Space and Astronomy Megathread (MERGED)

[Arcturus]

If you like podcasts about Astronomy, there is a good one that I listen to.
http://www.astronomycast.com

its quite good

Awesome, thanks for posting it up Malice!

I have a great interest in Astronomy, it's good to see others are interested in the subject!

Have y'all discussed the big antimatter discovery from a few days ago?

Please share!

 

[Malice]

Awesome, thanks for posting it up Malice!

I have a great interest in Astronomy, it's good to see others are interested in the subject!



Please share!

Quite a good podcast, especially when they discussed each planet and object in the solar system

 

[hippie_hunter]

Latest pictures of Mercury from MESSENGER:

 

[Lighthouse]

 

[Arcturus]

Simply magnificent! I've been following news of this latest Mercury mission.

 

[hippie_hunter]

God dammit Warner Bros

 

[Jspider13]

God dammit Warner Bros

lol

 

[Docker2.0]

To be a sci fi site there really isn't to many space geeks on here.

 

[redmarvel]

It isn't really an SF site, the Hype is more of a comic book / movie site. While comic books do have some SF in them, they are more Fantasy than anything else.

 

[Venom'sDad]

Simply magnificent! I've been following news of this latest Mercury mission.

Glad to hear you, Malice, an others, have an interest in astrophysics. I try to follow everything. The robotic missions are the most exciting for me... particular the New Horizons Mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

 

[Noir]

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/01/traces-of-mythi.html

Traces of ‘Mythical’ Cosmic Strings Found

A controversial new study indicates that there are traces of vast cosmic strings left over in radiation from the early universe. If indeed confirmed to be real, these cosmic strings would offer an unprecedented window into the extreme physics of origins of the universe.

The idea is that snags in the fabric of space may have developed a fraction of a second after the universe's birth. This would have likely occurred at the end of the period called inflation when the universe was rapidly expanding.

These “snags” are thought to be shaped like very slender strings, with a thickness much less than the width of an atom but with lengths that can be measured in light years. They would also be incredibly heavy. A section just a kilometer long would potentially have as much mass as the entire Earth.

Now a team of scientists says there is some valid evidence that these elusive and exotic strings really do exist. They claim that traces of cosmic strings can be detected in the afterglow of the big bang. Neil Bevis of Imperial College London and his team used the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite to observe radiation called the cosmic microwave background.

This radiation is slightly patchy because of the distribution of the glowing matter that produced it. If present, cosmic strings should attract matter with their gravity, slightly altering the way it is distributed in the early universe.

The team of scientists used computers to simulate how the microwave background should look with and without cosmic strings, and compared the results to the WMAP observations. They found a better agreement when cosmic strings were included.

"This is an exciting result," says Mark Hindmarsh, of the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, one of the study's authors. "Cosmic strings are relics of the very early universe, and signposts that would help construct a theory of all forces and particles."

But there is a 5% chance that the correlation would be produced simply by random noise, and such flukes should be expected from time to time because so many studies of WMAP data are published each year, says Charles Bennett, the chief scientist for the WMAP mission.

Future observations should clarify things. The Planck satellite, due to launch in 2008, will make even more sensitive measurements of the microwave background than WMAP, and could turn up better evidence for cosmic strings.

Posted by Rebecca Sato.

 

[Apollo]

^ wow thats very interesting. Nice find.

 

[Docker2.0]

Hey let me ask you space geeks a question. I just got a Barska starwatcher 400x70 mm refractor. Is that a good one? Can I see the rings of Saturn with it? whats a good scope to see it with?

 

[Venom'sDad]

Here is a few articles I find pretty fascinating.

Iran Space Program

Solar Eclipse for Penguins

Bigger Eyes

Mercury

 

[Docker2.0]

THe last thing I want to see is Iranians in space. Then they'd spread more hate to other planets to aliens. Corny I know but...................

So, anyone selling a telescope?

 

[Alex The Great]

Hey guys

in 2000 + days the human race wil FINNALLY be able to see what Pluto looks like.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ne****izons/main/
can't wait.

 

[Noir]

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/02/eleven-dimensio.html

Eleven Dimensional Exploding Black Holes

Black_hole_big_2The Grand Unified Theory, the birth of the universe, the value of the fundamental constants - you name it, and string theory promises it'll have the answer. Hell, it'll throw in the details of the Kennedy assassination and the current location of Elvis Presley if you'll just ignore the lack of provable hypotheses just a little bit longer. But after years of being the Belle of the Scientific Ball, it's starting to look like Nicole Kidman in a lab coat: beautiful, and we really enjoy the concept, but their scientific credentials are questionable.

One of the boldest but least provable claims of string theory is that there are (at least) eleven dimensions, but the seven we've strangely failed to notice so far are too tiny too observe (about a thousandth of the radius of a proton). In terms of excuses that's slightly less credible than "No my dear, I rubbed lipstick on my collar to test it before buying it for you. Which I then forgot to do while ruffling my hair and finding this strange woman in my bed."

With the backlash starting to surface and scientific journals serving "Prove it or lose it" eviction notices, string theorists are searching high and low for evidence. Cosmic background radiation, the Large Hadron Collider experiments, distortions in satellite imagery - no matter how extreme the field you'll find a stringer crying "Wait, this one proves it!" And it doesn't get much more extreme than an exploding black hole.

King MacGenius of cosmology, also known as Stephen Hawking, famously proved that energy could escape from black holes. This "Hawking Radiation" means that the galactic trash compactors, previously thought inescapable, can actually lose mass over time. Since most of them gargle stars washed down with planets this isn't a major factor, but cute little mini-singularities thought to have been created during the big bang are small enough to lose mass faster than they can gain it, and when a defect in the structure of space time shuffles off this Reimannian coil they won't go quietly. Ever the understaters, cosmologists call this process "evaporation", though a regular humans idea of evaporation don't involve an intense radiation-emitting explosion.

Scientists from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the State University in Blacksburg predict that such an evaporating black hole (which might not exist) would eventually get small enough to fit into the tiny hidden dimensions (which really, really might not exist) and suddenly 'pop' in with a different kind of explosion (which has not yet been observed). We would never criticise research just because it hasn't been proven yet (we'd be scratching the Daily Galaxy into cave walls with bison thigh bones if people did), but that sounds less like "predict" than "vaguely hope".

Scientists at Cambridge and Stanford support the search, if only because the equipment used will see something interesting even if not the lottery-odds intended target, which isn't exactly the most ringing endorsement in scientific history. On the other hand, if they do prove the existence of mini-black holes and string theory with nothing but an eight-meter radio antenna, it'll be the greatest discovery of our lifetimes and we'll allow them to tattoo "Told you so" right on our foreheads.

 

[NoName86]

Woah, I didn't know this thread existed. But now

 

[Ice-man]

Early Mars 'too salty' for life

By Helen Briggs
BBC science reporter, Boston

Experts said the findings 'tightened the noose' on hopes of life on Mars

The Red Planet was too salty to sustain life for much of its history, according to the latest evidence gathered by one of the US rovers on Mars' surface.

High concentration of minerals in water on early Mars would have made it inhospitable to even the toughest microbes, a leading Nasa expert says.
Clues preserved in rocks that were once awash with water suggest the environment was both acidic and briny.
The observations were made by the US space agency's Opportunity rover.
It has spent months examining rocks on an ancient Martian plain.


'Ghost of a chance'
Dr Andrew Knoll, a member of the rover science team, and a biologist at Harvard University, Cambridge, US, said the finding "tightens the noose on the possibility of life".
Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston, he said conditions on Mars in the past four billion years would have been very challenging for life.

The quest for life on Mars will go on with the next generation rover

"It was really salty - in fact, it was salty enough that only a handful of known terrestrial organisms would have a ghost of a chance of surviving there when conditions were at their best," he explained.
The US Mars rovers - Opportunity and its twin, Spirit - have now spent more than 1,400 days on the Martian surface.
As their work comes to an end, Nasa has its hopes set on the Phoenix lander, which is due to reach Mars on 25 May.
The Phoenix mission will land near the planet's north pole, and aim to dig under the frozen surface in search of signs of microbial life, past or present.
The next-generation rover, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), is set to leave Earth in 2009, and land in 2010.
Twice as long and three times as heavy as Spirit and Opportunity, it will collect Martian soil and rock samples, and analyse them for organic compounds.


------------------------------



Too salty for earths organisms maybe but its entirly possible the Martian organisms could have adapted to the salt.

Its natural selection.




Darwin's laws should apply there too.

 

[Arkady Rossovich]

There is life out in the Universe.

 

[Rocker22]

Cool threard.

 

[Docker2.0]

What I don't understand is why life has to be exactly like it is on Earth? Who's to say they are not beings with higher salt levels than us? The scientists here are so closed minded!

 

[rodhulk]

What I don't understand is why life has to be exactly like it is on Earth? Who's to say they are not beings with higher salt levels than us? The scientists here are so closed minded!

Agreed!

 

[Docker2.0]

Anyone see the meteor shower? Where are the real science geeks? Why must this thread be bumped once a month? post!!

 

[Docker2.0]

http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/blogs/astronomy/2008/02/19/fallen-stars-in-tucson.aspx

So I guess if iron is in space............then I guess all lifeform is made of the same thing.