Thursday, September 30, 2010
Life on Mars
Couple of photos captured and sent by the Nasa’s Mars explorer vehicle, Earth by Spirit on Mars’ surface, might indicate there are life forms on the red planet.
Look at the picture attached above, looks like a female figure is sitting on a rock with her arm outstretched – she could be waiting for a bus. More pictures attached below!
The Mars explorer vehicle had landed Mars four years ago and been going around to capture images and send back to Earth. The pictures have created some buzz over the Internet.
Some say that it could be naked aliens running around, but some believe that is simply an optical illusion caused by a landscape, which I also believe so.
Initial inspection shows nothing unusual, but after having a zoom to have a closer examination by amateur astronomers has thrown up these intriguing pictures.
Eris
Eris, formal designation 136199 Eris, is the largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the ninth-largest body known to orbit the Sun directly. It is approximately 2,500 kilometres (1,600 mi) in diameter and 27% more massive than Pluto.
Eris was first identified in January 2005 by a Palomar Observatory-based team led by Mike Brown, and its identity verified later that year. It is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) native to a region of space beyond the Kuiper belt known as the scattered disc. Eris has one moon, Dysnomia; recent observations have found no evidence of further satellites. As of 2009, its distance from the Sun is 96.7 AU, roughly three times that of Pluto. With the exception of some comets the pair are the most distant known natural objects in the Solar System.
Makemake
Makemake, formally designated (136472) Makemake, is the third-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System and one of the two largest Kuiper belt objects (KBO) in the classical KBO population.[b] Its diameter is roughly three-quarters that of Pluto. Makemake has no known satellites, which makes it unique among the largest KBOs. Its extremely low average temperature, about 30 K (−243.2 °C), means its surface is covered with methane, ethane, and possibly nitrogen ices.
Haumea
Haumea, formal designation 136108 Haumea, is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt. Its mass is one-third the mass of Pluto. It was discovered in 2004 by a team headed by Mike Brown of Caltech at the Palomar Observatory in the United States and, in 2005, by a team headed by J. L. Ortiz at the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain, though the latter claim has been contested. On September 17, 2008, it was designated a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and named after Haumea, the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth.
Haumea's extreme elongation makes it unique among known dwarf planets. Although its shape has not been directly observed, calculations from its light curve suggest it is an ellipsoid, with its greatest axis twice as long as its shortest. Nonetheless, its gravity is believed sufficient for it to have relaxed into hydrostatic equilibrium, thereby meeting the definition of a dwarf planet. This elongation, along with its unusually rapid rotation, high density, and high albedo (from a surface of crystalline water ice), are thought to be the results of a giant collision, which left Haumea the largest member of a collisional family that includes several large TNOs and its two known moons.
Pluto
Pluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System (after Eris) and the tenth-largest body observed directly orbiting the Sun. Originally classified as a planet, Pluto is now considered the largest member of a distinct population known as the Kuiper belt.
Like other members of the Kuiper belt, Pluto is composed primarily of rock and ice and is relatively small: approximately a fifth the mass of the Earth's Moon and a third its volume. It has an eccentric and highly inclined orbit that takes it from 30 to 49 AU (4.4–7.4 billion km) from the Sun. This causes Pluto to periodically come closer to the Sun than Neptune.
From its discovery in 1930 until 2006, Pluto was considered the Solar System's ninth planet. In the late 1970s, following the discovery of minor planet 2060 Chiron in the outer Solar System and the recognition of Pluto's very low mass, its status as a major planet began to be questioned. In the late 20th and early 21st century, many objects similar to Pluto were discovered in the outer Solar System, notably the scattered disc object Eris in 2005, which is 27% more massive than Pluto. On August 24, 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) defined what it means to be a "planet" within the Solar System. This definition excluded Pluto as a planet and added it as a member of the new category "dwarf planet" along with Eris and Ceres. After the reclassification, Pluto was added to the list of minor planets and given the number 134340. A number of scientists continue to hold that Pluto should be classified as a planet.
DWARF PLANETS : CERES
Ceres, formally designated 1 Ceres, is the smallest identified dwarf planet in the Solar System and the only one in the asteroid belt. It was discovered on 1 January 1801, by Giuseppe Piazzi, and for half a century it was classified as the eighth planet. It is named after Ceres, the Roman goddess of growing plants, the harvest, and motherly love.
With a diameter of about 950 km (590 mi), Ceres is by far the largest and most massive body in the asteroid belt, and contains almost a third (32%) of the belt's total mass. Recent observations have revealed that it is spherical, unlike the irregular shapes of smaller bodies with lower gravity. The Cererian surface is probably a mixture of water ice and various hydrated minerals such as carbonates and clays. Ceres appears to be differentiated into a rocky core and ice mantle, and may harbour an ocean of liquid water underneath its surface.