Kepler & ET Planet Finder | NASA S-Comp goes onlin

This entry is about life on other planets. Neanderthal could have been the aliens! But we destroyed them in the 2nd Ice age. All that remains are their bones. First, I’m going to get into satellites, particularly the Kepler satellite, and what planets they are going to search on. Co-existing with satellites are the telescopes NASA is developing with Lockheed. Telescopes are also satellites in a way. The military spy satellite such as titan is more of a telescope. That thing can magnify 5000x bypassing Earth’s Atmosphere looking at each one of us right now. Scary right? Have you seen the James Bond film, Tomorrow is not Enough? It had some fake satellite images taking of ground zero of the missile’s target.

While I was looking up stuff to put into my last post, I found a headline for NASA’s next super computer. A super computer is really the processor. I don’t know what they last one was, but this one is very powerful. Not to say the last one isn’t powerful. And there on reason not too use the last one too. This new series is called Kalpana. The first Kalpana arrived last year. SGI is developing the first of a series of super computers which will all be working together. This particular super-computer is using 512 Intel Itanium 2s. The first one was running last year. And 19 more are going to be shipped this month, each with 512 Intel Itanium 2s. I don’t know what it’s going to be used for? Perhaps space exploration, and a lot of simulations. NASA can license it off to research. The newest Itanium 2 clocks at 1.5 GHz, and has a 6 MB cache. All together the super computer(s) will have 500 terabytes of memory. They will all run Linux. The article didn’t say what type of Linux the super computer uses. I’m thinking it’s Red Hat. Linux OS only takes 2.5 GB of space. That’s 499,997.5 GB left of storage for miscellaneous applications. Such as classified space video and Hubble images.

Do NASA / ESA Satellites to use MJPEG codec for space video?

I wonder if they use MJPEG to compress their satellite images? Wink. I personally love JPEG in terms of compressing images. Everyone else must too, because it’s everywhere on the Internet. JPEG is a monopoly. It’s better than PNG and GIF plus all the other compression formats. High-end motion video cameras use M-JPEG where every scene is made up of compressed JPEG while still retaining highest possible pixel quality in the compression process. The quality is every bit as good as uncompressed video taken by a high-end industrial video camera. M-JPEG has a 1/2 to 1/3 compression ratio. Only high end equipment can handle this since JPEG takes CPU power for real-time broadcasts. It’s has a 1/20 compression ratio with no visible image loss. The Internet JPEG that we use can be resized, of course, and be compressed 1/50th the normal uncompressed size. Think of bit-map (BMP) than think of JPEG! I think JPEG will be around for another 100 years. MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 compression is a lot better than MJPEG and MJPEG2000. DVD video uses MPEG 2 compression. I spoke of this in earlier entry, the one talking about putting MPEG 4 video on SVCD and DVDs. That is a state-of-a-art movie-to-disc technique I use. An M-JPEG converter is found here: http://www.morgan-multimedia.com/ has a 60 day trial version of MJPEG2000 video codec. My guess is it plugs itself into Windows Media Player, therefore, available to every program that’ll compress video will be compatible with the MJPEG codec thingy. Good. We all understand. At this website - you can also find a free JPEG2000 for Internet Explorer, and also a Netscape/Mozilla plug-in on their webpage! Now what I found out there was a free one, I could compress images about 5 to 10 KB better. But is 10 KB really that much more too load? Not really. It does, however, make it easier on us modem users.

NASA’s exploring Alien Life on other planets with Satellites confirmed.

I found out what NASA’s next satellite is going to be which I commented on in my last entry. It’s called Kepler. Kepler (not the astronomer) will take close up pictures of planets when they are on the near side of the Star/Sun. Fine. But isn’t this information obvious? Of course, the lens in Kepler that Lockheed Martin is building for NASA, is a lot more powerful than Hubble. The image will probably be 10 tera-pixel. 10,000,000 mega-pixels. I don’t know for sure. At the moment, NASA is not releasing information on the final product. Anyways, it is possible for Kepler to view alien-made satellites within 100 light-years from Earth. Yes, that is right! This may prove alien intelligence is somewhere out there! Well, of course, the USA government will not release those photos of alien space stations or probes out there for many years. This is undoubtedly Kepler’s prime purpose. Star Trek may not be all fictional after all!

Still, NASA is building an even more powerful, and expensive, satellite called the Extraterrestrial Planet Finder [http://planetquest.j...v/TPF/tpf_index.html ] in as early 2015, which will take pictures of earth size planets in ultra high resolution. 500 tera-pixels? Anyways, it’s incredible! Real alien satellite photos! Except if there are any, it’s Top Secret. So don’t expect any confirmation of it unless it leaks onto the Internet. NASA’s official and only comment on it was, and I quote, “Conduct advanced telescope searches for Earth-like planets, and habitable environments around other stars."

"The discovery of life on another planet is potentially one of the most important scientific advances of this century, let alone this decade, and it would have enormous philosophical implications." * AKA we want to find to find aliens!

Life on Titan?

Oh yeah, I also found out there may have been life on the Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Titian is the only moon with an Earth-like atmosphere. By Earth-like I mean rivers, oceans and erosion. Jupiter and Mars have this too. This part I wrote after I listened to the Titan Planetary Radio episode. Fifty-one moons orbit Jupiter. This means the planet once had water. This stands to reason, since Yellow suns are less than middle-aged suns. When our sun is bright blue, it will be a lot hotter. The heat must reach Titan before it can make life. In a few billion years, Titan, as well as Jupiter, may have life on it. Titan is only 800,000,000 miles from the sun! Scientists are using Titan as a possible example of when Earth had no life, before the dinosaurs. Titan’s atmosphere is full of nitrogen, and carbon dioxide could support life. I never imagined that life could exist on a moon as well as a planet. Is a moon still a moon, if it’s orbiting a planet, and even the size of a planet itself? The answer to that is yes! Moons can the size of Earth, and as long as the Planet it’s orbiting is bigger than it, it’s considered a moon or satellite of that particular planet. Now, if an object is ‘orbiting’ around a moon than it’s called a satellite. Kepler’s 3rd Law states this as a fact. Scientist named the Moon - Titan, because Greek Gods sent titans to walk the Earth in Greek myth. Giant creatures such as Cyclopes. Titan can be observed from Earth with a small telescope if you aim it at Jupiter. If you’re lucky, the moon will be in front of the planet. In the audio commentary, I also found out that this new satellite from the ESA can do 100 feet per pixel on Titan. I am unsure what they mean? Surely a mega-pixel camera can not view the surface of a moon or planet so it must mean a digital image. The resolution is 1x1 per 10 feet so 1000x1000 would be approximately 10,000 square feet of planetary service.

Audio commentary of Titan - http://www.planetary...files/pr20040621.wma

Kepler’s 3 Laws:

1.) Each planet moves around the Sun in an orbit that is an ellipse with the Sun at one focus.

2) Each planet moves so that an imaginary line joining the Sun and the planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times.

3) The squares of the periods of time required for a planet to complete a trip around the Sun are proportional to the Cube of the average distance from the Sun.

A joint effort of NASA, and ESA will bring the European space probe to Titan. In short – NASA builds the rocket, and Europe builds the probe, and together the two space agencies launch it into space until it arrives to Titan. Then the rocket will also shield it from dangerous space, and the satellite will orbit the moon taking climate readings and pictures of the surface of it. We already know that water will be on it in 4 billion years. Titan will be like Earth in many ways. Of course, it’ll have different animals on it perhaps a species or two intelligent enough to create a civilization advanced enough to make buildings, planetary travel, radio signals to commutate. This would have been the case with Earth too. Yes, we would have co-existed with another species! We, as Earthlings, are lucky enough to not co-exist with another species. Who knows? We could have been a slave race of another race like the slave trade in America the 19th century before the Civil War.

If we did co-exist with another species it would mean that a.) Another species traveled to Earth via mother ship or b.) We co-existed with a fellow species that just happen to be another of Earth’s creation at around the same time period. For example, Neanderthal or half-ape people. Even stronger than man! Unfortunately, these species died out shortly after the 2nd ice age! Human’s simply made better spears than Neanderthal therefore Neanderthal went to WAR against our ancestors over land and lost. Not too much more than that. Neanderthal were dumb for the most part. If a Neanderthal and human had an arm strength contest, the Neanderthal would easily win. Ape-man was supposed to be just as intelligent as humans, and stronger as well. Have ya ever seen Planet of the Apes? The new one made in 2000? The 2000 version is better than the 1961 version. I think the end shot of Planet of the Apes where intelligent ape-man appearing in the 20th century is a quite interesting footnote.

Facts about the Moon, Titan

1. Orange atmosphere
Titan's surface is a mystery as the whole world is cloaked in a hazy orange atmosphere. It's made of nitrogen, with traces of other simple molecules, and forms a thick cloud around the moon, hiding its surface.

2. Even the Voyager probe was unable to see through the clouds. However, it was able to detect liquid methane on the surface.

3. Though parts of Titan's surface may be liquid, the Hubble Telescope has detected patterns beneath the clouds that may be continents of land.

4. The atmosphere on Titan could be identical to that of the early Earth when life began. If the world was warmer in the past, then life may have sprouted.
Yesterday was my first CISCO class:

I’m getting a little off topic here, but I started my CISCO class yesterday! Joyce talked about the CISCO 2600 and CISCO 3700 rack routers. The CISCO 3700 router is state-of-the-art, and obviously the one with the most features. Hmmm. I imagined that the students there would be nice to me there because there is a conduct rules there. In class, there are 5 other students. They seem to know each other. I knew that before. Anyways, I tried making friends, but they wouldn’t talk to me. We all introduced ourselves in the beginning. I knew this would happen so I resisted what I would speak of. I told them I was a gamer. There is something wrong with Gamers! I resent this! I realize that people don’t have time for games. But it would make perfect sense. To play games together – you need to set up LANs – which has everything to do with CISCO. I know gamers. They’re probably playing first person shooters. I wanted to get into asking them to my house so we could play UT2004. And I also made a mistake in class by clicking on ‘Yes’ on the dialog box to keep passwords for http://cisco.netacad.net which is dangerous for me. I’m using a public computer. I know I had to ask for help because I didn’t’ know that to erase the passwords, I had to go through Internet Options / Content / Autocompete / Clear Passwords to clear passwords for Internet Explorer. I didn’t know that before yesterday! But as I first expected, they don’t want to know me. Why? Do they disagree with the gamer part? Or the fact that I’ve been here a year while part time? I don’t think all gamers are immature! Gaming is cool! I don’t game that much anymore. Not like I use too. Joyce doesn’t understand this. Why do people suspect that all gamers are immature, and therefore, lacking in intelligent conversation. I mean the conversation between me, and them is mute for the most part! And I wasn’t even being an asshole to them. I barely said anything! I believe people who are in the glass made the choice to do so, and CISCO even has to do with the Internet thus everyone. The truth is everything which CISCO’s teaching us can be accessed online with only a working user-name and a password!

I have a CD full of Power Point Presentations, and actual webpage files of the actual CISCO online course of version 2.9. I’ve been looking over the power point presentations memorizing the pictures. And no my memory isn’t photo-graphic, but if it was, I be looking at this in a day, and be passing all my tests the first time around!

Interesting radio broadcasts from Planetary Radio (all files are 6.75 MB - 7 MB ) To read the html over view, just replace “wma” with “html” for each radio episode Right click on your mouse, click ‘copy link location’, and paste it in your address bar. Also you can change wma to mp3 to get the MP3 version of the same thing, which is almost twice as big as WMA versions:

• Hunting for Extrasolar Planets - http://www.planetary...files/pr20040531.wma
• First Teenager in Space - http://www.planetary...files/pr20040524.wma
• http://www.planetary...files/pr20040628.wma
• Life on Mars - http://www.planetary...files/pr20040405.wma
• Salty Seas on Mars - http://www.planetary...files/pr20040329.wma
• Defending Earth from Asteroids - http://www.planetary...files/pr20040315.wma
• Opportunity Lands and Hope Builds for Spirit - http://www.planetary...files/pr20040126.wma
• Confirmed: Water Was on Mars! - http://www.planetary...files/pr20040308.wma
• Spirit Lands on Mars! - http://www.planetary...files/pr20040105.wma
• Steve Squyres Is Ready for Mars - http://www.planetary...files/pr20031222.wma
• he Planetary Society's Red Rover Goes To Mars Project
with Emily Lakdawalla - http://www.planetary...files/pr20031117.wma
• Moon Rocks, Martian Meteorites and More
at the NASA Astromaterials Lab - http://www.planetary...files/pr20031110.wma
• A Traveler's Guide to Mars - http://www.planetary...files/pr20030901.wma
• Four Decades of Mars Exploration - http://www.planetary...files/pr20030818.wma
• SMART-1 Goes to the Moon - http://www.planetary...files/pr20030811.wma
• The Envelope Please: Choosing the 2007 Mars Scout Mission, Part 2 - http://www.planetary...files/pr20030804.wma
• The Envelope Please: Choosing the 2007 Mars Scout Mission, Part 1 - http://www.planetary...audio/pr20030728.wma
• A Microphone on Mars? - http://www.planetary...files/pr20030414.wma
• Phil Christensen Explores Mars in the Infrared - http://www.planetary...files/pr20030526.wma
• Journey to the Center of the Earth! - http://www.planetary...files/pr20030519.wma
• Getting a Rover’s Eye View of Mars - http://www.planetary...files/pr20030512.wma
• Deep Space 1 / ET Phones Home - http://www.planetary...files/pr20030407.wma
• Earth-Shattering Impacts - http://www.planetary...ary_radio_master.wma
• Star Trek Science - http://www.planetary...-23-02_pr_master.wma (warning expose to what’s real! Star Trek Fans! Hint – warp speed not possible! NASA hates Star Trek! *cough* *cough* )
• SETI - http://www.planetary...2-9-02_pr_master.wma
• SETI Has an Eye for Extraterrestrial Messages - http://www.planetary...files/pr20030217.wma

My Sources for this article:
Titan - http://www.bbc.co.uk.../looking/titan.shtml
NASA’s latest Super Computer - http://www.space.com...computer_040809.html
Kepler’s Law - http://www.csulb.edu...0/kepler/kepler.html
Kepler Satellite - http://www.kepler.ar....nasa.gov/model.html