Starship Asterisk*

Also in a way it is good that no lifeforms have been found in the Solar System. It means that we don't have to worry about protecting any precious ecosystems on Mars or anywhere. Environmental concerns are less relevant when considering human activity on these rocks.

I am an amateur sci fi cartoonist so my interest in these subjects is as much imagination as actual science, but I think I'm quite sensible about it. My personal bet is that there are no extra-terrestrial lifeforms in this solar system, but exactly how many systems have them is anyone's guess. - Lif...

Paint three dots in a line on a balloon, and then blow it up. If you call the first dot your reference, the nearer dot will be moving away from that reference slower than the farther dot. Does it somehow take more energy to produce that increased speed? No. When space expands, and carries material ...

There is no "lightspeed barrier"; there is a restriction on transmitting information faster than c. It is also impossible to accelerate one massive object to greater than c with respect to another (as doing so would require infinite energy). Neither of these conditions is violated by two ...

Not when we are talking about the expansion of spacetime. Once two points are moving away from each other greater than c, they are causally disconnected. That's what defines the observable Universe- our horizon is the point where the edge, and everything beyond it, are moving faster than c with res...

What moves faster than light? I've always imagined tugging a cord of an inflexible substance a lightyear long and sending a message to someone at the other end simultneously. I don't know much about string theory but could you tweak one of them thar superstrings and influence something lightyears aw...

What about the results that suggested particles could travel faster than light? Was Einstein wrong?

I've found some evidence of the damage black holes can do on Earth (sadly the image isn't very good. I think the copyright owners are overzealous) http://victoria.rasc.ca/events/2007/2007.01.10-MarkAdams-ppt_files/slide0200_image151.gif The caption should read: Suddenly, through forces not yet fully...

The terrible vixen is rushing home to feed her foxlings and will fight the giants, she will. She has stolen their chickens.

It sorta looks to me like a pebble on a sandcastle that prevents rain erosion directly beneath it, causing a stalagmite-like object. What the pebble's made of though is another question. ... Aaah aparently it's a Bok globule. I know what it is. It's a crystal ball consulted by giants in the sky, sit...

Then I'm sure you can find H₂O, O₂ and N₂ for an atmosphere. All you need then is food, which would have to be foul-tasting muck with some hydroponically-grown vegetables.

Thank you. Of course you mention Mg and Fe which could be used in alloys to build the hulls of spacecraft and space stations, perhaps?

I would be happy to answer any other questions people may have! Ok then. What minerals do you see that might be worth mining? I'm a sci-fi artist so I'm thinking centuries in the future when it would be economically feasible and all that. Would minerals like gold have seams like they do on Earth or...

Beyond wrote:The polarizing microscope picture really looks somewhat psychedelic.

Vesta Rocks, baby! Yes she does!
Even her acne scars are 'cause
She's totally blown away (well half of her)

Hmm maybe needs work

Sorry, hip shooting at costs. NASA estimate $1.5 TRILLION per Shuttle launch over the life of the programme, but $500 MILLION at the end when all the non-recurring costs are paid. Sounds like a rip off. Somebody's skimming some money along the way. If it were worth sending something up to the Phobo...

Of course there are female names like Venus, Ceres and 4 Vesta.

Maybe by then we'll have actual names for planet-hosting stars, so that 55 Cancri A might become, say, Draupadi, and the 5 planets could be named after the mythical Draupadi's 5 sons: Prativindhya, Sutasoma, Srutakirti, Satanika, and Srutasena. The trouble with that idea is that you might find a si...

If we got to know the Alpha Centauri system well with several planets, they might start to be named after mythology like Jupiter and Mars. Fenrir's a good name, a monstrous norse wolf that bit off the hand of Tyr (after whom Tuesday is named).

Does anybody know the latest on the hunt for exoplanets in the Alpha Centauri system? I do a web-search and don't find any recent news. What if you find several exoplanets in the same system but you don't find them in the right order so that, say, in Alpha Centauri, you have AC-Bb further out from A...

What's more, what is the point of such a mission? Obviously scientific data is one important reason, but what is the point of science? Surely it's for the whole human race, including laypeople.

Well it's a shame. Most of the pictures of Mars that you get are recreated from computer models and just don't look right. They look like a computer game or something. Vesta and Ceres will look the same, like a piece of CGI plastic. At least with them, you won't need to model an atmosphere with clou...

No no no, I'm afraid that would be inefficient and inaccurate. He would also die and it might be messy.

Poo. A $150 digital camera from Dick Smith can take pictures in colour. Couldn't they just gaffertape one of them on? Also, one of these articles mentions that the framing camera has only a million pixels. A cheap digital camera nowadays can do 8 megapixels. Surely you just need a USB port on the pr...

I'm sure terraforming Mars would takes centuries and that the consideration given to controlling the climate of Mars and Earth will be mutually beneficial. If it were possible, and of course it remains in the realms of science fiction, the Mars atmosphere would have to be continually monitored and r...

Thanks but I'm still confused. The example in the article has only black and white and false colour. It also seems to imply that filters are only used as scientific instruments and not to create true-colour images. Certainly when I test the hex value of colours in a Vesta image, they are all mathema...