Watching space
According to the experts, there is now a lot more sun spot activity than expected in recent months. At the writing of this article, according to Spaceweather the chance of flares remains high.
I am no experts in solar flares, I do try to monitor them, since a large solar flare is going to have impact on communications and electric grids.
The human race is among the first intelligent species in the universe. We are not the first, since there are stars that are older then our sun and some of those have or had a high chance of evolving intelligent life. If that species is a life today is a different matter. Intelligent species on Earth might even have happened before in Earth history since it only seems to take a species to evolve intelligent over a time period of only 2,1 to 3 million years from start to finish. It only took the evolution of the human race 2,1 million year to happen from when it started and until it current stage.
Given the age of the universe and based on the assumption that population III stars did not have any matters in them to support life as we know it (carbon based), it is clear that life might only be possible in population II stars and then only in rare cases. Current population I stars (like our sun) have the best chance of evolving life due to carbon that exists in our solar system, since carbon might be necessary for life to happen. Other types of life might happen in the right conditions but it can also be assumed that those instances are much rarer than carbon based life forms, since life based on carbon can start to evolve from the basic component soon as water and the right temperature appear on a planet surface.
Time is also a big factor here. Current estimated age of the universe is 13.8 billion years. When our solar system formed the age of the universe was only 9,3 billion years. Only star systems that are older than our solar system by 4,0 billion years can be considered to have evolved intelligent life at that time. I don’t know why that is, but that might be the time frame it takes for an intelligent life to appear first time around on a plant. After that it might re-evolve several time if the first attempts dies out for any reason. Current evident don’t suggest that has happened on Earth, at least there are no traces in the fossil record that suggest it happening on Earth until primate appeared on Earth.
What I don’t know is the number of stars in the galaxy that are older than our sun. There are few, but I don’t remember how many they are and how far they are. But given the current time frame as I see it is clear that many of those stars have already entered or have finished their red giant phases. All life in those star systems that supported life are long gone and dead. If the intelligent life in those star system did move from their native solar system before they did go nova is something I can’t possibly know.
There is a good reason why SETI won’t find aliens. They might not be out there or at best they are in earlier development stage of their civilization and their radio signal just haven’t reached us yet. As for earlier civilization there is a reason to assume that they came and went with their own solar systems (died out when their star turned into a red dwarf) or moved to a area of space that the human race is unable to detect radio waves from. Whatever the reason I don’t expect to detect any good signals from space able aliens any time soon.
Accident have happened but have been ignored with the Ross 128 signal and Wow! signal. While the Wow! signal was not ignored as such it remaines unexplained. As for the signal from Ross 128 I suspect that was a radar signal from unknown alien race that is able to travel between star systems. If they are humanoid is impossible to know, but it took the signal 10,89 years to reach Earth and it was ignored as local interference while it is clear that it never was a local interference. Only due to the reason that nothing in orbit uses the frequency range where the signal was detected on (4500Mhz – 4900Mhz). By ITU Region 2 requirements this frequency range is allocated to sight to sight communication on ground on U.S territory. It is allocated to U.S military usage according to documents that I found (the limited range is 4400 – 4500Mhz, but anything from 4400Mhz and up to 4940Mhz is allocated to the U.S government use on land and note satellite communication).
The Wow! signal might be a second species on a technical level close to our own (+70 – 100 years ahead of the human race). Not yet space ready, but at the technical level that they are able to beam out narrow signals in accordance with the idea that aliens use the 1420Mhz to communicate in space (as humans have been doing for several years now [information here]). The Ross 128 signal is from a thrid species that is at least 300+ years ahead the human race in terms of technological process.
Regardless if the actual facts of this. It is quite possible and more probable that the human race is among the first species to reach technical and intelligent level in our parts of the universe. We are probably not the first species to reach this milestone as suggested by possible evidence (Wow! signal and Ross 128 signal). If the human race ever makes a contact is a different question in it self. As it is clear that the human race first needs to avoid going extinct by its own actions and that might be harder to do in current world climate of politics, greed and power struggle. A lot needs to change in coming decades for that to happen. Global warming also needs to be stopped for the human race own survival reasons (and the biosphere as a whole in the larger view).
I am not the first person to have this idea. See NPR article.
Are We The Earliest Intelligent Life In The Universe? (npr.org)
Article updated at 00:14 CET on 25.02.2018. Minor spelling error fixes.
The current thinking, mostly due to budget limitation is to only send space probes to certain targets. Like Jupiter, Venus, Mars and so on. The main reason for this is limited budget and the thinking to only explore what we currently see. That needs to change. In my view it needs to change because while we are just targeting special object in space we might be missing objects that are just outside our view.
What the human race needs to send out in space are general purpose space probes that are able to due the most basic of studies and measurements and that are able to take the necessary images if something of interest is found. What also needs to be done is to figure out a way to make space probes faster and to allow them to go longer on less fuel. This needs to happen and the science of exploring space has to change and move forward from its current status. The human race needs to start exploring space for real and reach to objects that are outside our own solar system so that we know what is there before we send humans out to explore deep space.
It is now clear that whatever remained of comet ISON is now disappearing into space. It did appear once the comet did pass over the sun is not clear, but it clear that most of the comet at that time did disintegrate due to the heat from the sun and the extreme tidal forces that the sun enforces on objects that go close to it.
Images and more details can be found in the links below.
NASA pic: DOOMED ice Comet ISON literally had snowball’s chance in hell (The Register)
ISON Appears To Be Fading, But Astronomers Keeping Eyes Peeled (Universe Today)
Spaceweather.com (Information changes daily, so check the archive for today’s date 1-Desember-2013)
The latest news of the comet ISON is that it appears to have survived the passing by the sun. Just barley, since there is not a lot left to see now according to latest images shown on Spaceweather.com website. It is not currently known what did happen to the comet, but it appears as it was mostly vaporised by the sun. Comet ISON was just one of many sungrazing comet that have not survived this interaction with the sun.
How much of the comet remains it difficult to know at present time, but I am sure that more details are going to appear in next few hours to days on what did happen to comet ISON.
The space weather report website Spaceweather.com is reporting that comet ISON seems to have disintegrated when it passed close to the sun. There are now clues that some small part of the comet might have survived the passage, but it is minor and is unlikely to provide any type of tail as it did before it did go past the sun.
For images and more details please click on the following link.
Spaceweather.com
ISON Real Time gallery
News about the comet destruction (or close to it)
Comet Ison destroyed in Sun passage (BBC News)
NASA announced today that an asteroid was breaking up in our solar system. This is interesting since it is not often (at least not witnessed) by scientists that asteroid is breaking up in our solar system. I do not have any special details on the asteroid that is breaking up. This asteroid is far out, since it is outside the orbit of Mars and it is no risk to Earth or Mars for that reason. It is most likely an rock type of asteroid, rather than made out of metal and other denser material that asteroid are sometimes made out of.
I am sure more details are going to appear on what is going on with this asteroid in next few days to weeks since rate of the breakup is not clear at the moment.
News about this asteroid
Hubble Sees an Asteroid with Six Comet-like Tails (NASA)
Hubble views extraordinary multi-tailed asteroid P/2013 P5 (ESA)
According to recent news on BBC News there could be more planets out in the galaxy and every galaxy out there. This are the results from new computer model into this matter. This however does not say anything about if any of this planets has civilization out there. But that is always an possibility. What this actually means in reality is hard to know for sure. But one thing is clear. There is more life in the universe then we can imagine.
If people want to check more on this subject. They can read the whole deal in BBC News article.
More planets could harbour life (BBC News)
On Wikipedia there is an interesting image that shows the universe in scale to the Earth and our solar system. This picture clearly shows how small the Earth and the human race really is. Petty things like religion and skin color are utterly meaningless when it comes down to it. I just wish more humans would release that. Since then we would at least have peace among humans for once.
The scale of the universe. Click on the image for full size. The image is from Wikipedia. Image is made by Andrew Z. Colvin under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This image also shows that human race needs to increase the research into deep space exploring. Just exploring the local solar system for new information is simply not enough today. If nothing else. We need to know what is out there. Before it finds us. Since I am in no doubt that what is out there in the universe is both going to be good and evil.
While the human race has been busy studying with problems it’s solar system for several decades now. We have not yet started to explore with problems our distant star neighborhood. The reasons for lack of such exploration are two mostly.
The first one is lack of technology. But before the year 1970 the chance of exploring space with something else then just telescopes was limited at best. But technology moves forward. By the year 1970 spacecrafts where first advanced enough to go into the solar system. Rather then just orbiting the Earth or being in geosynchronous orbit. The first probes to go out into the solar system where the Pioneer spacecrafts. Then Voyager spacecrafts did go out into the solar system and are now leaving it. Today the newest spacecraft to be on it’s way out of the solar system is the New Horizons spacecraft. But it is going to go by Pluto in the year 2015 and give up new information about that planet. Along with high resolution images of it and it’s moons.
The second problem is distance. But past and current technology has now allowed us to send spacecraft out of our solar system without it taking years. Long running projects also have money issue, people issue. Along with technological issues on it’s own. Today it takes the spacecraft about 15 years to reach the edge of our solar system. If no other flyby are made on the way. Communication is also problem. The more distance between spacecrafts and Earth the longer time communication takes. For instance, New Horizons round trip communication today takes around 6 hours to complete (3 hours each way). When it reaches Pluto. That times has gone up to 12 hours both ways (6 hours each way). There are also no spacecraft to handle communications between points in our solar system. So all communication has to go directly between Earth and the spacecraft in question. This makes communication often impossible or hard at best in some cases. NASA deep Space Network does good job at keeping contact with those spacecrafts that are out there today.
But for the future. It is my opinion that long term plan needs to be put into action to secure communications inside the solar system with future space mission. Regardless if they are inside the solar system or outside it. But one thing is sure. In the future, it is going to be necessary for the human race to send spacecrafts outside the solar system to make discoveries. What we might find may change the human race forever. It is simply not enough to explore space with telescopes today. Unmanned spacecrafts needs to be sent out there to explore while humans cannot do so directly. We need to know what is out there. Sooner being better then later for the human race.
Venus [Wiki Link] is one of our closest planets in our own solar system. It size is almost the same as Earth. But the atmosphere is not the same. As it is 400C and mostly made out of sulphuric acid (clouds are made out of this) and carbon dioxide.
According to studies about 80% of Venus surface is covered with volcanoes and volcano lavas. But it is unknown at this time if any of them are active today. But recent observations suggests that there might be active volcanoes on Venus. Most or all volcanoes on Venus are believed to be shield volcano. Rather then any other type of volcano. I do not know if that has changed with more research into Venus during the last few years.
So far about 1600 volcanoes have been identified on Venus. But it is currently unknown at this time if any of them are active or not. But at the moment they are assumed to be extinct. But it is close to impossible to monitor any activity that might exist on Venus. But that it is a good distance from Earth, and the atmosphere does not allow for any monitoring equipment to be installed on the surface of Venus. As any such hardware would just melt in matter of minuets. So for now, what we can see is the only option. Sadly, it is not a whole lot that can be seen on Venus due to extreme cloud cover.
But few years ago a white spot in the clouds of Venus suggested (at least that was the idea) that a volcano eruption had taken place. But it was never proofed far as I know at the time or at later date.
For the moment we know that there where volcanoes on Venus that even made large lava flows. They might even be active volcanoes on Venus today. But proof of that is limited at the moment.
Information sources:
Volcanism on Venus (Wikipedia)
Volcanoes on Venus
Volcanoes on Venus May Still Be Active (Universe Today)
Volcanoes on Venus
Volcanoes on Venus May be Young and Active (Space.com)
Venus Orbiter Finds Potential Active Volcanoes (Wired Science)