of much smaller components called quarks and gluons. 

In most ordinary collisions, the two protons pass through each other without any significant outcome.

However, in about one in a million collisions, two components hit each other so violently, that most of the collision energy is set free producing thousands of new particles. 

It’s only in these collisions that very massive particles, like the theorized dark matter, can be produced.

So it takes quadrillions of collisions combined with theoretical models to even start to look for dark matter. That’s what the LHC is currently doing. By generating a mountain of data, scientists at CERN are hoping to find more tiny bumps in graphs that will provide evidence for yet unknown particles, like dark matter. Or maybe what they’ll find won’t be dark matter, but something else that would reshape our understanding of how the universe works entirely. 

And that’s part of the fun at this point. We have no idea what they’re going to find.

From the TED-Ed Lesson Could we create dark matter? - Rolf Landua

Animation by Lazy Chief

"NASA Langley researchers want to get a better idea about conditions on our nearest planetary neighbor, Venus, so they have come up with HAVOC or a High Altitude Venus Operational Concept – a lighter-than-air rocket ship that would help send two astronauts on a 30-day mission to explore the planet’s atmosphere. Exploration of Venus is a challenge not only because its smog-like sulfuric acid-laced atmosphere, but also its extremely hot surface temperature and extremely high air pressure on the surface."  

"The video shows a human mission that’s part of a multi-phase campaign to explore and potentially settle Venus. Before the mission in the video occurred, there would be similar robotic missions to test the technologies and better understand the atmosphere. Eventually, a short duration human mission would allow us to gain experience having humans live at another world, with the hope that it would someday be possible to live in the atmosphere permanently (hinted at in the closing shot of the video)."