Re: SPACE - random thread about space stuff
Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 4:14 pm
I would have tried to charge them $100,000. Its on my property. Lol.
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
http://www.octopusoverlords.com/forum/
[Gilbert Levin] was fortunate to have participated in that historic adventure as experimenter of the Labeled Release (LR) life detection experiment on NASA’s spectacular Viking mission to Mars in 1976.
On July 30, 1976, the LR returned its initial results from Mars. Amazingly, they were positive. As the experiment progressed, a total of four positive results, supported by five varied controls, streamed down from the twin Viking spacecraft landed some 4,000 miles apart. The data curves signaled the detection of microbial respiration on the Red Planet.
When the Viking Molecular Analysis Experiment failed to detect organic matter, the essence of life, however, NASA concluded that the LR had found a substance mimicking life, but not life.
Surface water sufficient to sustain microorganisms was found on Mars by Viking, Pathfinder, Phoenix and Curiosity;
Ultraviolet (UV) activation of the Martian surface material did not, as initially proposed, cause the LR reaction: a sample taken from under a UV-shielding rock was as LR-active as surface samples;
Complex organics, have been reported on Mars by Curiosity’s scientists, possibly including kerogen, which could be of biological origin;
Phoenix and Curiosity found evidence that the ancient Martian environment may have been habitable.
The excess of carbon-13 over carbon-12 in the Martian atmosphere is indicative of biological activity, which prefers ingesting the latter;
The Martian atmosphere is in disequilibrium: its CO2 should long ago have been converted to CO by the sun’s UV light; thus the CO2 is being regenerated, possibly by microorganisms as on Earth;
Terrestrial microorganisms have survived in outer space outside the ISS;
Ejecta containing viable microbes have likely been arriving on Mars from Earth;
Methane has been measured in the Martian atmosphere; microbial methanogens could be the source;
The rapid disappearance of methane from the Martian atmosphere requires a sink, possibly supplied by methanotrophs that could co-exist with methanogens on the Martian surface;
Ghost-like moving lights, resembling will-O’-the-wisps on Earth that are formed by spontaneous ignition of methane, have been video-recorded on the Martian surface;
Formaldehyde and ammonia, each possibly indicative of biology, are claimed to be in the Martian atmosphere;
An independent complexity analysis of the positive LR signal identified it as biological;
Six-channel spectral analyses by Viking’s imaging system found terrestrial lichen and green patches on Mars rocks to have the identical color, saturation, hue and intensity;
A wormlike feature was in an image taken by Curiosity;
Large structures resembling terrestrial stromatolites (formed by microorganisms) were found by Curiosity; a statistical analysis of their complex features showed less than a 0.04 percent probability that the similarity was caused by chance alone;
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner crewed vehicle aced a crucial safety test this morning (Nov. 4) in the New Mexico desert.
Called a pad abort test, the drill checked the vehicle's ability to carry astronauts to safety should engineers notice an anomaly with the rocket that could endanger a launch. That scenario means that during a pad abort test, the capsule has to quickly pick up enough speed to carry humans to safety, starting from a standstill.
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All three astronauts who will fly on Starliner's first crewed launch, a demonstration mission to the International Space Station, were present at today's test.
"We hope we never need to use this system," NASA astronaut Mike Fincke said. "We know after today's test we'll be able to get off safely and come back and try another day."
Boeing is hoping the trio will fly next year. "It's starting to feel really close, it's amazing, especially being here for the test," NASA astronaut Nicole Mann said. "Big milestones like the test today are just showing that we're getting a lot closer."
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During the test, the Starliner capsule was programmed to reach a speed of 650 mph (1,046 km/h) in just 5 seconds. Engines on board the spacecraft fired intermittently over the course of 10 seconds in order to carry the capsule away from the launch pad and the hypothetical unstable rocket.
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Then, the spacecraft oriented itself and a suite of parachutes released in three pulses over the course of about 25 seconds. The parachutes are crucial for crew safety because they both slow the capsule down and orient the spacecraft for a safe landing.
Those parachutes come in three pulses: two drogue parachutes, three pilot parachutes and three main parachutes. Only two of the last category deployed during today's test, but that is within the range of acceptable safety conditions for the vehicle, Landa said.
This kind of reminds me of something that happened to me in Ann Arbor.LordMortis wrote: ↑Mon Oct 28, 2019 2:50 pm Not sure how I feel about this. I'm really curious to know what all the laws around this are. I can only assume Raven Industries knows them well.
https://www.mlive.com/weather/2019/10/s ... kyard.html
At nearly the same time, a large balloon came down onto a power line in Wheeler, Mi., a few miles away. Welke says power had to be shut off in the area while crews removed the popped balloon from the power line on Barry Road in eastern Gratiot County. Welke estimates her power was off for about two hours.
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Staff from a company called Raven Industries came to pick up the space contraption. Welke says the Raven representative wouldn’t say much about the situation. That person only told her the contraption was launched from Iowa yesterday and was being used to take pictures. The Raven representative told Welke the company is based “out of the Dakotas.”
Samsung just this week launched a program called Space Selfie. According to the Samsung website, the idea is for people to upload their picture and a space photo of Earth will be merged with their photo. The photo will then be sent back to the original uploader.
Scientists are finding that galaxies can move with each other across huge distances, and against the predictions of basic cosmological models. The reason why could change everything we think we know about the universe.
[A] reporter at Newsweek pointed out that the Nazi party had used the phrase Ultima Thule to refer to the mythical homeland of the Aryan people. The term apparently remains in use by modern so-called alt-right groups. Now the object has a new name yet again. The name is now Arrokoth, which means sky in the Powhatan and Algonquian languages.
That's an oddly precise number. What's "more than" 3,728,227 mean? 227.5? 228?Astronomers have spotted a star speeding through our galaxy at more than 3,728,227 mph.
Glad they're going to clear that up!The astronomers plan to keep tracking the star and gain a more precise measurement of its velocity
3,728,227.15 mph is more than 3,728,227 mph, and happens to be what you get when you convert 6,000,000 km/h into Freedom Units.Kraken wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2019 12:17 am The news about a star being ejected from the galaxy is mildly interesting, but I can't get over these two points:
That's an oddly precise number. What's "more than" 3,728,227 mean? 227.5? 228?Astronomers have spotted a star speeding through our galaxy at more than 3,728,227 mph.
Glad they're going to clear that up!The astronomers plan to keep tracking the star and gain a more precise measurement of its velocity
Forbes
In the early hours of the morning today, Monday, November 18, two astronomers checked in on their remotely operated telescope in Chile, expecting to see images of distant stars and galaxies. Instead, they saw a train of SpaceX satellites crossing the night sky, a worrying sign of what might be to come for astronomy.
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However, with just 3,000 active satellites orbiting earth today, many astronomers have expressed concerns that this dramatic increase will create many more artificial points of light in the night sky. For a science that relies on dark skies, having multiple satellites constantly visible could pose significant problems.
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Last night, they were taking about 40 exposures of the night sky, looking towards the small and large magellanic clouds, two dwarf galaxies that neighbor the Milky Way. But during one set of those observations, 90 minutes before sunrise, the train of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites moved into view, glinting in the early morning sunlight and taking five minutes to pass across the telescope's line of sight.
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In the dead of night, the Starlink satellites are not visible as they are shrouded in Earth’s shadow. But at this time in the morning, still a prime time for astronomy, the satellites were clearly visible in orbit, caught not just in the telescope's field-of-view but a webcam at the observatory too.
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So far, SpaceX has launched just 0.14 percent of its total planned Starlink constellation, but aims to start launching every fortnight to increase the number of Starlink satellites orbiting Earth to about 1,500 by the end of 2020. With thousands more satellites on the way, the risk of more events like this last night in Chile becomes ever-present.
Yup, same form factor with different instruments, better wheels...and a helicopter! Keeping the same chassis allows them to use the same aeroshell, sky crane, and other infrastructure that they already know and love.
The first time I heard about how they were planning on dropping the rover down, I was flabbergasted. It seemed like they were making things WAAAAAAY more complicated than they actually needed to be. And then they pulled it off, and I remembered that they are aerospace engineers, scientists, and astrophysicists and I'm a football coach.
Yeah, the 7 Minutes of Terror -- there were just so many potential failure points, so many steps that had to go just right, that the probability of success seemed tiny. I actually teared up when Curiosity landed safely. You can see why they'd want to stick with that now-proven technology, with no compelling reason to change its parameters. It's still going to be another hairy landing, though. There are still lots of dice to roll.Hyena wrote: ↑Thu Nov 21, 2019 3:24 pmThe first time I heard about how they were planning on dropping the rover down, I was flabbergasted. It seemed like they were making things WAAAAAAY more complicated than they actually needed to be. And then they pulled it off, and I remembered that they are aerospace engineers, scientists, and astrophysicists and I'm a football coach.
Or so the Germans would have you believe...Kraken wrote:Bah. In my day, we went to the moon without software.
After prepping their patient — a $2 billion cosmic ray detector — during two earlier spacewalks, two space station astronauts ventured back outside for a third outing Monday to carry out what amounted to transplant surgery, installing replacement coolant pumps in a bid to revive the costly instrument and extend its life.
The work required European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA crewmate Drew Morgan to attach the 350-pound pump module to the 7.5-ton Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, plug in power and data cables and then splice together eight existing coolant lines that were cut during the crew's second spacewalk.
The AMS was not designed to be serviced in orbit and connecting, or "swaging," the small, relatively fragile coolant lines while working in pressurized spacesuits was considered an especially challenging task, rivaling work to repair some of the Hubble Space Telescope's most delicate systems.
But four years of planning and training paid off, and the astronauts had no problems working through their repair checklist, completing all of the required connections. They returned to the International Space Station's Quest airlock at 12:33 p.m. EST to wrap up a six-hour, two-minute excursion.
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Launched to the space station in 2011, the AMS was built to study high-energy cosmic rays to glean clues about what happened to the antimatter presumably created during the big bang in equal measure with normal matter. Matter and antimatter annihilate on contact, and it's not clear why the universe is dominated by normal matter today.
The AMS also may shed light on the nature of the unseen dark matter permeating the universe and the mysterious dark energy that appears to be speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.
To achieve the required sensitivity, the AMS detectors must be chilled using carbon dioxide coolant pushed through the instrument in thin lines the width of a pencil. Originally designed to operate for just three years, the AMS chalked up eight years of operation before being hobbled by coolant pump failures.
This cosmic turducken is known as Hoag's object, and it has befuddled stargazers since astronomer Arthur Hoag discovered it in 1950.
The object in question is a rare, ring-shaped galaxy measuring some 100,000 light-years across (slightly larger than the Milky Way) and located 600 million light-years from Earth. In a recent image of the oddball object taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and processed by geophysicist Benoit Blanco, a bright ring of billions of blue stars forms a perfect circle around a much smaller and denser sphere of reddish stars. In the dark gap between the two stellar circles, another ring galaxy — much, much farther away from us — peeks out to say hello.