location home james blog 2003-12-03

In the Stars

2003 December 3rd 16:40

Today I finished watching the BBC series, The Planets. Inspiring stuff.

In the last 50 years so much has been discovered, but you realize that much of what we know was discovered by Galileo 400 years ago.

Later this year, there will be expeditions to Europa and Titan, moons of Jupiter and Saturn respectively. With possible life on them. Titan apparently has some organic chemistry and is shrouded in clouds. Discovering even simple life will be amazing.

(Update: Found out the surface temperature on Titan is -178°C. If this temperature is true - it rules out life.)

What are the ethics of contaminating these pristine environments. What will we find?

With the last 10 years, the first extra solar planet was discovered. One hundred plus have now been discovered. The search for life continues. I am sure its out there, but I am not sure if we will find it. Maybe we shouldn't try and find it. I guess its the role of Star Trek to tease out the philosophical issues.

Also visited the Nasa home page today. On their page they had 'trailers' for the current mission to Mars (January 2004). They even called it M2K4 (reminding me T3 for Termnator 3). The videos even come with an imitiation classification warnings. Check it out. Way cool

I have always been interested in space...

I tried finding a link for the BBC Series, but I couldn't find one. However they have a great space information site. The search was not futile. I ended up finding a BBC page about G-Force: Battle of the Planets called Gatchaman in Japanese (check out the excellent Gatchaman site)

Battle of the Planets was one of my favourite shows as a kid. Found some interesting trivia, the voice for Mark - the hero / leader also did the voice Shaggy in Scooby Doo.