geekosystem

As a race, we can't leave well enough alone. We need to look and prod and just generally be voyeurs of the entire universe, and that's been all right, since aliens haven't called us on it yet. So back in 1977, we sent out a space probe -- not the first, not the last -- that you might remember called Voyager 1. Its mission was to get a good look at the outer reaches of the Solar System. And so it was that today, in 1979, Voyager 1 made its closest approach to mighty Jupiter and snapped some amazing photos. Thousands, in fact. So what did we learn about the Jovian gas giant that constitutes the fifth planet from the Sun?

Searching for life on Mars is all the rage right now. We've covered the Curiosity rover mission quite a bit here at Geekosystem, because NASA shot a robot at a planet, landed it safely on the surface, and now that robot is drilling and sending back data. That's amazing. As amazing at it is, though, some scientists think we should be using our resources to look for life in a more likely spot -- Jupiter's moon Europa.

The map for seeking out life elsewhere in the cosmos may have just gotten a new must-have accessory. A new study from NASA suggests that having an asteroid belt like our own solar system's could be a key ingredient in the development of extraterrestrial life.

As you may recall, Jupiter and Venus have been putting on quite the show together as they pace each other across the night sky. For those of you that haven't seen some of the more dramatic conjunctions of these planetary bodies, Patrick Cullis has put together this beautiful time lapse video. What's more, he's pointed his camera above Boulder, Colorado's beautiful Flatiron rock formations. It's an unforgettable view.

Over the past few weeks, you might have noticed two bright lights in the night sky that stuck close to each other night after night. These weren't stars, but rather the planets Jupiter and Venus traversing across our view. On Sunday, the two planets lined up with our moon in a spectacular conjunction made all the better by Rick Ellis' multiple exposures, tracking the progress of the triplet as they make their way across the sky.

Our own moon is something of a dead, crater-ridden boulder careening around the Earth, doing little of interest in the meantime. Sure, it's got some interesting features and it probably has more than a few secrets left to be uncovered, but nothing is really going on up there. Jupiter's moons, on the other hand, tend to be a little more active. Io, for example, has a vast sulfur landscape and hundreds upon hundreds of active volcanoes. Now, for the first time, we have a full geologic map of the moon's surface, indexing all of its harsh alien glory, including 425 volcanoes and not a single crater.

Recently, planetary scientists at University of California, Berkeley, Hugh Wilson and Burkhard Militzer, performed an experiment wherein they dipped the material that helps make up Jupiter's core, magnesium oxide, into a hydrogen-helium fluid, which is at the heart of the planet. It turns out the magnesium oxide actually has a high solubility, which means Jupiter's rock could very well be liquifying, shrinking over time, which in turn suggests that Jupiter was even bigger at one point in time than it is now.

NASA is sending off the Juno spacecraft today on a mission to study the origin of Jupiter. From NASA:

Juno is slated to blast off atop an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket at 11:34 a.m. EDT (1534 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The forecast calls for a 70 percent chance of acceptable weather conditions for a Friday launch, NASA officials said, even though Tropical Storm Emily is making its way toward Florida's Space Coast.

According to the countdown clock, the launch is happening a little earlier than projected, but never fear, you can watch a live stream of the launch right here.

(via NASA)

NASA will launch LEGO figurines into space, for science! Well, maybe not for science. Mostly just because people who work at NASA enjoy LEGOs. NASA will launch the Atlas V rocket this Friday, containing the space probe Juno. Juno is being sent to Jupiter, with three little LEGO stowaways. The probe will have three LEGO figurines attached to it in the likenesses of the Roman gods Juno and Jupiter (of course), and the Italian astronomer Galileo. The figurines are made from aluminum instead of the standard LEGO plastic, and cost approximately $5,000 each, which is being paid for by LEGO. The idea to put the figurines on the probe was conceived of by NASA scientists who are big LEGO fans, and approached the company about sending the figures into space. According to LEGO, putting the figurines on the probe is a way to promote children's interest in the STEM programs.

While we tend to think of planets as orbiting stars, as in our own solar system, according to a recent survey of the Milky Way galaxy, the findings of which were published in the latest issue of Nature [paywalled], the universe may be abundant with rogue planets that drift alone through space, with no central star. The astronomers behind the survey discovered ten so-called "orphan planets" roughly the size of Jupiter at the heart of the Milky Way. But what's more interesting than the planets they discovered are the implications of their discovery: As the planets were discovered within a relatively small swath of the galaxy, it's likely, based on their 'population density,' that free-floating planets outnumber the stars.

We usually think of the other planets in our solar system as relatively peaceful, unchanging. It's sort of a "tree falls in the forest" situation. If there's no life, how active can they really be? The storm on Jupiter is a swirling maelstrom, sure, but it's a swirling maelstrom that's been around for over two hundred years.

And yet... spring is approaching the northern hemisphere of Mars, thawing the carbon dioxide ice that's built up along cliff faces. And when you get thawing ice on cliff faces, you also get...

Avalanches.