Astronomy & Space Exploration

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Actual time lapse of an alien solar system :drool: (Composite, not sure if they've modelled anything)

Linky - http://www.manyworlds.space/index.p...stem-in-orbit-directly-imaged-and-remarkable/
 
Loving how good we as a species are getting really good at science... However should we be messing with other planets when we can't even look after our own?

Are we gonna be the 'bad guy aliens' from the movies, who strips a planet of all its resources, then moves on to the next?
 
RamblingRebel said:
Loving how good we as a species are getting really good at science... However should we be messing with other planets when we can't even look after our own?

Are we gonna be the 'bad guy aliens' from the movies, who strips a planet of all its resources, then moves on to the next?
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No. We have to reach a planet before we can strip it of its resources, and spending 10 zillion dollars to send a dozen people to a world orbiting another star is unlikely to prove an economic proposition. Interstellar trade looks a non-starter. Transport costs would be astronomical, and the wait on delivery off-putting.

We could launch interstellar voyagers like a message in a bottle of course, but there wouldn't be much point in investing all that money if the folks back home never got anything back. Unless the crew were all billionaires and ponied up the cash themselves. But billionaires would probably prefer to stay home.
 
Ubik said:
That thing must have eaten a good part of a galaxy. Some aliens probably went with it.
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Aye, and luckily for the black hole, it's located in the midst of a very, very active stellar nursery:


The colossal galaxy cluster is also the brightest in X-ray light, and the galaxy at its heart apparently gives birth to more than 700 stars per year – hundreds of times as fast as our Milky Way forms stars, researchers say.
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Just the sheer dimension of its event horizon is disconcerting...
The diameter of the black hole's immense event horizon is on the order of 118 billion kilometres, 19 times the distance from the Sun to Pluto
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:lol:
 
Conquest of Mars begins.

Trump makes 2033 Mars mission an official NASA goal
The president signs a bill that funds the space agency and sets an aggressive new timeline for setting foot on the Red Planet.

While many federal agencies are facing deep budget cuts, President Donald Trump appears to think NASA is on the right track.

The president made that sentiment more official on Tuesday by signing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2017. The bill basically says the space agency should stay the course, including plans to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.

In fact, by signing the NASA funding bill into law, Trump actually set a more aggressive goal for getting to our planetary next door neighbor. The bill specifically mentions targeting 2033 for a human spaceflight mission to the Red Planet. Previously, former President Barack Obama and NASA had talked in more vague terms about launching such a mission in the mid-2030s or later.

The bill also emphasizes the continuation of NASA's partnership with commercial space companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, which have been awarded contracts from the space agency. SpaceX has its own aggressive timeline for not just getting to Mars, but colonizing the place in the coming decades.

Notably, the bill makes no mention of continuing NASA's ongoing earth science efforts: the space agency has played a leading role in climate science for decades.

At the signing ceremony Trump asked the bill's sponsor, Rep. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), if he'd be willing to go into space. The congressman replied: "You could send Congress into space."

Many Americans will surely be disappointed to hear that the bill lays out no timeline for such a mission.

(｀-´)>
 
They're gearing up for something massive. I've been saying this for a little while. News about potential life in space has been ramping up recently, investing into NASA, probably some other stuff. This is happening
 
SLS is increasingly looking like a money pit for NASA, or rather one big barrel of pork. 2033 is the usual kind of date you get, just close enough that it's tangible, far away enough that it'll be forgotten about and indefinitely delayed.
 
http://ac.els-cdn.com/S009457651730...t=1490634357_c6015c152b13fcd9b31ceee3065257d3


The ultimate limits of the relativistic rocket equation. The Planck photon rocket

In this paper we look at the ultimate limits of a photon propulsion rocket. The maximum velocity for a photon propulsion rocket is just below the speed of light and is a function of the reduced Compton wavelength of the heaviest subatomic particles in the rocket. We are basically combining the relativistic rocket equation with Haug's new insight on the maximum velocity for anything with rest mass. An interesting new finding is that in order to accelerate any subatomic“fundamental” particle to its maximum velocity, the particle rocket basically needs two Planck masses of initial load. This might sound illogical until one understands that subatomic particles with different masses have different maximum velocities. This can be generalized to large rockets and gives us the maximum theoretical velocity of a fully-efficient and ideal rocket. Further, no additional fuel is needed to accelerate a Planck mass particle to ist maximum velocity; this also might sound absurd, but it has a very simple and logical solution that is explained in this paper.
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SpaceX are on schedule to launch a reused orbital booster for the first time this Thursday



Big deal if all goes well, doubly awesome if they land it again.
 
Launch is scheduled for about 2 hours for now (23:27 UK time), livestream here:



Will be fun! Potentially blow up if you like that kind of thing.
 
(Second) landing of the Falcon from the other day

 
Atmosphere found around Earth-like planet GJ 1132b


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Image caption Artist's impression of GJ 1132b: The planet's thick atmosphere may contain water or methane

Scientists say they have detected an atmosphere around an Earth-like planet for the first time.

They have studied a world known as GJ 1132b, which is 1.4-times the size of our planet and lies 39 light years away.

Their observations suggest that the "super-Earth" is cloaked in a thick layer of gasses that are either water or methane or a mixture of both.

The study is published in the Astronomical Journal.

Discovering an atmosphere, and characterising it, is an important step forward in the hunt for life beyond our Solar System.

But it is highly unlikely that this world is habitable: it has a surface temperature of 370C.

Dr John Southworth, the lead researcher from Keele University, said: "To my knowledge the hottest temperature that life has been able to survive on Earth is 120C and that's far cooler than this planet."

Chemical signatures

The discovery of planet GJ 1132b was first announced in 2015. It lies in the Vela constellation in the southern hemisphere.

One possibility is that it is a 'water world' with an atmosphere of hot steam
While it is a similar size to Earth, the star it orbits is much smaller, cooler and dimmer than our Sun.

Using a telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, the researchers were able to study the planet by watching how it blocked some of the light of its host star as it passed in front of it.

"It makes the star look a little bit fainter - and it's actually a very good way of finding transiting planets - it's how this one was found," said Dr Southworth.

But different molecules in a planet's atmosphere - if it has one - absorb light in different ways, allowing scientists to look for their chemical signatures when the world transits its star.

The observations of planet GJ 1132b suggest that it has a thick atmosphere containing either steam and/or methane.

"One possibility is that it is a 'water world' with an atmosphere of hot steam," said Dr Southworth.

The researchers say while it is unlikely that any life-forms could survive on this world, the discovery of an atmosphere is encouraging in the hunt for extraterrestrial life.

Dr Southworth said: "What we have shown is that planets around low mass stars can have atmospheres and because there are so many of those in the Universe, it makes it that much more likely that one might have life."

Commenting on the research Marek Kukula, the public astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, said: "This is a nice proof of concept.

"If the technology can detect an atmosphere today, then it bodes well for being able to detect and study the atmospheres of even more Earth-like planets in the not-too-distant future."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39521344
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If someone puts $10k in a passive global fund today, if *should* turn into $100k in todays money before 40 years time.

Probably the cost of a trip to LEO will have also come down to that price.

One last hurrah?
 
rcoobc said:
If someone puts $10k in a passive global fund today, if *should* turn into $100k in todays money before 40 years time.

Probably the cost of a trip to LEO will have also come down to that price.

One last hurrah?
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Prolly get to Mars for that by then.

Although Mars is on Mars and you have to stay there at least two years.
 
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A Dead Star's Ghostly Glow

The eerie glow of a dead star, which exploded long ago as a supernova, reveals itself in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the Crab Nebula. But don't be fooled. The ghoulish-looking object still has a pulse. Buried at its center is the star's tell-tale heart, which beats with rhythmic precision.

The "heart" is the crushed core of the exploded star. Called a neutron star, it has about the same mass as the sun but is squeezed into an ultra-dense sphere that is only a few miles across and 100 billion times stronger than steel. The tiny powerhouse is the bright star-like object near the center of the image.

This surviving remnant is a tremendous dynamo, spinning 30 times a second. The wildly whirling object produces a deadly magnetic field that generates an electrifying 1 trillion volts. This energetic activity unleashes wisp-like waves that form an expanding ring, most easily seen to the upper right of the pulsar.

The nebula's hot gas glows in radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio to X-rays. The Hubble exposures were taken in visible light as black-and-white exposures. The Advanced Camera for Surveys made the observations between January and September 2012. The green hue that gives the nebula a Halloween theme, represents the color range of filter used in the observation.
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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/a-dead-stars-ghostly-glow
 
Since I know that @Raoul is a huge fan of detailed planet photos, I decided to crack out the old telescope and take a photo of Gliese1132B.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that a base already has been established there.

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NASA will discuss new results about ocean worlds in our solar system from the agency’s Cassini spacecraft and the Hubble Space Telescope during a news briefing 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) on Thursday, April 13. The event, to be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington, will include remote participation from experts across the country.

The briefing will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website.

These new discoveries will help inform future ocean world exploration -- including NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission planned for launch in the 2020s -- and the broader search for life beyond Earth.

The news briefing participants will be:
  • Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington
  • Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters
  • Mary Voytek, astrobiology senior scientist at NASA Headquarters
  • Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California
  • Hunter Waite, Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) team lead at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio
  • Chris Glein, Cassini INMS team associate at SwRI
  • William Sparks, astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore
    Members of the public can ask questions during the briefing using #AskNASA.

The event will also be streamed live at:

YouTube.com/nasajpl/live
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Probably something about Enceladus' 'Tiger Stripes' and the venting water from the ocean below the surface.
 
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Canadian researchers create first map of universe's dark matter

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Researchers at the University of Waterloo have created the first map showing how our universe's elusive dark matter interacts with galaxies. Dark matter makes up about 25 per cent of our universe. However, it's invisible: its presence is only detectable through its gravity and how it interacts with galaxies. One way astronomers can "see" dark matter is through something called gravitational lensing. Because of its extreme gravity, dark matter bends light, in keeping with Einstein's theory of general relativity. This phenomenon is depicted below in an animation created with Hubble Space Telescope imagery.

It's been theorized that galaxies are connected through dark matter in a type of cosmic web. However, until now there has never been quantitative evidence. Using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, the researchers were able to detect the dark matter through weak gravitational lensing. This lensing effect only changes about one per cent of a galaxy's shape. The image created is a composite using images from more than 23,000 pairs of galaxies located about 4.5 billion light-years away. What's seen is the bridge connecting galaxies.

"It's opening up essentially a new window to understanding where the dark matter is in the universe and how much of it there is and how it's distributed in space," said Mike Hudson, co-author of the paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "This is a step forward in convincing us that, yes, it's really there," Hudson said. The next step is to look at more galaxies that are farther away to get a better picture of how dark matter evolved over time.
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/dark-matter-detected-1.4068001
 
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