It was the year 2045, and a coalition of NASA, the ESA, JAXA (Japanese space agency), and ISRO (Indian Space Agency) combined their collective resources, brain power, and monetary funds to organize one of the most ambitious missions in human history: to send an interstellar probe to the Alpha Centauri system. The name the probe was given was Stella Nauta, meaning Star Sailor. The purpose of the Stella Nauta was to look for any undiscovered properties of the stars in the system, to discover any planets, moons, or asteroids orbiting in the triple star system and to determine whether any of the planets it may or may not discover harbor life and whether it could be a potentially habitable planet for humans in the future. Before we discuss what …show more content…
kind of instruments were laden on the probe and before we discuss what it discovered, let’s discuss about the Alpha Centauri system. The Alpha Centauri star system is the closest star system to our own solar system. The main two stars of the system, Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B have most of the mass of the system, as they are the two largest stars in the system, with Alpha Centauri A being a little larger than the Sun whilst Alpha Centauri B is slightly smaller. These two stars are 4.37 light years away from our solar system. However, they are not the only two stars in the system. There is a third star in the system called Proxima Centauri. It is a very small star, being only 1.5 as large as our own Jupiter, a planet! Proxima Centauri is technically the closest star to the solar system at 4.24 light years distant. Before the probe was sent to the system, humanity knew for sure of just one planet orbiting in the Alpha Centauri system. It was discovered that this planet was slightly smaller than the Earth, orbited at about 0.1 astronomical units, and was far too close to its star to harbor life as we know it, as the surface likely was molten. Computer simulations and models had suggested to scientists for a long time that there could have been another planet orbiting within the system that could have been in the habitable zone of either Alpha Centauri A or Alpha Centauri B. Furthermore, they did not rule out the possibility of a planet or planets orbiting around Proxima Centauri, as scientists knew that planets could orbit around stars as small and dim as Proxima, however, with the rather large distances between Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centaur B, the scientists decided to not send the probe to Proxima Centauri. Now for the story of Stella Nauta itself.
Assembled at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it was one of the most complex probes ever assembled by humanity. It had many powerful and sensitive instruments on board, including high resolution cameras that could take pictures in mostly the visible spectrum to give observers from Earth a realistic view of what the probe could find. It had numerous spectrometers installed to discover more about the compositions of the stars and to find out the compositions of the other celestial bodies within the system. Furthermore, Stella Nauta was equipped with multiple telescopes that could see in all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum to uncover characteristics not available in the visible light about the bodies it encountered once it arrived in the Alpha Centauri system. Finally, in the event that the probe should encounter a planet with the potential for life, or is sustaining life, Stella Nauta was equipped with a lander probe to land on the surface of such a …show more content…
planet. Since the Stella Nauta was just a probe, it had relatively small mass as opposed to the models scientists had for an interstellar human vessel. As such, they did not need to spend as much money and accumulate as much fuel as a human vessel. However, they did not want the probe itself to be exposed to the harsh conditions of the interstellar medium, and so it was essentially put inside a rocket that was able to slice through the medium without causing or risking damage to the probe. The method by which this rocket was launched and accelerated was a very new one and rather experimental. The plan to get Stella Nauta to the Alpha Centauri system involved taking the rocket containing it to Saturnian orbit where it was given an initial acceleration by the use of many nuclear explosions in the rear of the rocket. It did not reach its final desired velocity of one tenth the speed of light through this method, however. Engineers designed the rocket to stop detonating its reservoir of bombs when it used up half of its cache. The rocket containing Stella Nauta reached its final velocity by being continuously accelerated by a laser in orbit around Titan heating a collection disk at the rear of the rocket that accelerated it to one tenth the speed of light in the matter of ten years. Travelling at this speed, the rocket took close to forty-five years to reach the Alpha Centauri system. Stella Nauta was designed to be an orbiter once it arrived at Alpha Centauri. Due to it’s high velocity of one tenth the speed of light, it would not have been able to enter orbit within the system and would have just flown through it. As such, the leftover nuclear bombs that the rocket saved from it’s initial acceleration were detonated in the front of the rocket in order to slow it down. The reverse thrust provided by these nuclear explosions enabled the rocket to slow down to a slow enough velocity that it was able to enter orbit around Alpha Centauri A. On Earth, the year in which Stella Nauta arrived in the Alpha Centauri system was 2090. At this point, the probe itself had been in hibernation within the rocket and needed to be released. The rocket released Stella Nauta, allowing it to retain the same orbit around Alpha Centauri A and begin its data collecting. It started by taking spectroscopic measurements of the composition of Alpha Centauri A.
After quickly uncovering information regarding its solar cycle, Stella Nauta took measurements of the planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A that scientists had been able to confirm existed. This planet orbits its sun at about one tenth an astronomical unit and was found to be only slightly smaller than our Earth. Unfortunately, at this distance the planet, which scientists named Beta, was not able to support life. What Stella Nauta confirmed about this planet is that its surface was indeed completely molten due to the proximity to Alpha Centauri A and the intense heat that constantly blasted the surface. It also confirmed that the planet had no atmosphere. The probe discovered that Beta had a small moon, which was about the size of Iapetus here in our own solar system. Like its host planet, this moon, dubbed Delta, had a completely molten surface and no atmosphere to speak of. Stella Nauta uncovered what Beta and Delta were each made out of, however. Both had a composition primarily consisting of silicates and iron. The temperatures on both Beta and Delta were so extreme that the molten rock flowing on the surface was a combination of iron and silicate material. Essentially, these planets had a surface that was a sea of liquid
iron. Stella Nauta found no other planets orbiting around Alpha Centauri A, and so it moved to Alpha Centauri B. While there it discovered just one singular planet, orbiting at about five quarters an astronomical unit away from Alpha Centauri B. In contrast to the rocky celestial bodies the probe discovered surrounding Alpha Centauri A, this planet was similar in size and composition to Neptune. It had a radius six fifths the size of Neptune’s was composed of mostly nitrogen, but also had traces of ammonia and methane. This planet was dubbed Phi. It was quickly discovered that Phi had a system of moons in orbit around it as Stella counted seven in all, with two of them being at least the size of Earth’s moon (the rest were presumed to be captured asteroids due to their irregular shapes). These two moons were subsequently named Mu and Theta. Mu was the size of Mars, however was more similar to Ganymede in that it possessed a surface that was a mix of rock and water ice. Stella Nauta would have dropped its lander probe onto Mu, however, when the scientists back on Earth saw the date come in for what was on Theta, they dropped the lander onto Theta. The reason why: Theta had life. First of all, it was quickly discovered that Theta was about the size of Titan, so smaller than Mu. It was also quickly discovered that the moon possessed very large lakes (by our standards but can be referred to as oceans for Theta due to its size) composed of liquid water. It was found that this water had the same exact consistency as the oceans did on Earth. However, it was not the discovery of oceans that was the selling point for the depositing of the lander. What was the selling point was the fact that they saw that the land was green. The sensors aboard Stella Nauta sensed a huge amount of carbon, which meant that whatever was alive on Theta was a carbon based life form. Life as we know it. When the lander touched down it landed in what appeared to be a field of grass. Following the success of discovering life on another world, it was decided to send Stella Nauta on a death plunge into Phi’s atmosphere to prevent contamination of Theta.
At that time, Viola Desmond was the one of the only successful black canadian business woman and beautician in Halifax because there are were very few careers offered to the black. She Attended Bloomfield High school and also, studied in a program from Field Beauty Culture School, located in Montreal. These schools were one of the only academies that accepted black students. After she graduated, she promoted and sold her products because she wanted expanded her business;she also sold many of her products to her graduates. In addition, she opened a VI’s studio of beauty culture in Halifax.
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For a long time, women’s potential in Science was little to none. However, over the years, it has now changed because of the outstanding breakthroughs and encouraging accomplishments women have done through the years. It is because of them, women’s potential in Science and other realms of studies has now evolved with more understandings and discoveries. It is for the reason of Maria Mitchell, one of the first female astronomers to be recognized in Science, that women’s potential were essentially respected. Her discoveries during her time as a student, a teacher, and an astronomer paved the way for many others, not just in Science, but also for woman’s rights and potential to be seen.
In the beginning of the story Dona Tina it talks about Luis “ Louie the foot “ who was the founder of the Royal Chicano Air Force which was originally Rebel Chicano Art Front. It's based in Sacramento where it started in the 1960s to advocate the Civil Rights and Labor Rights Movement. Montoya had started the Rebel Chicano Art in 1969 they wanted to express the goals of the Chicano Civil Rights and Labor Movement of the United farm workers with his friend Esteban Villa.
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... the poor and sick when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 (Tucker). (WC-827)
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discover new things to understand the truth behind this solar system. Also giving them the authority to modify the
Research News Planetary Scientists are Seeing the Unseeable Richard A. Kerr Science, New Series, Vol. 235, No. 2 -. 4784. The. Jan. 2, 1987, pp. 113-117. 29-31. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. Stable URL:
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Tyler, Pat. Supernova. NASA’s Heasarc: Education and Public Information. 26 Jan. 2003. 22 Nov. 2004
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Sydney had a single wish. Ever since she was a child, she dreamt of visiting outer space. The stars and the planets, the different solar systems and galaxies; she was fascinated by them all. Anything there is to know about space, Sydney knew. At the age of seven, she learned that Earth’s surface only absorbs 50 percent of incoming solar radiation. At the age of ten, she presented her science fair project comparing differences among the planets, including the fact that Venus’ atmosphere is nearly 100 times that of Earth. To become an astronaut was her only aspiration.
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