The Space Thread

[caze]

not sure why it looks blue, might just be a trick of the light (don't think it's a false colour image), here's another weird looking one:

 

[YangYing]

very cool

[chenGOD]

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/07/star-s-black-hole-encounter-puts-einstein-s-theory-gravity-test

 

 

For more than 20 years, a team of astronomers has tracked a single star whipping around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy at up to 25 million kilometers per hour, or 3% of the speed of light. Now, the team says the close encounter has put Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity to its most rigorous test yet for massive objects, with the light from the star stretched in a way not prescribed by Newtonian gravity. In a study announced today, the team says it has detected a distinctive indicator of Einstein’s general theory of relativity called “gravitational redshift,” in which the star’s light loses energy because of the black hole’s intense gravity.

 

Cool shit.

[auxien]

^yeah it is. And eventually will be able to study an even closer star...center of the galaxy is a pretty fucking crazy place :)

[Nebraska]

 

A rogue, planet-size object 20 light-years away from Earth has stunned astronomers with its incredibly powerful magnetic field.
 
The scientists found that the object's magnetic field is more than 200 times stronger than Jupiter's, which, in turn, is between 16 and 54 times stronger than Earth's, according to NASA. How the object, which scientists call SIMP J01365663+0933473, can maintain a magnetic field so strong, as well as generate spectacular auroras, is still unclear.

 
https://www.space.com/41390-rogue-brown-dwarf-auroras-magnetic-field.html

[auxien]

^pretty cool stuff

[auxien]

 

Left is regular view of Mars, right is Mars covered in a dust storm. You can see Olympus Mons and three other volcanos actually penetrating the storm cover, that's how fucking big they are. 

 

(stolen from a comment on an Ars Technica article)

[jules]

that is awesome

[Rubin Farr]

very cool

[Rubin Farr]

NASA's TESS Probe discovers two new exoplanets:

 

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/nasa-telescope-discovers-two-planets-five-months-launch-001530659.html

[auxien]

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/these-19th-century-astronomical-drawings-show-the-beauty-of-cosmos/

 

Retro space art

[Rubin Farr]

Arsia Mons volcano in Mars currently having a water vapor eruption:

 

https://gizmodo.com/massive-cloud-forming-over-one-of-mars-biggest-volcanoe-1830048997

 

[may be rude]

look at that enormous martian volcano that's sprung a leak right there

[Rubin Farr]

Mars has 3 nipples

[iococoi]

Mars has 3 nipples

 

where?

[Rubin Farr]

13.5 billion year old star discovered:

 

https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.00549

[Tricone RC]

13.5 billion year old star discovered:

 

https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.00549

An Earth-like planet in orbit around a super-long-lived red dwarf would, all else being equal, actually be more habitable than Earth. The length of time in which the planet's surface was habitable would be 10x longer than it will be with Earth

Edited November 9, 2018 by Tricone RC

[auxien]

 

13.5 billion year old star discovered:

 

https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.00549

An Earth-like planet in orbit around a super-long-lived red dwarf would, all else being equal, actually be more habitable than Earth. The length of time in which the planet's surface was habitable would be 10x longer than it will be with Earth

Would make for a good story but that idea may not hold up to reality given some other factors that (we think) make Earth particularly habitable. This is of course very much speculation either way.

 

Also the summary says it's "the most metal-poor thin disk star system by a considerable margin." So we have to ask ourselves, is living without silver and gold and aluminum and etc. really living???!?!!? Seriously though, it makes for some interesting ideas (a story I've been background working on for a while is based on a planet like this, with almost no metals, it leads to some interesting particulars for a civilization to deal with)

[Tricone RC]

 

 

13.5 billion year old star discovered:

 

https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.00549

An Earth-like planet in orbit around a super-long-lived red dwarf would, all else being equal, actually be more habitable than Earth. The length of time in which the planet's surface was habitable would be 10x longer than it will be with Earth

Would make for a good story but that idea may not hold up to reality given some other factors that (we think) make Earth particularly habitable. This is of course very much speculation either way.

 

Also the summary says it's "the most metal-poor thin disk star system by a considerable margin." So we have to ask ourselves, is living without silver and gold and aluminum and etc. really living???!?!!? Seriously though, it makes for some interesting ideas (a story I've been background working on for a while is based on a planet like this, with almost no metals, it leads to some interesting particulars for a civilization to deal with)

 

In the context of stellar physics, "metal" normally just means "everything that's not hydrogen and helium". Hence most very old stars have a very low "metallicity", since only H and He were produced by the Big Bang and all higher elements needed to be produced by an earlier generation of stars before any later stars could really contain them in any significant amounts. A super low metallicity star isn't likely to have any planets at all to start with

 

So you shouldn't expect planets around the *really* fucking old stars, but by 13Ga there could already have been a few generations of short-lived giant stars to pump out a supply of "metals" for red dwarfs to hoover up

[auxien]

Lots of pretty pictures for you not-reading types:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/some-good-came-out-of-2018-astronomy-photos/

[Rubin Farr]

ISS turns 20 years old:

 

https://apple.news/A-REhIgM0PR-3_n6PxgBa7Q

[Rubin Farr]

NASA's InSight Probe landing on Mars coverage begins 2pm EST on Monday, Nov. 26:

 

https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

[Tricone RC]

InSight will be pretty neat, the first proper geophysical info on Mars that we'll get besides from what you can work out from orbit, we'll get some idea about heat flow through the crust and be able to detect seismic events, so we'll know a lot more about how active (or inactive) the interior of the planet is, as well as learn more shit about its internal structure which can then be compared against Earth and the Moon

 

My old Masters' supervisor co-designed a seismometer to be used on a European Mars lander back in the mid-2000s, I imagine he's a tad jealous right now

[Braintree]

Apparently it takes like three months before all of the instruments are deployed.

 

Damn lazy robots taking good Martian science jobs.

[caze]

InSight will be pretty neat, the first proper geophysical info on Mars that we'll get besides from what you can work out from orbit, we'll get some idea about heat flow through the crust and be able to detect seismic events, so we'll know a lot more about how active (or inactive) the interior of the planet is, as well as learn more shit about its internal structure which can then be compared against Earth and the Moon

 

My old Masters' supervisor co-designed a seismometer to be used on a European Mars lander back in the mid-2000s, I imagine he's a tad jealous right now

 

could the core still be liquid? given the lack of a magnetic field... or could there just be something interfering with the convection currents preventing the magnetic fields lining up and reinforcing themselves? I have no idea how any of this works...