More space news!

[L. Marcus]

Whatever did we do to them?

[Christopher]

Whatever did we do to them?

We are the odd guys.

I mean think about it: They are 90% of all galaxies. No wonder they shun the 10% "shiny" ones, like ours.

[DShomshak]

The current (November) issue of Discover has an article on the Starshot program. It notes that Starshot micro-probes also provide a way to quickly send probles to any, or every, asteroid and Kuiper Belt object that catches our interest. Each probe can't carry much instrumentation, but when probes cost so little and Pluto is only three days away, heck, just send as many as you need.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

According to my local newspaper, Nature just published an article about new cratering on the Moon. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter gives us an extended view of the surface and how it might be changing. In brief, it is, much more than astronomers thought.

 

EDIT: You can get to a Gizmodo article about this from the number-of-galaxies article link posted by NuSoardGraphite.

 

Also, on BBC today I heard an interview with a planetologist who suggests that 3 billion years ago, the climate on Venus could have been much like that on Earth today; ie., temperatures and air pressure about the same. Reason? The Sun was only 70% as bright then. So, there would have been running water -- and therefore life. No proof of it, of course, but no reason to doubt it either.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Old Man]

European robot invades Mars tomorrow

[L. Marcus]

Hurrah!

[Old Man]

What could possibly go wrong?

[L. Marcus]

Uh ... Everything?

 

Mars missions have a failure rate of about 50%, I think.

[Cancer]

Also, on BBC today I heard an interview with a planetologist who suggests that 3 billion years ago, the climate on Venus could have been much like that on Earth today; ie., temperatures and air pressure about the same. Reason? The Sun was only 70% as bright then. So, there would have been running water -- and therefore life. No proof of it, of course, but no reason to doubt it either.

The Venus scenario is one I remember reading back in the late '90s, maybe as late as 2000, in Scientific American. The terrifying thing is that when the oceans go, more or less the whole oceanic crust melts and goes volcanic, and the continental crust also gets buried in fresh volcanism, and the common sedimentary rocks are cooked into different mineral forms. Not even fossils are left after that episode, which makes it more or less impossible to know one way or other at this time, even if we were able to operate on Venus's surface.

[Christopher]

European robot invades Mars tomorrow

 

 

Uh ... Everything?

 

Mars missions have a failure rate of about 50%, I think.

Wich is why this is only a test for the Landing System, with a minimal scientific payload.

The real probe comes later/stays in Orbit.

[Old Man]

The good news is that the orbiter has successfully entered its orbit.  The bad news is that expected signals from the lander have not yet been received.  It's not clear yet whether this is due to some sort of comms or software problem, or an outright crash.  AIUI the orbiter observed the landing but needs to aim its high gain antenna back at us before it can transmit.

[novi]

700 sextillion stars. That's...700,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. I wonder what this does to the idea of "dark matter" and "dark energy". I mean, we just "found" the missing mass!

 

 

Essentially yes. They always said that 90% of the mass was "dark". If there are 10-20 times the number of galaxies, then there's the answer. So Dark Matter is a non starter, but that still doesnt solve the "dark energy" delimma

 

Um, no.  Not at all.  As far as I can tell from the story here and from other sources, almost all of the 'new' galaxies are dwarf galaxies not properly accounted for in earlier estimates.  The 100 billion galaxy number has been around for a long time, dating back to the days when the Milky Way only had a few satellite galaxies, instead of the 50 known today.  And the mass contained there isn't quite enough to explain dark matter.

 

Also, it's the wrong shape to explain dark matter, since dark matter must be inside known galaxies to explain how they rotate.  And certain other observed things I'm not actually qualified to explain

[Old Man]

It appears that the Schiaparelli lander jettisoned its parachutes too early and/or fired its retros for only three seconds instead of the planned thirty.  So the most likely outcome is a high speed impact.    ExoMars orbiter is orbiting though.

[Old Man]

Initial speculation is focusing on the lander's radar altimeter and the software behind it.

[L. Marcus]

Chalk another one up to the Great Ghost of Mars.

[Old Man]

Planet IX to be found by Xmas 2017

[NuSoardGraphite]

Um, no. Not at all. As far as I can tell from the story here and from other sources, almost all of the 'new' galaxies are dwarf galaxies not properly accounted for in earlier estimates. The 100 billion galaxy number has been around for a long time, dating back to the days when the Milky Way only had a few satellite galaxies, instead of the 50 known today. And the mass contained there isn't quite enough to explain dark matter.

That many dwarf galaxies? 10 to 20 times the previous estimation? Pushing the number of galaxies from 100 billion to 1 to 2 trillion?

 

Also, it's the wrong shape to explain dark matter, since dark matter must be inside known galaxies to explain how they rotate. And certain other observed things I'm not actually qualified to explain

Wasnt Dark Mattr originally theorized to explain the movement of galaxies (not individual stars) in a galactic cluster, and wouldnt the presence of ten times the number of galaxies have a tangible effect on that movement?

[L. Marcus]

No, dark matter is for explaining the orbits of individual stars in a galaxy -- the visible mass of the galaxy is too little to account for the orbits of the individual stars.

[NuSoardGraphite]

No, dark matter is for explaining the orbits of individual stars in a galaxy -- the visible mass of the galaxy is too little to account for the orbits of the individual stars.

I was pretty certain it was about the stars inside a galaxy being effected by the gravity of something outside the galaxy, generally speaking, surrounding the galaxy. Like perhaps cluster of dwarf galaxies. Numerous but individually too dim to notice on their own merit.

[Christopher]

I was pretty certain it was about the stars inside a galaxy being effected by the gravity of something outside the galaxy, generally speaking, surrounding the galaxy. Like perhaps cluster of dwarf galaxies. Numerous but individually too dim to notice on their own merit.

I re-read on it on Wikipedia.

The main problem is that at thier rotational speed, the outliying stars of our galaxy would have to fly off. The centrifugal/innterial force of thier movement is greater then the gravity excerted by the visible mater. By a order of magnitude.

Plus there appaers to be an effect on gavitic lenseing through galaxies.

[Old Man]

The Schiaparelli lander smudge's location on Mars has been imaged.  It's likely that the hydrazine tanks were still mostly full on impact, which would have resulted in an explode.

[L. Marcus]

Hah -- that's gunpowder residue from the interplanetary guns.

[Old Man]

Evidence for life on Mars

[Christopher]

The Schiaparelli lander smudge's location on Mars has been imaged.  It's likely that the hydrazine tanks were still mostly full on impact, which would have resulted in an explode.

Damit. Who at ESA was a Michael Bay Fan?

No, Mars landings are not more awesome with explosions.

[Cancer]

The Schiaparelli lander smudge's location on Mars has been imaged.  It's likely that the hydrazine tanks were still mostly full on impact, which would have resulted in an explode.

The images