muster an die wand malen
on the 18th of september, 1846, french mathematicianurbain le verrier sent a letter to the berlin observatory. the letter contained the precisemathematical prediction of a previously undiscovered 8th planet in the solar system. a few dayslater, within 1â° of its predicted location, neptune was discovered. le verrier was ableto predict its location and existence based on the seemingly inconsistent orbit of uranus.but something still didn't quite add up. uranus orbit still showed slight deviations fromwhat was to be expected. this lead some to speculate that there could be yet anotherplanet beyond the orbit of neptune. this potential 9th planet received the nickname planet x.and in 1930 it was announced that it had been found. but pluto was not what we expectedto find. it was so tiny. both in terms of
mass and size. so tiny in fact that it couldnot account for the orbital irregularities of uranus. it wasn't planet x. in 1989, thespace probe voyager 2 made a flyby of neptune. new calculations based on the informationit collected revealed that the orbits of uranus and neptune were just fine. it turns out thatthe perceived anomalies in uranus orbit was the result of not having sufficiently accuratemeasurements. there was no need for a planet x as everything checked out. in hindsight,the discovery of pluto was completely accidental. while a certain fascination for the allusiveplanet x continues to persist, most astronomers agree that its existence is unlikely. thatis until just a few months ago when new evidence came to light which yet again opens up thepossibility of a 9th planet in the solar system.
and this time, the evidence is actually quitecompelling. by studying multiple trans-neptunian objects, with extreme and atypical orbits,two scientists have found a strange pattern. this pattern, or orbital clustering as theycall it, has about a 1/15,000 chance of being a coincidence. it's much more likely thata so far undiscovered planet, roughly the size of neptune, has gravitationally influencedthese distant bodies, leaving this orbital clustering in its wake. this potential planetx would have such an extreme orbit that it would take roughly 15,000 years for the planetto orbit the sun only once. to put that into context, 1 year on this planet would see therelease of a staggering two fresh installments in the half-life franchise. researchers estimatethat, if they are correct, they could visually
confirm its existencewithin the next half-decade. you see this tiny red dot. that's a planet.an exoplanet orbiting a star 97 light-years away. and this is a star 129 light-years awaywith an entire family of at least 4 exoplanets. these photos and others just like them arethe best images of exoplanets captured to date. the best image of a star, other thanthe sun of course, is this photo of the star altair which is roughly 17 light years away. it rotatesat such a high velocity that instead of being spherical it's gaineda flattened oval shape. before the international space station therewas another space station between 1973-1979 called skylab. unlike the modular constructionof the iss, skylab was constructed and launched
as a single completed unit. much like theother space stations at the time. the interior of skylab was so enormous that there was actuallya viable concern that astronauts could find themselves stuck in the middle of the stationwith nothing to grab onto. they would simply have to wait for minor air currents to pushthem towards a wall or request help from a crew member. however they later found thatthey could just swim if they had to, pushing air with their hands to create a very minor amount ofthrust which allowed them to slowly move around. getting stuff into space using rockets is,as you've likely heard many times before, incredibly inefficient. the amount of fueland thrust you need depends on the mass of the spacecraft. but the more fuel you takewith you the more massive the spacecraft becomes
and thus you need even more fuel. but thenthe spacecraft gets heavier so you need more fuel, thus adding more mass to the spacecraftand thus requiring even more fuel. in other words, there's a limit to what rockets andchemistry can provide. it's pretty insane when you first realize that when this spaceshuttle reaches a stable orbit, it's lost more than 85% of it's mass because 85% ofit's total mass was fuel. more fuel is needed to get from the surface to orbit then to getfrom orbit to the surface of the moon. it's been estimated that if the earth was 50% larger,we would not be able to venture into space at all. not using rockets anyway. i mean thereason nasa and the soviet union began using rockets was to get to space first. it wasn'tabout long-term efficiency or sustainability.
it was all about winning this global contestof firsts. and rockets where great for that purpose. but once we started thinking of goingto mars, establishing colonies on other bodies, building giant space stations and the like,we ran into some problems. the iss for example, is possibly the most expensive single thingever constructed at an estimated cost of 150 billion us dollars. many other methods havebeen proposed of course. a space elevator, spaceplane, nuclear pulse propulsion, mass drivers,launch loops, beam-powered technology, skyhooks, a space tower, space gun, balloons,and the list goes on and on. each and every one has it's one unique set of advantages,disadvantages, and problems we may have yet to solve. but it's kinda funny when you thinkabout it because we've done some amazing things.
we've walked on the moon. we've visited andlanded on multiple planets, moons, and other celestial objects. we've build a space stationas large as a football field. and we can detect other planets, orbiting other stars that havethe potential to sustain alien life. yet this. this insignificant expanse ofabout 100 km or so remains as one of the biggestobstacles to space exploration. the curiosity rover on mars landed on thered planet on august 5, 2012. one of its many objectives is to dig up and analyze the martiansoil. to do this an on board instrument, abbreviated as sam, will resonate at different frequenciesso that the soil can pass through various filters for analyzation.and it sounds like this.
now to celebrate the rover's one year anniversaryon the planet, scientists at nasa thought it would be fun to use the very same instrumentto play the "happy birthday" song. which got to be the saddest andmost depressing celebration in history. given a certain pronunciation of a certainplaned named uranus, uranus has been the butt of a joke ever since it was first named. even i can't resist at times. oh, and 63 earths can fit inside uranus. both pronunciations are correct by the way buttass-tronomers and most of the scientific community seems to prefer uranus over uranus. my personalpreference is urmom, butt it could've been much worse. consensus on the name for the planet was notreached until almost 70 years after it had
been discovered. because the guy who discoveredthe planet wanted to name it "georgium sidus" which means "the star of george" in honor of king george iii. in other words uranus could've been named george. besides humans many other animals has venturedinto space. many of you have likely heard of the dog laika. she became the first dogto orbit the earth back in 1957. however the very first animal in space where fruit fliesaboard a rocket launched in 1947. in 1949 the first monkey was sent into space and in1950 the first mouse was sent into space. by the late 1960s many other animals likehamsters, turtles, rabbits, cats, frogs, goldfish, various insects, etc. had been launched intospace as well. the results of these experiments has been crucial to our understanding of boththe short-term and long-term effects of living
in space. not just for humans but for theanimals themselves. for example, in 2008 researchers found that cockroaches that had been conceivedin space became faster and stronger than their earth-dwelling siblings. many birds will neverbe able to survive in low-gravity environments as they actually need gravity to swallow food.humans don't, but when the us and the soviet union first sent people into space, they hadno idea if weightlessness could somehow impair our ability to swallow. if that had been thecase, the first human in space could possibly have died from asphyxiation or starvation. "that's one small step for man, one giantleap for mankind." this quote by neil armstrong as he takes his first stepson the surface of the moon is possibly the most
misquoted quote in recent history. according to armstrong himself he didn't say "one small step for man" but actually said "one small step for a man".something the world, newspapers, and listeners at home back in 1969 completelymissed. and if you think about it, it doesn't make much sense.he would basically be saying "that's one small step for mankind, one giant leap for mankind". but there's no audible "a" in the recording. then again, there's a lot of noise which makes it difficultto hear exactly what is being said. maybe he thought he said "for a man" but accidentally fumbled hiswords or maybe it's simply obscured by the noise. given the fact that all the gas giants inour solar system has rings one would assume that planetary rings are quite common in theuniverse. so far we've found over 2000 exoplanets,
but as far as we can tell, none of them have rings.except one. and it's truly an exceptional exception. it's called j1407b and was discovered in 2012. the rings around this planet have an estimated radius of 90,000,000 km. saturn's rings are tiny in comparisonwith a radius of less than 500,000 km. if we replaced saturn with j1407b, its rings would be more prominent and brighter than the moon in the night sky. it's common knowledge at this point that themain driving force behind early space exploration was the fierce competition between the twocold war rivals, the soviet union and the united states. in the mids of this loomingfear of a global nuclear war, and with the world as their audience, these two super powerswanted nothing more than to win. in 1962 us president john f. kennedy addressedthe nation in a now famous speech.
the soviet union had already beaten the us in manysignificant milestones. the first satellite in space, the first photo of the far side of the moon,the first human in space, and the first flyby of another planet. putting a man on the moon would surely gain the us a clear lead in this escalating space race. and as we all know,in 1969, kennedy's promise came true. but on september 20, 1963,kennedy made a very different speech. he proposesthat the us and the soviet union should join forces in their efforts to reach the moon.initially the soviet premiere nikita s. khrushchev rejected kennedy's proposals. after all, thiswas at the height of the cold war. unsurprisingly, any form of collaboration between these swordenemies would be met with strong opposition.
many decades later it was revealed by khrushchev'soldest son that his father had had second thoughts. khrushchev had supposedlychanged his mind and was in early november of 1963 ready to accept kennedy's offer toconvert the apollo lunar program into a joint project between the two super powers. he believed,just like kennedy, that both countries could benefit from a collaboration rather than acompetition. the soviet union had far better rocket technology than the us and the us hadmore advanced computers than the soviet union. not to speak of the economical benefits ofa joint mission to the moon. on november 22, 1963, president john f. kennedy is assassinated. because khrushchev doesn't trust the new president, lyndon b. johnson, all plans for ajoint mission to the moon dies along with jfk.
the story is fascinating because it had the potentialto change history forever. not just in terms of space exploration, but it would surely have improvedus-soviet relations. just imagine how different the world could have been if astronauts and cosmonauts had stood on the moon together.