Evaporating Black Holes Hint At Gravity May Not Be A Fundamental Force

This article in the Daily Galaxy  hints at some really troubling ideas.  Since 2011 researchers at the University of York  have been doing research on black holes that changes fundamentally how we view the "permanence" of a singularity.

Up to this point it has universally accepted that anything that crossed the "event horizon" of a black hole  can never crawl back across and escape.  This even in light of Dr. Hawkings modifying his position slightly  on the total loss of information.

However the York researchers study suggests that information can and does escape leads them to suggest that gravity alone may NOT be an all encompassing fundamental force but

• "that space, time and even gravity itself may be emergent properties within a deeper theory," said Samuel Braunstein.  

As you might guess, many physicists  are skeptical that quantum mechanic which is primarily used to describe light and sub-atomic particles can be applied to fundamental forces of nature as it operates in a black hole.  Many feel that it's hard to properly describe the evaporating black hole without the effects of gravity on the system.

From the Article:

• "We cannot claim to have proven that escape from a black hole is truly possible, but that is the most straight-forward interpretation of our results,"  said Samuel Braunstein

read the complete Daily Galaxy article here

Laura Shighara sings Everything's Alright

Rob Bricken over at the Topless Robot blog has been waxing eloquent about the indie game "To The Moon" and one of the most adorable thing he mentions is one of the songs from the game, Everhthing's Alright was sung by Laura Shighara. This peeked my interest and lucky me I see that there is a Youtube video. He is right, the song is cute and certainly worthy of a play.

Here is the video....enjoy

Swiss Plan to Launch a “Janitor Satellite”

Like a "Roomba" for space! Well maybe not quite but damn close. Swiss scientists have announced (according to NY Daily News) that they plan on launching what they are calling a “janitor satellite” to clean up space junk.

The $11-million satellite called "CleanSpace One" is one type of a family of proposed robot satellites first of which are planned to launch within three to five years. CleanSpace One's first tasks are to capture two Swiss owned satellites which were launched in 2009 and 2010, respectively.

As many of you know, this is a bit of a pet peeve for me. NASA alone tracks hundreds of thousand pieces of space junk large enough to damage or destroy other spacecraft, with upwards of several million pieces capable of significant damage to being lethal to EVAing astronauts.

The biggest problem to capturing space junk sounds like it should be the simplest, getting close enough to effect a capture. As any space jockey knows, translations in space are costly because all the fuel that the maneuvering engines use has to be transported from deep in Earth's gravity well, making it extremely costly. However new ultra-compact motors are first on the Swiss' drawing board. Next as we have seen time and time again, just getting a good solid grip on hardware in space is difficult at best. The Swiss are looking into revolutionary new effectors that would grab and securely hold it for disposal. And ultimately the satellite must be able to translate the captured hardware and itself back into the Earth's atmosphere where it will safely burn up.

First in Space Human - Robonaut Handshake

So here is a Nasa video of a first ever. The first human / robot handshake in space. There it is in all its' glory. Very auspicious occasion. Nope I can't do it....is anyone else profoundly sad right now? Are you struck speechless at the total frivolity and waste of a platform said to be the answer to the dangers of working in space? Something to truly aide astronauts - side by side - into the future....yeah that kind of stuff they said when this project was first introduced to the public....PR HANDSHAKES W....T....F...?!

Yeah I know...sarcastic, jaded and all of that...sorry, but I honestly couldn't even watch the whole video. I quit when mission control congratulated Dan Burbank for a job well done while the remaining crew documented it. Look, I bought one of those Radio Shack robot arms back in the 70s when then first came out....laid out some serious cash for it back then...30 bucks or something....anyway, I can remember telling my brother hey shake hands with it! great fun that.... 40 years and for less money than it costs for a screw in Robonauts finger and it was a joke then......

ok, I guess I have probably pissed off enough people...I'm done.

Sagan's Pale Blue Dot

Look, I am not going to wax eloquent of the genius here or the failings there.....I just want you to watch the damn video.... Am I saying that you have failed personally as a human being ... no.. But for those of us that have seen it before, I offer up a reminder....for those that haven't then listen to a truely great man put things into perspective for a moment....that's all I ask.....