The bolded statements are very related though.
Astronomy & Space Exploration
- Thread starter MrMarcello
- Start date
I have finished watching the Brian Cox - The Planets series. Absolutely fascinating but my brain hurts. There was part where was scaling down distances to understand the size of the solar system, where the sun was the size of a light in Reykjavik harbour, and at different distances the planets were the sizes of wee pebbles. Pluto was over 8km away from this light, I had to pause the programme to compute 
if he does his live show thing again in Glasgow I think I will be going.
if he does his live show thing again in Glasgow I think I will be going.I have finished watching the Brian Cox - The Planets series. Absolutely fascinating but my brain hurts. There was part where was scaling down distances to understand the size of the solar system, where the sun was the size of a light in Reykjavik harbour, and at different distances the planets were the sizes of wee pebbles. Pluto was over 8km away from this light, I had to pause the programme to compute
It is a very interesting series and as you enjoyed it I can highly recommend his book The Human Universe and The Forces of Nature.
Trying to understand the comparitive sizes of things is mind boggling.
Take a Hydrogen atom. If the Proton was the size of a tennis ball, the Electron would be smaller than a grain of sand and be over 1km away.
And our Solar System, while appearing to be large, is in fact miniscule compared to our Galaxy. It has some 200 billion stars and our nearest is about 4.5 light years away. Given that light travels at 300,000 km/second, that is a massive distance away.
And our Universe might well be infinite, albeit the visible Universe is some 93 billion light years across.
I really enjoyed it and I enjoy the way he explains things, despite being incredibly technical and scientific it is easy to understand coming from him.
It is almost unbelievable, it makes you think about life and existence in a totally different manner I believe.
Wow
see that's just mental. When starting to look at things like the Milky Way and the Universe, it is almost beyond comprehension.
I'll check those out, thanks!
I really enjoyed it and I enjoy the way he explains things, despite being incredibly technical and scientific it is easy to understand coming from him.
It is almost unbelievable, it makes you think about life and existence in a totally different manner I believe.
Wow
When starting to look at things like the Milky Way and the Universe, it is almost beyond comprehension.
I'll check those out, thanks!
I do agree with you about the very clear way that a Professor is able to explain nebulous subjects to 'normal' people.
My daughter bought me his book. The best present ever and I refer to it almost daily.
I am lucky enough to live quite close to a very long sandy beach.
I understand that it has been calculated that there are 'more stars in our Universe than grains of sand on every beach in our planet.
Some 200 billion galaxies each with some 200 billion stars (4 followed by 85 zeros).
And the new space telescope significantly more powerful than Hubble will no doubt discover millions more galaxies.
To me there is nothing more interesting than Physics and Cosmology.
I have finished watching the Brian Cox - The Planets series. Absolutely fascinating but my brain hurts. There was part where was scaling down distances to understand the size of the solar system, where the sun was the size of a light in Reykjavik harbour, and at different distances the planets were the sizes of wee pebbles. Pluto was over 8km away from this light, I had to pause the programme to compute
I saw him in Melbourne recently, it was fascinating.
Yes, it's excellent the way he addresses subjects.
I'll definitely look out for his book.
See that's making my mind blow up
And agreed. I'm a History graduate so looking to the past is one of the great passions of my life. But since going to university I have watched and read more about space exploration and the cosmos and I can't help but be enthralled by it. It makes me irrationally angry when other people dismiss it so easily and casually
I'd really like to see it, I can imagine it's brilliant.
Rationally angry.Yes, it's excellent the way he addresses subjects.
I'll definitely look out for his book.
See that's making my mind blow up
And agreed. I'm a History graduate so looking to the past is one of the great passions of my life. But since going to university I have watched and read more about space exploration and the cosmos and I can't help but be enthralled by it. It makes me irrationally angry when other people dismiss it so easily and casually
.
I stand corrected, rationally angry indeed.
It amazes me that some people aren't awe-struck by it all. It infuriates me that some people just don't care to learn about it either.
Yep, me and some of my mates are well into it, but the rest of the group couldn't care less and will say as such when we're talking about it. It boggles my mind that people don't find it fascinating. Says a lot about them in my opinion!
Very much the same for me. To even try to understand the cosmos and all the associated science you very much need to have an open mind.
Sadly many think it either far too boring or far too difficult for them.
I defy anyone to look up at the night sky on a clear dark night when the stars are visible and not be awestruck.
It's one of the most simple but beautiful things any of us can witness. It lends perspective to just how small we are and how much really is out there. How anyone can say they don't find things like astronomy, the cosmos or the ideas of where we come from interesting is beyond me.
India's Chandrayan 2 is set to soft land in about 30 minutes on the south Pole of the moon. Hopefully the lander makes it safely and the rover can make its way on the moon's surface and collect whatever data it is designed to collect.
Live stream here:
Live stream here:
Anyone following this moon mission?
Yup. Fingers crossed all goes well.
Edit: Here we go then!
Edit: Here we go then!
Last edited:
Are they gonna show the fecker? or is it just people looking at screens? grrrrrr come on!!!
Don't forget people stroking their beards!
Getting nervy now...
edit: does not feel good.
edit: does not feel good.
Did they lose the signal at the very end ?
seems so.
very nervy atm
what the feck
Communication lost. Data is being analyzed.
Seems like a bust at the very last. 2km from landing. If you look at the descent chart it seemed to accelerate its fall from the moment the fine braking procedures ended. Emotionally it seems so unreasonably close to success for it to fail.
Feel bad for Modi and all those science students.
Yeah sad for everyone involved, especially for those that must have worked on this project for years. Lot to be proud of though. At least the orbiter is successful and hopefully they will be able to gather enough data to find out what went wrong with the lander.
Edit: Looking back on its history of development it was always the most likely portion of the mission to fail. Originally the mission was developed in concert with the Russians, with Russia taking responsibility for the lander. The Russians eventually pulled out in 2016 after the failure of the Phobos-Grunt mission and ISRO decided to pursue the project independently. I guess this means that what was also the most perilous stage of the mission was also likely the least planned, understood and tested.
Edit: Looking back on its history of development it was always the most likely portion of the mission to fail. Originally the mission was developed in concert with the Russians, with Russia taking responsibility for the lander. The Russians eventually pulled out in 2016 after the failure of the Phobos-Grunt mission and ISRO decided to pursue the project independently. I guess this means that what was also the most perilous stage of the mission was also likely the least planned, understood and tested.
Last edited:
It could be the case that the soft landing did take place, but the communications we're lost. It could be restored, you never know.
Will we ever know what happened? Let's see.
Last edited:
Couldn't comment on the authenticity of the account, but looks like the lander has been found via orbiter via a thermal image.
Last edited:
Excellent news! Do they know if it is intact?
FYI: That's a fake account.
Although the news is true, it doesn't mean much unless contact can be established with the lander and they(lander and in turn the rover) weren't damaged in what would have been a pretty hard landing
Pretty awesome, didn't even realise Hubble was capable of that kind of observation.
Some qualifiers - around a red dwarf star with likely high levels of surface radiation, much larger than Earth so may not be rocky (more like Neptune) and much stronger gravity.
The advances being made in detection of planets is a revelation. I am old enough to remember that it was thought that Mars had man made canals and the imagery was hand drawn.
The successor to Hubble is going to give us many orders of magnitude increased information about deep space.
Regarding Red Dwarf stars, that may not be a bad thing as we believe that intelligent life takes a huge amount of time to evolve ref the Drake Equation.
The Drake Equation doesn’t really mean anything though, as we have absolutely no data to test it.
Its a huge if, but the planet being in habitable zone and this large, might mean it has an atmosphere much thicker than earth, which might mean, that radiation isnt that huge a problem . Also life can survive in harshest of conditions so you never know. Most likely we ll never find out either considering how far it is.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...-comet-from-another-star-system-just-spotted/
Looks like another interstellar visitor but this time we have a chance to get much better observations.
Looks like another interstellar visitor but this time we have a chance to get much better observations.
Exactly. But when the new space telescope is in operation it will give us significantly more data on the number of stars in our galaxy with solar systems and a much better estimate of how many planets would be in the habitable zone.
As you will know, the Drake Equation was defined by SETI scientists to estimate the number of potentially intelligent species in our galaxy.
Yup all fair, plus water itself is a great radiation shield. Supposedly next gen telescopes (ground based as well as Webb) will be able to detect life signals from atmospheres.
But the problem remains that half the variables are basically untestable, you need extensive data on other civilisations in the galaxy which is what you're trying to find out in the first place. It's interesting as a thought experiment, plugging your own guesses in and seeing what comes out, but you can't really use it beyond that.