There is welcome news from Greg Matloff. His new book, written with the artist C Bangs and physicist Les Johnson (NASA MSFC) will be published by Springer/Praxis in December. Following on the success of Solar Sails, the latest is Paradise Regained, a look at how we might use the resources of the Solar System to alleviate environmental problems here on Earth. Here’s an absorbing video presentation on the book.
Extending Earth’s resource base beyond our atmosphere, and in the process protecting the Earth from asteroid and comet impact, is essential as we gradually become not just a terrestrial but, in Matloff’s words, a cosmic species. “If we are wise enough to work together on this, terrestrial life in the Solar System can live as long as the Sun,” says the author, an optimism that should resonate with Centauri Dreams readers.
Nice sentiment, though I do wonder what might be living when the Sun expires. The Earth changes and Life follows, but perhaps Life influences its habitat back? The biomass of the planet is such a tiny, tiny fraction yet we have such big dreams of what we might be.
Paul,
completely off-topic, but are you aware of this issue? About a near-perfect site (very cold, very dry) for telescopes, Ridge A, on Antarctica.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/earth-environment/article6878678.ece
It would be almost as good as being in space and I wonder whether it could be used for direct imaging of terrestrial exoplanets.
Ronald, good point — this area seems ideal for exoplanet work from the surface. As to direct imaging of terrestrial worlds, that seems more tricky, and would probably require some real interferometry gymnastics, tough to do given the need for building multiple installations in Antarctica. Still, I wouldn’t rule it out down the road as we get better at this.
[Later]: from the ESO/CAUP conference meeting this week, this statement on ELTs:
No mention of direct imaging, though.
Paul: “from the ESO/CAUP conference meeting this week, this statement on ELTs: (…) No mention of direct imaging, though”.
You are right about this, however, no denial of the possibilitiy of direct imaging with ground-based ELTs either.
I think that the ESO view on ELTs is still very much geared toward its southern observatory in the Andes mountains (which is what ESO means), and may not yet have taken this new Antarctic discovery into account yet.
But correct me if I am wrong about this.
If I understood well, the main problem wirt direct imaging of (small and relatively cool) planets from earth is the infrared ‘pollution’ by the earth’s atmosphere, i.e. the background noise drowning the signal.
I still wonder whether the mentioned ideal location on Antarctica could be so good (i.e. cold and bright), that, combined with interferometry and maybe some adaptive optics, it could actually do away with the need for a space platform. In that case we would have a really great (and relatively cheap) place for (terrestrial) exoplanet detection, imaging and spectroanalysis.