Arizona Embraces Space

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer will sign a bill into law tomorrow that will encourage commercial space companies to operate in the Grand Canyon state.

Arizona thus joins several other states that are actively supporting the growing space industry.

Charon's Ocean

Researchers are suggesting Pluto's largest moon, Charon, may once have had a subsurface liquid water ocean, like Saturn's Enceladus and Jupiter's Europa.  They speculate that if Charon's orbit around Pluto was once more eccentric than it is now gravitational interaction between the two bodies would have created friction within Charon, thus heat, and thus, possibly, liquid water.  That same interaction would have eventually circularized Charon's orbit, freezing the little world solid.

The New Horizons spacecraft arrives at Pluto next summer, and should provide new data about Charon.

Virgin Galactic Is Close

Establishing a commercial spaceline has been tough, but Virgin Galactic is on the brink.

Negotiating the regulatory environment within which VG will operate is largely completed, as is VG's part of Spaceport America in New Mexico.  Only a few scheduled test flights remain, and a second carrier aircraft and spacecraft are already under construction.  Commercial flights could still commence yet this year.

Full Moon

Many people will see a full moon tonight, on Friday the 13th.  It will be the last Friday the 13th full moon until August, 2049.

So, this one could be historic.  After something around four billion years, this could be the last Friday the 13th full moon in which the Moon will be uninhabited.  That's an extraordinary thought.

McKay On Life

Chris McKay argues scientists should develop a list of factors that would be necessary for life as we begin the serious study of exoplanets.

He said his favorite candidate for life now is Kepler 186f, a mega-Earth in its star's habitable zone.  If oxygen is found in significant quantity in that atmosphere, he says, that would clinch the case for life.

Climate Changw And Life

Stars brighten as they age.  That means the Sun was dimmer and cooler when life arose on Earth.  It's also a fact that life would not have survived on Earth under a brightening Sun had not climate change moderated that heating.

It's been a balancing act for billions of years.  That might argue that alien civilizations are rare.

Alien Civilizations

When meeting aliens is discussed, the underlying assumption often seems to be that all alien civilizations will be the same.  That assumption is sloppy.

If we meet one spacefaring ET, there will likely be a few more such civilizations.  There will also be dozens, or hundreds, or thousands more that do not have spaceflight.  Each will be unique.

Just something to keep in mind.