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Curiosity about space

~ The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Ps. 19:1

Curiosity about space

Category Archives: Planets

Seeing Titan

20 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by Bette Cox in Planets, Science, Space

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Saturn, Titan

(Today’s APOD, 20 Aug 2020.)

Shrouded in a thick atmosphere, Saturn’s largest moon Titan really is hard to see. Small particles suspended in the upper atmosphere cause an almost impenetrable haze, strongly scattering light at visible wavelengths and hiding Titan’s surface features from prying eyes. But Titan’s surface is better imaged at infrared wavelengths where scattering is weaker and atmospheric absorption is reduced.

Arrayed around this visible light image (center) of Titan are some of the clearest global infrared views of the tantalizing moon so far. In false color, the six panels present a consistent processing of 13 years of infrared image data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on board the Cassini spacecraft. They offer a stunning comparison with Cassini’s visible light view.

Image Credit: VIMS Team, U. Arizona, U. Nantes, ESA, NASA

Sounds of the universe

03 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by Bette Cox in Planets, religion, Science, Space

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God's Word, noise, planets, Sound, Universe, voices

Someone shared an article about sounds made by planets on Facebook a week or so ago. It’s been in the back of my mind ever since.  It seems that for some years now NASA has recorded sound waves occurring in space. Some of them sound absolutely bone chilling.

The article includes a number of video/audio recordings from multiple planets (including earth). Here’s one of them – The Eerie Sounds of Saturn:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh2-P8hG5-E)

“There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification.” (I Cor. 14:10 KJV) This verse is translated into English several ways, and considering the context of speaking in unknown tongues, they all express the idea that there are multiple languages in the world and each one has meaning.

However, I discovered that the original Greek words can also be translated “multiple sounds or noises in the universe, and each one has meaning.” Sounds. Universe. Hmmmmmm.

I discussed this article with the Lord the other night, asking him about sounds made by various planets. He began to explain a few things. Just matter of fact things, physics, nothing particularly spiritual, but fascinating to me.

Sound waves, like visual images, contain information. Each sound contains a specific piece of information, and if interpreted (translated) accurately by the receiver, it transmits that data to him.

He had me listen to the sounds I could hear from my bedroom and asked what information I received from each sound. Trucks. What size? Pickup trucks sound different than 18-wheelers. Train whistles. Motorcycles. Car brakes. Cars changing gears. Various automobiles going by the highway.

Ceiling fan. Humming from deodorizer. Heat pump. Footsteps walking overhead. Lighter footsteps, running. Clocks ticking. Even my own breathing, my own heart beat, the constant tinnitus I’ve had for many years… I fell asleep thinking about all the sounds that I could hear, and what data I received from each one.

Last night we continued the conversation about sound.

Every created thing makes sound, because it moves. The wind is air movement, and because it is moving, it makes sound. Creation could have been silent, made without the capacity to make noise. But it wasn’t. There was a reason for the sound, the noise, the voices.

All senses convey information / data. Some can be from close or at a distance, such as sound and sight. Others are near by, such as smell. Others must be up close and personal, such as taste and touch.

Far or near, each use of those senses brings us information which can be useful – if we pay attention to it, think about what the data is saying to us and how we can best benefit from it. Even the sounds recorded by NASA, sounds made by planets, stars, asteroids, comets, meteors, even sounds made by atoms, molecules, and subatomic particles.

Every cell of every creature and creation, from infinitesimally microscopic to majestically huge, has the capacity to make sound and transmit data. And all that information is beneficial in some way, for some purpose, to someone.

Jesus is the Word of God. God’s voice. What a mind-boggling concept! Jesus is both God and God’s expression. Creator of everything that exists, he is also maintainer, sustainer of it. Information-bringer. Explainer. Teacher. Guide. Rescuer. Healer. Provider. Lover. Friend.

Every sound of the universe, every noise, every voice, every burst of static, every clang of metal, every crash of breaking waves, every whisper of wind in trees, every murmur of nesting birds, every hum of a mother’s lullaby – all are expressions containing data.

So – I was thinking. So – what is the bottom line of all that? I asked the Lord.

Well, what is the most essential data? he replied. Then he answered the question himself. Love. God’s love, holiness, justice, mercy, affection, creativity, mindfulness, unwavering attention to his creation. His most highly treasured creation – his children.

http://damn.com/nasa-space-sound/

Pluto is just one of many TNOs

16 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by Bette Cox in Planets, Space

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Charon, Pluto, TNOs

TNOsEightTNOsCharon compared with Eris, Pluto, Makemake, Haumea, Sedna, Orcus, 2007 OR10, Quaoar, their moons and Earth. All to scale.

The center of mass (barycenter) of the Pluto–Charon system lies outside either body. Because neither object truly orbits the other, and Charon has 11.6% the mass of Pluto, it has been argued that Charon should be considered to be part of a binary system. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) states that Charon is considered to be just a satellite of Pluto, but the idea that Charon might be classified a dwarf planet in its own right may be considered at a later date.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s entry about Charon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_%28moon%29

Pluto – amazing!

16 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by Bette Cox in Planets, Science, Space

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Charon, Pluto

 New York Times online

New Horizons Reveals Ice Mountains on Pluto

By JONATHAN CORUM JULY 15, 2015

A day after its successful flyby, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft sent back the first close-up photographs of Pluto, revealing a young surface dotted with ice mountains. The piano-size spacecraft traveled nine years and three billion miles to study the dwarf planet and its five moons.

PlutoCloseupMountains150714-pluto-detailMountains on Pluto One of the first images returned to Earth after New Horizons’ Pluto flyby shows a small portion of Pluto’s surface seen from 47,800 miles away. Ice mountains up to 11,000 feet high — comparable to the height of the Rockies — cast shadows across a relatively smooth plain. The lack of craters indicates that the surface is quite young, no more than 100 million years old. This photo was taken early on Tuesday morning and shows an area just under the bright heart shape on Pluto’s surface.

Charon seen by the New Horizons spacecraft on July 14

Canyons on Charon A new image of Charon, Pluto’s largest moon. The moon has a dark patch, informally called Mordor, at its north pole. The image was taken late Monday from a distance of 289,000 miles.

Read entire interactive article here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/15/science/space/new-horizons-pluto-flyby-photos.html?_r=0

NASA’s New Horizons Sees More Detail as It Draws Closer to Pluto

28 Thursday May 2015

Posted by Bette Cox in Planets, Space

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NASA, New Horizons spacecraft, Pluto

May 27, 2015

PlutoViaNewHorizonsSpacecraftMay2015
What a difference 20 million miles makes! Images of Pluto from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft are growing in scale as the spacecraft approaches its mysterious target.

The new images, taken May 8-12 using a powerful telescopic camera and down-linked last week, reveal more detail about Pluto’s complex and high contrast surface.

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-sees-more-detail-as-it-draws-closer-to-pluto

New Brown Dwarf discovered

26 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by Bette Cox in Planets, Science, Space, Sun

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Brown dwarf star, gas giant planet

Close neighbor of the Sun and the coldest of its kind
ScienceDaily.com
25 April 2014

Artist's conception of the brown dwarf WISE J085510.83-071442.5. The Sun is the bright star directly to the right of the brown dwarf. Credit: Robert Hurt/JPL, Janella Williams/Penn State University [Click to enlarge image]

Artist’s conception of the brown dwarf WISE J085510.83-071442.5. The Sun is the bright star directly to the right of the brown dwarf.
Credit: Robert Hurt/JPL, Janella Williams/Penn State University
[Click to enlarge image]

A “brown dwarf” star that appears to be the coldest of its kind — as frosty as Earth’s North Pole — has been discovered by a Penn State University astronomer using NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescopes. Images from the space telescopes also pinpointed the object’s distance at 7.2 light-years away, making it the fourth closest system to our Sun.

“It is very exciting to discover a new neighbor of our solar system that is so close,” said Kevin Luhman, an associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and a researcher in the Penn State Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds. “In addition, its extreme temperature should tell us a lot about the atmospheres of planets, which often have similarly cold temperatures.”

Brown dwarfs start their lives like stars, as collapsing balls of gas, but they lack the mass to burn nuclear fuel and radiate starlight. The newfound coldest brown dwarf, named WISE J085510.83-071442.5, has a chilly temperature between minus 54 and 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 48 to minus 13 degrees Celsius). Previous record holders for coldest brown dwarfs, also found by WISE and Spitzer, were about room temperature.

Although it is very close to our solar system, WISE J085510.83-071442.5 is not an appealing destination for human space travel in the distant future. “Any planets that might orbit it would be much too cold to support life as we know it” Luhman said.

“This object appeared to move really fast in the WISE data,” said Luhman. “That told us it was something special.” The closer a body, the more it appears to move in images taken months apart. Airplanes are a good example of this effect: a closer, low-flying plane will appear to fly overhead more rapidly than a high-flying one.

WISE was able to spot the rare object because it surveyed the entire sky twice in infrared light, observing some areas up to three times. Cool objects like brown dwarfs can be invisible when viewed by visible-light telescopes, but their thermal glow — even if feeble — stands out in infrared light.

After noticing the fast motion of WISE J085510.83-071442.5 in March, 2013, Luhman spent time analyzing additional images taken with Spitzer and the Gemini South telescope on Cerro Pachon in Chile. Spitzer’s infrared observations helped to determine the frosty temperature of the brown dwarf.

WISE J085510.83-071442.5 is estimated to be 3 to 10 times the mass of Jupiter. With such a low mass, it could be a gas giant similar to Jupiter that was ejected from its star system. But scientists estimate it is probably a brown dwarf rather than a planet since brown dwarfs are known to be fairly common. If so, it is one of the least massive brown dwarfs known.

Combined detections from WISE and Spitzer, taken from different positions around the Sun, enabled the measurement of its distance through the parallax effect. This is the same principle that explains why your finger, when held out right in front of you, appears to jump from side to side when you alternate left-eye and right-eye views.

In March of 2013, Luhman’s analysis of the images from WISE uncovered a pair of much warmer brown dwarfs at a distance of 6.5 light years, making that system the third closest to the Sun. His search for rapidly moving bodies also demonstrated that the outer solar system probably does not contain a large, undiscovered planet, which has been referred to as “Planet X” or “Nemesis.”

“It is remarkable that even after many decades of studying the sky, we still do not have a complete inventory of the Sun’s nearest neighbors,” said Michael Werner, the project scientist for Spitzer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which manages and operates Spitzer. “This exciting new result demonstrates the power of exploring the universe using new tools, such as the infrared eyes of WISE and Spitzer.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140425162339.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28Latest+Science+News+–+ScienceDaily%29

One way to terraform a planet

15 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by Bette Cox in Planets, Science, Space

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terraforming

Shell-Worlds: How Humanity Could Terraform Small Planets

TerraformingShellWorldsGraphic01

Engineer Ken Roy envisions someday encasing small planets inside artificial shells to retain their atmosphere and provide an Earth-like environment. This could provide a shortcut for terraforming, the process of redesigning a planet’s surface to be more hospitable for human habitation.

Full Story: Incredible Technology: How to Use ‘Shells’ to Terraform a Planet: http://www.space.com/23063-terraforming-planets-shell-worlds.html

Mars or perhaps a moon in another solar system could be encased in a shell of dirt, steel and Kevlar fiber. With air pressure raised to a safe level and enough oxygen in the atmosphere, people could live freely on the surface. A small planet would have low enough gravity to allow for human-powered flight.

Lighting would be artificial since the shell could not admit sunlight. Heavy industry would be located on the outside of the shell, in the vacuum of space. Airlocks in the shell would allow spaceships to enter and land.

http://www.space.com/23082-shell-worlds-planet-terraforming-technology-infographic.html

Applications for Mars colonists

18 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by Bette Cox in Planets, Science, Space, Uncategorized

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colonization, Mars, space travel

MarsLanders

Mars Landers, April 2023

Dream of going to space but don’t feel like putting in the work to become a NASA astronaut? Here’s your chance to possibly make that fantasy come true. Mars One, a Netherlands-based nonprofit, is seeking volunteers to help colonize the Red Planet, according to Mashable.

To meet an aggressive goal of putting people on Mars by 2023, Mars One released its basic astronaut requirements on January 8. Rather than recruiting scientists or pilots, the organization says it will consider anyone, so long as they are at least 18 years old. Intelligence, good mental and physical health and dedication to the project are all pluses. Chosen candidates will undergo eight years of training prior to the launch.

“We are more concerned with how well each astronaut works and lives with the others, in the long journey from Earth to Mars and for a lifetime of challenges ahead,” the company founder, Norbert Kraft, said.

To prepare for the colony, Mars One plans to launch robotic cargo missions between 2016 and 2021. The robots will get busy assembling an outpost ahead of the space explorers’ arrival. Four humans will first land on Mars in 2023, followed by another group every two years following the trailblazers’ arrival. No human has ever gone to Mars or traveled that far, and the journey is expected to take seven months.

Mars One plans to fund their endeavors largely through a global reality television event following astronaut selection through the settlers’ first years on Mars. So far, the company says, more than 1,000 interested applicants have gotten in touch.

For people considering venturing into space, Mars One includes this obvious disclaimer:

No human space mission is without risks to human life. Mars and space are unforgiving environments where a small accident can result in large failures, injuries and death of the astronauts.

The move, by the way, is permanent. There are no plans to return the pioneers to Earth.

Read more: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/01/now-accepting-applications-for-mars-colonists/#ixzz2IMmyMNnn

Super-Earth Planet Likely Made of Diamond

13 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by Bette Cox in Planets, Space

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Space.com
11 October 2012

Illustration of the interior of 55 Cancri e — an extremely hot planet with a surface of mostly graphite surrounding a thick layer of diamond, below which is a layer of silicon-based minerals and a molten iron core at the center. CREDIT: Haven Giguere

Move over, Hope Diamond. The most famous gems on Earth have new competition in the form of a planet made largely of diamond, astronomers say.

The alien planet, a so-called “super-Earth,” is called 55 Cancri e and was discovered in 2004 around a nearby star in our Milky Way galaxy. After estimating the planet’s mass and radius, and studying its host star’s composition, scientists now say the rocky world is composed mainly of carbon (in the form of diamond and graphite), as well as iron, silicon carbide, and potentially silicates.

At least a third of the planet’s mass is likely pure diamond.

“This is our first glimpse of a rocky world with a fundamentally different chemistry from Earth,” lead researcher Nikku Madhusudhan of Yale University said in a statement. “The surface of this planet is likely covered in graphite and diamond rather than water and granite.”

55 Cancri e is the first likely “diamond planet” to be identified around a sun-like star, though such worlds have been theorized before. Planets like this are vastly different from our Earth, which has relatively little carbon.

“By contrast, Earth’s interior is rich in oxygen, but extremely poor in carbon — less than a part in thousand by mass,” said study co-author and Yale geophysicist Kanani Lee.

55 Cancri e is what’s known as a super-Earth, with a radius twice as wide as that of our own planet, and a mass eight times greater. It speeds around its host star, making a full orbit in just 18 hours (Earth takes 365 days). It is so close in to the star that its surface temperature reaches a scorching 3,900 degrees Fahrenheit (2,100 degrees Celsius), making it probably way too hot for life. [Oozing Super-Earth: Images of Alien Planet 55 Cancri e]

Previous studies of this planet suggested it might actually be covered with oozing “supercritical fluids” — high-pressure liquid-like gases — seeping out from its rocks. But this idea was based on the assumption that 55 Cancri e had a similar chemical makeup as Earth, Madhusudhan said. The new findings suggest the planet has no water at all.

The revelation of the planet’s diamond nature means that it could have very different thermal evolution and plate tectonics processes than Earth, which could create bizarre types of volcanism, seismic activity, and mountain formation.

55 Cancri e is one of five planets encircling a sun-like star called 55 Cancri, which lies about 40 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Cancer. This star is so close it is visible to the naked eye in the night sky.

The researchers hope to make follow-up observations of this star system to better determine the star’s composition and to analyze 55 Cancri e’s atmosphere. This information could bolster the idea that the planet is a diamond world.

A paper reporting the new findings has been accepted for publication in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

http://www.space.com/18011-super-earth-planet-diamond-world.html

Mars – why do we want to go there?

04 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by Bette Cox in Planets, Space

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Curiosity Rover, Mars exploration, terraforming

Curiosity scheduled to land on Mars

On August 6, 2012, NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, Curiosity, is expected to land on the surface of the Red Planet.

From UniverseToday website
4 Aug 2012: Here’s an intriguing look at Gale Crater, the landing spot for the Mars Science Laboratory’s Curiosity rover. This image was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on the Mars Express spacecraft and it is color-coded based on variations in terrain. The lower elevation, shown in purple, is the target landing area, but scientists and engineers want to get the rover as close as they can to the big mountain, Mount Sharp — which rises 5.5 km above the crater floor — where all the interesting geologic features are.

Orbiting spacecraft have already identified minerals and clays there that suggest water may have once filled the area, and as Curiosity slowly makes its ascent of the mountain region, it will analyze samples of these materials with its onboard laboratory in search of the building blocks of life.

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/96589/incredible-view-of-curiosity-rovers-landing-site/#ixzz22bpqilh7

Why are human beings so fascinated by Mars? Why are we sending multi-million dollar science labs there? Here is an excellent explanation, from one of the many NASA websites.

Mars Atmospheric Resources

Upon reaching Mars, we again have a world with resources that can be used to expand our capabilities. The martian atmosphere, consisting mostly of carbon dioxide, can be processed to release oxygen for life support or propellant use. Carbon monoxide, which could be a moderate performance rocket fuel, is the coproduct. By combining this oxygen with a small amount of hydrogen, water for a variety of uses could be produced for only a fraction of its mass if brought from Earth. One good aspect of atmosphere utilization is that no mining is involved. Simple gas handling equipment can be used, providing a much more reliable system.

Life support technologies routinely deal with the conversion of CO2 to other compounds, including methane. This process was discovered nearly one hundred years ago and is still used in many chemical plants today. A direct application of this technology to the martian atmosphere would allow for the production of oxygen, methane, and water by bringing only a small amount of hydrogen. Thus, large quantities of propellant could be leveraged from minimal import mass. As described earlier, a rocket engine using methane and oxygen could be developed for use in both lunar and martian spacecraft. This could enable another large cost savings for the SEI by utilizing those materials available at the Moon or Mars.

Planetary scientists agree that water is available at the poles of Mars in the form of ice. It is likely, but not certain, that water is available elsewhere on the planet, perhaps as a permafrost layer or bound as a mineral hydrate. If the robotic missions in the early stages of the SEl provide evidence of water, there is every reason to believe that a process can be developed to make it available for human use. It is likely that one could even extract enough water to produce both hydrogen and oxygen propellant for the launch back to orbit and even the return trip to Earth, thus reducing the size of the spacecraft leaving Earth for Mars. Telerobotic mining at distances as far as Mars is not practical, however, and totally automated systems would need to be developed. And, at the more accessible latitudes near the equator, any water is likely to be found at a lower depth, compounding the problem.

The two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, may also be rich in water. Processing at the extremely low gravity present on these bodies will require some innovative equipment. While early exploration scenarios suggest it would be difficult to bring this promise to fruition, future operations on or near Mars could easily make use of the potential within these bodies. Many asteroids are believed to be of similar composition and are also likely targets for utilization once we have honed our ability to operate highly complex equipment at distances so remote that teleoperation is not feasible. For the near term, however, the SEI requires the development of an ISMU program which focuses on the Moon and Mars.

Olympus Mons, a volcano on Mars, is 15 miles high and .~75 miles across at its base, dwarfing all other known volcanoes in the solar system. This view shows the caldera protruding through a cloud layer in the northern hemisphere of Mars. The presence of an atmosphere provides a Mars program with a resource unavailable at the Moon. Chemical procedures exist to convert carbon dioxide, which is 95 percent of the atmosphere, into products such as oxygen, water, and methane.

Carbon Dioxide as a Raw Material

The carbon dioxide (CO2) that makes up 95 percent of the atmosphere of Mars can be a valuable starting material for the manufacture of critical products. Unlike lunar resources, CO2 can be had by merely compressing the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide itself can be used to support plant growth at an advanced outpost. Both carbon and oxygen are important elements which have many possible uses at an outpost. There are several well understood chemical reactions that we can use to produce oxygen, methane, water, and perhaps other materials.

Oxygen can be produced by passing CO2 through a zirconia electrolysis cell at 800 to 1000deg C. Twenty to thirty percent of the CO2 dissociates into oxygen and carbon monoxide. Separation is accomplished by electrochemical transport of oxide ion through a membrane. A prototype reactor using this chemistry has been run for over 1000 hours. Using such a scheme, we could bring a small unit to the surface of Mars which would then continuously make oxygen for life support, propellant use, or further processing. The only additional item we would need to supply is the power to run it: a 12kW unit would produce about one metric ton of oxygen per month.

This oxygen can be converted into water if we also bring a small supply of hydrogen. Since the molecular weight of hydrogen is 2 and the molecular weight of water is 18, we can leverage 2 kilograms of hydrogen into 18 kilograms of water. The mass savings would, at some manufacturing rate, pay back the mass of the oxygen production unit. After that, we would get water for only the price of getting the hydrogen to Mars.

If we choose to import hydrogen, there are other things we can do with it in addition to making water. A chemical reaction which converts CO2 into methane (CH4) was discovered in 1899. This is known as the Sabatier reaction. Along with the CO2, hydrogen is passed over a finely divided metal catalyst at an elevated temperature. Methane and water vapor are produced. By taking this water vapor and splitting it to obtain oxygen and hydrogen (which is recycled), we can completely convert the imported material into 4 times its mass of fuel. We also get the oxygen we need to burn this fuel in a rocket engine, fuel cell, or internal combustion engine. When combined with the production of additional oxygen via the zirconia process described above, only 4 kilograms of hydrogen can be converted into 72 kilograms of a rocket propellant mixture.

Other well known reactions have been practiced for decades which can also accomplish similar conversions. Fischer-Tropsch chemistry is practiced in the petrochemical industry in a variety of ways. It converts carbon monoxide and hydrogen into methane and water. The Bosch reaction can convert CO2 and hydrogen into carbon and water. The carbon could, perhaps, be used for advanced material production at an outpost once fabrication facilities are available.

Eventually, we will obtain water from the environment of Mars. We would then not need to make water from imported hydrogen. Indeed, we could turn the situation around and use this water as a source of hydrogen, thus continuing to utilize the chemical processing capabilities we have developed. For instance, it would be even more favorable to produce methane from the atmospheric CO2 and water derived hydrogen. This would require the production of much less water than if we switched the space transportation system to a hydrogen-oxygen propellant system. It is also much easier to liquefy methane than hydrogen.

With a large amount of hydrogen available, and a ready supply of CO2, we may consider going the next step and developing the ability to produce a large variety of products. If ethylene were produced from hydrogen and a carbon source, polyethylene can be made using technology available today. This material, or other carbon-based polymers, can then be extruded or molded to form habitats, furniture, pipes, and a variety of useful items. The petrochemical and natural gas industries can contribute a great deal of expertise in this area.

http://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/humanexplore/exploration/exlibrary/docs/isru/08Atmos.htm
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Terraforming of Mars
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Image: Artist’s conception of the process of terraforming Mars. The terraforming of Mars is the hypothetical process by which the climate, surface, and known properties of Mars would be deliberately changed with the goal of making it habitable by humans and other terrestrial life, thus providing the possibility of safe and sustainable colonization of large areas of the planet. The concept relies on the assumption that the environment of a planet can be altered through artificial means; the feasibility of creating a planetary biosphere is undetermined. There are several proposed methods, some of which present prohibitive economic and natural resource costs, and others which may be currently technologically achievable.

Reasons for terraforming

In many respects, Mars is the most earthlike of all the other planets in our Solar System. Indeed, it is thought that Mars once did have a more Earth-like environment early in its history, with a thicker atmosphere and abundant water that was lost over the course of hundreds of millions of years.

Future population growth and demand for resources may necessitate human colonization of objects other than Earth, such as Mars, the Moon, and nearby planets. Space colonization will facilitate harvesting the Solar System’s energy and material resources.

Image: Artist’s conception of Mars Terraformed. Additionally, in the event of a catastrophic extinction event, such as the meteor thought to have killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, Earth’s species, including humans, could live on this second habitable planet.

Click on the link below to continue reading this fascinating entry, updated on Wikipedia 1 Aug 2012.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars

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