Join us for our October 14 meeting! The first of two presentations is by Joe Aspler:
The Solar System Ain’t What it Used To Be
From the earliest days of science fiction, space travellers travelled to the Moon, to Mars, to Venus, and to other planets as they were discovered. Early science fiction – before the late 199th century – treated the planets as just different earths. Science fictional tropes from the late 19th century right to the Space Age declared Mercury to be an oven on the side facing the sun and a freezer on the other. Venus was a planet of swamps, jungles, and dinosaurs. Mars was a cool desert planet, with all the water in the canals.
Then, science had its little say. Starting in the early 1960s, the first interplanetary probes knocked down the tropes of science fiction. Or as T.H. Huxley (1825 – 1895) put it: “The great tragedy of Science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”
But have no fear, there were plenty of other ways to look at the planets … and more planets to look at.
Pictures and short video of MonSFFA’s visit to the Montreal Aviation Museum in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue have been uploaded to our website and can be accessed by clicking the field trips menu item under activities. Or go directly to http://www.monsffa.ca/?page_id=28425
Bennu is an asteroid that could threaten the Earth, though the possibility is a narrow one. Still, a wise move to find out what it is made of, just in case we need to eliminate it sometime in the future. Besides that, the always important question: what are WE made of, what are the prime building blocks of our solar system? Asteroids are untouched remnants of the solar system’s formation.
But this isn’t the end of the story! OSIRIS-REx is now headed back out toward another asteroid. The spacecraft will arrive at Apophis in April 2029, around when the asteroid is expected to encounter Earth. A few years ago, Apophis was discovered to be on an actual collision course, which was the cause of a lot of excitement, but follow-up studies have it narrowly missing us. Whew! Good idea to learn about its composition. —Cathy
After a seven-year mission to the asteroid Bennu, seen here, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is set to drop off its samples on Sunday. (NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/CSA/York/MDA/The Associated Press)
A spacecraft that has travelled more than 950 million kilometres is dropping off a care package on Sunday: samples from an asteroid that lies more than 100 million kilometres from Earth.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) launched in 2016 destined for an asteroid named Bennu. Its main mission: to stick an arm out, “high-five” the asteroid and then vacuum up some of the debris, referred to as “touch and go.”
It successfully did so in 2020. Now, the rocky samples — roughly 250 grams in total, the largest ever to return to Earth — are on their way to be studied by science teams, including those from Canada.
Our October 14 club meeting will feature a Halloween theme!
We are tasking club members with the creation of a Halloween-themed table centrepiece—a Jack-o-Lantern, perhaps, a spooky gravestone, cats, bats; use your imagination! And, consider adding something sci-fi to your scary creation!
A visit to your local dollar store might provide a few props to utilize as part of your centrepiece!
Bring your finished creations in to our October “Halloween” meeting; your spooky centrepieces will be used to decorate the tables in our meeting room! Online participants may showcase their creations over ZOOM!
Attached is the September 2023 edition of /Shooting My CUFFs/, the newsletter of the Canadian Unity Fan Fund 2023-2024 campaign. Enjoy! Shooting My CUFFs #6
This is my first attempt to set up a public Discord group. I invite you to join the CUFF Discord group at
A Nasa probe into hundreds of UFO sightings found there was no evidence aliens were behind the unexplained phenomena, but the space agency also could not rule out that possibility.
If the truth is out there, this long-awaited report offers no conclusive evidence.
But it did outline how Nasa will investigate what it calls UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) with improved technology and artificial intelligence.
Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said the US space agency will not only take the lead in researching possible UAP incidents, but will share data with more transparency.
The report is 36 pages of quite technical and scientific observations, so here are some of the key takeaways.
There’s no proof aliens exist, but they might
The very last page of the report said “there is no reason to conclude” that extra-terrestrial sources are behind the hundreds of UAP sightings Nasa has investigated.
“However, if we acknowledge that as one possibility, then those objects must have travelled through our solar system to get here,” the report said.
Although the report did not conclude extra-terrestrial life exists, Nasa didn’t deny the possibility of “potential unknown alien technology operating in Earth’s atmosphere”.
