tkdguy Posted February 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 Re: More space news! Yes, but capturing a rogue black hole to use as a weapon is a plot worthy of a supervillain. I know, I know, wrong genre. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted February 27, 2012 Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 Re: More space news! The Moon may still have an active core. Rogue planets may be a hundred thousand times as common as stars, and 3 to 6 percent of stars may harbour captured rogues. Maybe they swarm in packs and rob defenseless perimeter worlds and form impromptu gravity wells in order to charge FTL travellers a toll for passage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 27, 2012 Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 Re: More space news! May 20' date=' 2012 Annular Eclipse[/url'] It will be near sunset when it come thru my area which I'm hoping for some nice photographs then. Don't forget a couple of weeks later: the Transit of Venus, visible (in part) over most of the world. For those of us in North America, it happens the evening of Tuesday, June 5. It will happen to be 6 June Universal Time (~= GMT) but for us it'll still be Tueday June 5 local calendar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narf the Mouse Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Re: More space news! "...And to spare." involves planets, too, I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted March 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 2, 2012 Re: More space news! Europa's Ocean Too Acidic For Life? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 2, 2012 Report Share Posted March 2, 2012 Re: More space news! Based on what this guy can live through ... or this one ... or these ... I won't be placing any bets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted March 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 2, 2012 Re: More space news! NASA Hacked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted March 2, 2012 Report Share Posted March 2, 2012 Re: More space news! Based on what this guy can live through ... or this one ... or these ... I won't be placing any bets. I fear they need a environment a little bit closer to earth to develop first. they are pretty advanced/specialised bacteria and the environment might not even allow simply bacteria to form - so they can never develop to more complex ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McCoy Posted March 3, 2012 Report Share Posted March 3, 2012 Re: More space news! I fear they need a environment a little bit closer to earth to develop first. they are pretty advanced/specialised bacteria and the environment might not even allow simply bacteria to form - so they can never develop to more complex ones. If you can state that as a fact then I am absolutely in awe of your knowledge of biology. I would prefer to study a few more independent examples of abiogenesis and evolution before I offered an opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted March 3, 2012 Report Share Posted March 3, 2012 Re: More space news! If you can state that as a fact then I am absolutely in awe of your knowledge of biology. I would prefer to study a few more independent examples of abiogenesis and evolution before I offered an opinion. I just used my Basic Biology Schoolknowledge about the development of life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life It all begins with non-organic processes forming the building blocks of the first organisms. If the environment does not supports these or similar struktures, then life can't start on it's own. There could still be bacteria imported via meteorites or with a radically different form of DNA-equivalent, but that is unlikely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McCoy Posted March 3, 2012 Report Share Posted March 3, 2012 Re: More space news! I just used my Basic Biology Schoolknowledge about the development of life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life It all begins with non-organic processes forming the building blocks of the first organisms. If the environment does not supports these or similar struktures, then life can't start on it's own. And last I heard, we had not been able to replicate that process. We do not know the environment that DOES cause abiogeneisis, so it seems a little presumptuous to state categorically that a particular environment CAN NOT support abiogenesis. You may be right, but I really believe you are assuming facts not in evidence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted March 5, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2012 Re: More space news! Dragon spacecraft passes test flight Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawnmower Boy Posted March 5, 2012 Report Share Posted March 5, 2012 Re: More space news! Very thin molecular oxygen atmosphere found around Saturn moon. The story confirms that molecular oxygen atmospheres can come about non-biological processes, not that there is life on the moons of Saturn. Still, interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveZilla Posted March 6, 2012 Report Share Posted March 6, 2012 Re: More space news! I don't know if this has been posted here before, considering this is about7 months old... Earth's first Trojan asteroid: 2010 TK7 [ATTACH=CONFIG]42068[/ATTACH] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveZilla Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 Re: More space news! Yet another Asteroid Fly-By: 2012 DA14 to pass the Earth closer than Geostationary distances on Feb 15, 2013. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 Re: More space news! There's a lot of slop in that orbit. I expect the ephemerides will change. The orbit's only based on two weeks of observations, which isn't much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveZilla Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 Re: More space news! True. Let's hope the "slop" takes it further away, cause it can't really get much closer... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted March 7, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 Re: More space news! Large solar flare last night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 14, 2012 Report Share Posted March 14, 2012 Re: More space news! A paper in Nature two months back (12 January issue, volume 481, pp. 167-169) says that the results from gravitational microlensing suggest an average of more than one planet per star, on average, in the Galaxy. They have enough detections (and have done some statistical analysis and simulations) to claim this down to a mass of 5 Earth masses, in the orbit size range 0.5 - 10 AU. Planets around stars in our Galaxy thus seem to be the rule rather than the exception. They don't have numbers for truly Earth-class planets yet, though. So far only the Kepler mission has a handle on that, and they are still in the data-gathering stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted March 14, 2012 Report Share Posted March 14, 2012 Re: More space news! A paper in Nature two months back (12 January issue' date=' volume 481, pp. 167-169) says that the results from gravitational microlensing suggest an average of more than one planet per star, on average, in the Galaxy. They have enough detections (and have done some statistical analysis and simulations) to claim this down to a mass of 5 Earth masses, in the orbit size range 0.5 - 10 AU.[/quote'] Sweet! Even if we never get to visit any of them, that gives us a large dataset to which we can apply future analysis. If it's possible, I'm guessing we'll find signs of life sooner or later. Of course signs of civilization would be amazing. More planets = more hope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted March 14, 2012 Report Share Posted March 14, 2012 Re: More space news! Multiple planets around most stars in the Galaxy? Wouldn't that tend to blow up Drake's Equation a bit? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 14, 2012 Report Share Posted March 14, 2012 Re: More space news! Not necessarily; since we still seem to have N = 1, though, it may drive one or more of the other factors down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clonus Posted March 14, 2012 Report Share Posted March 14, 2012 Re: More space news! Multiple planets around most stars in the Galaxy? Wouldn't that tend to blow up Drake's Equation a bit? That was always the easiest hurdle to pass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted March 16, 2012 Report Share Posted March 16, 2012 Re: More space news! Multiple planets around most stars in the Galaxy? Wouldn't that tend to blow up Drake's Equation a bit? Considering that it is an equation consisting mostly of unknowns, I doubt it will cause much of a problem. But here are some intersting news: And "Riding the Booster": From launch to landing, a space shuttle's solid rocket booster journey is captured, with sound mixed and enhanced by Skywalker Sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McCoy Posted March 17, 2012 Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 Re: More space news! Multiple planets around most stars in the Galaxy? Wouldn't that tend to blow up Drake's Equation a bit? One of the factors in the equasion is the number of planets (or moons) per star where life is possible, next factor is on what percentage of these does life actually appear. Attempting to draw a graph from one data point, I say our solar system has 4 life-potent worlds (Earth, Mars, Europa, and Titan), and life is known to have occurred on .25 of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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