tkdguy Posted April 26, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2016 Starshot and the gravitational lens pinecone 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted April 27, 2016 Report Share Posted April 27, 2016 Another Kuiper Belt object has a moon ... Makemake seems to have a 100-km satellite. tkdguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted April 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 28, 2016 Elon Musk plans unmanned Mars mission by 2018 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinecone Posted April 28, 2016 Report Share Posted April 28, 2016 Starshot and the gravitational lens Wow... This is truely cool. tkdguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted April 28, 2016 Report Share Posted April 28, 2016 Yeah, that would handily solve the single biggest technical problem with that mission (that I know of). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted May 1, 2016 Report Share Posted May 1, 2016 The May issue of Scientific American has an excellent article on reconstructing the formation of the Solar System. Based upon both computer simulations and studied of the exoplanets discovered by Kepler, it was a stranger, more complex and far more violent process than astronomers imagined just 20 years ago. I was especially interested in the anomaly astronomers didn't even realize was anomalous pre=Kepler: Why doesn't the inner Solar System include a few super-Earths? Most seem to. Dean Shomshak tkdguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted May 11, 2016 Report Share Posted May 11, 2016 I have officially lost track tkdguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted May 12, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2016 Swept up in the solar wind Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted May 22, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2016 Neil Degrasse Tyson talks about how long we'd survive without a spacesuit on each planet of our solar system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted May 22, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2016 Neptune's surface temperature Mars at opposition Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted May 27, 2016 Report Share Posted May 27, 2016 This month's issue of Scientific American has a nifty article on new types of supernova-like phenomena, and astronomers' attempts to find and explain them. To begin with, new observational techniques result in astronomers finding more supernovae in a week than they found in the entire 20th century. As a result, rare phenomena are being observed that don't fit what astronomers thought they knew about supernovae, such as events 100 times brighter or only 1% as bright. Attempts to explain these events lead to speculations about further SN-like phenomena and attempts to spot them. My own favorite is the "unnova." It begins with the fact that astronomers no longer know how massive a star can get -- they've found stars that are much bigger than they thought possible. And you'd think that more massive stars would result in bigger kabooms, right? But when the core of a sufficiently massive star collapses, instead of forming a neutron star (with consequent rebounding shock wave that detonates the rest of the star as a supernova), it might collapse directly into a black hole. No rebound, no shock wave, no explosion. The rest of the star's mass just keeps falling in and the star just... winks out. Colliding neutron stars might also produce something very strange, a sort of sub-supernova blast concentrated in the far red and infrared that sprays out a cloud of heavy elements. The fun thing is, if something is so extraordinary that it would happen only once in a billion years in a single galaxy, it probably happens every day in the Universe as a whole. So you just have to watch enough galaxies to see something that leaves you gobsmacked. Dean Shomshak pinecone 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted May 28, 2016 Report Share Posted May 28, 2016 With the merging neutron star idea: if one of those happens "nearby", then LIGO would detect it. Once a third gravity-wave observatory comes on line, there's the chance to get a solution on a space position, so that other instruments can try seeing it. Which could be a huge win. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted May 28, 2016 Report Share Posted May 28, 2016 We like wins, of all sizes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeropoint Posted May 28, 2016 Report Share Posted May 28, 2016 But when the core of a sufficiently massive star collapses, instead of forming a neutron star (with consequent rebounding shock wave that detonates the rest of the star as a supernova), it might collapse directly into a black hole. No rebound, no shock wave, no explosion. The rest of the star's mass just keeps falling in and the star just... winks out. This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted May 29, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 29, 2016 A new room in the ISS: https://www.yahoo.com/news/nasa-tries-again-inflate-room-space-station-132223251.html L. Marcus 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted June 2, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2016 Scientists explain "lava lamps" in Pluto Rosetta's comet contains ingredients for life The universe is expanding even faster than expected Christopher 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted June 4, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2016 Evidence of tsunami on ancient Mars Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted June 5, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2016 Dark matter running through our galaxy? A year on Mars Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted June 8, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2016 Want to Live on Mars? You'll Need to Make Some Martian Bricks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted June 9, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2016 The other way to find life out there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted June 16, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2016 Scott Kelly on the effects of space on the body: https://www.yahoo.com/news/astronaut-scott-kelly-describes-effects-145631116.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted June 18, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 18, 2016 A second moon? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinecone Posted June 19, 2016 Report Share Posted June 19, 2016 A second moon? I sense a Villian base! tkdguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted June 21, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2016 Taking the plunge into Jupiter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted June 21, 2016 Report Share Posted June 21, 2016 Taking the plunge into Jupiter J.O.I. It looks like Nasa has hired a Hollywood Blockbuster Trailer director or two. Not the worst choice actually, considering that NASA stuff happens in the real world - not a fictional one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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