The curious case of Triton4/23/2018 This is Neptune's moon Triton. It was first discovered by William Lassell in 1846. It was found just 17 days after Neptune and the first of Neptune's moons to be discovered. It is one of only 5 moons in the solar system though to be geologically active, it has the coldest surface temperature in our solar system (at-235c/-391f) and is the only moon in our solar system with a retrograde orbit (traveling in an opposite rotation to its planet). The reason Triton travels in a rotation contrary to Neptune is because it did not form with the planet. It originally belonged in the Kuiper Belt (like Pluto) and was captured by the planet. Though it looks like a dirty snowball left over at the end of winter, Triton is a pretty interesting place...actually it was considered one of the most interesting satellites in the solar system until we discovered that the moons of Jupiter as well as Saturn had sub-surface oceans and then Triton was overshadowed by an abundance of water-worlds. Terry Hurford, planetary Scientist at NASA, examined Triton and believes that it is also hiding a sub-surface ocean. Hurford is hopeful that we will revisit Triton with our scientific instruments in the near future. Much of this information about Triton comes from the Voyager 2 spacecraft which did a quick flyby of the moon in 1989. The New Horizons spacecraft did a flyby of Neptune and Triton exactly 25 years later, on its way to Pluto, but didn't get close enough to get much data. Aside from those short lived and near-by visitations, we have only been able to get to know Triton from our Earth based telescopes.
They see things beyond that which exists in the evidence. Connections are drawn between ink blots, as the inventor formulates an image that isn't there. This ability to create a basis for believing without a reason, or perhaps without the faculty of reason, reminds me of the Dunning-Kruger Effect which is a cognitive bias where below-average individuals mistake their intelligence as being above-average because of how little they actually know. When there is so little data on a place, just some old photos taken in the dark of space on a 1980s digital camera and some basic qualitative data, it is possible to infer but improbable to do so accurately. Certainly there could be life on Triton but probably it is not intelligent and we have no reason to presuppose so. If there were evidence of intelligent aliens, or whatever, on Triton, or wherever, how would you separate the truth from the speculation which saturates the environment? is the truth still out there? Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/ (Triton)... https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/... http://www.seasky.org/... http://www.astronomy.com/... https://www.space.com/... https://www.astrobio.net/... http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/... https://www.nasa.gov/... https://gizmodo.com/... https://science.nasa.gov/... https://www.youtube.com/ (Proof of alien life)... https://www.youtube.com/ (Triton is inhabited)... https://www.youtube.com/ (Massive structures on triton)... http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/... https://www.metimeforthemind.com/... http://mysteriousuniverse.org/... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ (Dunning-Kruger)... http://www.patheos.com/...
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Beneath the ice in the salty ocean4/21/2018 Meet Europa. It is the smallest of Jupiter's four moons which were discovered by Galileo. Europa is smaller than Earth's moon(~65%), but larger than Pluto. It's surface is a thick layer of smooth but scarred ice, obscuring an ocean underneath which is able to remain liquid due to the tidal flexing between the moon and the planet. Scientists think that there is an ocean of salty water located just beneath the surface due to a special magnetic field that Europa has, which was measured by the Galileo Mission. NASA's preliminary plans for reaching the saline moon, The Europa Clipper, could allow us to touch the icy surface as soon as the 2030s, at the same time that we are hopefully in the beginning stages of getting people to Mars. The reason Europa is so interesting is because that liquid ocean is very similar to sub-glacial lakes that have been found on earth and it is thought to be old enough for life to have evolved there. In the timespan of roughly 400 years, we could go from discovering a celestial body to having found life on it. That is truly amazing and a credit to all of the people who have built made it a possibility, many of them working on thankless tasks but for an amazing cumulative effect. Of course there are many people today who suggest that such missions into space are a waste of money, resources, time. We have a collective legacy as explorers, often fraught with the terrible actions of colonialism, but this is a legacy that we should continue and improve as we extend our reach into outer space. With reasonable certainty we can say that life exists outside of our planet, but without finding evidence of it we can never be absolutely certain. As we venture forth, it will be a search for more than life but for scientific discovery in general which will ultimately give us insight into our own planet, about the origins of our solar system, the galaxy and our universe. Research and development created for these ventures will also give us new technologies that could make life on Earth better and more sustainable. Trying to see, to understand and to touch ever farther beyond our planet is a heroic task that will ultimately aid the survival of our species. Is the truth still out there? Photo Of Europa taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft and found on page 115 of Der Weltraum by Klett and located in the Bibliothek Andreas Zust. Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/... https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/... https://www.space.com/ (Life?)... https://www.space.com/ (Facts)... https://www.youtube.com/... https://www.popsci.com/ (Europa Lander)... https://www.independent.co.uk/... https://www.popsci.com/ (Seafaring robots)... https://www.outerplaces.com/... https://phys.org/... Broken pillars4/15/2018
Each Nebula is a nursery which becomes a factory, exploding to become another nursery and so on. We don't see them as they are, we see them as they were, and so we can't see their truth, or any truth outside of our localized region of space/time. Stars go nova, planets are broken, celestial bodies are created, and perhaps life begins again but we can only see things as they were. So how do we find the truth without first hand experience? Either we devise ways of gaining first hand experience or we calculate the most probable outcome based on what we can devise with currently available knowledge, expecting that the prediction is the likely truth. ... Image from page 104 of 'Das Hubble Universum' by Fischer, located in the Bibliothek Andreas Zust. For example, take the "Pillars of Creation" from the Eagle Nebula shown in the image above. According to data from the Spitzer Telescope, the pillars may have been destroyed by an exploding supernova however the visual evidence (light) of that cosmological event will not reach us on Earth for another millennium.
Maybe we wont always be able to discover the absolute truth, but through curiosity, investigation, perseverance as well as space/time, regardless of our position on earth or in the universe, there is no reason why we cannot deduce the truth which aligns closest with reality in all facets of life. Is the truth still out there? Playlist for an Interstellar Road Trip4/12/2018 This is an Artist's concept image of the Voyager spacecraft from page 224 of the book Planeten monde ringsysteme by Engelhardt located in the Bibliothek Andreas Zust.
When we see an image like this, we imagine it as a movie frame taken from real life. A still shot taken out in space of the real object whizzing by planets and other celestial bodies. It's not a photo but still, there is an inherent believability and reality contained within its frame. Images like this, but also real images of the ships we have sent beyond the earth remind me that even if no extraterrestrial is visiting our planet, that we are in fact the aliens who are piloting the UFOs beyond our own. There is much nationalism and conservatism happening in countries around the world fueled by "locals" on one side who oppose aliens on the other, but the fact is that we can all be aliens somewhere and with enough time we can all be locals. The definitions that we assign to ourselves and each other are fluid depending on relationships and context, so what is the point of assigning them in the first place? Is the truth still out there? M.P.BronsteinA scientist who exists outside of the time-space continuum, looking for the truth, but unsure if it still exists or if it has become extinct. ArchivesCategories
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