From the Orient

The BBC report that Hubble has detected an exceptionally old planet gives rise to the possibility that ancient civilisations have grown and died many times in the universe.

The description of what has happened to this particular planet reminds me of the Red Dwarf episode “White Hole”:http://www.sadgeezer.com/RedDwarf/epis4-04.htm where Lister plays pool with planets.

bq. For a long time, it would have led an uneventful existence in the crowded heart of a globular cluster, almost undetectable from the outside.

bq. Then along came a binary star system consisting of a neutron star and a white dwarf. Both are small, compact stars.

bq. In the gravitational tussle that followed, the white dwarf was ejected, and the normal star took its place. The planet found itself orbiting both remaining stars.

bq. The expulsion of the white dwarf caused, according to Newton’s law, the other stars, and the planet, to recoil in the opposite direction.

[Currently listening to The Same Boy You've Always Known by The White Stripes from the album White Blood Cells]

A pretty good history of humans pathetic attempts to get to Mars. Of course, I’ve not been there myself, wouldn’t want to get on Sutekh’s bad side.

However, it misses out vital information on the lumbering reptiles, the Ice Warriors and “how the British landed on Mars in 1999″:http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/ebooks/dyingdays/

The Nine Planets is a reference guide for all the solar system’s objects, with plenty of information on the planets and their moons.

Where is the International Space Station?

In space is my guess. Were you right?

China are planning to explore the Moon

bq. The lunar program, named Chang’e after a legend about a fairy that visits the moon, would be in three phases. First an orbiter would be sent to the Moon, followed by a lander, and then finally a sample return craft.

I’m glad that whilst the US flounder and the Russians run out of money, China is taking up the space exploration batton. Europe currently doesn’t have a rocket to send anything into space, and US obviously have the Space Shuttle disaster to worry about.

Link to Google News related articles

I find it quite inditing of today’s climate that all the news programs explicitly have to rule out terrorism as the cause of the accident.

‘Aerodynamics May Explain Space Shuttle Breakup’

Jeffrey Kluger: There are three possible scenarios that explain this event. The first, which I believe is the likeliest explanation, would be an aerodynamic structural breakup of the shuttle caused by it rolling at the wrong angle. Remember, after reentry, the shuttle is descending without power, which means astronauts at the controls can’t compensate for a loss of attitude by using the engines, they can only do so using the flaps. And that’s extremely hard. Astronauts describe piloting the shuttle on reentry as like trying to fly a brick with wings. It’s very difficult to operate, and even more so to correct any problems.

A second explanation might be a loss of tiles leading to a burn-through. (The shuttle is covered with heat-resistant tiles to protect the craft and those inside it from burning up in the scorching temperatures caused by the friction of reentry.) But I think that explanation is unlikely, because the tile-loss would have had to have been quite substantial for that to become possible. You’ll hear a lot in the next few days about things falling off the shuttle during liftoff. But it often happens that they lose a few tiles, and I’d be surprised if it happened on a scale that could make an accident of this type possible.

The last option is some kind of engine failure leading to fuel ignition. Although the main tanks are mostly empty, there should still be fuel left in the maneuvering tanks. But probably not enough for an explosion that could have caused this breakup.

My thoughts are with the families of the astronauts who lost their lives today.

• Fark.com Debrie for sale on ebay (pulled)
• Crash showing up on Weather Radar Image [Dave's Handsome Radio Blog!]
• Matt Croydon’s summary of links
• Bill Humphries: “Writing from the Starbucks down the street from my dad’s in Dallas. We heard the sonic boom around 8am.”
• My earlier link