Carnival of Space 141 – Panspermia and more

The Carnival of Space 141 is up at Starry Critters

This site contributed – powering and moving rubiks cube size satellites. MIT News – An electric propulsion technology for miniature satellites aims to give them more mobility — and may eventually allow them to take on deep-space missions.

This site also supplied an article on – SpaceX is assembling the Falcon 9 rocket and is targeting sometime around March 8, 2010 as the launch date.

Centauri Dreams discusses Michael Mautner’s paper that says that humanity has a obligation to proceed with directed panspermia, ensuring that life does not come to an end.

Ian O’Neill at Discover News also talks about Michael Mautner.

Michael Mautner, Research Professor of Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University, in a paper submitted to an upcoming issue of the Journal of Cosmology. Before the rich biosphere of Earth is dead, Mautner believes that we need to ship Earth Brand biology to suitable adopted homes so our evolutionary line has a chance to gain a foothold elsewhere in the universe.

“We have a moral obligation to plan for the propagation of life, and even the transfer of human life to other solar systems which can be transformed via microbial activity, thereby preparing these worlds to develop and sustain complex life,” Mautner said. “Securing that future for life can give our human existence a cosmic purpose.”

These are certainly lofty plans, but he proposes that we send a variety of basic organisms to “potentially fertile” worlds throughout the universe (to worlds from a few to over 500 light years away). Using early-Earth as an example, organisms like cyanobacteria could be sent to alien worlds to go into reproductive overdrive, feasting on toxic gases and releasing byproducts such as oxygen

Adam Crowl at crowlspace looks at Warming White Dwarfs with Dark Matter

Since the galaxy is expected to evolve to a state of being either white dwarfs or brown, then there will be about ~20 million solar luminosities worth of Dark Matter annihilation energy radiating from them until the Dark Matter runs out some time between 10^19 – 10^20 years from now.

The SETI implications are interesting – does it imply that civilizations with an extremely long-view will ultimately move into residence around white dwarfs? Such would live ~1-10 million times longer than red-dwarf based societies, which is quite impressive. Of course a mere 10^20 years is nothing compared to eternity…

Check out the The Carnival of Space 141 is up at Starry Critters for more

Carnival of Space 141 – Panspermia and more

The Carnival of Space 141 is up at Starry Critters

This site contributed – powering and moving rubiks cube size satellites. MIT News – An electric propulsion technology for miniature satellites aims to give them more mobility — and may eventually allow them to take on deep-space missions.

This site also supplied an article on – SpaceX is assembling the Falcon 9 rocket and is targeting sometime around March 8, 2010 as the launch date.

Centauri Dreams discusses Michael Mautner’s paper that says that humanity has a obligation to proceed with directed panspermia, ensuring that life does not come to an end.

Ian O’Neill at Discover News also talks about Michael Mautner.

Michael Mautner, Research Professor of Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University, in a paper submitted to an upcoming issue of the Journal of Cosmology. Before the rich biosphere of Earth is dead, Mautner believes that we need to ship Earth Brand biology to suitable adopted homes so our evolutionary line has a chance to gain a foothold elsewhere in the universe.

“We have a moral obligation to plan for the propagation of life, and even the transfer of human life to other solar systems which can be transformed via microbial activity, thereby preparing these worlds to develop and sustain complex life,” Mautner said. “Securing that future for life can give our human existence a cosmic purpose.”

These are certainly lofty plans, but he proposes that we send a variety of basic organisms to “potentially fertile” worlds throughout the universe (to worlds from a few to over 500 light years away). Using early-Earth as an example, organisms like cyanobacteria could be sent to alien worlds to go into reproductive overdrive, feasting on toxic gases and releasing byproducts such as oxygen

Adam Crowl at crowlspace looks at Warming White Dwarfs with Dark Matter

Since the galaxy is expected to evolve to a state of being either white dwarfs or brown, then there will be about ~20 million solar luminosities worth of Dark Matter annihilation energy radiating from them until the Dark Matter runs out some time between 10^19 – 10^20 years from now.

The SETI implications are interesting – does it imply that civilizations with an extremely long-view will ultimately move into residence around white dwarfs? Such would live ~1-10 million times longer than red-dwarf based societies, which is quite impressive. Of course a mere 10^20 years is nothing compared to eternity…

Check out the The Carnival of Space 141 is up at Starry Critters for more