I’m Thinking About Boba Supporting Din Record That Holo Like

Solar System: 10 Things to Know This Week

Pioneer Days

Someone’s got to be first. In space, the first explorers beyond Mars were Pioneers 10 and 11, twin robots who charted the course to the cosmos.

1-Before Voyager

Voyager, with its outer solar system tour and interstellar observations, is often credited as the greatest robotic space mission. But today we remember the plucky Pioneers, the spacecraft that proved Voyager’s epic mission was possible.

2-Where No One Had Gone Before

Forty-five years ago this week, scientists still weren’t sure how hard it would be to navigate the main asteroid belt, a massive field of rocky debris between Mars and Jupiter. Pioneer 10 helped them work that out, emerging from first the first six-month crossing in February 1973. Pioneer 10 logged a few meteoroid hits (fewer than expected) and taught engineers new tricks for navigating farther and farther beyond Earth.

3-Trailblazer No. 2

Pioneer 11 was a backup spacecraft launched in 1973 after Pioneer 10 cleared the asteroid belt. The new mission provided a second close look at Jupiter, the first close-up views of Saturn and also gave Voyager engineers plotting an epic multi-planet tour of the outer planets a chance to practice the art of interplanetary navigation.

4-First to Jupiter

Three-hundred and sixty-three years after humankind first looked at Jupiter through a telescope, Pioneer 10 became the first human-made visitor to the Jovian system in December 1973. The spacecraft spacecraft snapped about 300 photos during a flyby that brought it within 81,000 miles (about 130,000 kilometers) of the giant planet’s cloud tops.

5-Pioneer Family

Pioneer began as a Moon program in the 1950s and evolved into increasingly more complicated spacecraft, including a Pioneer Venus mission that delivered a series of probes to explore deep into the mysterious toxic clouds of Venus. A family portrait (above) showing (from left to right) Pioneers 6-9, 10 and 11 and the Pioneer Venus Orbiter and Multiprobe series. Image date: March 11, 1982. 

6-A Pioneer and a Pioneer

Classic rock has Van Halen, we have Van Allen. With credits from Explorer 1 to Pioneer 11, James Van Allen was a rock star in the emerging world of planetary exploration. Van Allen (1914-2006) is credited with the first scientific discovery in outer space and was a fixture in the Pioneer program. Van Allen was a key part of the team from the early attempts to explore the Moon (he’s pictured here with Pioneer 4) to the more evolved science platforms aboard Pioneers 10 and 11.

7-The Farthest…For a While

For more than 25 years, Pioneer 10 was the most distant human-made object, breaking records by crossing the asteroid belt, the orbit of Jupiter and eventually even the orbit of Pluto. Voyager 1, moving even faster, claimed the most distant title in February 1998 and still holds that crown.

8-Last Contact

We last heard from Pioneer 10 on Jan. 23, 2003. Engineers felt its power source was depleted and no further contact should be expected. We tried again in 2006, but had no luck. The last transmission from Pioneer 11 was received in September 1995. Both missions were planned to last about two years.

9-Galactic Ghost Ships

Pioneers 10 and 11 are two of five spacecraft with sufficient velocity to escape our solar system and travel into interstellar space. The other three—Voyagers 1 and 2 and New Horizons—are still actively talking to Earth. The twin Pioneers are now silent. Pioneer 10 is heading generally for the red star Aldebaran, which forms the eye of Taurus (The Bull). It will take Pioneer over 2 million years to reach it. Pioneer 11 is headed toward the constellation of Aquila (The Eagle) and will pass nearby in about 4 million years.

10-The Original Message to the Cosmos

Years before Voyager’s famed Golden Record, Pioneers 10 and 11 carried the original message from Earth to the cosmos. Like Voyager’s record, the Pioneer plaque was the brainchild of Carl Sagan who wanted any alien civilization who might encounter the craft to know who made it and how to contact them. The plaques give our location in the galaxy and depicts a man and woman drawn in relation to the spacecraft.

Read the full version of this week’s 10 Things article HERE. 

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Reason to live #585

Seeing your favorite musicians make new music - Guest submission

Light me up and I light you brighter.

THE MANDALORIAN SEASON ONE (2019)

un espejismo, una rebelión

by matialonsor

Today’s date is 2017102, its the same in reverse

"Chase your stars fool,life is short."

- Atticus

Research

What would aliens think about research? By that, I mean the research of treacherous things, like volcanoes. Humans can send in drones to get samples or survey an environment, but sometimes, and especially in the times when research methods weren’t as advanced as today (or at times of space travel).

For example, Isaac Newton stuck a needle in his eye and poked around to study how humans perceive colors. (He did learn a lot but… eugh.) Sir Humphrey Davy generated chemical reactions and inhaled (potentially dangerous) gaseous products to note what happened. One scientist tried heart catheterization on himself when he couldn’t get approval to try it on a human.

Maybe aliens would think that humans were pretty dumb for doing all that, but it was early on, and these guys have learned better now.

Oh, no. There is currently a lava lake in Antarctica that occasionally spews a fall of fire now and then. Scientists go to that lake, in the freezing cold, with the risk of lava bombs spewing at them, to take measurements and make observations of the area. Sure, there are sensors too, but scientists still go to physically visit the area for data.

Scientists will go into submarines to study the deep ocean, a place with little or no sunlight and strange, possibly dangerous creatures. In addition, the pressure underneath all that water is immense. If a problem happened and the submarine was damaged, results could very easily be fatal.

Speaking of nature, there are scientists who will go into rainforests to meet 9possibly hostile) natives living within, or to learn more about animal behavior. It’s very risky work. There is a constant threat of predator attacks. The plants could kill you if you don’t pay enough attention. You could very easily catch a disease from the wildlife and fall gravely ill.

And what about space travel? Humans stuck themselves on rockets loaded with fuel and tried to get outside of the atmosphere. Sure, they ran tests and simulations, but no one knew for certain if it would really work. Some rockets exploded, killing the astronauts within. It was a very real possibility for anyone in a rocket but humans kept trying anyway.

Sure, humans take every safety precaution they can think of. Sure, they spend lots of time, energy, and resources to keep fellow humans as safe as possible. They still knowingly place themselves in possibly extremely dangerous situations for the sake of science. How strange is that?