Kepler planet seeking spacecraft launched 2009, reaction wheel failed

Credit NASA, artist’s impression

We have a problem…

Here is an associated article from Stanford

May 15, 2013
Stanford professor and former NASA official explains how NASA might revive the Kepler space telescope

Scott Hubbard, a consulting professor of aeronautics and astronautics, helped guide the Kepler mission when he served as director of NASA Ames Research Center. He explains how NASA might bring the planet-hunting spacecraft back online.

Ian Wilson: How planets could be modulating solar activity – The VEJ Torquing Model

In advance of a more technical post about Ian Wilson’s new paper, this article from his blog lays out in the clearest possible terms the basics of the model he has developed in accordance with observations. Mainstream solar scientists don’t have any explanation for the longer term behaviours of the Sun. This model has both explanatory and predictive power, since the movement of the planets can be accurately pre-determined from first principles using celestial mechanics theory and the ephemerides created from it. The power of planetary tidal effects on the boundary conditions of the Sun are not yet known, but building a model which accords with observations is a powerful step along the way to a complete theoretical development.

As with any new idea there are many people who have contributed to its overall development. Listed here are just a few people who  have contributed to the evolution of the VEJ Tidal Model over the years:

J. P. Desmoulins
Ulric Lyons
C-C. Hung
Ian Wilson
Ray Tomes
P. A. Semi
Roy Martin
Rog ‘Tallbloke’ Tattersall
Paul Vaughan

However the first reference that we can find to this model [hat tip to Paul Vaughan) is that of:

Bollinger, C.J. (1952). A 44.77 year Jupiter-Earth-Venus configuration Sun-tide period in solar-climate cycles. Academy of Science for 1952 – Proceedings of the Oklahoma 307-311. who  illustrated the ~22 year JEV cycle  over 60 years ago — see the configurations illustrated in Table 1 on p.308.

‘Earth-like’ Blue Planets Discovered Orbiting Distant Star

From the Telegraph:

Two Earth-like planets thought to be covered in water have been discovered orbiting a distant star and may even have the right conditions to support life.

Astronomers believe the two ocean dominated worlds, which are around one and a half times the size of Earth, lie within the so-called Goldilocks zone around their star.

This is the distance from the star where it would be neither too hot nor too cold for there to be liquid water on the planet surface.

Scientists using Nasa’s Kepler space telescope, which has been searching for habitable planets outside our solar system, spotted the two planets orbiting a star called Kepler-62 1,200 light years away.

Tom Van Flandern: Was the planet Mercury once a moon of Venus?

This is an essay written some years ago by the late Tom Van Flandern  which was included in his book ‘Dark Matter, Missing Planets & New Comets’. Tom, who worked for many years at the U.S. Naval Observatory, was an out of the box thinker who covered a wide range of astronomical topics, many of them well outside the mainstream. His methodology was a bit similar to my old dad’s approach to cryptic crosswords. “The clue doesn’t give you the answer, but it helps confirm you got the right answer once you’ve got it”. Leif Svalgaard says he was a crank, which in my view means he’s well worth a read. I think this article, tied in with his other solar system formation concepts, deserves to be republished for the assessment and re-appraisal of the talkshop cognoscenti and the interested visitors here.

Let us examine in detail what the consequences would be of assuming that Mercury originated as a satellite of Venus. If that were so, we might presume that Mercury formed in close orbit about Venus, perhaps by fission^a. But Mercury is four and a half times more massive than the Moon. So the interchange of energy through tidal friction between Venus and Mercury would have been enormous. Mercury’s original spin would have been halted fairly rapidly by Venus, leaving Mercury spinning once per revolution around Venus, always keeping the same face toward Venus, as for our Moon.

Andrew Cooper: Were the recent asteroid flyby and Chelyabinsk meteor strike events linked?

An interesting comment has been placed on the 2012DA14 flyby thread by talkshop regular ‘Scute’ (Andrew Cooper) which investigates the possibility that the Russian Meteor was indeed related to the asteroid. This was dismissed at the time but Scute’s investigation of the orbital dynamics seems to raise doubt about this:

The Chelyabinsk Meteor and a possible link with 2012DA14

I think the idea of the Russian meteor being related to 2012DA14 should be resurrected. I say resurrected because the idea was so roundly slapped down by NASA within hours of the impact and never discussed again. Most of the information below was gleaned from NASA’s own JPL Horizons ephemeris for 2012DA14.

Let me begin by addressing a few myths that seemed to sew it up regarding the lack of any link between the two

Firstly, the direction of approach was not on the night side of the earth but on the day side (2012DA14 flipped under and up round the back only in the last 5 hours) and the radiant was not, as variously described, “the South Pole” or -81 degrees (implied by the above as being -81 to the night side), but at -69 degrees on the sunward side.

Comet C2013 ‘Siding Spring’: Could hit or miss Mars in October

Hat tip to Michele Casati for this news from spaceobs.org. A cometary impact on Mars could potentially leave a 500km wide crater this October! A near miss will be just as interesting in terms of the way the coma is affected by Mars’ magnetosphere. The ‘Electric Universe’ and plasma science people will be busy making predictions I should think.

Author: Leonid Elenin

Chris Smith / NASA

As I wrote previously, the recently discovered comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) will make a extremal close approach to Mars on 19 October 2014. A collision scenario isn’t ruled out either. Today, at the ISON-NM observatory, new astrometric measurements were received for this comet. Based on the existing measurements, more accurate orbital elements were calculated. The results of the second calculation for the close approach show that the comet might pass just 41,000 km (0.000276 a.u.) from the planet’s centre, that is less than 37,000 km from its surface!

Lawrence Wilson: Expert Opinion on the Earth’s orbit in Relation to Solar inertial Motion

My thanks to Lawrence Wilson, who has taken the time and trouble to continue investigating the controversy around the question of the focus of Earth’s orbit. This has an important bearing on the climate debate, as quite large swings in TSI will occur if the Earth orbits the solar system barycentre (SSB) rather than the Sun-Earth barycentre. Surprisingly, expert opinion seems to be that the Earth doesn’t orbit the Sun, but the SSB. I’m awaiting a reference to Newton’s calculations. All I’ve ever seen is a small illustration showing an ellipse around the sun, not an epitrochoid. This leaves me uncertain that Newton ever did detailed calculations resolving this issue.

Solar Inertial Motion – Earth/Sun Displacement
Lawrence Wilson – 19 Feb 2013

The phenomenon of SIM was defined mathematically by Isaac Newton, his conclusion being that all planets followed a primary orbit around the SSB (their primary orbital foci) rather than the CofM of the Sun, indeed the Sun itself also proceeding on a seemingly ‘haphazard’ orbital dance around the SSB.
[Editor's note] Newton states that:  ”The focus of the orbit of the Earth [is] in the common centre of gravity of Venus, Mercury and the Sun.” – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy Vol III pp28

In more technical terms its path is described as an epitrochoid, a path which is near repetitive each 178 years. Scientists subsequent to Newton who have studied the phenomenon and its potential implications, such as Jose, Landscheit, Fairbridge, Charvatova and numbers of others too, have independently validated Newton’s analysis.

Richard Mackey in his essay on the related work of Rhodes Fairbridge describes it in this way:-

The general form of the sun’s barycentric orbit is an epitrochoid, a big circle continuous with a little ring nestling asymmetrically inside it. At one phase, the orbit is nearly circular, almost two solar diameters in diameter. At another phase, the Sun is impelled on a backward, or retrograde, journey in which it undergoes a tight loop-the-loop, crossing over its own path in a loop that is less than one solar radius. The epitrochoid’s asymmetric ring arises from the sun undergoing the retrograde loop-the-loop.

A remarkable discovery: All Solar system periods fit the Fibonacci series and the Golden Ratio

Many other people have noticed Phi relationships in the solar system in the past, from Kepler onwards, and there are several websites which cover this interesting topic. But up until now, so far as I know,  no-one has been able to find a single simple scheme linking all the planets and the Sun into a harmonious whole system described by the basic Fibonacci series. A couple of weeks ago while I was on holiday, I had a few long ‘brainstorming sessions’ with Tim Cullen, and decided to roll my sleeves up and get the calculator hot to test my ideas. What I discovered is laid out below in the style of a simple ‘paper’. Encouraged by an opinion from a PhD astrophysicist that this is “a remarkable discovery”, I will be rewriting this for submission to a journal with the more speculative elements removed and some extra number theory added to give it a sporting chance of acceptance. For now, this post establishes the basics, but there is much more I have discovered, and I will be using some of that extra material in my presentation at the conference in September we are setting up to discuss Solar System Dynamics, the Solar-Planetary Theory, and Solar Terrestrial relations. There will be an update on the conference with booking details etc very soon.

Relations between the Fibonacci Series and Solar System Orbits

Roger Tattersall – February 13 2013

Abstract

The linear recurrence equation: a_n = a_n-1 + a_n-2 with the starting conditions: a₁ = a₂ = 1 generates the familiar Fibonacci series: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13… This paper will use the first twenty terms of the sequence to demonstrate a close match between the Fibonacci series and the dynamic relationships between all the planets, and two dwarf planets in the Solar System. The average error across the twenty eight data points is demonstrated to be under 2.75%. The scientific implication of the result is discussed.

Introduction

Since it was noticed that five synodic conjunctions occur as Earth orbits the Sun eight times while Venus orbits thirteen times, many attempts have been made to connect the Fibonacci series and it’s convergent ‘golden ratio’ of 1.618:1 to the structure of the solar system. Most of these attempts have concentrated on the radial distances or semi-major axes of the planet’s orbits, in the style of Bode’s Law, and have foundered in the inner solar system.

Happy Birthday: Nicolaus Copernicus is 540 today

Happy Birthday to Nicolaus Copernicus, born this day 540 years ago. Though his work on orbits still left us with epicycles (Kepler would succeed in eliminating them with his elliptical orbits replacing Copernicus’ circular ones) he nonetheless moved the science of astronomy and cosmology forward by his placement of the Sun at the centre of the system. He had the good sense to hold off from publication until near his death, but this didn’t prevent various theologian-astronomers of a more Aristotelian bent from damning him later. It is the fate of innovators to be chastised by the gatekeepers of the times it seems – no matter how right they are. As Jerome Ravetz said to me recently: “The difference between a crank and a rebel may become clear only in retrospect.  Which was Galileo?  He spent a huge part of his working life on a theory that anyone could have told him would never succeed.“

Copernicus’ major theory was published in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), in the year of his death, 1543, though he had formulated the theory several decades earlier.

Copernicus’ “Commentariolus” summarized his heliocentric theory. It listed the “assumptions” upon which the theory was based as follows:

“1. There is no one center of all the celestial circles or spheres.
2. The center of the earth is not the center of the universe, but only of gravity and of the lunar sphere.
3. All the spheres revolve about the sun as their mid-point, and therefore the sun is the center of the universe.
4. The ratio of the earth’s distance from the sun to the height of the firmament (outermost celestial sphere containing the stars) is so much smaller than the ratio of the earth’s radius to its distance from the sun that the distance from the earth to the sun is imperceptible in comparison with the height of the firmament.
5. Whatever motion appears in the firmament arises not from any motion of the firmament, but from the earth’s motion. The earth together with its circumjacent elements performs a complete rotation on its fixed poles in a daily motion, while the firmament and highest heaven abide unchanged.
6. What appear to us as motions of the sun arise not from its motion but from the motion of the earth and our sphere, with which we revolve about the sun like any other planet. The earth has, then, more than one motion.
7. The apparent retrograde and direct motion of the planets arises not from their motion but from the earth’s. The motion of the earth alone, therefore, suffices to explain so many apparent inequalities in the heavens.”^[83]

Tim Cullen: Planetary Rotation Part 3 – Mars, Earth and Venus

In the final part of his study on planetary-atmospheric co-rotation, Tim Cullen extends his heuristic formula to the inner planets, with surprising results.

Planetary Rotation – Mars, Earth and Venus
Tim Cullen – MalagaBay – January 2013

 

The second part of this post calculated a generalised view of the relationship between the “Corotational Radius” and the ”Corotational Period” of the planets in the Solar System.

This third [and final] instalment examines whether these generalised formulae have any predictive ability when applied to the Terrestrial Planets with atmospheres.

Precise measurement of the rotational periods of Mars, Earth and Venus allows the generalised formula to be used to predict an atmospheric “corotation radius” for each planet with an atmosphere.