Christopher Posted August 15, 2016 Report Share Posted August 15, 2016 Sounds like a champions campaign origin waiting to happen... "I am Ion-Man!" "During a atmospheric ionisation experient, several scientist were iradiated by Ionic radition and cosmic rays..." Spence 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted August 15, 2016 Report Share Posted August 15, 2016 Here we go: what the Kepler mission was supposed to do. A CATALOG OF KEPLER HABITABLE ZONE EXOPLANET CANDIDATES, submitted to Astrophysical Journal. Twenty prime candidates: confirmed planets, all in the "conservative" (i.e., least optimistic habitable zone definition) HZ, planets with radii less than twice that of Earth. Another hundred candidates (some not yet confirmed) in the more optimistic HZ and accepting any planetary radius. This is out of somewhat more than 4000 total planets/planetary candidates found by Kepler. So, I just read the section on trying to define the limits of Habitable Zones and the back-and-forth between scientists about various factors that could affect the limits for worlds and stars that aren't just like Earth and the Sun. Mind. Blown. Now I want to design more planets. I just wish I had a gaming use for them. Dean Shomshak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted August 15, 2016 Report Share Posted August 15, 2016 Note to self: Remember to kidnap Dean for use as personal GM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted August 16, 2016 Report Share Posted August 16, 2016 How stable would this planet's orbit be? (Yes, I did just finish The Three-Body Problem.) Probably very. It would take a close approach to one of the other stars ... and "close" I expect would have to be within ten orbit radii of Proxima to disrupt that orbit. If the planet is still there, that has to be a low-odds thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted August 16, 2016 Report Share Posted August 16, 2016 Mankind has sent robot invaders to five celestial bodies so far: Spence, tkdguy, Netzilla and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted August 16, 2016 Report Share Posted August 16, 2016 More than that. Eros Comet Hartley 2 though that one was more vandalism than anything else Comet Tempel 2 though that one was more of a drive-by ripoff tkdguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted August 17, 2016 Report Share Posted August 17, 2016 You know, that makes us a burgeoning space power. In 200 years, we might dominate the entire Orion arm. That's assuming we don't find a way to skirt relativity and take over the GALAXY AND BEYOND!. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted August 18, 2016 Report Share Posted August 18, 2016 On All Things Considered a few minutes ago, I heard a brief BBC report about astronomers who saw a nova explosion from the start, and even a little bit before. There've been theories, but apparently this is the first observation that can confirm or deny them. I hope to hear more about this. Dean Shomshak Nolgroth 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted August 19, 2016 Report Share Posted August 19, 2016 You know, that makes us a burgeoning space power. In 200 years, we might dominate the entire Orion arm. That's assuming we don't find a way to skirt relativity and take over the GALAXY AND BEYOND!.Or get zapped by a gamma ray burst. Nolgroth 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted August 19, 2016 Report Share Posted August 19, 2016 On All Things Considered a few minutes ago, I heard a brief BBC report about astronomers who saw a nova explosion from the start, and even a little bit before. There've been theories, but apparently this is the first observation that can confirm or deny them. I hope to hear more about this. Dean Shomshak The paper behind this just came out in Nature. Really nice result. A bright nova (V1213 Centauri, IIRC) was in one of the OGLE fields, which are observed several times a week with dedicated instruments in order to catch gravitational lensing events. So they have extensive monitoring of the star over 2009-2016, and the big outburst was in the middle of that. Behavior of the nova definitely changed after the big outburst, and it did so in general agreement with overall theories of how novae work. I expect bigger scientific payoff when more analysis and calculation is done, but this is a really promising event to have observed that thoroughly. It reminds me of the very different "slow nova" system RR Telescopii, which was captured in survey plates for 40+ years prior to the outburst start in 1944. Netzilla, DShomshak and Nolgroth 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted August 19, 2016 Report Share Posted August 19, 2016 Or get zapped by a gamma ray burst. Always gotta have the Debbie Downer of the group, don't we. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted August 19, 2016 Report Share Posted August 19, 2016 Always gotta have the Debbie Downer of the group, don't we. It is one of the big reasons we really should not slack of with that Space programm. With an asteroid we at least have a decent chance to deflect it. Try detecting a GRB if the only warning sign (light) moves as fast as said GRB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted August 19, 2016 Report Share Posted August 19, 2016 Now I wonder: IIRC, Gamma Ray Bursts take the form of beams, not omnidirectional bursts. We only see the ones that happen to point right at us. If a GRB were close enough to be dangerous, how wide would the beam be? If it's Solar System-wide, nothing less than an extrasolar colony might assure human survival. Instead, you'd want to go down, not up, and build deep, lead-shielded bunkers against such an emergency. (Probably not worth the effort, given the relative scarcity of GRBs, unless such bunkers were worthwhile for other reasons. I gather GRBs are detected frequently... but only because they can be seen from billions of light-years away, in other galaxies.) Speaking of mass extinction events, the latest Discover has a not-very-good article on hypotheses about periodic, extraterrestrial causes of mass extinctions. Despite repeated use of the phrase "like clockwork," the article actually shows that mass extinctions have not been proven to be periodic, and the proposed mechanisms for periodicity range from the plausible-but-unproven (Nemesis) to the completely baseless (a hypothetical additional form of dark matter). Some of the wild-ass guesswork might have game or story uses, though. (Isaac Asimov already used Nemesis.) Dean Shomshak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted August 20, 2016 Report Share Posted August 20, 2016 Trying to shelter against alocal GRB is pointless, at this point; once we are confident we know what the precursors are and can identify them that might change, but I doubt it. They are just that rare. The big paper about GRB080319b ... the GRB that got up to naked eye brightness for a few seconds despite being half the Universe away ... estimated that there probably had not been a similar event in our Galaxy's history; based on the space density of them overall, and the luminosity distribution (GRB080319b was extremely luminous even for a GRB), they estimated a frequency of comparable events at 10^-11 per year per galaxy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinecone Posted August 20, 2016 Report Share Posted August 20, 2016 Just read a couple of cool articles on Futerism.com...one is about a possable 5Th Force (!) One was about a Supernova that went off close (300-400 LYs) and happened around the time of a mass die off...The most exciting, though least "meaty" is about theoretical work that might unify Quantum Mechanics with Relativity..!!! Dang, basicly they are thinking micro worm holes explain quantum entanglement...might lead to someplace, at least I Hope so.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted August 23, 2016 Report Share Posted August 23, 2016 Speaking of mass extinction events, the latest Discover has a not-very-good article on hypotheses about periodic, extraterrestrial causes of mass extinctions. Despite repeated use of the phrase "like clockwork," the article actually shows that mass extinctions have not been proven to be periodic, and the proposed mechanisms for periodicity range from the plausible-but-unproven (Nemesis) to the completely baseless (a hypothetical additional form of dark matter). Some of the wild-ass guesswork might have game or story uses, though. (Isaac Asimov already used Nemesis.) That article really was disappointing, and far short of the usual standard for Discover. They hardly even mentioned the recent Kuiper Belt orbital analysis that lends new weight to the ninth-planet hypothesis (which is not necessarily related to mass extinctions anyway). All it really showed is that you can't get two scientists to agree on the color of shite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted August 23, 2016 Report Share Posted August 23, 2016 ... is that you can't get two scientists to agree on the color of shite. My undergraduate mentor said: "Two astronomers, three opinions." Christopher and tkdguy 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted August 24, 2016 Report Share Posted August 24, 2016 More on Proxima B. Atmosphere and liquid water possible, probably tidally locked, high radiation exposure. Excellent candidate for invasion. DShomshak 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted August 25, 2016 Report Share Posted August 25, 2016 Oorah!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wardsman Posted August 25, 2016 Report Share Posted August 25, 2016 A country drive? Just kidding. Too bad we haven't figured out FTL yet. Some people are talking about a starwisp mission which could get there in 20 to 50 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted August 25, 2016 Report Share Posted August 25, 2016 56 GW of transmission power is... a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted August 25, 2016 Report Share Posted August 25, 2016 If EM drive is legit, we could get there in 94 years with a fly by, or 130 years for a probe lander. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted August 26, 2016 Report Share Posted August 26, 2016 56 GW of transmission power is... a lot. A single 60 Watt lightbulb (the old Edison models) running for 1930 years without pause would have used one GW second in total. The largest Power plant - Three Gorges Dam in china - has a capacity of about 22 GW per second. You would need 3 of them powering nothing but that Microwafe beam until the probe is out of range, and you still might overtax the hardware or water supply. We have to see if Fusion comes anywhere near that output on feasible scales. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawnmower Boy Posted August 26, 2016 Report Share Posted August 26, 2016 56 GW of transmission power is... a lot. No problem! We'll just build a battery that can store 56x40 Gigawatt-years and charge it from the grid until we have the "starwisp" technology. Which, at a Moore's Law doubling every 18 months will be . . . real soon now. Okay, maybe we have a problem. Build a few more fusion plants? (This snark brought to you by frustration at the latest global warning redirection, the old "We'll get right on stopping global warming as soon as we've invented storage batteries that can hold the entire national grid's weekly output" trick.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wardsman Posted August 26, 2016 Report Share Posted August 26, 2016 56 GW of transmission power is... a lot. A single 60 Watt lightbulb (the old Edison models) running for 1930 years without pause would have used one GW second in total. The largest Power plant - Three Gorges Dam in china - has a capacity of about 22 GW per second. You would need 3 of them powering nothing but that Microwafe beam until the probe is out of range, and you still might overtax the hardware or water supply. We have to see if Fusion comes anywhere near that output on feasible scales. Not really if we build a solar array around the sun, generating that kind of power would be easy. The engineering we would learn would help us when decided to build solar Amat farms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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