Going To Mars

A new study of the radiation risks to astronauts on an 860-day round trip mission to Mars, including 500 days on the planet's surface, suggests those risks are manageable.  This study is not the final word on the subject, of course, but it is encouraging to advocates of manned missions into deep space.

Another factor: Radiation is dangerous to humans because it can cause cancer.  If the treatment of cancer advances over the next several years to the point that at least most cancers have become manageable diseases, as some experts project, a higher risk of cancer by the time we are ready to send people to Mars might become acceptable.

China In Lunar Orbit

China's Moon probe, Chang'e 3, has successfully entered lunar orbit about 60 miles above the surface.

Chang'e 3 is scheduled to make a soft landing on the Moon and deploy a rover.

Huge Exoplanet Found

Astronomers have discovered a world 11 times more massive than Jupiter.  It's also young-- only 13 million years old and still radiating heat from its formation.

The real kicker, though, is that it's 650 times more distant from its parent star than Earth is from the Sun.  How such a huge world formed way out there is a mystery.

Exoplanet Water

Researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope have found trace amounts of water in the atmospheres of five exoplanets.

All five are so-called hot Jupiters, so none is a good candidate for being an abode of life, but demonstrating the ability to detect water in the atmosphere of an exoplanet is a step forward in the search for life.

SpaceX Success

SpaceX has successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket on a commercial mission, putting a communications satellite into orbit.

The launch was delayed a few days because a computer had detected a problem with one of the rocket engines.

Lunar Ring

The Japanese construction firm Shimizu is suggesting building a 250-mile wide ring of solar panels around the lunar equator to harness solar energy as the main power source of an advanced human civilization.

Shimizu is known for coming up with such big ideas; it's a way to publicize the firm.  Collecting solar energy in space and beaming it into the electric power grid, however, is an option to power an advanced society over the long term.

RIP ISON

Only a small fragment of what could have been the magnificent Comet ISON seems to have survived its intense close encounter with the Sun last week, according observations made with two NASA space telescopes-- and that fragment is fading rapidly.

Astronomers like to proclaim "the comet of the century."  They're often wrong.  ISON probably should have been a no-brainer.  A snowball grazing the Sun likely has a snowball's chance in hell of coming out the other side.