In this PBS News Hour segment, Miles O’Brien reports on efforts to find and track asteroids and comets that could impact earth:
Monthly Archives: October 2014
Video: TMRO 7.31 – Chasing Atlantis
The latest show from TMRO (formerly Spacevidcast) is now online: Chasing Atlantis – TMRO.
They interview Paul Muzzin and Matthew Cimone about their in-work documentary, Chasing Atlantis.
Comet Siding Spring passing close by Mars
The comet Siding Spring is just about to reach its closest approach to Mars. Below are links to various sites with info and imagery:
* Latest NASA news and images:
- Comets: Siding Spring (C/2013 A1) – NASA JPL – Mars Exploration Program
- Comet Siding Spring | NASA –
On Sunday, Oct. 19, Comet C/2013 A1, also known as comet Siding Spring, will pass within about 87,000 miles (139,500 kilometers) of the Red Planet — less than half the distance between Earth and our moon and less than one-tenth the distance of any known comet flyby of Earth. Siding Spring’s nucleus will come closest to Mars around 11:27 a.m. PDT (2:27 p.m. EDT), hurtling at about 126,000 mph (56 kilometers per second).
* ESA live webcast: European Space Agency – live streaming video powered by Livestream
* Live webcast from the SLOOH online observatory: live.slooh.com – Comet Siding Spring Swings by on a Close Approach to Mars
* Display of the current position of the comet in the sky: Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) Live Position and Finder Chart – TheSkyLive
* An animation of NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter maneuvering to image Comet Siding Spring:
Path of the comet:
Brought to you by the Near-Earth Object (NEO) office
at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Space Music: ‘Planet’ by Sensory++
Joost Egelie of Sensory++ points me his latest album: ▶ Planet
Planet. That rock we live on. We think we’re so significant, but we’re merely a cosmic hickup. In a timespan of 100 cycles of this planet around the Sun, we think we already killed it.
Nothing is less true. Nature will overcome us, like <snap> that. With or without us. We still don’t get it; Nature adapts as it always had… A rock weighing a ton couldn’t eradicate Nature. A vulcanic eruption blowing an entire island off the map couldn’t, either.
And the cosmos will spin on and on… We’re just stardust walking and talking.
Time to put things in perspective.
Sci-Tech: LPP focus fusion update
I recently listed updates on five fusion power projects. There are an number of other such alternative projects underway that stand a good chance of beating the big tokamak and laser fusion programs that eat up all the government fusion funding. (Similar to the way NASA’s SLS/Orion boondoggles eat up funding from useful space projects that would get us into space far faster.)
Here, for example, is an update from Lawrenceville Plasma Physics on the latest developments with their focus fusion project : LPP Fusion Report October 17, 2014 –
- ARPA-E allows aneutronic fusion applications
- Tungsten anode installed in FF-1; aluminum cathode model checked out
- Crowdfunding rewards shipped out
(Link via nextbigfuture.com)