Cool science stuff

NASA is working on a submarine to study the methane ocean on Saturn's moon Titan: Watch how a NASA sub could explore Titan's biggest methane sea

 

It still blows my mind that we landed a space probe on Titan.
I love that we're preparing and willing to take the next step there and on Europa to search for life. There's so few missions that still capture the imagination and I hope missions like that inspire the next generation of exploration.

 

Watch out, world. Science has discovered a shape-shifting liquid metal like the one the Terminator was (will be?) made out of.

Liquid metal discovery paves way for shape-shifting robots - Yahoo News

 

That's the kind of stuff that the Roswell UFO was made of. I'm sure the U.S. gov't has known about it for decades.

 

OK, so let's revisit this. According to posts on NASA's spaceflight.com message board, the EmDrive -- the "impossible" engine referenced in the above link -- might actually be creating a warp bubble in spacetime, which, of course, is the first step toward an actual faster-than-light warp drive. Apparently, when researchers measured the photons bouncing around the EmDrive's resonance chamber, some of them seemed to be moving faster than the speed of light.

Did NASA Just Accidentally Produce A Warp Bubble? EmDrive Could Lead To Warp Drive

NASA May Have Accidentally Created a Warp Field | Mysterious Universe

Having read these and other articles as well as some of the way-too-technical-for-me banter on the message board, I'm not quite clear if the people involved with this are working with Sonny White, the physicist who has been making strides in early warp drive research and is discussed in this post:

Now, all of this is really preliminary -- it hasn't been announced or anything and they're checking to see if the effects of things like heat or measurement errors caused this -- but it seems like a lot of really smart people are buzzing like crazy about this.

Stay tuned.

 

And since we're in the realm of pop science fiction, physicists in Australia say they've created a true 3D holographic display like the one Princess Leia used to summon Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, with a 52-degree viewing angle. The key, they said, is using the super-thin, super-strong material graphene:

Graphene produces a working 3D holographic display - CNET

 

In the realm of they've done it, the European Space Agency and NASA, on the Rosetta mission, put an orbiter around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which is speeding its way closer to the sun. And they landed an orbiter on the comet.

Rosetta / Space Science / Our Activities / ESA

 

Three-dimensional space? Maybe not. Our entire universe could really be a two-dimensional hologram:

Could our universe be nothing more than a hologram? | MNN - Mother Nature Network

 

The Messenger probe that has been orbiting Mercury over the past few years is expected to impact tomorrow (30 April). This was planned, as it is now completely out of propellant.

 

Here's a link:

NASA Spacecraft to Impact Planet Mercury on Thursday - NBC News

 

We should be getting really good photos from Ceres very soon. The Dawn probe went into its first "science orbit" yesterday. Very curious to see what those bright spots are.

BTW, I've got to say I'm disappointed not to have gotten any reaction at all from the warp drive post. I think that whole concept is the most amazing thing ever. I mean, I watched Star Trek like everyone else and figured "warp drive" was just something they made up out of thin air. Who knew there were actual scientists working on it?