Kinetic Micro-Penetrators

Kinetic micro-penetrators are tiny probes which impact planetary bodies at high speed and bury themselves into the planetary surface.

We are aiming at probe masses of around 2 to 12Kg with an additional similar mass to decelerate and align the probe to survive impact at around 300m/s (equivalent to around mach 1 on Earth). Survival of these impact speeds has been demonstrated by ground tests of full up NASA DS2 and Japanese Lunar-A probes, and extensive military experience of impacts into materials mostly consisting of concrete or steel.

Key Scientific Investigations

Whilst their small size does not allow a full complement of the most capable scientific instruments, they are ideal to perform focused investigations across widely space surfaces of the body not currently feasible with soft landers and rovers.

For example :-

For the Jovian satellite Europa, seismometers could determine the presence of an under-ice ocean, and the possible existence of an habit for extraterrestrial life, and organic chemical detection of the associated chemistry.
For the Moon, a seismic network could provide information into the origin of the Earth-Moon system, and ground truth as to whether water and other volatiles exists in permanently shaded areas in polar craters.
For NEOs (Near Earth Objects) this could confirm whether they are rubble piles consisting of rather loose agglomerates of rock and dust, or hard rocky bodies as originally thought.

Source : http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/planetary/mis ... rators.php

The first attempt was made in 1995, using the Parkes radio telescope in Australia, and two years later additional observations were undertaken using the 140-foot antenna in Green Bank, West Virginia.

Neither search turned up a signal. But of course, the extraterrestrials might have been off the air when we were listening. Maybe their transmitter power was insufficient for our receivers, or perhaps the bandwidth we covered, from about 1,200 to 3,000 MHz, was the wrong part of the dial. There are many ways not to find an alien broadcast, but the Allen Telescope Array, now being built, will greatly improve our ability to more thoroughly scrutinize this world – and hundreds of thousands of others.

Source : http://www.seti.org/Page.aspx?pid=965

Dr Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, picked up the odd signal in December 2008, long before it was announced that the star Gliese 581 has habitable planets in orbit around it...

...He went on: 'We found this very sharp signal, sort of a laser lookalike thing which is the sort of thing we’re looking for - a very sharp spike. And that is what we found. So that was the excitement about the whole thing.'
For months after his discovery Dr Bhathal scanned the skies for a second signal to see whether it was just a glitch in his instrumentation but his search came to nothing.

Source : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... -year.html

Starry Messages: Searching for Signatures of Interstellar Archaeology
Richard A. Carrigan Jr (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory)
(Submitted on 29 Jan 2010)

Searching for signatures of cosmic-scale archaeological artifacts such as Dyson spheres or Kardashev civilizations is an interesting alternative to conventional SETI. Uncovering such an artifact does not require the intentional transmission of a signal on the part of the original civilization. This type of search is called interstellar archaeology or sometimes cosmic archaeology. The detection of intelligence elsewhere in the Universe with interstellar archaeology or SETI would have broad implications for science. For example, the constraints of the anthropic principle would have to be loosened if a different type of intelligence was discovered elsewhere. A variety of interstellar archaeology signatures are discussed including non-natural planetary atmospheric constituents, stellar doping with isotopes of nuclear wastes, Dyson spheres, as well as signatures of stellar and galactic-scale engineering. The concept of a Fermi bubble due to interstellar migration is introduced in the discussion of galactic signatures. These potential interstellar archaeological signatures are classified using the Kardashev scale. A modified Drake equation is used to evaluate the relative challenges of finding various sources. With few exceptions interstellar archaeological signatures are clouded and beyond current technological capabilities. However SETI for so-called cultural transmissions and planetary atmosphere signatures are within reach.

Source : http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.5455

Mais le plus intéressant vient de OZ OSETI :

In December 2008 a sharp laser look alike signal emanating from 47 Tucanae* was detected.
However, further searches in the same region have failed to detect the signal
again.

Source : http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/abscic ... f/5046.pdf

An email from Dr. Bhathal:
Thanks for your email. I think a couple of people from the European press made a mistake and associated my work with the work on extra-solar planets. I am carrying out a search for ETI in the optical spectrum. We are looking for laser pulse signals from outer space.
The signal we detected came from the southern constellation Tucanae. Please find attached the signal for your use in your publications. We are still in the process of trying to figure out whether it is an ETI signal.
Cheers.
Ragbir

Scot Stride is a senior engineer at NASA JPL in Pasadena, CA. Mr. Stride holds a BSEE in Computer Engineering. Scot began his career at JPL in 1982 and has worked on flight telecommunications and radar hardware for several NASA missions including Galileo, NSCAT, Mars Pathfinder Rover, Mars 2001 Lander, CloudSat , Deep Impact and currently MRO. Since watching the Cosmos series in 1980, Mr. Stride has always been interested in SETI. He became active in SETI research in 1996 and has authored 3 papers on the subject. Copies of the papers can be downloaded at his website http://www.interstellar-probes.org/SETI Scot's main focus is studying alternatives to the traditional SETI method of searching for artificial microwave or optical signals originating far outside the solar system. The alternatives he calls SETV (Search for ET Visitation) and S3ETI (Solar System SETI). Both strategies postulate that robotic spacecraft, or probes, from highly advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, as of yet undetected by traditional SETI efforts, have launched interstellar probes which may have entered our solar system. Traditional SETI has not searched the solar system because it's been assumed that ET space probes cant get here. Indeed, even at cruise velocities of 0.1C interstellar travel is slow, but for civilizations that have the energy and patience to explore interstellar space, the laws of physics don't forbid it. SETV defines visitation as from robotic probes, not vehicles with living entities. SETV is a strategy to search for evidence of ET probes using ground-based autonomously run observatories. The search space is between Earth and the moon. S3ETI is a strategy to search for evidence of ET probes using radio telescopes or antenna arrays. The search space is the volume of space within a 50 AU heliocentric radius. This search space encompasses all the known planets and part of the Kuiper belt. S3ETI searches for artificial microwave signals or phenomena originating within the solar system. If manmade sources are eliminated then the detection of artificial signals may give indirect evidence for the presence of a robotic probe. Both strategies are practical and contain testable hypotheses. They compliment traditional SETI methods by covering the regions within the solar system. Mr. Stride will discuss these strategies and the prospect of using the Allen Telescope Array to carry out future piggy-back S3ETI experiments."

Source : http://archived.thespaceshow.com/guest.asp?q=279

Ce qui est passionnant avec la découverte de Gliese 581 g, c'est qu'elle a les propriétés qui la font ressembler beaucoup à la terre. Un esprit sceptique doit être forcé d'admettre que la vie y est présente ou bien il serait obligé de faire intervenir un nouveau principle d'exclusion, ce qui reviendrait à multiplier les entités sans nécessité.

Ce qui est passionnant avec la découverte de Gliese 581 g, c'est qu'elle a les propriétés qui la font ressembler beaucoup à la terre.

Bonjour Hallucigenia,
Merci pour la réctification, elle est pertinente. Je faisais référence à P. Butler, le co-découvreur, qui forcé de faire des prédictions, affirmait que c'était plutôt à ceux qui doutait de la possibilité de vie de fournir des preuves, vu que ça obligait de faire intervenir un principe supplémentaire pour expliquer l'absence de vie alors que dans le champs des connaissance actuelles, la présence de vie s'imposait. Je trouvais interessant cette inversion du rapport de force. Je me demandais qu'elle était la position d'un sceptique dans ce cas.

Je crois qu'à l'heure actuelle, la très grande majorité des sceptiques admet justement que la vie est probablement présente ailleurs dans l'univers et se conforme ainsi au paradigme scientifique sur la question.

C'est même une certitude à plus d'un niveau.

Je crois qu'à l'heure actuelle, la très grande majorité des sceptiques admet justement que la vie est probablement présente ailleurs dans l'univers et se conforme ainsi au paradigme scientifique sur la question.