The Social Dynamics of Binary Solar Systems

I've often wondered how the development of space by humankind would have played out if we didn't have the moon. The size ratio of the moon to the earth is quite large compared to other known planet-moon systems, and it hangs in the sky as a very obvious reminder that there is somewhere to go if you could throw yourself off the surface of the planet. Wouldn't the idea of spaceflight seem much more boring if all you could do easily was get into orbit? It might not even seem like traveling at all.

A recent study reports that binary-star planetary systems may be equally likely as single star systems to develop. As far as the geometry, the Space.com article three possibilities, based primarily on the distance separating the stellar pair. A close in pair might have a planetary system orbiting the center of gravity of the two stars, (giving you a Tatooine sunset). A pair with medium separation may be too unstable for planetary formation at all. And the third option is that the two stars may orbit far enough apart that they each have their own planetary systems in orbit around them.

It's this third option that I find most intriguing. Just as the Moon hangs tantalizingly close, in our sky, just asking to be flown to, imagine there was another entire solar system, a second sun 3-4 times the distance to pluto away. A good distance to be sure, but much more within reach than even Alpha Centauri. A tempting distance, especially if there were planets in it's habitable zone.

How much more eager would we be in that scenario to develop a real long-distance spaceflight capability? If there were colonies, the politics of the added distance would make it a much different dynamic than an outpost on Mars. Interesting stuff.
 

Space Logistics

MIT has an interesting looking software project to track Space Logistics between the Earth, Moon and Mars.  This reminds me of nothing so much as a genre of games that I used to love as a kid, but are sorely lacking from the panoply of first-person-shooters and MMORPGs.  Titles such as EOS on the C64, and Project Space Station spring to mind. 



EOS had nothing to do with flying around arcade-like, and everything to do with constructing space stations from a variety of modules, dividing them between commercial and research output.  I'm embarassed to say I spent hours with a calculator determining the optimum prices to set for the various products to match market movements.  Eventually you could develop more advanced technology, and send spacecraft eerily reminiscent of Discovery from Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 to the different planets.  As far as I could tell the end result seemed to be finding life on Europa, but that took hours of floppy disk swapping.



Project Space Station always seemed to end with having too little budgetary resources to maintain your space activities.  This was frustrating, but ironically probably made it the most realistic of the two.

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New Horizons slingshots past Jupiter

New Horizons has received it's gravity assist from Jupiter and is on it's way to Pluto. I was surprised to see how far from Jupiter the probe actually passes. When you think of a gravity slingshot, it seems that the probe would be grazing the surface to get maximum acceleration, when in fact it's still outside the orbits of the Galilean satellites at closest approach.

New Horizons set a record for fastest transit time Earth-to-Jupiter of just over a year.


 

Interplanetary Internet

A couple years ago, IEEE Spectrum did an article on the Interplanetary Internet, a concept for extending the terrestrial internet into space, and specifically for communications with assets in orbit and on the surface of Mars.

During Columbia's final mission, the first IP file transfer between an orbiting shuttle and the ground took place. Typically the exact route of a transmission, such as which ground station is to be used, is determined a priori. This was the first time the packet found it's way into orbit on it's own.

At the time of that article, internet pioneer and co-creator of TCP/IP Vint Cerf was related to the JPL group that held that it would not be possible to extend TCP/IP beyond low earth orbit due to the lengthy time delays involved, favouring instead the creation of a 'delay-tolerant-networking' protocol.

It seems this effort is now known as the InterPlaNet protocol.
 

The Fermi Paradox

The Fermi Paradox can be defined thusly:

The size and age of the universe suggest that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations ought to exist. However, this belief seems logically inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it. Either the initial assumption is incorrect and technologically advanced intelligent life is much rarer than believed, current observations are incomplete and human beings have not detected other civilizations yet, or search methodologies are flawed and incorrect indicators are being sought.

(wikipedia).

The Space Review talks about a book on the paradox by Stephen Webb, where he delineates 50 possible solutions to the paradox, from autonomous alien weapons to the fact that we're alone.

There is also a new episode of the Universe Today podcast on the Fermi Paradox.
 

Space paintings by Don Davis

Don Davis is a space artist who did several works for NASA over his career. Happily, he's released them on to the public domain on his website since they were publicly funded.

Pluto

The roller coaster news coming from the IAU conference in Prague was no doubt confusing for the casual follower of astronomical developments. Earlier in the week, the news was trumpeted that the solar system may soon number 12 planets, only to be followed by the final decision that trans-neptunian objects including Pluto were out. The planets now number eight.

One of the most fascinating angles of this whole debate is how upside down people can get about how to draw boxes around nature's fuzzy edges. After first hearing of the initial proposal, I was skeptical. However I came to feel that a scientific definition for a planet would be difficult to create if it ruled out planets beyond Neptune simply because it offended our sense of aesthetic. I thought we'd just have to get used to the idea of planets coming in hundreds instead of a handful. Besides, other star systems could very well turn our well manicured collection of four terrestrials, four gas giants, and a collection of hangers on into an oddity, once they were observed in more detail.

A "planet" is defined as a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

In the end the final resolution returns us to eight planets. I'm curious to see how easy it is to make the determination that a celestial body has cleared it's neighbourhood around its orbit. That seems like a very qualitative assessment to be making.

Again, the most fascinating aspect is the reaction of the general public. I find many reports in the popular press tend to give the impression that reality has somehow changed, rather than our description of reality. For instance, CNN's Pluto no longer a planet, say astronomers. It almost gives the impression that there was some kind of technical screw-up, rather than a rethink of a categorization system. I chalk it up to an educational system that puts more store in memorizing the names of nine planets, for regurgitation in an exam, polite company, or game show, than in understanding our reality as a complex entity that our classification systems attempt to simplify for convenience.

Neaby Quasar?

A recent conference paper has revealed a quasar with a huge redshift, normally taken to indicate great distance and age, in the middle of a nearby spiral galaxy. If indeed the quasar is located nearby, as they assert, that will certainly have some major repercussions to established theory, I would think. I had thought that quasars were believed to be the most distant objects in the universe, because their high redshifts indicate high receeding speed, and thus distance. Will this affect estimates of elapsed time since the big bang? Maybe this is determined throught the cosmic microwave background, I'm not sure.

Maybe the quasar is moving away from us at high speed, but for reasons other than that which had been previously assumed. Apparently there is some correlation between quasars and other galaxy locations, so it will be interesting to see what comes of this.