Category Archives: Space

Space Laundry

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Did you know, that as of right now, astronauts cannot do laundry in space??

According to the article here, In these modern times in which we are living, the astronauts wear their clothes for a few days. Then when they (the clothes) get too dirty or stinky. they (the astronauts) throw them (the clothes) away and use new clothes. No laundry! There’s no way for them to do laundry in space! Who’d a ever thunk it? It’s also more difficult to bathe in space. Oh, the things they didn’t tell us in space camp…

So finally they’re going to develop a laundry system for space. You can read it in the article linked above, it’s fascinating.

I wonder what the difference between space soap and Earth soap is??

In more space news, a photographer in Virginia, USA captured the International Space Station transiting the sun on June 25th. You can read that article here. That article is even cooler than the space soap one.

And in local news, I woke up this morning to 100% cloud cover and steady rain, a rare phenomenon here. Most of the time our rain is very localized. Isolated showers from a single cloud floating by, spewing water only underneath it. Usually it rains everywhere except here in West Bay too. It is good to have the rain because we really really needed it.

I hope you have a wonderful day, Stay dry!

Delayed Post

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I’m late posting this morning. I was reading a really good article about the Mars Perseverance Rover with a very good collection of pictures. See it HERE. Worth the look.

I’m glad it’s Friday.

Now I’m going to go back and look at the Mars pics and maybe actually read the article.

Havva Goot Veekend!

Imagine….

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…living on the far side of the moon your whole life, never knowing there was a huge planet out of sight on the other side of the globe beneath your feet.

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What if you were an astronomer living on the far side of the  moon, trying to explain why the sun behaved so strangely, not aware that it was the moon acting under the influence of Earths gravity?

On the moon, there is only one sunrise and sunset per month, and the stars are always visible, even in daytime. The sky is always black and full full full of stars, probably more stars than we’ve ever seen on Earth. You’d see all of the planets we see, except Earth.

Think what it would be like, living on the far side of the moon.

Weather Week,

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I guess this week I’m posting about the weather. Today I’m taking the scooter, first time in a long time.

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I actually see blue in the sky. Not enough blue to make a fat man a pair of pants, but some blue. More than in a long time.
My Navy friend said his Mom used to say that if there’s enough blue in the sky to make a fat man a pair of pants, the weather is going to clear up.

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Lets hope so.

Three astronauts are on their way back to earth right now this minute. Among them is a woman who set a new record by spending 200+ days in space. Here’s a LINK.

Have a pleasant day.

The Coolest Thing Ever

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v1I think this is one of the coolest things humanity has done or ever and maybe ever will do. I think these four spacecraft, (two Voyagers and two Pioneers), may very well exist longer than the human race itself.

Voyager 1 Probe May Have Left Solar System

Earth’s most distant spacecraft detected a sharp change in the intensity of fast-moving charged particles called cosmic rays, suggesting it had left the outermost reaches of the heliosphere marking the edge of the solar system. “Within just a few days, the heliospheric intensity of trapped radiation decreased, and the cosmic ray intensity went up as you would expect if it exited the heliosphere,” said Bill Webber, professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University

The scientists still don’t know for sure, however, whether the probe has entered interstellar space or if it remains in a mysterious in-between region Voyager team members first discovered a few months ago.

“It’s outside the normal heliosphere, I would say that,” said Professor Webber.

Article From HERE.

One of my favorite websites where I have been monitoring the Voyagers and the Pioneers is HERE. This website is also the best for getting info on viewing satellites in Earth orbit that you can see with the naked eye EVERY NIGHT! It’s called Heavens Above

Asteroid Flyby

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This big rock flying through space is going to buzz the Earth the day after Valentines Day. It will pass closer than our man made satellites for GPS. Kind of like a car flying off the highway into your yard, passing between the house and the swingset but (hopefully) missing everything.

Just FYI.

4179 Toutatis ASStroid asteroid-flyby

Science I Don’t Believe. A Loada Hooie!

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Martian black_beauty_fullScientists have determined a meteorite discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2011 is about 2.1 billion years old and could be the first meteorite to come from the surface of Mars.

Article from HERE.

Sorry, I don’t buy it. No way does a rock from one planet leave that planet, float through space, then land on another. I just don’t buy it. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I don’t believe happened and I don’t think there is sufficient proof.

So here’s the theory: A meteor hits another planet, Mars for example. The big explosion throws some Mars rocks out into space. In my uneducated opinion, a meteor striking a planet with enough force to throw rock into space would have to be powerful enough to almost destroy the whole planet. Or a volcano shoots some rocks all the way into outer space (my feeble, uneducated brain doesn’t think this is possible at all).

These rocks then attain escape velocity (for the planet Mars), float to Earth, survive burning through Earths atmosphere, and land on the ground. I don’t buy it because first of all, I don’t think a meteor impact or volcano would eject rock into space. Mars has pretty decent gravity and atmosphere (the escape velocity for Earth, if my grade school science memory serves me correctly, is something like 28,000 miles per hour, I’m sure it’s less on Mars, but still up there).

Secondly, any Mars rocks small and light enough to be ejected into space would not be large enough to survive falling through Earths atmosphere.

Thirdly, even if it did happen, there’s no way  to know that it is from Mars..If you could prove that it’s from another planet, which you can’t, because this rock doesn’t seem very unique, you couldn’t prove it was from Mars. It might be from Ork, where Mork is from. Even then, maybe he brought it with him, and it didn’t magically fly from planet to planet.

Mork N Mindy_400I don’t believe it. If you want to prove to me that the above rock came from Mars, then show me on Mars the exact spot that rock came from. Show me the hole in a Mars rock that the above rock fits into perfectly, like a piece from a puzzle. Then I’d believe it.

Oh yeah, and lastly. Even if it happened all the time, and Mars rocks were just raining down on Earth, why would scientists claim that this could be the FIRST Mars rock to land on Earth, where did this idea come from. “Could be” is right, “could be” is most pertinent words in the article. A loada hooie, I tellya!