Experiment Space Station Live


Simply put, resistance to the creation of a space frontier originates with the insecurities of Western leaders. First, it is clear that everything changes with the emergence of a frontier. Established power structures are usually shaken, not reinforced. (If this is not clear, try reading Walter Prescott Webb's The Great Frontier, particularly the last chapter, and Divided We Stand: The Crisis of a Frontierless Democracy, by the same author.) The tiny moon--which for now has been designated S/2015 (136472) 1, and playfully nicknamed MK 2, for short--is more than 1,300 times dimmer than Makemake itself. MK 2 was first spotted when it was about 13,000 miles from its dwarf planet parent, and its diameter is estimated to be about 100 miles across. Makemake is 870 miles wide, and the dwarf planet, which was discovered over a decade ago, is named for the creation deity of the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island. "For the smallest craters that we're looking at, we think we're starting to see where the Moon has gone through so much fracturing that it gets to a point where the porosity of the crust just stays at some constant level. You can keep impacting it and you'll hit regions where you'll increase porosity here and decrease it there, but on average it stays constant," Dr. Soderblom continued to explain to the press on September 10, 2015.