SILLY STUFF: While out running errands today, we stopped at one of our favorite stores, Archie McPhee. It's chock full o' stuff you don't know you need until you see it. You know, things like bacon flavored dental floss, Jane Austen toothpaste and an Existential coloring book.
We walked out with a unicorn rubber duckie and a bobblehead Beethoven (the latter to send as a thank you token to the professor of our classical music course).
SPICY SPROUTS: Last year, CJ went on a data mining binge eager to learn all about the world's hottest pepper plants. That research led to him being very interested in growing a Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper plant. Encouraging his interest, we ordered a plant starter kit online for about $20. Here's an archival photo ...
We managed to get a couple of plants from that kit, which we started on our kitchen counter. The plants eventually made their way up to our garden. Come October, we were all thrilled when we found they'd produced a couple of small peppers.
We used those peppers in some tomatillo salsa, but we also harvested seed from them. A couple of weeks ago, we planted those seeds in some potting soil and crossed our fingers.
Well, guess what?
We have some baby plants! Hooray! No $20 starter kit needed - w00t!
FIRED UP: Lots of NASA news today. First thing this morning, test firing of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The two-minute test was one of two that will qualify the booster for flight before SLS begins carrying NASA’s Orion spacecraft to deep space destinations.
Some pretty dramatic photos of the test started popping up on my Facebook feed, as a couple of my friends are photographers who were on site. NASA had some of their own photos, too, of course. Like this one. ...
Per NASA, what you see above is the largest, most powerful rocket booster ever built successfully. The test was conducted at Promontory, Utah. You can watch two minutes of rocket fire via this great YouTube video from NASA's Marshall Center. https://youtu.be/Qn6OvHofcoo
More info on SLS: http://www.nasa.gov/sls
Midday, CJ got excited when I shared with him a story about NASA's Cassini space probe finding evidence of the first active hot-water chemistry going on somewhere other than Earth. Specifically, there are clear signs of interesting hydrothermal activity on Saturn's moon Enceladus.
It's speculated that the activity seen on Enceladus mimics deep oceans here on Earth. According to NASA's press release on the topic, "The implications of such activity on a world other than our planet open up unprecedented scientific possibilities."
For whatever reason, for the past couple of weeks, CJ has been obsessing about environments on moons in our solar system, so this news was very welcome. Gravity science results published in 2014 points to the presence of a 6-mile- (10-kilometer-) deep ocean beneath an ice shell about 19 to 25 miles (30 to 40 kilometers) thick.
According to John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, "These findings add to the possibility that Enceladus, which contains a subsurface ocean and displays remarkable geologic activity, could contain environments suitable for living organisms. ... The locations in our solar system where extreme environments occur in which life might exist may bring us closer to answering the question: are we alone in the universe."
Here's a great NASA graphic explaining more about what's going on on Enceladus.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI
This illustration depicts potential origins of methane found in the plume of gas and ice that spray from Enceladus. Scientists believe the plumes originate from an internal liquid-water ocean beneath the moon's south polar region.
More on the Cassini mission and Enceladus: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
This afternoon, we watched a Soyuz capsule carrying two cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut undock from the ISS, and a little after dinnertime, the trio was landing on frozen ground in Kazakhstan.
Barry Wilmore via NASA TV
It was good to see Expedition 42 crew members Barry Wilmore, Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova land, as during descent, communication with the capsule was lost for a long, looooong time.
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