Doctor Who is not COMPLETELY fictional

Image from wikipedia.com

This article covers arguably one of my favorite topics to swoon over-Doctor Who.  I will be completely honest in saying that my intense interest in studying the solar system and beyond came pretty much single-handedly from watching Doctor Who (and maybe a teensy bit by my mom making me watch old Star Trek re-runs with her when I was a kid…).  So it’s been fun for me to gain a lot more “science-based” understanding of the universe that, in my mind crazy David Tennant-filled dreams, was filled with aliens from all over the universe both time and space-wise attacking our home planet of Earth.  Now that I now a bit more about astronomy, I was curious about how accurate my favorite show was in describing some scientific phenomena.  While I know that alien life hasn’t been discovered yet by scientists here on Earth, I was hoping at least some other aspects of the show were factual and not telling lies just purely for entertainment.

The article above confirms my hope!  Obviously, in a show that has aired over a span of 50 years, the science discussed on the show will advance as the knowledge astronomers gain increases/changes, but this article discusses some notable accuracies in the topics discussed in the series.  From discussion of the Big Bang, formation of our moon, and dinosaur extinction among many other topics, there is some serious science talk going on, which is accurate as far as scientists know!  This makes me feel a bit better about indulging in hours and hours of Netflix watching of my favorite shows, knowing that I am getting at least a bit of real science in the midst of a lot of science fiction.

What would life be like on Pluto for humans?

photo from space.com

Above is an artist’s conception of what Pluto would look like if one could stand on one of the dwarf planet’s moons and stare back at Pluto.  But this article goes on to tell us what our experiences would be if we were to actually step foot on the surface of Pluto itself.  Firstly, hopefully no one that makes it to Pluto gets homesick, because even to send a MESSAGE back home to Earth (let’s not even get started on the time it takes to physically travel…) will take anywhere from four to six a half hours depending on where Pluto is in it’s orbit.  This is just one way too, so double that time to get how long it would take to send and receive a response.  If one was brave enough to leave the spacecraft and step on the surface of the planet, one should expect freezing temperatures well below anything we ever experience here on Earth, about negative 223 degrees Celcius, which is dangerously close to absolute zero…with atmospheric pressure being 3/1,000,000 of what we experience on Earth.  So, long story short…you wouldn’t stand a chance out there if you were to venture outside.  On top of the temperature and pressure extremes, these result in a virtual lack of atmosphere around the surface, so you would still manage to receive harmful UV rays from the Sun, granted they would be less than hit Earth due to the drastic difference in distance from the Sun…there would be absolutely nothing blocking them from hitting you.

Astronomers do hope to find out a lot more about the mysterious surface of Pluto in more detail than the little bit of information we can obtain by knowing its distance from the Sun and orbital patterns.  This will be accomplished later this year as the New Horizons probe will fly-by Pluto, allowing the first close-up visuals of the planet ever obtained by NASA.  While I don’t think this will change anything regarding what human life would be like on Pluto as I detailed above, it will tell us a lot more about its surface and active past, potentially adding more insight into its planetary status as well!

A trip to Venus?

video from phys.org

It seems like all of the talk in the field of space travel these days has been too focused on a trip to one single location…Mars.  But noticing while studying these past few chapters that Venus is actually a bit closer to Earth than Mars, that brought up a question in my mind: has it ever been considered to work on a mission to Venus?  The answer is YES.  Although there are some pretty obvious disadvantages to a trip to Venus, one of which being that you can’t actually land on the surface due to the blazing hot temperatures, there has been some talk lately about working on a mission.

This idea of this mission is HAVOC, or a high altitude Venus operational concept, basically meaning that the ship would hover above the atmosphere of Venus rather than land on the surface.  As we’ve learned in class, and as this article mentions, the temperatures and pressures on the surface on Venus are far too high for our spacecrafts to handle, and the storms and clouds of sulfuric acid within the thick carbon dioxide-filled atmosphere are far too dangerous to risk the trip. BUT it has been found that at a height of 50km from the surface, it would experience only atmospheric pressure and a hot, but not unbearable, 75 degrees Celsius temperature.  These conditions are actually much more feasible for designing a mission around than those on the surface of Mars!

There are some unanswered questions for me here though: how much useful information can we get from just hovering above Venus?  It seems like a lot more information would be obtained by doing a surface trip to Mars.  Can that much more information really be obtained at 50km above the surface than what we can obtain from further-out unmanned flyby missions?  These are questions that will hopefully be answered soon as further research is conducted on the possibility of a mission to Venus, but it sure is exciting and a pleasant change from all the Mars talk!