Astronomy & Space Exploration

The ability to make precision landings like that are also relevant to human spaceflight - their capsule for taking astronauts to and from the space station is eventually supposed to be able to land with rockets on a pad.
 
Here she blows:



The reactions :lol: Like me in 08.
 
Ubik said:
Here she blows:



The reactions :lol: Like me in 08.
Click to expand...


That's great. It must be amazing to be a part of something like that. You can plan it and have the maths down and be 99.99% sure it's going to land, but until it actually does, you can never be sure.
 
RexHamilton said:
That's great. It must be amazing to be a part of something like that. You can plan it and have the maths down and be 99.99% sure it's going to land, but until it actually does, you can never be sure.
Click to expand...
Yeah they crashed it on the couple of attempts before this :lol: But then if you don't crash rockets when trying new stuff, you're not doing it right.
 
Sir Matt said:
We already have to buy rocket engines from the Russians. That's part of the reason there's funding for other companies. We could use the older rockets that still work but they're rather expensive and since no one wants to pay taxes...
Click to expand...
Wouldn't be a tax because people would pay however they want and they could stop anytime. I say this because is no brainer, only nasa would be able to really explore our near planets, why spaceX or the other one will spending money to go to Mars?
 
barros said:
Wouldn't be a tax because people would pay however they want and they could stop anytime. I say this because is no brainer, only nasa would be able to really explore our near planets, why spaceX or the other one will spending money to go to Mars?
Click to expand...
It's not so much about them doing the exploring as reducing the cost of putting stuff into orbit. You need to get a lot of mass off Earth for a manned Mars landing, and it's the cost that's preventing it getting off the ground (no pun intended). Reduce the costs, it becomes economical.
 
Whilst i readily accept that state-funded space exploration has suffered somewhat in recent times, i cant but have concerns about a future in which corporations are pre-eminent.

It's not an immediate problem i grant, but the exploitation of lunar resources could all too easily repeat our excesses here on Earth.
 
Ubik said:
It's not so much about them doing the exploring as reducing the cost of putting stuff into orbit. You need to get a lot of mass off Earth for a manned Mars landing, and it's the cost that's preventing it getting off the ground (no pun intended). Reduce the costs, it becomes economical.
Click to expand...
To reach Mars they would have to send an unmanned ship first with all the equipment they need then they would send the second one and would be manned. But to be fair the problem is landing and to take off from Mars because the amount of fuel they need. If they find oxygen and hydrogen then they could make the fuel for the journey back home.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
Whilst i readily accept that state-funded space exploration has suffered somewhat in recent times, i cant but have concerns about a future in which corporations are pre-eminent.

It's not an immediate problem i grant, but the exploitation of lunar resources could all too easily repeat our excesses here on Earth.
Click to expand...

Corporations have a long way to go and somehow they get money from the government which could be used for NASA, no government (besides US) or corporation can build the space shuttles so the next decade or 2 we are really going back and not forward.
 
Sounds a bit euphemistic.
 
SpaceX launch Jason-3 ocean exploration satellite and attempt landing the first stage on a sea drone ship today.

Launch went fine, no news on first stage landing.
 
Looks like it broke a leg whilst landing on the drone ship. Shame, but they'll get it before long.
 
Possible ninth planet lurking about?

Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology announced Wednesday that they have found new evidence of a giant icy planet lurking in the darkness of our solar system far beyond the orbit of Pluto. They are calling it "Planet Nine."

Their paper, published in the Astronomical Journal, describes the planet as about five to 10 times as massive as the Earth. But the authors, astronomers Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin, have not observed the planet directly.

Instead, they have inferred its existence from the motion of recently discovered dwarf planets and other small objects in the outer solar system. Those smaller bodies have orbits that appear to be influenced by the gravity of a hidden planet – a "massive perturber." The astronomers suggest it might have been flung into deep space long ago by the gravitational force of Jupiter or Saturn.

Telescopes on at least two continents are searching for the object, which on average is 20 times farther away than the eighth planet, Neptune. If "Planet Nine" exists, it's big. Its estimated mass would make it about two to four times the diameter of the Earth, distinguishing it as the fifth-largest planet after Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. But at such extreme distances, it would reflect so little sunlight that it could evade even the most powerful telescopes.

Confirmation of its existence would reconfigure the models of the solar system. Pluto, discovered in 1930, spent three-quarters of a century as the iconic ninth planet. Then, a decade ago, Pluto received a controversial demotion, in large part because of Brown.

Brown and Batygin initially set out to prove that Planet Nine didn't exist. Their paper builds on earlier research by two other astronomers that revealed a peculiar clustering of the small, icy objects discovered in the past decade or so in the remote regions of the solar system.

In 2014, Scott Sheppard of the Washington-based Carnegie Institution of Science and Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii published a paper in the journal Nature that discussed the potential existence of a giant planet affecting the orbits of those dwarf worlds. Sheppard and Trujillo noted a similarity in the motion of those bodies when they are closest to the sun.

"We thought their idea was crazy," Brown said, explaining that extra planets are always the "go-to suggestion" when astronomers find orbital behaviour they can't explain. But he and Batygin struggled to debunk that hypothetical ninth planet. They used mathematical equations and then computer models, ultimately concluding that the best explanation for the smaller objects' clustering was the gravitational effects of something far bigger.

Such clustering is similar to what's seen in some asteroids that are about as close to the sun as the Earth. They wind up in stable orbits that keep them far from Earth and free from any significant disturbance by the Earth's gravity.

"Until then, we didn't really believe our results ourselves. It just didn't make sense to us," Brown said. But their modeling showed that a planet with 10 times the mass of Earth would exert an influence over the orbits of the smaller bodies and keep them from coming as close to the sun as they should. It would also slowly twist these orbits by 90 degrees, making them periodically perpendicular to the plane of the solar system.

"In the back of my head, I had this nagging memory that someone had found some of these modulating objects and not known what to make of them," Brown said. "And sure enough, these objects do exist. And they were exactly where our theory predicts they should be."

That's when the Caltech researchers started to take Planet Nine seriously. "That was the real jaw-dropping moment, when it went from a cute little idea to something that might be for real," he said.

If and when it's spotted, Planet Nine would be evaluated by the same criteria that got Pluto demoted. Brown isn't concerned about that.

"That's not even a question -- it's definitely a planet," he said. One of the trickiest criterion for planet status, based on the standards set by the International Astronomical Union, is that a planet must "clear the neighbourhood" around its orbital zone. It needs to have the gravitational prowess to change the orbits of other objects.

"Planet Nine is forcing any objects that cross its orbit to push into these misaligned positions. It fits that concept perfectly," Brown said.

The "Pluto killer" added: "Not to mention the fact that it's 5,000 times the mass of Pluto."

WaPo: New evidence suggests a ninth planet lurking at the edge of the solar system
Click to expand...

I saw a good Horizon programme a few months ago that showed these scientists trying to create a working model of the solar system from it's origin to the way it is now and the only way they could get it to work was by introducing a large ninth planet, all the other models using the planets we know of today ended up with Earth, Mars, Mercury etc being flung out into space by Jupiter & Saturn.
 
So just reading about this possible new planet and seen this graphic.

planet-nine-160120c-02.jpg
I'm just wondering. IF that is the orbit of this potential planet, will it have any gravitational effect on us, or noticable effect?
 
RamblingRebel said:
So just reading about this possible new planet and seen this graphic.

planet-nine-160120c-02.jpg
I'm just wondering. IF that is the orbit of this potential planet, will it have any gravitational effect on us, or noticable effect?
Click to expand...
It wouldn't, it's too small and far away. Its distance really can't be emphasised enough, Neptune itself is about twice as far out as Uranus (which is already pretty darn far out), and this is several times the distance of Neptune even at its closest approach to the Sun. Jupiter's much bigger and far closer, and the effect it has on us is tiny. The only way it could really affect directly us is if it sends in comets from the Kuiper Belt.
 
Ubik said:
It wouldn't, it's too small and far away. Its distance really can't be emphasised enough, Neptune itself is about twice as far out as Uranus (which is already pretty darn far out), and this is several times the distance of Neptune even at its closest approach to the Sun. Jupiter's much bigger and far closer, and the effect it has on us is tiny. The only way it could really affect directly us is if it sends in comets from the Kuiper Belt.
Click to expand...
Thanks ubik.

Now, they say the big bang took something like a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second to expand from smaller than an atom to bigger than a galaxy.

Thought nothing could go faster than the speed of light? Our own galaxy is stupidly big something like 50,000 light years across. Whats the story?
 
RamblingRebel said:
Thanks ubik.

Now, they say the big bang took something like a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second to expand from smaller than an atom to bigger than a galaxy.

Thought nothing could go faster than the speed of light? Our own galaxy is stupidly big something like 50,000 light years across. Whats the story?
Click to expand...
Not totally sure on the size compared to the age but on the faster-than-light expansion - essentially nothing can travel faster than light through space. But in this case, it was space itself that was expanding, so those rules didn't apply.
 
Ubik said:
Not totally sure on the size compared to the age but on the faster-than-light expansion - essentially nothing can travel faster than light through space. But in this case, it was space itself that was expanding, so those rules didn't apply.
Click to expand...

Thanks ubik.

Are there any theories out there that does a decent job of explaining what the universe is expanding into?
 
Hoping there's a new picture of Occator from the low orbit soon.

RamblingRebel said:
Thanks ubik.

Are there any theories out there that does a decent job of explaining what the universe is expanding into?
Click to expand...
It's a bit like asking what time's moving into. Beyond my comprehension really! String theory and its various iterations is the prime cosmological theory among academics, have a gander at that if you want to be deeply confused.

In space travel news, NASA has funded this new spaceship:
011416dreamchaser2.jpg
 
Thought this was a good oul read:

1/2
The Great ET Paradox: Why We are Likely to Find Them Before They Find Us
  • by George Michael
PIA20053-2x-510x287.jpg


An artist’s concept depicts an orbiting swarm of dusty comet fragments as a possible explanation for the unusual light signal of KIC 8462852. (by NASA/JPL-Caltech [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Despite over 50 years of effort, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) enterprise has yet to detect any telltale signs of sentient life beyond Earth. But exciting news of an anomalous star 1,400 light-years from Earth has raised new hopes that we are not alone in the galaxy after all. Using data collected by the Kepler space telescope, astronomers discovered that the distant star—KIC 8462852—flickers in an unusual way, as if some unknown celestial bodies were intermittently obscuring it. Of the roughly 150,000 stars within view of the Kepler telescope, KIC 8462852 is the only one that glimmers in this odd fashion.1 Since it has been observed over the past few years, KIC 8462852 has dimmed dramatically, at times dropping in brightness as much as 22 percent.2 Moreover, the recorded dips have not been regular, but uneven and unpredictable. Tabetha Boyajian announced these amazing findings that she and members of Planet Hunters—a citizen science program launched at Yale University—in a paper recently published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.3

A number of theories have been advanced to explain the anomalous activity of the star. Conceivably, the dips in light could be occasioned by an orbiting a planet, but even a Jupiter-sized planet would only dim this type of star by only 1 percent as it transited across. Furthermore, the irregular flickering associated with the star would not be consistent with a planet making a regular orbit, which would produce predictable dimming. Perhaps fragments from a planetary collision could be responsible for the dimming light, but such events are so rare that we would not expect Kepler to pick up such activity based on probabilities.4 Finally, the star could be surrounded by an accretion disk of dust and rubble that has not yet agglomerated into planets or been gobbled up by the star itself. Such an explanation would be convincing if the star was young, but KIC 8462852 appears to be mature. As Jason Wright, a professor of astronomy at Penn State University, noted, the star is moving too fast to have formed recently, as it fails to show any infrared signs of a big disk that would normally be associated with the material that could cause such dips in brightness.5

Because scientists have yet to advance a convincing natural explanation, attention has turned to more tantalizing possibilities. By far the most exciting is that an alien megastructure is responsible for blocking the light emitted by the star.6 After news of the star’s unusual features was released, SETI scientists quickly began using the Allen Telescope Array in California to examine radio emissions from the area of star for any signs of artificiality.

People have long thought about the prospect of aliens, but it was not until around the middle of the last century that a viable methodology of detecting extraterrestrial intelligence was put forward. In 1959 Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison published an article in which they called for searching for radio signals as a method to detect extraterrestrial intelligence. They argued that radio seemed the logical medium that aliens would use to attempt to make contact with other civilizations.7 The next year, Frank Drake initiated Project Ozma, which used a radio telescope to search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia.8 He also created the so-called Drake equation as a formula designed to estimate the number of communicating civilizations in the galaxy.9

So far, the SETI Institute has not detected any alien radio signals coming from KIC 8462852.10 The major drawback with assuming that radio would be a detectable extraterrestrial medium of communication is that over time, our own civilization’s electromagnetic footprint has been fading. In the early days of SETI, scientists believed that a relentless rise in radio traffic would develop as wealth and technology advanced. However, just the reverse occurred, as we have come to rely on methods of communications that minimize radio frequency power leakage, such as cable television and submarine telephone cables. Since this has been the trend on Earth, it is likely to be the case for technological civilizations beyond our solar system as well.11 What is more, in order for us to pick up an alien radio transmission, it would have to be beamed directly at us. As the SETI scientist Doug Vakoch opined, “[t]he Klingon version of Gilligan’s Island is not going to reach Earth.”12

Instead of listening for radio transmission, some scientists have counseled that an optical methodology could be a more feasible approach for the SETI project. On that note, in 1964 the Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev propounded a classification of extraterrestrial civilizations based on their methods of energy extraction. His scale has three categories. A Type I civilization can harness all available energy sources on its planet. A Type II civilization harnesses energy directly from the star in its solar system, not merely using solar power, but the mining of energy from the star. A Type III civilization is able to harness the power of other stars beyond its own solar system.13

How would a civilization advance on this scale? A civilization might advance to Type I status by applying fusion power or by producing antimatter to be used as an energy source.14 To advance beyond Type I status, the theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson once theorized that a hypothetical megastructure could be employed to encompass a star as a system of orbiting solar power satellites to capture a star’s energy output. Constructing such a device—a Dyson sphere—would be a gargantuan engineering undertaking, but theoretically possible. Dyson conjectured that an alien civilization could tear apart planets and asteroids to use as the material to build the necessary structures. Almost certainly, a device such as a Dyson sphere would dramatically alter the light spectrum of the enclosed or partially-enclosed star, and in doing so, create a noticeable infrared glow that could be identified by peering astronomers, even on the far side of the galaxy. For that reason, Dyson urged SETI scientists to focus on technology, rather than radio signals.15
Click to expand...
 
2/2

If it is a megastructure orbiting KIC 8462852, then the star could be hosting a Type II civilization. The Internet is abuzz with speculation that a Dyson’s sphere is responsible for the star’s erratic glimmering and herein lies the great ET paradox. If we leave aside the extraterrestrial hypothesis for UFOs and assume that Earth has never been visited by aliens, then it is likely that we will discover intelligent extraterrestrial aliens before they discover us, their technological superiority notwithstanding. The laws of physics, as we currently conceive them, add credence to this assumption. If Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is indeed inviolable, then information cannot be transmitted or received faster than the speed of light. This fact would give us a comparative advantage in a SETI effort vis-à-vis our galactic neighbors. To be sure, using advanced technology and spectroscopy, alien astronomers could probably determine Earth’s atmospheric molecules, such as oxygen and methane, and conclude that our planet has a biosphere. But even if a biosphere is detected, that alone will not automatically imply that an intelligence species resides on the planet let alone has built a technological civilization. It is unlikely that alien astronomers would find any revealing signs of civilization on our planet insofar as we have yet to construct any massive artifacts capable of being detected.

But assuming that their instruments are capable of amazing feats of detection, at a distance of 1,400 light years, alien astronomers in the area of KIC 8462852 would see a snapshot of Earth in the 7th century when Europe was in the throes of the Dark Ages, Mohammed was allegedly receiving his divine revelations in a mountain cave near Mecca, and the Tang Dynasty was emerging in China. It is doubtful that any of these events would be noticed by an extra-terrestrial intelligence. Even the Great Wall of China would go undetected, as much of its construction was not underway until the 14th century during the Ming Dynasty. And contrary to myth, this structure is not visible from space even from low Earth orbit—a mere 100 miles away—at least to the unaided eye, as the Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei discovered to his disappointment. Our city lights might be visible, but because electrification did not really take hold until the early 20th century, aliens might have to wait a long time before they see them. Finally, even if alien radio telescopes were so powerful that they could detect our relatively weak television and radio transmissions, it will be centuries before they will arrive at KIC 8462852. Because Earth has been producing artificial radio transmissions for only about a century, there is a strong possibility that they have not reached any alien civilizations to date. Conversely, by astronomical standards, it is reasonable to speculate that an advanced alien civilization could have preceded ours by over a million years, in which case its radio transmissions could suffuse the galaxy, including our solar system.

Understandably, astronomers have counseled caution, pointing out that the odds are high that a natural explanation will eventually be found for the star’s flickering luminosity that has nothing to do with aliens. There have been other false positives in the past. For example, in 1968 a group of Cambridge radio astronomers discovered what they called “rapidly pulsating radio sources.”16 Initially, there was excitement that these emissions could have been artificial signals sent by an extraterrestrial civilization, but alas, it was determined that pulsars, which are produced by rapidly rotating neutron stars, were detected instead.17

In any event, searching for the cause of these strange dips will make for some fascinating research because they have defied conventional explanations so far. The discovery of roughly 2,000 exoplanets (planets located outside of our solar system) over the past two decades confirms the existence of possible habitats for alien life. Moreover, astronomers have determined that a number exoplanets have earth-like characteristics and reside in the habitable zones of their star systems.18 By inference, these findings bolster the case for life existing outside of our solar system in which case we may someday discover evidence of an advanced alien civilization. By doing so, this would give us hope that perhaps we too can work through the myriad of problems afflicting our contemporary world and survive.

http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/the-great-et-paradox/
Click to expand...
 
This might sounds like a silly question, so do pardon me if it comes across so, but how many of you actually pursue astronomy as a hobby? Or is it the theory and the science which intrigues you most?

It is something i would like to take up one day, although my circumstances (location and poor vision) will make the mere attempt an expensive and convoluted one. After having read a few forums, it seems that my best route lies with video astronomy.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
This might sounds like a silly question, so do pardon me if it comes across so, but how many of you actually pursue astronomy as a hobby? Or is it the theory and the science which intrigues you most?

It is something i would like to take up one day, although my circumstances (location and poor vision) will make the mere attempt an expensive and convoluted one. After having read a few forums, it seems that my best route lies with video astronomy.
Click to expand...

We got a ridiculously expensive telescope for guests to use at a resort I worked at a few years ago (middle of the Indian Ocean, no light pollution, great for star gazing). I set it up and tried to get into it for a while but you'd need a lot more patience than I have. I'd be more interested in reading about what other people have found and trying to wrap my head around all the different theories and possibilities.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
This might sounds like a silly question, so do pardon me if it comes across so, but how many of you actually pursue astronomy as a hobby? Or is it the theory and the science which intrigues you most?

It is something i would like to take up one day, although my circumstances (location and poor vision) will make the mere attempt an expensive and convoluted one. After having read a few forums, it seems that my best route lies with video astronomy.
Click to expand...

For me it is certainly about science.

 
Something certainly happened to him up there, it's something that you can only imagine changes you quite fundamentally at a deep level.

Youngest moonwalker left is 80!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.