The Space Thread

[prdctvsm]

18 hours ago, cichlisuite said:

what happened to the discussion in The Space Thread? a very interesting discussion was unfolding there dammit

some saved links from the unfolding :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler#Participatory_Anthropic_Principle

https://www.quantamagazine.org/edward-witten-ponders-the-nature-of-reality-20171128/

https://www.quantamagazine.org/pondering-the-bits-that-build-space-time-and-brains-20220420/

 

Edited December 9, 2022 by prdctvsm
gravitational lensing

[Cyteen]

The size of Ton 618 and/or Phoenix A (if it proves to be a blackhole) is seriously staggering. I don't think the experts know a way of how a blackhole that big could actually form.  

Any guesses?

 

 

[Rubin Farr]

What they didn’t explain was this capsule did a “skip” re-entry, meaning it descended into the upper atmosphere, heated up, then ascended back up to cool, then finished its descent.

[auxien]

 

also, this one for all y'all who were discussing black holes a few weeks ago (RIP lost discussions) i believe everything in here was stated as correctly as possible (with caveats/etc. used when necessary):

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by auxien

[iococoi]

spacey

https://www.johnkrausphotos.com/

[may be rude]

On 12/9/2022 at 12:31 AM, Cyteen said:

The size of Ton 618 and/or Phoenix A (if it proves to be a blackhole) is seriously staggering. I don't think the experts know a way of how a blackhole that big could actually form.  

Any guesses?

 

 

the munchies

[Rubin Farr]

 

[cruising for burgers]

so apparently some micrometeorite hit some spaceship that was supposed to bring some astronauts back from the ISS but they're stranded cause the impact made a hole and now there's a fuel leak... just saw it now on CNN but can't find it on the web?

 

btw

According to the transition report sent to Congress, NASA operators will direct the ISS toward a region in the Pacific Ocean called the South Pacific Oceanic Uninhabited Area – specifically around Point Nemo – in early 2031, when it will reenter the atmosphere and crash into the water.

 

"It's the safest place to bring down a big spacecraft that's reached the end of its life," Wall added. "It's pretty big, you know, it's as long as a football field ."

Edited January 15, 2023 by cruising for burgers

[auxien]

https://esawebb.org/images/weic2303a/?fbclid=PAAaYoz5JWzuz9ZmKnHRha6nUkUsUHRFs1HnZ-Fdp8W-gMAwI1Jrf1qxK1oUs

[iococoi]

Quote

The goal of this essay is to persuade you that we shouldn’t send human beings to Mars, at least not anytime soon. Landing on Mars with existing technology would be a destructive, wasteful stunt whose only legacy would be to ruin the greatest natural history experiment in the Solar System. It would no more open a new era of spaceflight than a Phoenician sailor crossing the Atlantic in 500 B.C. would have opened up the New World. And it wouldn’t even be that much fun.

https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm

from this Tabfest on current space affairs

https://www.metafilter.com/198104/An-unusually-close-glimpse-of-black-hole-snacking-on-star

Edited January 31, 2023 by iococoi

[Rubin Farr]

https://www.livescience.com/cosmic-web-could-be-hiding-new-physics

[prdctvsm]

 ^ CTMU ? 

[may be rude]

On 1/31/2023 at 6:44 AM, iococoi said:

https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm

from this Tabfest on current space affairs

https://www.metafilter.com/198104/An-unusually-close-glimpse-of-black-hole-snacking-on-star

 

the reason musk popped a lobe over covid is because of the "new world" danger of pathogens, regarding mars. it's not necessarily a great idea to send round trips at least not for like a hundred years until after we know much much more about a lot of things. 

 

good luck stopping that dude though. he's 1 step from going super villain

[Rubin Farr]

NASA Mars Helicopter tech demo 

https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/#Quick-Facts

[prdctvsm]

 

 Ring discovered around dwarf planet Quaoar confounds theories 

[Rubin Farr]

 

[auxien]

Quote

The James Webb space telescope has detected what appear to be six massive ancient galaxies, which astronomers are calling “universe breakers” because their existence could upend current theories of cosmology.

The objects date to a time when the universe was just 3% of its current age and are far larger than was presumed possible for galaxies so early after the big bang. If confirmed, the findings would call into question scientists’ understanding of how the earliest galaxies formed.

“These objects are way more massive than anyone expected,” said Joel Leja, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University and a study co-author. “We expected only to find tiny, young, baby galaxies at this point in time, but we’ve discovered galaxies as mature as our own in what was previously understood to be the dawn of the universe.”

James Webb telescope detects evidence of ancient ‘universe breaker’ galaxies | Astronomy | The Guardian

my prediction (that i've suspected for some time) is that the universe is about to be found to be a lot older, and larger, than anyone could've dreamed. but i sure ain't no scientist so what do i know...ignoring my speculation, it's still interesting findings.

[Rubin Farr]

 

[Walter Ostanek]

Project Orion was this bonkers 1950s plan to power space vehicles with nuclear bombs. I'd read about it years ago and the idea has been recycled in various sci-fi novels. Didn't realise that Auntie Beeb did a documentary about it, nor did I know that in the late 50s they built a working model, and recorded test launches that show that it would actually work. Mad shit

 

[may be rude]

 

The Associated Press · Posted: Mar 01, 2023 10:10 AM EST | Last Updated: March 1

The European Space Agency wants to give the moon its own time zone. Right now, moon missions use the time zone of the country operating the spacecraft for the mission. (Marco Ugarte/The Associated Press)

320

comments

With more lunar missions than ever on the horizon, the European Space Agency wants to give the moon its own time zone. That could be a challenge in a place where there are 29.5 Earth days between sunrises and clocks run faster than they do on Earth. But as more spacecraft are launched beyond Earth's orbit, there's a greater need to standardize times at their space destinations.

This week, ESA said space organizations around the world are considering how best to keep time on the moon. The idea came up during a meeting in the Netherlands late last year, with participants agreeing on the urgent need to establish "a common lunar reference time," said the space agency's Pietro Giordano, a navigation system engineer.

For now, a moon mission runs on the time of the country that is operating the spacecraft. European space officials said an internationally accepted lunar time zone would make it easier for everyone, especially as more countries and even private companies aim for the moon and NASA gets set to send astronauts there.

The space station's time zone solution

NASA had to grapple with the time question while designing and building the International Space Station, fast approaching the 25th anniversary of the launch of its first piece.

While the space station doesn't have its own time zone, it runs on Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC, which is meticulously based on atomic clocks. That helps to split the time difference between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, and the other partnering space programs in Russia, Japan and Europe.

• Moonshots, meteors and planets: Here are just a few things to look forward to in space in 2023

• Orion capsule returns to Earth after Artemis I flight around moon

The international team looking into lunar time is debating whether a single organization should set and maintain time on the moon, according to ESA.

Clocks run faster on the moon

There are also technical issues to consider. Clocks run faster on the moon than on Earth, gaining about 56 microseconds each day, the space agency said. Further complicating matters, ticking occurs differently on the lunar surface than in lunar orbit.

In this July 20, 1969, file photo, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot, is photographed walking near the lunar module during the Apollo 11 mission. Clocks run faster on the moon, and differently on the moon's surface than in orbit. (The Associated Press)

Perhaps most importantly, lunar time will have to be practical for astronauts there, noted the space agency's Bernhard Hufenbach. NASA is shooting for its first flight to the moon with astronauts in more than a half-century in 2024, with a lunar landing as early as 2025.

"This will be quite a challenge" with each day lasting as long as 29.5 Earth days, Hufenbach said in a statement. "But having established a working time system for the moon, we can go on to do the same for other planetary destinations."

Edited March 3, 2023 by trying to be less rude

[Rubin Farr]

[iococoi]

it's out there

[may be rude]

 

[iococoi]

 

[Rubin Farr]