Space and The wonders/mysteries of The Universe

Since Pluto's considered part of the Kuiper belt I can't see why this new thing wouldn't be.

I guess "dwarf planet" sounds more exciting but my understanding from back when Pluto's demotion was in the news was that it's a fairly well-populated category.

A broken telescope just discovered 104 new planets

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11677076&ref=NZH_Tw

Old video, but still mind blowing:

The size of the Hubble Deep Field as seen from earth.

...And that's a tiny, tiny, tiny part of the visible universe as seen from Earth, we have no idea how much bigger the universe really is, and will possibly be able to build even more powerful telescopes and look even further...

http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-huge-new-space-telescope-finally-complete/

it will have 100 times the observing power of Hubble

Fuck sake! Why doesn't image hosting work from my phone!!!

malickfan wrote:http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-huge-new-space-telescope-finally-complete/

it will have 100 times the observing power of Hubble

I was only vaguely aware of this in the back of my mind. Thanks for bringing this up - Hubble was such a huge step forward with endless discoveries, I wonder what this will bring?

Want more on TRAPPIST-1, the recently discovered dwarf star and its seven Earth-size planets? We’ve released more data from our planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope, which also has been observing this star since December 2016. Get the details: http://go.nasa.gov/2mlN4H6

{{{The latest update of Elite Dangerous has that system added now.
Whats amazing about it is that the games creates the galaxy using a propriety procedural generation program called Stellar Forge.

"Even with Hubble, the fainter M class red stars are only just visible at 40 light years, which is why Trappist 1 is not in most of the star catalogues. Beyond this distance we can see ever fewer M class stars – particularly the fainter ones like this M8 – and it is where our procedural generation begins to kick in – supplementing the brighter, more visible stars.

The way Stellar Forge works is to use ‘available mass’ from which to generate systems – and because of this unaccounted mass, Stellar Forge has created a system with a Brown Dwarf in very nearly the same place – 39 light years away – this is only a little smaller than an M8 – and it even has seven terrestrial worlds around it – Core Sys Sector XU-P A5-0....we have tweaked Stellar Forge with the data from the recent discoveries so that the planets are now the same – and we have renamed it Trappist 1"- ED Team}}

NASA will announce some discovery about the moons of Saturn and the possibility of life in a live stream broadcast today at 2 pm EST (6 pm GMT).  Here's one of the places to watch it:live broadcast

Best guess right now is it has to do with thermal vents in the oceans of Enceladus.  Nobody is saying they have discovered life.  Most likely just all the right conditions for it.

{{ Cheers Halfy- if I am about at 6 I'll try to catch that. }}

Will be starting soon!

the verge lost the stream. Go to https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive instead.

{{{ Mmm hydrogen vents, so the conditions for life found- but no means out there yet to detect actual life- presumably need to send a sub down! }}}

Even NASA can't get live stream to work seamlessly.

I kind of enjoy their choice to use one of their young publicists as MC. Sort of like the young chirpy hostess that meets you at a restaurant.

Interesting that they pointed out the caveat that if they are seeing so much chemical energy available in the plumes, it may be an argument against life: If there's a lot of pizza available, it may mean nobody is around to eat it.

Best description of the science so far: https://futurism.com/5-nasa-says-saturns-moon-has-ingredients-necessary-for-a-habitable-environment/

There's A New Spot On Jupiter, And It's Pretty Cool



A prominent feature of Jupiter's surface is the Great Red Spot, which has been observed continuously since the 1830s. Jupiters red spot was easy to discover because of its prominent coloring. Now a new spot has been discovered that can only be seen in the infrared.

Dubbed the "Great Cold Spot," it exists not in the thick clouds of Jupiter, but in its thin upper atmosphere, a region driven by Jupiter's strong magnetic field. Jupiter magnetic field causes ionized particles to stream toward its magnetic poles, creating aurora similar to those we see on Earth. When ionized particles strike Jupiter's upper atmosphere, it causes that region of the upper atmosphere to heat up. It's generally been thought that the temperature of the upper atmosphere was rather static, with its temperature cooling as you move farther from the polar regions. But detailed infrared images show Jupiter's upper atmosphere is complex and dynamic.

The Great Cold Spot (indicated by the white arrow) it seen near the hot region of Jupiter's magnetic pole.

Using data from NASA’s InfraRed Telescope Facility, a team analyzed the thermal properties of Jupiter's upper atmosphere near the polar region. They found a cold region similar in size to the Great Red Spot. With data gathered over 15 years, the team could see the cold spot evolve and change, growing and shrinking over time. This indicates that the feature is persistent and dynamic, similar to the Great Red Spot. Thus the upper atmosphere has a complex weather system similar to that of Jupiter's lower atmosphere.

It remains to be seen whether there are other long-lasting features of Jupiter's upper atmosphere, but for now we can say that parts of it can be pretty cool.

Paper: Tom S. Stallard, et al. The Great Cold Spot in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere. Geophysical Research Letters. doi: 10.1002/2016GL071956 (2017)

Brian Koberlein is an astrophysicist, professor and author. You can find more of his writing at One Universe at a Time.

I'm surprised we haven't seen infrared images of jupiter before.

Radar images of an asteroid that will safely fly by Earth tomorrow were obtained in the early morning hours on Tuesday by our Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California. The asteroid, known as 2014 JO25, will fly by at a distance of about 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers), or about 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon. Learn more:
http://go.nasa.gov/2oKa4kx

NASA’s Juno probe forces ‘rethink’ on Jupiter.

http://www.perthnow.com.au/technology/science/nasas-juno-probe-forces-rethink-on-jupiter/news-story/58abbcb3bd6f8c83f40ffeb6c72611a8

I was re-watching Apollo 13 and thinking to myself, "how on earth did they capture the footage of the actors in an apparently weightless state?"

Over the credits I saw a reference to a "C-135 Filming Unit" or something. Apparently, to make it appear as though the actors were in space, the film crew actually achieved temporary weightlessness for them by shooting within a KC-135 airplane, which achieves ~22 seconds of weightlessness for those on-board by following a parabolic flight pattern: gaining elevation at a steep angle before again descending in a kind of controlled free-fall. I guess they must have installed the sets required for filming within the plane itself, and gotten in a single short take before having to climb again.


Pretty nifty I thought. In comparison, the 2013 film Gravity makes it appear as though the actors are weightless entirely through visual effects. I read that 80% of the shots in that film are computer generated.

I read in an interview that Tom Hanks praised Ron Howard for his choice to film weightlessness in this way rather than through an "uncomfortable" system of wires and straps, but the KC-135's parabolic flight pattern can't have been exactly relaxing either. On the way up those inside experience 1.8gs, then the ~23 seconds of weightlessness, then 1.8gs on the way down. Rinse and repeat. Up and down, up and down.

NASA has used it for training since 1960 or so, and they've nicknamed it the "Vomit Comet" for a reason! Roughly 2/3rds of those who go up in the plane become ill (that is, throw up). Between Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon, perhaps Hanks was the lucky third?

eclipse was fun. People standing all around campus with plastic and paper eclipse glasses, or with pinhole camera setups. A few welding masks. I sauntered down to Broadway to see people rushing out of an eyewear store with sunglasses and tags still attached. the best part when when some of the broken clouds were just thick enough to do the job for you. Wasn't quick enough with the camera to capture that, unfortunately.