20 Qs at Questacon
Alan Duffy
Questacon is the national science and technology centre and an absolute treat to get to spend a day visiting but the questions I was asked when there were so tough! What would you have answered?
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Blog
Filtering by Tag: Mars
On The Desk On The Project
Alan Duffy
An insane week of astronomy meant that I was able to explain the latest astrophysics discoveries to over a million viewers with The Project - but from the desk! This is a big deal, and my nerves knew it! The live studio audience really helps ramp up the energy too..!
Read MoreSpace at the World Government Summit
Alan Duffy
At the truly epic World Government Summit I was privileged to lead the discussion of Mars settlement by the best and brightest from the UAE Space Agency and make the broader case for space with an international panel. Apart from that I got to hear from Forest Whitaker, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku all in one day..! The #worldgovsummit is truly an extraordinary meeting of the world’s best minds. Just as exciting will be to see the new businesses and activities that come from this meeting, I certainly aim to work more closely with an international range of impressive people, all with varied backgrounds I could never hope to have met at any other meeting. It was a genuine pleasure to meet and discuss space technologies with the extraordinary young engineers of the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre. I have to say the task facing the program director for Mars 2117, Saeed Al GerGawi, are humbling - but he and his team are more than up to the task if this gorgeous VR tour of their Mars City is anything to go by!
Read MoreInterstellar travel - ABC Breakfast News TV
Alan Duffy
I was able to spend some time on the astoundingly ambitious Breakthrough Starshot mission to Alpha Centauri (which I've written about in Cosmos Magazine and theconversation). A private enterprise initiative that will see some incredible technologies pursued to try and reach a star within a human lifetime. Then onto a critical tech development as NASA technology to get CO2 from the Martian atmosphere finds its way into craft beer... Finally a little shout out for the ESO observation of the Fornax cluster.
Read MoreSniffing Martian methane & Monster stars - ABC Breakfast News TV
Alan Duffy
I dragged the tone down slightly by discussing ESA's hunt for life on Mars with ExoMars trying to sniff out signs of life in the Martian atmosphere by searching for methane as, on Earth at least, this gas can be produced by life (typically in the ‘farts’ of sheep and cows as methanogens form it in their guts) however it’s also formed by geological processes so it’s not clear cut, yet..!
I also chatted about amazing new Hubble images of 9 monstrously large stars and gave a plug for the planetarium show Capturing the Cosmos to be released tonight.
Read MoreWhat’s up in 2016 - ABC Breakfast News TV
Alan Duffy
2016 is shaping up to be an incredible year for space exploration with ESA’s ExoMars spacecraft heading to Mars, NASA’s Juno mission reaching Jupiter on 4th July and an entirely new type of telescope called LIGO looking out into the universe for Einstein’s final prediction Gravitational Waves..!
Read MoreMeeting Buzz Aldrin!
Alan Duffy
I had a horribly awkward fanboy moment when I got to meet the legend himself Buzz Aldrin! There are few people in this world I consider a living legend but Buzz is one, so getting to shake his hand and then hear about his experiences on the Moon and his hoped for plans about getting to Mars was incredible.
Read MoreMars lost its atmosphere, Sun suspected
Alan Duffy
I wrote an article for Cosmos Magazine explaining how NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft detected streams of Martian air blasted away by the Solar Wind. This tiny trickle (100g / s) was seen to increase 10-15x during even a moderate Solar Storm (or Coronal Mass Ejection). As the Sun was more active when younger these slow and fast processes of stripping air from Mars could explain how the red planet was transformed from a water rich world 4bn years go into the barren desert it is today.
Read MoreMars losing its atmosphere - ABC Breakfast News TV
Alan Duffy
A chat on the couch about how Mars was transformed from a world of oceans to the desert we know today (it was all the Sun’s fault!) I also spoke about a NASA archaeological dig into the centre of our galaxy looking for ancient stars and finished with the news that Google Lunar Xprize's private lunar space race is ON!
Read MoreSun stripped Mars of atmosphere - Channel 10 News TV
Alan Duffy
I explained to Channel 10 that NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft has seen the solar wind from the Sun strip Mars of 100g of atmosphere a second (that’s a quarter pounder burger of air). During solar storms this can increase 10x-15x as much meaning that the younger and more active Sun was easily capable of stripping Mars of it’s atmosphere. This turned Mars from a world of oceans 4bn years ago into the desolate desert it is today. It also highlights the importance of our magnetic field on Earth which protects us from a similar fate!
Read MoreWater on Mars and why we should explore it - ABC The Drum
Alan Duffy
Chatting to ABC's The Drum about the water on Mars with the implications that has for our chance to explore it, and the importance of doing so for our future on Earth.
Read MoreA soaking gun of water on Mars - ABC Breakfast News TV
Alan Duffy
On Earth, where there's water there's life so "follow the water" has been NASA's scientific guide in exploring Mars. That effort paid off today with the confirmation that liquid water is flowing on the surface right now. This has implications for both the possibility of life and habitability by human explorers.
Read MoreUkulele in a Dome - ABC Breakfast News TV
Alan Duffy
NASA has undertaken a year long isolation experiment with 6 volunteers living in a dome no more than 11m wide and 6m to practice psychological survival techniques for the voyage to Mars. Unbelievably one of the volunteers brought a ukulele along to learn. They're first out of the airlock I'm guessing.
Read MoreNASA's Flying Saucer - ABC Breakfast News TV
Alan Duffy
NASA has an outrageously cool new spacecraft concept for landing ever larger cargo loads onto Mars. And yes it looks like a flying saucer.
Read MoreLost Spacecraft - ABC Breakfast News TV
Alan Duffy
The Beagle 2 lander remains have been discovered on Mars. I remember this launch and potential landing well, the silence from the lander was crushing. If only Colin Pillinger had lived to see its successful landing.
Read MoreYear in Space 2014 - ABC Breakfast News TV
Alan Duffy
My round up of the year that was in space, from methane on Mars, landing on comets, hundreds of alien worlds and more. It was a massive year in space!
Read MoreNASA's Orion Spacecraft - ABC Breakfast News TV
Alan Duffy
NASA is getting back into the crewed spaceflight game and although I am huge fan of SpaceX and reckon it will be the default choice for Low Earth Orbit we still need the NASA genius to get us to Mars.
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