Space and Astronomy Megathread (MERGED)

[Marvolo]

Exactly. Opens up wormholes. Its too important. The nearest star is 4.2 light years away. We are going to need other means of travel regarding deep space, aside from speed.

and regarding the topic from months ago. The space program needs to be worked on. Yeah, people are marveling over putting a probe on mars. But it is nothing new. Been doin it since the 70s. We put a man on the moon in the 60s. What advances have we made since then? Nothing. We arent close to leaving the solar system. The closest star is 4.2 light years away. The fast vehicle created by mankind were the helios probes which reached speed up to 150,000 miles per hours. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. At that rate still, the nearest star is still a 4 year trip away. With the fastest craft now, it would take 70,000 years to reach alpha centauri. And that's just assuming this planet doesn't have intelligent life on it. For all we know, we may not find an empty, habital planet closer than 80 light years.

There is SO much work to be done. This needs to be understood by everyone. The space program needs to be constantly worked on. The sun will die in a few billion years, and we are going to need to leave. This isn't a bridge we cross when we get there. We have so much work to do. In terms of space travel, mankind hasn't made much progress. And to enter deep space, speed isn't an issue. We are going to have to find space-time warping methods of travel. We are a LONG way away from that. Unless we are being helped by other extraterrestrial life, like some government people claim, mankind is gunna runitself dry.

The Space program, and funding is the most important thing right now.
Having a strong military isn't going to mean **** when our sun leaves its main sequence and starts to swell into an unstable red giant





beautiful.

The sun dying is the least of our problems. There are things here and now that will effect our apecies in thousands of years not billions Major asteroid inpacts are estimated to happen every 65,000 years or so. Most likely the human race will have evolved so far that things will be very different then. The human species will be unrecognizable after that much time. I only wish I could see what becomes of our species. Not to sound greedy, but less than one hundred years just isnt enough time.

 

[tzarinna]

National Geographic's Best Space Pictures of 2012: Editor's Picks

 

[Piper Maru]

National Geographic's Best Space Pictures of 2012: Editor's Picks

Outstanding!

 

[Bim]

National Geographic's Best Space Pictures of 2012: Editor's Picks

Gosh, those are amazing!

 

[chamber-music]

I watch Dara O'briain's Science Club on the BBC which is a great show if your into science stuff and there are so many obstacles for human long distance space travel and on the biggest is the high levels space radiation epecially from Cosmic rays.

Just one of these cosmic rays particles hitting human tissue has the abilty to strip molecules of electrons and physically break the dna. This could lead potenially to cell mutations and cancer.

So far Nasa has seen Astronaut with the highest levels of exposure to space radiation showing signs of developing early cataracts due to the soft tissue of the eyes being most vunerable to damage.

The current thinking is that a human mission to Mars the risk of developing terminal cancer could be as high as 30%. We would need to build better shielding with water and polyethylene on our spacecrafts. We would also be better attempting a human mission to mars when the solar cycles cosmic ray intensity is at its weakest.

 

[:eek:]

Closest sun-like star may have planets

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Closest_sun_like_star_may_have_planets_999.html

 

[tzarinna]

From the New Yorker. The View from Space: 20 Stellar Photos of Earth in 2012

 

[:eek:]

Space Radiation May Accelerate Alzheimer's in Astronauts

http://www.space.com/19082-space-radiation-astronauts-alzheimers.html

 

[:eek:]

100 Billion Alien Planets Fill Our Milky Way Galaxy

http://www.livescience.com/25938-milky-way-100-billion-planets.html

 

[Piper Maru]

Somewhere, Something Incredible is Waiting to be known
[YT]1NcJAp8StUI[/YT]
Carl Sagan tribute series.

 

[Morg]

http://news.yahoo.com/largest-structure-universe-discovered-093416167.html

 

[:eek:]

Warp Speed: What Hyperspace Would Really Look Like

http://www.space.com/19268-star-wars-hyperspace-physics-reality.html

 

[Bim]

^ that's cool (i'm ready, see?)

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Fiery Looping Rain on the Sun

[YT]HFT7ATLQQx8[/YT]

Eruptive events on the sun can be wildly different. Some come just with a solar flare, some with an additional ejection of solar material called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and some with complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun's atmosphere, the corona.

On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the sun that produced all three. A moderately powerful solar flare exploded on the sun's lower right hand limb, sending out light and radiation. Next came a CME, which shot off to the right out into space. And then, the sun treated viewers to one of its dazzling magnetic displays -- a phenomenon known as coronal rain.

Over the course of the next day, hot plasma in the corona cooled and condensed along strong magnetic fields in the region. Magnetic fields, themselves, are invisible, but the charged plasma is forced to move along the lines, showing up brightly in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 304 Angstroms, which highlights material at a temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. This plasma acts as a tracer, helping scientists watch the dance of magnetic fields on the sun, outlining the fields as it slowly falls back to the solar surface.

The footage in this video was collected by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's AIA instrument. SDO collected one frame every 12 seconds, and the movie plays at 30 frames per second, so each second in this video corresponds to 6 minutes of real time. The video covers 12:30 a.m. EDT to 10:00 p.m. EDT on July 19, 2012.
Music: "Thunderbolt" by Lars Leonhard, courtesy of artist.

 

[Marvolo]

Fiery Looping Rain on the Sun

[YT]HFT7ATLQQx8[/YT]

Eruptive events on the sun can be wildly different. Some come just with a solar flare, some with an additional ejection of solar material called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and some with complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun's atmosphere, the corona.

On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the sun that produced all three. A moderately powerful solar flare exploded on the sun's lower right hand limb, sending out light and radiation. Next came a CME, which shot off to the right out into space. And then, the sun treated viewers to one of its dazzling magnetic displays -- a phenomenon known as coronal rain.

Over the course of the next day, hot plasma in the corona cooled and condensed along strong magnetic fields in the region. Magnetic fields, themselves, are invisible, but the charged plasma is forced to move along the lines, showing up brightly in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 304 Angstroms, which highlights material at a temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. This plasma acts as a tracer, helping scientists watch the dance of magnetic fields on the sun, outlining the fields as it slowly falls back to the solar surface.

The footage in this video was collected by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's AIA instrument. SDO collected one frame every 12 seconds, and the movie plays at 30 frames per second, so each second in this video corresponds to 6 minutes of real time. The video covers 12:30 a.m. EDT to 10:00 p.m. EDT on July 19, 2012.
Music: "Thunderbolt" by Lars Leonhard, courtesy of artist.

For those who do not know Kelvin.

50,000K=89,540ºF / 49,727ºC

Thanks for that video. I've never seen one in motion like that. Its always sped way up. Mind blowing.

 

[Venom'sDad]

Mars could get hit next year. Could be interesting.....from a lander pov.

 

[Marvolo]

Mars could get hit next year. Could be interesting.....from a lander pov.

Ohhh please hit! That will be awesome to see!

 

[Edguy]

They should discover one heading towards Earth, perhaps then NASA could get a budget for a decent space program.

 

[NickNitro]

I don't know if this has been posted here but

Asteroid mining company born!

http://www.space.com/19462-asteroid-mining-deep-space-industries-birth.html

 

[Piper Maru]

Thus Dead Space begins...

 

[Soapy]

"Planetary Resources", "Deep Space Industries"... is it just me or do the names of these new companies have that same vague , but also vaguely sinister quality to them that a lot of sci-fi corporations have?

I could totally imagine "Planetary Resources" sitting right alongside Weyland-Yutani, Mult-National United, Omni Consumer Products, etc.

 

[Edguy]

Planetary Resources probably plans to do business with Galactus.

 

[NickNitro]

"Planetary Resources", "Deep Space Industries"... is it just me or do the names of these new companies have that same vague , but also vaguely sinister quality to them that a lot of sci-fi corporations have?

I could totally imagine "Planetary Resources" sitting right alongside Weyland-Yutani, Mult-National United, Omni Consumer Products, etc.

Dude every single one of these companies created now and ever in the future will just lead us closer to intergalactic space battle with aliens we've discovered 50 years ago at Roswell.

I'm waiting for the Weyland company to pop up in the next 5-10 years.

 

[Mike_D202]

Yeah this was announced last year sometime, James Cameron is one of the backers.

 

[NickNitro]

If we hear Ridley Scott is backing it as well, then we know some shi** going down