Octopus Overlords

Daehawk wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:36 pm Have you seen the moon tonight? Mars is shining big and red beside it.

The Meal wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 10:55 pm

Daehawk wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:36 pm Have you seen the moon tonight? Mars is shining big and red beside it.

Very cool. Even cooler here where the AQI is 140 and everything has that reddish hue as if we were on Mars. Seriously, I've seen less-red penumbral eclipses in the past.

Earth is not necessarily the best planet in the universe. Researchers have identified two dozen planets outside our solar system that may have conditions more suitable for life than our own. Some of these orbit stars that may be better than even our sun.

A study led by Washington State University scientist Dirk Schulze-Makuch recently published in the journal Astrobiology details characteristics of potential “superhabitable” planets, that include those that are older, a little larger, slightly warmer and possibly wetter than Earth. Life could also more easily thrive on planets that circle more slowly changing stars with longer lifespans than our sun.

For instance, in 2018, astronomers announced the first direct image of the aftermath of a star being shredded by a black hole 20 million times more massive than our Sun, in a pair of colliding galaxies called Arp 299 about 150 million light years from Earth. They used a combination of radio and infrared telescopes, including the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), to follow a particular formation and expansion of the jet of matter ejected in the wake of a star being shredded by a supermassive black hole at the center of one of the colliding galaxies.

However, these powerful bursts of light are often shrouded behind a curtain of interstellar dust and debris, making it difficult for astronomers to study them in greater detail. This latest event (dubbed AT 2019qiz) was discovered shortly after the star had been shredded last year, making it easier to study in detail, before that curtain of dust and debris had fully formed. Astronomers conducted follow-up observations across the electromagnetic spectrum over the next six months, using multiple telescopes around the world, including the Very Large Telescope (VLT) array and the New Technology Telescope (NTT), both located in Chile.

wonderpug wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 4:02 pm Did we already talk about Mars being bright this week? Tomorrow (Oct 13) it will be bright because it's at opposition, but this year's Mars opposition will be the brightest one until 2035.

raydude wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:55 pm The OSIRIS-REx mission I work on is all set to TAG the Bennu asteroid tomorrow, and you can watch it live.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:38 pm From what I understand the approach is automated so there shouldn't be a delay. After the sample grab and ascent the ground team will assess if there is a good sample or whether they will go back for another attempt.

You should catch NOVA on PBS on Wednesday as they will cover the history of the mission along with a wrap-up of the actual touch and go.

Kraken wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 11:09 pm

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:38 pm From what I understand the approach is automated so there shouldn't be a delay. After the sample grab and ascent the ground team will assess if there is a good sample or whether they will go back for another attempt.

You should catch NOVA on PBS on Wednesday as they will cover the history of the mission along with a wrap-up of the actual touch and go.

Cool, thx. 6:12 is prime time in my Making Dinner window, and tomorrow I have the uncertainty of trying a new recipe. I can watch live if the touch-and-go falls between putting it in the oven and taking it out. Wife beats me if her dinner is late.

Now I need to see if anyone on YouTube TV has the NASA channel.

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 9:38 pm From what I understand the approach is automated so there shouldn't be a delay. After the sample grab and ascent the ground team will assess if there is a good sample or whether they will go back for another attempt.

You should catch NOVA on PBS on Wednesday as they will cover the history of the mission along with a wrap-up of the actual touch and go.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 10:18 pm The tiny little nudge causes it to smack Earth instead of being nowhere near it in 120 years

After more than a year of carefully mapping asteroid Bennu, a NASA spacecraft will attempt an historic "touch and go" to nab a precious sample of dirt to return to Earth. But we won't know if it fully succeeded for another 10 days, NASA officials said in a news conference on Monday (Oct. 19).

The OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) spacecraft will start its descent today (Oct. 20), and you can watch it live here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA Television. Since it takes about 18 minutes for signals to travel between the spacecraft and mission controllers on Earth, all maneuvers are programmed ahead of time and the spacecraft will be transmitting information as it goes along.

Early images from the asteroid will hint at whether the scoop succeeded, but it will only be by comparing the spacecraft's mass before and after the maneuver that engineers will finally know how much asteroid dirt is inside OSIRIS-REx. The maneuvers and analysis will take roughly 10 days, meaning the spacecraft's outcome won't be known until at least late October.

Around 1:50 p.m EDT (1950 GMT) on landing day today (Tuesday, Oct. 20), controllers should receive telemetry from Bennu showing that the spacecraft departed from orbit. OSIRIS-REx will carefully maneuver twice more in two burns to get properly positioned for the surface and also, to verify it is on the right track to pluck a scoop of regolith.

A "checkpoint" burn will transmit information back to Earth around 5:50 p.m. EDT (2250 GMT), when the spacecraft is roughly 160 feet (50 meters) above the surface. Ten minutes later, OSIRIS-REx will transmit information from its third and final "matchpoint" burn that it will set it up for soft contact on the surface at 6:12 p.m. EDT (2312 GMT).

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 9:00 am New article from Space.com, NASA's OSIRIS-REx will play 'tag' with asteroid Bennu to collect samples today. But will it succeed?

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 2:53 pm

raydude wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 3:26 pm As an aside, part of my job was generating the data products that went into creating the global shape model that you see in the simulation, as well as creating data products used by the team for Natural Feature Tracking (NFT).

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 4:31 pm

raydude wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 3:26 pm As an aside, part of my job was generating the data products that went into creating the global shape model that you see in the simulation, as well as creating data products used by the team for Natural Feature Tracking (NFT).

Very cool! Are you involved in any planned future missions?

Daehawk wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:05 pm Im not seeing that. Im watching at the NASA link I posted. Is there a better place?

Max Peck wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:06 pm What's the deal with the weird clear plastic masks some of them are wearing?