[HEADING=1]The Space thread: Encounters in the final frontier[/HEADING]
So there I was today rearranging some of my old books to make space for a new desk when I stumbled onto my first year Astrophysics text book. Now the course it self was fine (if you are in to that sort of thing) but the real kicker of the book was that it was also a shared book for an Astronomy course.
Astronomy though has always been a fascination of mine, so I decided to make a dedicated thread about it. The purpose is simple; to share information, pictures, news and even discuss all matters relating to space, galaxies, Faster-than-light travel, everything and anything about space be it fiction or real. I hope you guys, even if your are not major astronomy fans, will stay awhile and listen, [footnote]Deckard Cain reference, sorry![/footnote] maybe throw some space related questions about, ideas or things you wanted to discuss (real or fictional) as long as it has a space theme to it.
Also feel free to post images, videos, cool facts and most importantly OmgIcantbelievethatisreal! stuff about the Universe. Make sure you spoiler-tag for large pics and vids though: [*spoiler] pic/vid [*/spoiler] (without the *)
So without further ado, let me first introduce you all to some of our celestial sights captured by Hubble and NASA/EU and Russian probes.
Aside from the few stars you see in the foreground, just about everything in that image is a galaxy, down to the tiniest point. This makes up some 10'000 galaxies and the image is roughly one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky. The light that you are looking at is 13 billion years old. For those not keeping score, that places the universe at approximately 800 million years old in this snapshot. That's pretty much the nanosecond after the sperm hit the egg in human terms.
This picture was taken from Voyager 1 in 1990. A picture titled "The Pale Blue Dot". That little speck...is us, seen from 3.7 billion miles away. I don't think there has been a single picture I have seen that is as humbling as that.
I think astronomer Carl Sagan said it best when he said:
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
Explanation: Here is what the Earth looks like during a solar eclipse. The shadow of the Moon can be seen darkening part of Earth. This shadow moved across the Earth at nearly 2000 kilometers per hour. Only observers near the center of the dark circle see a total solar eclipse - others see a partial eclipse where only part of the Sun appears blocked by the Moon. This spectacular picture of the 1999 August 11 solar eclipse was one of the last ever taken from the Mir space station. The two bright spots that appear on the upper left are thought to be Jupiter and Saturn. Mir was deorbited in a controlled re-entry in 2001.
Speeding through Titan's haze: [http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/alien_winds_descent.mp3]
Click here for more [http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm]
I saved the most amazing bit for last:
Lunar Transit(aka. moon "passes" sun), viewed from Stereo B satellite.. Moon passing across sun [http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0703/transit_label_med4.mov]
[HEADING=1]News[/HEADING]
[http://img833.imageshack.us/i/ye090.jpg/]
A 10-year-old girl in Canada has become the youngest person to discover a supernova - an exploding star which can briefly outshine a whole galaxy.
Kathryn Gray was studying images taken at an amateur observatory which had been sent to her father.
"Kathryn pointed to the screen and said: 'Is this one?' I said yup, that looks pretty good," Mr Gray told the newspaper.
"It's fantastic that someone so young would be passionate about astronomy. What an incredible discovery. We're all very excited," said Deborah Thompson of RASC.
The new supernova is called Supernova 2010lt.
The last supernova in our galaxy occurred several hundred years ago.
Feel free to discuss anything pertaining to the subject and to get the ball rolling; who can't wait for space travel now? And the ever famous, "Do you think we are alone?"
> Future of the Constellation Program and future manned space missions
> Journey of the Voyager probes
> New Horizons mission to Pluto - Charon -Kaiper belt
Aww those pictures were awesome! I'm sorry to say I can't contribute but I applaud you for making this thread.
I can however say, that Space Travel when it happens will be different from what we perceive it to be. 50 Years ago people would have said a lot of the things we take for granted to be impossible.
Now imagine the next 50 years, take half of the things that is supposed to be impossible today and think 'What if.'
I don't care what anyone says, after watching a video about how small we are in comparison to the universe, there is no doubt in my mind there is life out there somewhere.
Dawww @ the girl who discovered the supernova! And as that cute girl smiled, billions of aliens were burnt alive as their star exploded and the scorching gases enveloped everything they once held dear
Still kudos to her, it's great to see young people so interested in science and astronomy
Aww those pictures were awesome! I'm sorry to say I can't contribute but I applaud you for making this thread.
I can however say, that Space Travel when it happens will be different from what we perceive it to be. 50 Years ago people would have said a lot of the things we take for granted to be impossible.
Now imagine the next 50 years, take half of the things that is supposed to be impossible today and think 'What if.'
Someone once said that the future in space travel is not with FTL/warp/hyper drives but with actually increasing human mortality.
Think about it, the only reason we find that a 20yr return trip from Pluto implausible for humans is because well it takes 20 years. Start dealing with anything beyond Pluto and then it becomes an impossibility because the crew would be dead, mostly by natural aging. But what if human life expectancy can be increased to 100 or 200 years instead of the average 80?
PS- Saturn's audio recording is CREEPY as hell. It should belong in the creepy thread, I can't believe beautiful saturn makes that noise.
Oh and in addition, does anyone think there are parallel universes? I was listening to an interview with some particle physicist and he was talk about alternate dimensions used to be a joke but now are a serious point of discussion.
Aww those pictures were awesome! I'm sorry to say I can't contribute but I applaud you for making this thread.
I can however say, that Space Travel when it happens will be different from what we perceive it to be. 50 Years ago people would have said a lot of the things we take for granted to be impossible.
Now imagine the next 50 years, take half of the things that is supposed to be impossible today and think 'What if.'
Someone once said that the future in space travel is not with FTL/warp/hyper drives but with actually increasing human mortality.
Think about it, the only reason we find that a 20yr return trip from Pluto implausible for humans is because well it takes 20 years. Start dealing with anything beyond Pluto and then it becomes an impossibility because the crew would be dead, mostly by natural aging. But what if human life expectancy can be increased to 100 or 200 years instead of the average 80?
PS- Saturn's audio recording is CREEPY as hell. It should belong in the creepy thread, I can't believe beautiful saturn makes that noise.
Oh and in addition, does anyone think there are parallel universes? I was listening to an interview with some particle physicist and he was talk about alternate dimensions used to be a joke but now are a serious point of discussion.
Yeah it looks like a malicious tumor crawling over the Earth at freaking 2000Kmph. Pretty impressive though.
This gave me goosebumps though and so did the one with the spacewalk.
Actually the spacewalk picture is more scary. I sometimes get goosebumps from watching news reports where we see astronauts wandering about outside a space station, earth spinning below, blackness around them. It's surreal and I would piss myself twenty times before fainting if stepping out into open space.
Krunchybars said:
Nouw said:
Aww those pictures were awesome! I'm sorry to say I can't contribute but I applaud you for making this thread.
I can however say, that Space Travel when it happens will be different from what we perceive it to be. 50 Years ago people would have said a lot of the things we take for granted to be impossible.
Now imagine the next 50 years, take half of the things that is supposed to be impossible today and think 'What if.'
Someone once said that the future in space travel is not with FTL/warp/hyper drives but with actually increasing human mortality.
Think about it, the only reason we find that a 20yr return trip from Pluto implausible for humans is because well it takes 20 years. Start dealing with anything beyond Pluto and then it becomes an impossibility because the crew would be dead, mostly by natural aging. But what if human life expectancy can be increased to 100 or 200 years instead of the average 80?
PS- Saturn's audio recording is CREEPY as hell. It should belong in the creepy thread, I can't believe beautiful saturn makes that noise.
Oh and in addition, does anyone think there are parallel universes? I was listening to an interview with some particle physicist and he was talk about alternate dimensions used to be a joke but now are a serious point of discussion.
What is that sound? It sounds..oh god... Sorry but what exactly is it? Do you know? Is it radio waves or solar radiation? I dont get it
OT: I can't wait for FTL tech to come about. NASA should stop waiting time with probes and get colony ships up and going. If NASA doesnt do it, Richard Brandson will.
Space has always fascinated me. There's just so much. So much of it is so beautiful, so deadly, so amazing. The image that really does it for me is that Hubble picture full of all the galaxy's. Each one containing trillions of stars, each one its own little section of the universe, each one still just so tiny even though they seem so large. Each one potentially containing life of its own, which is also looking at the stars, wondering whats out there.
Oh and in addition, does anyone think there are parallel universes? I was listening to an interview with some particle physicist and he was talk about alternate dimensions used to be a joke but now are a serious point of discussion.
Multiverses are an interesting discussion, for sure ... but not really something we can test for (at the moment, anyway). In my own mind, it all sort of gets back to the Anthropic Principle [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle]and the difference between the Weak one and the Strong one, but then you start drifting off into philosophy land, where I try not to tread very often anymore. Basically, it's something best discussed over a few beers.
Yeah, my favorite though is the Sombrero Galaxy. Thing looks epic!
Kaboose the Moose said:
Krunchybars said:
Oh and in addition, does anyone think there are parallel universes? I was listening to an interview with some particle physicist and he was talk about alternate dimensions used to be a joke but now are a serious point of discussion.
Multiverses are an interesting discussion, for sure ... but not really something we can test for (at the moment, anyway). In my own mind, it all sort of gets back to the Anthropic Principle [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle]and the difference between the Weak one and the Strong one, but then you start drifting off into philosophy land, where I try not to tread very often anymore. Basically, it's something best discussed over a few beers.
Its just a small flash where you can look at the scale of things in the universe and compare it to yourself. And its always amazing to see how small we are in regards to our universe and what small range of perception we have in our daily life...
"Kathryn pointed to the screen and said: 'Is this one?' I said yup, that looks pretty good," Mr Gray told the newspaper.
"It's fantastic that someone so young would be passionate about astronomy. What an incredible discovery. We're all very excited," said Deborah Thompson of RASC.
The new supernova is called Supernova 2010lt.
The last supernova in our galaxy occurred several hundred years ago.
Saturn is a source of intense radio emissions, which have been monitored by the Cassini spacecraft. The radio waves are closely related to the auroras near the poles of the planet. These auroras are similar to Earth's northern and southern lights. This is an audio file of radio emissions from Saturn.
The Cassini spacecraft began detecting these radio emissions in April 2002, when Cassini was 374 million kilometers (234 million miles) from the planet, using the Cassini radio and plasma wave science instrument. The radio and plasma wave instrument has now provided the first high resolution observations of these emissions, showing an amazing array of variations in frequency and time. The complex radio spectrum with rising and falling tones, is very similar to Earth's auroral radio emissions. These structures indicate that there are numerous small radio sources moving along magnetic field lines threading the auroral region.
Time on this recording has been compressed, so that 73 seconds corresponds to 27 minutes. Since the frequencies of these emissions are well above the audio frequency range, we have shifted them downward by a factor of 44.
OT: I can't wait for FTL tech to come about. NASA should stop waiting time with probes and get colony ships up and going. If NASA doesnt do it, Richard Brandson will.
"Kathryn pointed to the screen and said: 'Is this one?' I said yup, that looks pretty good," Mr Gray told the newspaper.
"It's fantastic that someone so young would be passionate about astronomy. What an incredible discovery. We're all very excited," said Deborah Thompson of RASC.
The new supernova is called Supernova 2010lt.
The last supernova in our galaxy occurred several hundred years ago.
Woah that picture is awesome, the ISS is ridiculously tiny in comparison but..despite the obviousness of it I am still amazed.
I think its cute she was made "discoverer" btw. If adopting the strictest definition of discover, then yeah, she did sort of spot it first. Besides, clearly someone on the committee has a big heart to let her into such a prestigious rank. I can't blame him/her though, have you seen her face?
Daaaw....
Edit: Here's another question. Why haven't we sent humans to Mars yet? We have the technology, we have the equipment. I just don't see why we can't all rally around the TV like it was 1969 and watch homo sapien sapien place his two feet on another planet for the first time EVER.
Come on somebody, America, Russia, Europe, India, China
As of October 17, 2010, New Horizons (Launched January 16th, 2006) reached the half-way checkpoint of its mission to do a flyby of Pluto, Charon and explore the Kuiper belt. It is scheduled to arrive some time in July, 2015.
Additionally, coolness of Heavy Launch Vehicles. The flaky stuff falling off when the engines fired was ice. The cooled oxidizer was not as well protected as it is nowandays.
At 3:12 was when the Launch Vehicle had to gain a lot of speed to remain in orbit around the Earth, when the SII stage fired. At that time was the peak of acceleration the astronauts felt. The "Little Jolt" was around 5 g-forces for about 2 seconds!
Krunchybars said:
Edit: Here's another question. Why haven't we sent humans to Mars yet? We have the technology, we have the equipment. I just don't see why we can't all rally around the TV like it was 1969 and watch homo sapien sapien place his two feet on another planet for the first time EVER.
Come on somebody, America, Russia, Europe, India, China
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