Science Tidbits 3

[Lupine]

A pretty mind-blowing article about possible art from Trinil. Our ancient ancestors (and their brethren) have been seriously underestimated. These finds really do end the notion that ancient hominids lacked the capacity for abstract thought (it became sexy for a while to think that Homo sapiens wiped out all other humans because they had the ability for abstract thought).
But putting bad theories to rest is one thing. Another is trying to imagine what these people were like. How much culture and learning and art have we lost over all those millennia?

[RJDiogenes]

They were "doodling." This was the beginning of the process that led to great art.

It's a shame that we'll never really completely know what they were like. Most of what they had was too perishable to survive. We'll only ever see a fraction of a percent of it. It's a shame that we can't just peek through time and observe them as they really were. Those little doodles led to everything we do.

[Lupine]

The guy from Bad Astronomy gives a sobering and critical look at the launch of Orion and the SLS.
For the most part I agree. I've been pretty pessimistic the last several years about the space program. We once walked on the moon and now we struggle even to get into orbit. And I can't help it, but going from Shuttle to 70s style launch systems does look like a backward step.

In more upbeat news New Horizons has woken up.

[RJDiogenes]

I completely agree. There's no need for NASA to be designing and building vehicles at this point. Private companies are quite capable of doing that better. If NASA just purchased their services, they would not only save a fortune but promote the infrastructure for a permanent civilian presence in space.

In more upbeat news New Horizons has woken up.

And it woke up to the theme from Enterprise. Only seven months to go before the flyby. It doesn't say when the first images will start coming back, though. It says that the active part of the mission will last for twenty weeks. If the closest encounter is in the middle of that, we should start getting pictures around the first of May.

[Lupine]

And with the encounter with Ceres I'm hoping 2015 will be an exciting year.

[RJDiogenes]

Oh, yeah, I'm dying to see Ceres. Not that Vesta wasn't cool, but Ceres is the king of the asteroids (and was called a planet for a while, like Pluto). Plus more news from Mars and on the Exoplanet front, so 2015 should be exciting indeed.

[Lupine]

I think Ceres is classified as a "dwarf planet" now, though that definition is borderline meaningless.

[RJDiogenes]

Yeah, it's in the same class as Pluto and three or four other KBOs. But it's also still an asteroid. That whole planet definition thing is a fiasco.

[Lupine]

Kepler is discovering planets again!

[RJDiogenes]

Beat me to it. My Exoplanet app pinged me with this news today. It's a Super-Earth, but it's way inside the equivalent orbit of Mercury. Way too toasty for life. But it's great to see that Kepler is still going like the Energizer Bunny.

[Lupine]

^It's the best news to come out of space in a while.

And speaking of exo-planets here's a backyard project to put all others to shame . If I had a good camera and a better telescope mount I just might try this.

[RJDiogenes]

That's pretty amazing. It's nice to know that amateur astronomers are able to get in on the Exoplanet action. Now I'm wondering what took us so long to start finding these things.

[Lord_Plecostomus]

That's pretty amazing. It's nice to know that amateur astronomers are able to get in on the Exoplanet action. Now I'm wondering what took us so long to start finding these things.

Camera resolution and signal processing power. We hit the right combination finally and BAM.

Now we need to get the FTL thing down so we can go visit them.

[RJDiogenes]

Sadly, I am not so optimistic about FTL. I think the only way to go to the stars within a human lifetime is to increase the human lifetime.

[Lupine]

I'm a bit more optimistic about possibly side-stepping Relativity someday. And even if it isn't it's certainly worth the try.