Astronomy & Space Exploration

Ubik said:
First SpaceX booster landing not to work out for a while, pretty amazing videos though, and it didn't blow up.



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The way that it "splash landed" that freaks me out a bit. Have the SpaceX engineers really developed software that can solve a range of unknown scenarios (like that one). The rocket nozzle must have been gimballing to try and keep the rocket upright, and the reaction control thrusters trying to stop the spin.

Did the on board systems open the landing legs to slow the rockets rotation?
 
NASA solar spacecraft snaps first image from inside sun's atmosphere

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This image from Parker Solar Probe's WISPR (Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe) instrument shows a coronal streamer, seen over the east limb of the Sun on Nov. 8, 2018, at 1:12 a.m. EST. Coronal streamers are structures of solar material within the Sun's atmosphere, the corona, that usually overlie regions of increased solar activity. The fine structure of the streamer is very clear, with at least two rays visible. Parker Solar Probe was about 16.9 million miles from the Sun's surface when this image was taken. The bright object near the center of the image is Mercury, and the dark spots are a result of background correction.
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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/preparing-for-discovery-with-nasas-parker-solar-probe
 
Some incredibly interesting things happening at the moment. I think if I was to live my life over (and if I was much smarter) I would try and get a career in some way related to all this exciting stuff. I find it all fascinating.
 
balaks said:
Some incredibly interesting things happening at the moment. I think if I was to live my life over (and if I was much smarter) I would try and get a career in some way related to all this exciting stuff. I find it all fascinating.
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Quite agree. My particular interest is in our Universe and how it both came into being and developed in the first few seconds.

Not long ago, it was thought that the event called the Big Bang was our Universe being born from nothing.

Now, just a few years later the Big Bang is considered to have been a phase of a much larger and longer entity.

Much is being learnt from the LHC including how matter was formed from energy.

I can thoroughly recommend the book HUMAN UNIVERSE by Prof Brian Cox.
 
I'm pretty sure we still think the Big Bang was our Universe being born from nothing. We might speculate on the grander scheme of things, but anything beyond our Universe is unknowable.
 
balaks said:
Some incredibly interesting things happening at the moment. I think if I was to live my life over (and if I was much smarter) I would try and get a career in some way related to all this exciting stuff. I find it all fascinating.
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It might not be too late. I’ve been in the space industry for most of my working career (software and systems). Space companies have all variety of non-engineering roles like admin, finance, sales, ops, HR, facilities etc. Might not be directly in the hyper cool stuff but you’re part of the team and there are opportunities to retrain to a certain degree.
 
slyadams said:
It might not be too late. I’ve been in the space industry for most of my working career (software and systems). Space companies have all variety of non-engineering roles like admin, finance, sales, ops, HR, facilities etc. Might not be directly in the hyper cool stuff but you’re part of the team and there are opportunities to retrain to a certain degree.
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Wow that is incredible, how amazing. Sadly I think I'm stuck in the career I've got into and even if I was to try something different there wouldn't be the opportunities unless I could move from Northern Ireland which is not realistic at the moment due to family commitments. Would be fantastic though. I'd love to be in a job that really interested me.
 
Mysterious radio signals from deep space detected

Astronomers have revealed details of mysterious signals emanating from a distant galaxy, picked up by a telescope in Canada.

The precise nature and origin of the blasts of radio waves is unknown.

Among the 13 bursts of fast radio waves, known as FRBs, was a very unusual repeating signal, coming from the same source about 1.5 billion light years away.

Such an event has only been reported once before, by a different telescope.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46811618


https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...cientists-a8719886.html?utm_source=reddit.com

The flashes only last for a milisecond but they are flung out with the same amount of energy the sun takes 12 months to produce
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:eek:
 
So when they detect these bursts is it like a "lucky hit" as they just happened to be looking at that bit of sky at that moment in time? Or is it more a case of these bursts being there pretty much all the time, and they know if they point their telescopes at that area, and at the right frequency they will be able to see the bursts again?
 
balaks said:
Some incredibly interesting things happening at the moment. I think if I was to live my life over (and if I was much smarter) I would try and get a career in some way related to all this exciting stuff. I find it all fascinating.
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Same. When I was growing up I wanted to be a meteorologist. My daughter is studying aerospace engineering. I hope she gets to work on something that puts people or objects in space some day.

url
 
niMic said:
I'm pretty sure we still think the Big Bang was our Universe being born from nothing. We might speculate on the grander scheme of things, but anything beyond our Universe is unknowable.
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What do you mean 'we'.
That is now very far from the current scientific thinking.

If you don't agree just search for Eternal Inflation or Cosmic Inflation. Or even before the big bang.

The Big Bang is now considered to be just one phase of our Universe which could well have been preceeded by an infinite number of other phases.
 
Buster15 said:
What do you mean 'we'.
That is now very far from the current scientific thinking.

If you don't agree just search for Eternal Inflation or Cosmic Inflation. Or even before the big bang.

The Big Bang is now considered to be just one phase of our Universe which could well have been preceeded by an infinite number of other phases.
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I don't see what Cosmic Inflation has to do with this, and Eternal Inflation seems to be very much in dispute still.

Also, when you say "is now considered", you're making the same mistake that you accuse me of. This is by no means settled science, for the simple reason that there is no and quite possibly can be no experimental evidence for anything from before the big bang. There are lots of very intriguing theories and speculation, though.

But it is definitely very interesting to follow new theories developing. As you say, we've made a lot of progress in very few years. I'm not particularly old, and I have books about the universe that I got as a kid, which are already outdated (related to the curvature of the Universe, expansion of space, black holes, that sort of thing).

Edit: If this seems unnecessarily combative, it's probably because I'm tired and hungry.
 
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niMic said:
I don't see what Cosmic Inflation has to do with this, and Eternal Inflation seems to be very much in dispute still.

Also, when you say "is now considered", you're making the same mistake that you accuse me of. This is by no means settled science, for the simple reason that there is no and quite possibly can be no experimental evidence for anything from before the big bang. There are lots of very intriguing theories and speculation, though.

But it is definitely very interesting to follow new theories developing. As you say, we've made a lot of progress in very few years. I'm not particularly old, and I have books about the universe that I got as a kid, which are already outdated (related to the curvature of the Universe, expansion of space, black holes, that sort of thing).

Edit: If this seems unnecessarily combative, it's probably because I'm tired and hungry.
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Not combative at all my friend and you are absolutely right to point out that my view is not a definite science.

I would mention though that theoretical physics does require some mathematics and must tie in with some existing data.

It is a privalage to be alive at a time of huge increments in scientific understanding and in particular breaking down the barriers to improving our understanding of Quantum Mechanics; albeit a very long way to go yet.

I very much appreciate your comments my friend.
 
niMic said:
Guaranteed they'll get people asking where the light comes from since it's the dark side of the moon.
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Plenty of lights in a film studio.



Genuinely.. its pretty amazing the Chinese are making progress here. Advancements in space exploration have traditionally come from one-upmanship. Since the end of the Cold War neither America nor Russia have exactly pushed the boundaries, they haven't had reason to. Now the Chinese have come along and are desperate to be seen as equal to The West. They could achieve a lot in the coming years.
 
11101 said:
Plenty of lights in a film studio.



Genuinely.. its pretty amazing the Chinese are making progress here. Advancements in space exploration have traditionally come from one-upmanship. Since the end of the Cold War neither America nor Russia have exactly pushed the boundaries, they haven't had reason to. Now the Chinese have come along and are desperate to be seen as equal to The West. They could achieve a lot in the coming years.
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While there's definitely some truth to that, it's worth remembering that there's a lot more to space exploration than the moon, or even Mars. ESA landed on a comet not that long ago, and NATO just took pictures of a Kuiper belt object. Not to mention the Japanese, who dropped landers on an asteroid.

In addition to that, we've got some exciting new telescope-based science coming up. Particularly the James Webb Space Telescope is probably going further our knowledge of the Universe significantly.
 
NASA landed a rover the size of a car on Mars. They're still pushing boundaries, at the robotic level anyway.
 
niMic said:
While there's definitely some truth to that, it's worth remembering that there's a lot more to space exploration than the moon, or even Mars. ESA landed on a comet not that long ago, and NATO just took pictures of a Kuiper belt object. Not to mention the Japanese, who dropped landers on an asteroid.

In addition to that, we've got some exciting new telescope-based science coming up. Particularly the James Webb Space Telescope is probably going further our knowledge of the Universe significantly.
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True, rovers, telescopes etc are good but there's nothing like trying to put a man on the moon/another planet to increase public interest and therefore budgets. NASA had practically a blank cheque in the 60s. Relative to that time period the progress of space exploration has certainly slowed down along with the money allocated to it. Maybe the Chinese talking of putting people on the moon will reignite the spark.
 
jojojo said:
Full moon eclipse visible in the UK and elsewhere, tonight (early hours of Monday morning) - featuring a red moon, in fact it's a "super blood wolf moon." The blood red moon should be visible just after 5am if the clouds let you see it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46908305
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Coincidentally, I was just looking at an image of the 2018 Super Blue Blood Moon for wallpaper purposes... :lol:

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