Movie: Rubikon to the Rescue, Maybe

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: IFC Films

With the fourth of July weekend upon us, we still lack a Hollywood blockbuster space adventure film. However, an Austrian space drama arrived this weekend – Rubikon. Here is the basic plot in the year 2056:

Following a catastrophe on Earth, the planet is covered in a toxic fog. The crew in the space station, must decide whether to risk their lives to get home and search for survivors, or stay safe in the station’s “algae symbiosis system”.

It sounds a lot like another film with George Clooney from 2020. Do you remember The Midnight Sky?:

This post-apocalyptic tale follows Augustine (George Clooney), a lonely scientist in the Arctic, as he races to stop Sully (Felicity Jones) and her fellow astronauts from returning home to Earth, where a mysterious global catastrophe has taken place.

Yes, astronauts are looking down on a dying planet, again. Didn’t Interstellar also having a dying Earth? Makes you kind of miss Star Trek with its hopeful story lines.

So far, Rubikon has 30 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, so don’t get your hopes too high. Some of the reviews are shown below. Yet if you need a space adventure film this weekend, you now have one.

Image (Credit): Comments on the film Rubikon. (Rotten Tomatoes)

A Day in Astronomy: Cassini Orbits Saturn

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): On July 29, 2011, Cassini captured five of Saturn’s moons in a single frame with its narrow-angle camera. This is a full-color look at a view that was originally published in September 2011. Moons visible in this view: Janus is on the far left; Pandora orbits just beyond the thin F ring near the center of the image; brightly reflective Enceladus appears above center; Saturn’s second largest moon, Rhea, is bisected by the right edge of the image; and the smaller moon Mimas is seen just to the left of Rhea.. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

On this day 2004, the Cassini spacecraft entered the orbit of Saturn. A collaboration of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency, the mission containing NASA’s Cassini space probe and ESA’s Huygens probe was launched in October 15, 1997. Cassini remained in orbit around Saturn from 2004 to 2007. The Cassini spacecraft spent 20 years in space – 13 of them exploring Saturn and its moons.

The ESA’s Huygen’s probe entered the atmosphere of Saturn’s largest moon Titan on January 14, 2005 to study the moon’s smog-like atmosphere and take pictures from the surface. The probe was not designed to survive past landing, though it was able to take photos for about three hours before it died. You can watch the probe enter Titan’s atmosphere in this video from ESA.

Image (Credit): An artist’s concept of the Huygens probe on Titan. (NASA)

Space Quote: Early View of the Cosmos

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): James Webb Space Telescope mirrors. (NASA)

“It’s really hard to not look at the universe in a new light and not just have a moment that is deeply personal…It’s an emotional moment when you see nature suddenly releasing some of its secrets, and I would like you to imagine and look forward to that.”

-Statement by Thomas Zurbuchen, who leads NASA’s scientific programs, regarding the James Webb Space Telescope’s early images, which should be released to the public on July 12, 2022. He was quoted in an Arstechnica story, “NASA Scientists Say Images from the Webb Telescope Nearly Brought Them to Tears.”

Help Wanted to Sift Through Martian Clouds

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Hubble space telescope image of the icy blue clouds swirling over the Martian mountain Syrtis Major (far right). (NASA Goddard)

NASA is looking for assistance to answer a few questions about Martian clouds:

  1. What causes the atmosphere to get cold enough for carbon-dioxide to freeze out?
  2. How do clouds change from day to night, or during different seasons, or in some years more than others?
  3. What are the clouds made of?

You can help by searching through data acquired by the Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) collected during Mars Year 29, which was from December 2007 to October 2009. Using an entire Martian year of identified clouds will allow NASA to determine how mesospheric clouds change during different seasons on Mars, and assist with future machine-learning algorithms for other years’ worth of data.

Visit the Cloudspotting on Mars website to learn more about how you can help. It’s a fun way to be part of the scientific community as it gains a greater understanding of the one planet in the solar system we hope to visit in person in the near future.