Prospects for Oxygen-Breathers in Europa

An MSNBC news-bite covering a recent study by Richard Greenberg, long time Europa researcher, which quantifies the delivery of oxygen, produced by photolysis of surfaces ices, to the ocean beneath. The ocean seems to be highly oxygenated and, Greenberg estimates, able to support a macro-fauna mass of 3 million tons.

Kind of old news since I’ve discussed it before, but new to MSNBC. The juxtaposition of that news-bite with the arXiv-org blog’s coverage of this paper: A natural mechanism for l-homochiralization of prebiotic aminoacids …which explicates an elegant solution to the homochirality of biomolecules via convection around a deep-sea vent. Yes, as simple as that. Apparently amino acid crystals, alanine for example, form slightly larger crystals in one mirror-form than the other. That disparity is enough for one chirality to accumulate in excess, then gradually convert the other form into its own chiral state. Easy.

And Europa’s chief heat-source? Deep-sea vents, or the equivalent thereof.

Beyond “Icarus”


Where we’re at and where we’re going. Alpha Centauri, resolved into A & B, as seen by “Cassini” from orbit around Saturn.

After we send the probes, like “Icarus”, the next step is going ourselves to live in those new planetary systems we’ve explored remotely. To get there IMO we’ll need to go en masse in one of these…

Rick Sternbach worked with Robert Enzmann on the Enzmann starship design and it’s quite an impressive concept – you’ll see different iterations here from time to time. Basically use the fuel & its tank for forward shielding and make it really, really huge. We’re looking at 12 million tons of deuterium propellant in one of those spherical ‘slush’ tanks. With a mass-ratio of ~20-150 the delta-vee is ~3-5 times the exhaust velocity, which itself can push ~0.06c or more.

Of course some kind of materials break-through might change the basic concept. We’ve looked at Ultra-Dense Deuterium (UDD) here before – ‘collapsed’ deuterium that’s 1 million times denser than its ice-phase. The huge Enzmann main-tank could shrink 100-fold in all dimensions and hold the same amount of deuterium in that state – if it remained stable in bulk. The collapse of deuterium also releases potential energy and might explain “cold fusion”, with some fusions occurring because of the extreme density to produce the observed radiation from “cold fusion” reactions.

But with UDD we could do really “wild” things with the propellant and even the basic fusion rocket concept. Imagine a massively ‘cellular’ rocket, which throws off (or consumes) tanks and engines as its mass-ratio declines. Robert Goddard used such a design for his 1920 Moon rocket concept that attracted so much ‘negative’ publicity. With such mass-ratios could push 1000-10,000 or so. That’s 7-10 times the exhaust velocity for the delta-vee – heading towards 0.6c delta-vee.

One of my areas of “Icarus” research will be investigating the potential for braking a fusion vehicle without using propellant via a ‘magneto-plasma sail’ or a ‘magnetic sail’. If such were proven workable, then our extreme mass-ratio rocket could cruise between the stars at 0.5-0.6c – pretty damn good performance for a mere fusion rocket. The more I learn about the difficulties of high-energy propulsion, the more such speeds seem fantastic – in both senses of the word. Yet difficult goals drive novel thinking – or should.

I Dream of the City

I dream of a City, but not like any we know in our Time. This City is more like a forest – of crystal columns, thinking inscrutable thoughts. But the City is powerful – it reaches across all Times, drawing people to It. It exists, as a Boundary or Guardian, at the Side-ways limit of Time. It’s the most extreme version of Planet Earth – an entire world that has formed, against extreme improbability, a singular Intelligence, the City. All of the Earth is the City, from the organised crystalline iron of its core, to the whispering computing gas that doubles for an atmosphere. While It is an Intelligence, it is made of trillions of trillions of minds, thus why it draws sentients from across all the Earths. And its electromagnetic thoughts are linked across the Mindful Galaxy and Meta-Galaxy. It lives in a cosmic Ocean of dreaming, collected from all the Universes, which (via hyperspace? Plato’s Intelligible World?) come from all the possible Universes that the City encompasses as the Limit, collecting them and preserving them as the Guardian of all Worlds.

I dream of visiting that Earth, the City, walking through its warm Thinking sands, listening to the quiet whispers of thought in the atmosphere, looking at a trillion Dreams turned into scintillating sparkles in the Forest of Crystal as the Sun showers it in sensations of a trillion trillion minds.

What strange constellations grace its skies? What stories do the Stars tell when all are Alive and talking, discussing, discoursing and even arguing?

What strange Beings walk the streets of a World made of thoughts?

In my dream, the City speaks to me with one Voice, though surely it is but a infintesimal fragment of its Intelligence that addresses me, but I sense something of its multiplicity. The Voice is clear, beautiful and alien yet somehow familiar – perhaps this is how Reason would sound if given a Voice.

The City tells me I have a question of it, that it can only answer when I know what it is…

What’s the question?

The Night Land (II)

Part (I)

William Hope Hodgson’s “The Night Land” is a perfect example of fin de cicle, end of the World, style writing from the end of the old naive belief in progress and bellicose sabre-rattling that had marked progressive thought in Europe’s 19th-early 20th Centuries. The Dark Clouds of War were gathering, but many responded with what is seen today a grotesque blood-lust and romantic view of war. Their disillusionment during the events of 1914-1918, and their continuance in 1939-1945, reshaped the way we view the world utterly. Communism and Fascism, the Death of Empires, and the Atomic Age all sprang out of that Dual Hecatomb of Nations.

In the post-War Era we’re in now, or rather post-Ideological war. Wars we have a plenty, but they’re all nakedly exertions of power by the powerful against the not-so powerful, not death-struggles for dominance by the more-or-less evenly matched.

The appeal of “The Night Land” isn’t hard to understand in that light. Here’s a prime example of its fandom…

“The Night Land”

…with a couple of anthologies for sale and all sorts of trivia, academic studies and so forth. A typical sub-set.

Imitation is the best kind of flattery, especially when the imitation is better. Greg Bear’s “City at the End of Time” is consciously akin to “The Night Land”, evocative of many of its scenes, but in many ways a bigger, better story. Complex, even daunting, but a brilliant tale of the end of the Multiverse.

Paul March discusses his work on Mach Effect

Talk-Polywell.org :: View topic – Mach Effect progress.

The Mach Effect is a propellantless propulsion concept developed from the physics of gravity by Prof. James Woodward, now being investigated experimentally by him and Paul March, an experimental physicist.

Paul is very open and very active about the difficulties and challenges of getting a clear, unambiguous experimental signature of the Mach Effect. To achieve thrust a potential ME thruster has to shuttle back and forth energy very quickly and in Paul’s case he’s using capacitors to do so. Problem is that all the voltage involved means other processes can produce a measurable effect too – disentangling the data into its sources is very tricky.

Let’s step into the “Twilight Zone” of speculation and ask what an ME thruster can do. According to Prof. Woodward and Paul, the thruster generates a reaction force against the gravitational mass of the whole Universe via ‘advanced’ propagation of changes in the gravitation of mass-energy. This means a moving system gains its energy from the Universe as a whole and essentially “for free” – the energy cost comes from shifting around mass-energy sufficiently quickly to produce the Effect.

If an ME Thruster could produce 1 N/kW what could that do? Presently in-space power sources are pushing towards power-densities of ~5kg/kW – suppose the ship+thruster+power plant gets ~1 kW/10 kg and the MET needs 1 kW/N. Thus a 200 ton vehicle with 200 MW power produces 20 kN thrust and will accelerate at 0.1 m/s2. How quickly does that get to the stars?

For constant acceleration the equation, in Earth’s reference frame, is…

t2 = (4.s/a) + (s/c)2 ,where s is the displacement, a acceleration, c lightspeed. If we make c = 1, t in years and s in light-years then this simplifies to…

t2 = (4.k.s/a) + (s)2

…where k is 9.5 m/ly (i.e. light-year/year2 = 299,792,458 (m.s/ly)/(31,557,600s))

Simple! Ok sort of. In hard numbers, for 0.1 m/s2, that’s Alpha Centauri in 40.8 years and 24.7 ly in the 100 year maximum timeframe of “Project Icarus”. A real star-drive.

As Paul March & Jim Woodward are first to remind us, as yet an unproven method of propulsion, but with a lot of potential if they can demonstrate it.

Jupiter lost a cloud stripe IV

Ah… this is apparently a regular occurance on Jupiter…

Jupiter has lost a belt! …By Emily Lakdawalla

…referencing Astro Bob here…

Jupiter loses one of its belts

…who tells us the following…

So here’s the surprise. That bad boy south equatorial belt (SEB) has completely faded away. Point your scope at the planet any morning soon and you’ll see only one obvious dark stripe, the North Equatorial Belt. Jupiter with only one belt is almost like seeing Saturn when its rings are edge-on and invisible for a time — it just doesn’t look right.

The SEB is one of the most active areas on the planet for weather changes. Every 3-15 years, the belt, which is normally dark reddish-brown in color and typically divided in two by the south equatorial belt zone, fades from view. After some weeks or months a brilliant white spot forms within that zone and begins spouting dark blobs of material which get stretched into filaments and ovals by Jupiter’s fierce winds into a new SEB. Within a few weeks (or longer) the belt is back and Jupiter presents its familiar dual “tire track” appearance through a telescope.

…seems we can expect the SEB to return to its colourful self in a while. Does make one wonder just what is going on deep down in Jupiter to create such wonders.

Jupiter lost a cloud stripe III

The image above is Jupiter seen through a different spectral filter, and as you can see the bands defined by CH4 (methane) absorption are still as prominent as ever. This indicates the change in visible light colours is due to some trace compound that normally colours the clouds – but what?

NB Notice how bright the Great Red Spot is – almost no/almost all methane spectral presence to be so bright? Can anyone tell me what a CH4 filter shows? The presence or absence of methane? Either way that makes the GRS very, very curious.

Jupiter lost a cloud stripe II

Jupiter lost a cloud stripe, new photos reveal – Space.com- msnbc.com.

Jupiter’s missing stripe might be related to this…

The impact of a large object with Jupiter in July 2009
Authors: A. Sánchez-Lavega, A. Wesley, G. Orton, R. Hueso, S. Perez-Hoyos, L. N. Fletcher, P. Yanamandra-Fisher, J. Legarreta, I. de Pater, H. Hammel, A. Simon-Miller, J. M. Gomez-Forrellad, J. L. Ortiz, E. García-Melendo, R. C. Puetter, P. Chodas
(Submitted on 13 May 2010)

Abstract: On 2009 July 19, we observed a single, large impact on Jupiter at a planetocentric latitude of 55^{\circ}S. This and the Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) impacts on Jupiter in 1994 are the only planetary-scale impacts ever observed. The 2009 impact had an entry trajectory opposite and with a lower incidence angle than that of SL9. Comparison of the initial aerosol cloud debris properties, spanning 4,800 km east-west and 2,500 km north-south, with those produced by the SL9 fragments, and dynamical calculations of pre-impact orbit, indicate that the impactor was most probably an icy body with a size of 0.5-1 km. The collision rate of events of this magnitude may be five to ten times more frequent than previously thought. The search for unpredicted impacts, such as the current one, could be best performed in 890-nm and K (2.03-2.36 {\mu}m) filters in strong gaseous absorption, where the high-altitude aerosols are more reflective than Jupiter’s primary cloud.

What’s Wrong With Jupiter?

Jupiter loses a stripe – 11 May 2010 – New Scientist.

Losing a stripe seems rather careless for a Giant Planet, but that’s what Jupiter has done. Why? First let’s look at what Jupiter’s bands are made of. The white, almost featureless cloud deck that has replaced the stripe is composed probably of ammonia ice-clouds and virtually all the cloud on Jupiter is the same. Neither hydrogen or helium can condense as clouds on Jupiter so most of the atmosphere is actually clear gas. The small fraction of gases that can condense do all the colouring and feature-making on all the gas giants.

Neptune & Uranus generally show very few clouds because they’re too cold for hydrogen compounds like methane, ammonia and water to condense at visible levels – only occasional methane ice clouds provide most of the visible features. Saturn is a bit warmer, but it seems to be “blanded out” because of the cold too. More visible clouds appear, but deeper in the atmosphere and so they’re more obscure.

Jupiter has a richer palette because it is warmer. We’ve met the immense ammonia ice-cloud canvas, but adding colour are trace organic, phosphorus and sulfur compounds. These produce the sometime vivid colours dredged up from deep down in Jupiter’s innards. Now it seems the source of colour has shifted or has been depleted and one of Jupiter’s colour bands is gone.

SO why the shift? We really don’t know. Jupiter is being mysterious and any “explanation” is currently just speculation, informed or otherwise. No doubt wacky theories will emerge to ‘muddy’ the picture, but there’s no way of knowing without actually going…