Carnival of Space 233

The Carnival of Space 233 is up at Riding with Robots

Universe Today – Could a moon sized spaceship (a Death Star) really destroy an Earth sized planet ? A paper by David Boulderston (University of Leicester) sets out to answer that very question. Boulderston claims that it is possible to estimate how much energy the Death Star would need in order to destroy a planet with its superlaser. He also investigates Suncrushers.

Nextbigfuture – The lower atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan is strongly structured, with two distinct layers that affect wind patterns, dune spacing and cloud formation, reports a paper published online this week in Nature Geoscience. In the simulations of Titan’s atmosphere, a shallow boundary layer of about 800 meter depth develops on a daily scale, in addition to a 2-km-deep layer that is generated over a season. The authors conclude that in terms of its daily cycle, Titan is more similar to an Earth-like world than we thought. Prior work had identified a likely sub surface ocean on Titan

Nextbigfuture – New maps produced by the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal features at the Moon’s northern and southern poles in regions that lie in perpetual darkness. LAMP, developed by Southwest Research Institute, uses a novel method to peer into these so-called permanently shadowed regions (PSRs), making visible the invisible. Results suggest there could be as much as 1 to 2 percent water frost in some permanently shadowed soils,” says author Dr. Randy Gladstone, an Institute scientist in the SwRI Space Science and Engineering Division. “This is unexpected because naturally occurring interplanetary Lyman-alpha was thought to destroy any water frost before it could accumulate.

NASA Zawodny clarifies his views on Rossi and Low Energy Nuclear reactions on his own website. There have been many attempts to twist the release of Zawodny’s video into NASA’s support for LENR or as proof that Rossi’s e-cat really works. Many extraordinary claims have been made in 2010. In his scientific opinion, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I find a distinct absence of the latter. So let me be very clear here. While he personally find sufficient demonstration that LENR effects warrant further investigation, he remains skeptical. Furthermore, he is unaware of any clear and convincing demonstrations of any viable commercial device producing useful amounts of net energy.

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