DorkyFresh
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edit: wrong thread.
Space and Astronomy Megathread (MERGED)
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Malice
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If you want to see great pictures...
This is a cool application Microsoft just built
WorldWide Telescope
This is a cool application Microsoft just built
WorldWide Telescope
Alex The Great
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Discovery Channel is gonna show the Pheonix Landing LIVE tommorow. 7 eastern......can't wait 
Malice
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Discovery Channel is gonna show the Pheonix Landing LIVE tommorow. 7 eastern......can't wait
I need to DVR it.
Who watches shows like that? 
Alex The Great
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Heh. CNN is showing it to.....
Galactus
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Three Super-Earths Found Orbiting One Star
By Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer
posted: 16 June 2008 09:37 am ET
A trio of planets called super-Earths has been spotted orbiting a sun-like star, astrophysicists announced today at an international conference in France.
Super-Earths are more massive than Earth but less massive than Uranus and Neptune. Spotting true Earth-sized planets is challenging with current technology, but the presence of super-Earths suggests finding a world like ours is just a matter of time, researchers say.
The team located the trio with the HARPS instrument on the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla, Chile. They inferred the existence of the planets by noting the worlds' gravitational affects on the parent star's orbit. This method is called the radial velocity, or wobble, technique.
In addition, HARPS astronomers have tallied about 45 new candidate planets with a mass below 30 Earth masses and an orbital period shorter than 50 days. The researchers say the deluge implies one out of every three sun-like stars harbors such planets.
The trio's host star, HD 40307, is slightly less massive than the sun, and is located 42 light-years away, toward the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations. (A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 5.88 trillion miles — 9.46 trillion kilometers.)
"We have made very precise measurements of the velocity of the star HD 40307 over the last five years, which clearly reveal the presence of three planets," said team member Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.
The smallest of the trio weighs in at 4.2 Earth masses and orbits HD 40307 every 4.3 Earth days, while the largest, with a mass 9.4 times that of Earth, has a 20.4-day orbit. The middleweight is 6.7 Earth masses and has a 9.6-day trek around the star.
Since Mayor's 1995 discovery of a planet around the star 51 Pegasi, astronomers have noted more than 270 extrasolar planets, mostly around solar-like stars. Most of these planets are gas giants called "hot-Jupiters." The researchers say about one out of every 14 stars outside our solar system harbors a hot-Jupiter.
A basketful of other new exoplanets also got the spotlight at the same international conference, where researchers focused on extra-solar super-Earths.
These included:
A duo orbiting the star HD 181433: a super-Earth (7.5 Earth masses) that orbits its star every 9.5 days, and a Jupiter-like planet with a nearly three-year period.
Two planets, a 22 Earth-mass planet having a period of four days, and a Saturn-like planet with a three-year period.
"It is most probable that there are many other planets present: not only super-Earth and Neptune-like planets with longer periods, but also Earth-like planets that we cannot detect yet," said team member Stephane Udry, also of the Geneva Observatory. "Add to it the Jupiter-like planets already known, and you may well arrive at the conclusion that planets are ubiquitous."
By Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer
posted: 16 June 2008 09:37 am ET
A trio of planets called super-Earths has been spotted orbiting a sun-like star, astrophysicists announced today at an international conference in France.
Super-Earths are more massive than Earth but less massive than Uranus and Neptune. Spotting true Earth-sized planets is challenging with current technology, but the presence of super-Earths suggests finding a world like ours is just a matter of time, researchers say.
The team located the trio with the HARPS instrument on the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla, Chile. They inferred the existence of the planets by noting the worlds' gravitational affects on the parent star's orbit. This method is called the radial velocity, or wobble, technique.
In addition, HARPS astronomers have tallied about 45 new candidate planets with a mass below 30 Earth masses and an orbital period shorter than 50 days. The researchers say the deluge implies one out of every three sun-like stars harbors such planets.
The trio's host star, HD 40307, is slightly less massive than the sun, and is located 42 light-years away, toward the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations. (A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 5.88 trillion miles — 9.46 trillion kilometers.)
"We have made very precise measurements of the velocity of the star HD 40307 over the last five years, which clearly reveal the presence of three planets," said team member Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.
The smallest of the trio weighs in at 4.2 Earth masses and orbits HD 40307 every 4.3 Earth days, while the largest, with a mass 9.4 times that of Earth, has a 20.4-day orbit. The middleweight is 6.7 Earth masses and has a 9.6-day trek around the star.
Since Mayor's 1995 discovery of a planet around the star 51 Pegasi, astronomers have noted more than 270 extrasolar planets, mostly around solar-like stars. Most of these planets are gas giants called "hot-Jupiters." The researchers say about one out of every 14 stars outside our solar system harbors a hot-Jupiter.
A basketful of other new exoplanets also got the spotlight at the same international conference, where researchers focused on extra-solar super-Earths.
These included:
A duo orbiting the star HD 181433: a super-Earth (7.5 Earth masses) that orbits its star every 9.5 days, and a Jupiter-like planet with a nearly three-year period.
Two planets, a 22 Earth-mass planet having a period of four days, and a Saturn-like planet with a three-year period.
"It is most probable that there are many other planets present: not only super-Earth and Neptune-like planets with longer periods, but also Earth-like planets that we cannot detect yet," said team member Stephane Udry, also of the Geneva Observatory. "Add to it the Jupiter-like planets already known, and you may well arrive at the conclusion that planets are ubiquitous."
Galactus
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Water Ice on Mars Confirmed
By Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer
posted: 31 July 2008 3:30 pm ET
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has confirmed the existence of water ice on Mars.
Mission scientists celebrated the news after a sample of the ice was finally delivered to one of the lander's instruments. Phoenix's mission has also officially been extended for one month beyond its original mission, NASA announced today at a briefing at the University of Arizona at Tucson, where mission control is currently based.
"I'm very happy to announce that we've gotten an ice sample," said the University of Arizona's William Boynton, co-investigator for Phoenix's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA), which heats up samples and analyzes the vapors they give off to determine their composition.
"We have water," Boynton added. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."
The news that ice had fallen into TEGA came on Thursday morning, surprising scientists who had run into problems delivering a sample of the icy dirt because of its unexpected stickiness.
"There were champagne corks popping in the downlink room," Boynton said. "It's something we've been waiting a long time for."
Wicked Witch
When scientists tried to deliver samples of icy dirt scraped up from the Snow White trench and deliver it to TEGA last week, the sample stuck to the scoop of Phoenix's robotic arm, with only a few tiny pieces of ice falling onto the oven screen. Scientists decided to deliver a second sample of dry dirt to the oven while they revised their sample delivery method.
The dry sample was scooped up and delivery to the oven was confirmed yesterday. When scientists began heating up the sample, the signal confirmed that "we got a little bit of ice mixed in with this sample," Boynton said.
Scientists could detect the water ice in the sample because when water begins to melt, more heat is needed to raise the temperature of the sample.
Boynton said he initially dubbed the sample "Wicked Witch" after the witch in "Hansel in Gretel" who met her end when she was shoved into an oven. While donning a green costume witch hat, to the laughter of those in the briefing room, he said perhaps he should have named it for the witch in "The Wizard of Oz," famous for her dying line, "I'm melting..."
Panoramic view
Phoenix has also completed its color panorama view of its landing site, made of images taken with its Surface Stereo Imager. The images show the Martian terrain in the high arctic regions, which is relatively flat with few rocks and the hummocks and troughs that indicate subsurface ice.
"Essentially it's an ice-dominated terrain," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, lead scientist for Phoenix Surface Stereo Imager.
The completion of the panorama was one of the criteria Phoenix had to meet to achieve mission success, which Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith said should be completely met by the end of the lander's primary mission of 90 sols, or Martian days.
Michael Meyer, chief scientist with Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said that the mission would be extended through sol 124, or Sept. 30. The mission extension will tack another $2 million onto the $420 million mission.
By Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer
posted: 31 July 2008 3:30 pm ET
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has confirmed the existence of water ice on Mars.
Mission scientists celebrated the news after a sample of the ice was finally delivered to one of the lander's instruments. Phoenix's mission has also officially been extended for one month beyond its original mission, NASA announced today at a briefing at the University of Arizona at Tucson, where mission control is currently based.
"I'm very happy to announce that we've gotten an ice sample," said the University of Arizona's William Boynton, co-investigator for Phoenix's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA), which heats up samples and analyzes the vapors they give off to determine their composition.
"We have water," Boynton added. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."
The news that ice had fallen into TEGA came on Thursday morning, surprising scientists who had run into problems delivering a sample of the icy dirt because of its unexpected stickiness.
"There were champagne corks popping in the downlink room," Boynton said. "It's something we've been waiting a long time for."
Wicked Witch
When scientists tried to deliver samples of icy dirt scraped up from the Snow White trench and deliver it to TEGA last week, the sample stuck to the scoop of Phoenix's robotic arm, with only a few tiny pieces of ice falling onto the oven screen. Scientists decided to deliver a second sample of dry dirt to the oven while they revised their sample delivery method.
The dry sample was scooped up and delivery to the oven was confirmed yesterday. When scientists began heating up the sample, the signal confirmed that "we got a little bit of ice mixed in with this sample," Boynton said.
Scientists could detect the water ice in the sample because when water begins to melt, more heat is needed to raise the temperature of the sample.
Boynton said he initially dubbed the sample "Wicked Witch" after the witch in "Hansel in Gretel" who met her end when she was shoved into an oven. While donning a green costume witch hat, to the laughter of those in the briefing room, he said perhaps he should have named it for the witch in "The Wizard of Oz," famous for her dying line, "I'm melting..."
Panoramic view
Phoenix has also completed its color panorama view of its landing site, made of images taken with its Surface Stereo Imager. The images show the Martian terrain in the high arctic regions, which is relatively flat with few rocks and the hummocks and troughs that indicate subsurface ice.
"Essentially it's an ice-dominated terrain," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, lead scientist for Phoenix Surface Stereo Imager.
The completion of the panorama was one of the criteria Phoenix had to meet to achieve mission success, which Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith said should be completely met by the end of the lander's primary mission of 90 sols, or Martian days.
Michael Meyer, chief scientist with Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said that the mission would be extended through sol 124, or Sept. 30. The mission extension will tack another $2 million onto the $420 million mission.
Mike_D202
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Asteroid-Man
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I saw this on the news yesterday. They have just started experiments testing a few theories of the creation of all things and above all, the Universe. They believe that in the beginning there was no real time or space as we know it, only an intense amount of unexplainable energy made up of sub-atomic particles called "God particles" and that at high temperatures and movement of the particles, collisions would cause the creation of matter. Now scientists want to see if A) The theory is correct and B) What the first things created were (although in this controlled experiment it will last but a moment of existence)
Here's an article I found right now to show those of you who are still confused:
They are going to run Sub-Atomic Particles through an 8-mile long tube with protons going in opposing directions and see what happens when they collide basically. (They are using a strong magnetic force to get the protons moving)
My own take is that if this theory is proven to be the truth that maybe this inexplainable heat could be God or the essence of God? As a Baha'i, I believe in Baha'u'llah who says there must be balance between Science AND Religion (many religious and scientific beliefs are also clarified and bridged together) and when Baha'u'llah was revealing the holy writings, he would emit an intense amount of heat an energy, so great that people couldn't bear to be too close to him. This heat is that power of God I believe. Now, you can take what I said as you will, this is only my personal belief, as I try to bridge it to this theory.
Only time will tell.
Here's an article I found right now to show those of you who are still confused:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/supercomputers/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210600849
They are going to run Sub-Atomic Particles through an 8-mile long tube with protons going in opposing directions and see what happens when they collide basically. (They are using a strong magnetic force to get the protons moving)
My own take is that if this theory is proven to be the truth that maybe this inexplainable heat could be God or the essence of God? As a Baha'i, I believe in Baha'u'llah who says there must be balance between Science AND Religion (many religious and scientific beliefs are also clarified and bridged together) and when Baha'u'llah was revealing the holy writings, he would emit an intense amount of heat an energy, so great that people couldn't bear to be too close to him. This heat is that power of God I believe. Now, you can take what I said as you will, this is only my personal belief, as I try to bridge it to this theory.
Only time will tell.
Asteroid-Man
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Here's an explanatory video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fJ6PMfnz2E&feature=PlayList&p=EF1B69117E068274&index=0&playnext=1
So apparently, if they mess up they might create a black hole which would kill us all...
So apparently, if they mess up they might create a black hole which would kill us all...
Angel_Faerie
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Old news.
Asteroid-Man
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It started yesterday. 
Angel_Faerie
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It's still old news. They turned it on, and we all didn't die.
Bunker
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Here's an explanatory video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fJ6PMfnz2E&feature=PlayList&p=EF1B69117E068274&index=0&playnext=1
So apparently, if they mess up they might create a black hole which would kill us all...
Welcome to a week ago.
Asteroid-Man
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You realize the experiment will continue for weeks right? Maybe even months?
Angel_Faerie
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Yes. But the really scary part is over.
Asteroid-Man
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Try yesterday fool. I didn't say "OH MY GOD, SOMETHING NEW!" because they announced the experiment last November... I said they began the experiment Last Night.
Asteroid-Man
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The particles are STILL colliding... anything could still happen!
Angel_Faerie
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I think we're gonna be alright.
Bunker
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The whole black hole scare started several days ago.
"So apparently, if they mess up they might create a black hole which would kill us all."
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