Space In General

Dean
“New Comet Discovered—May Become "One of Brightest in History"”
comet-lovejoy-western-australia_46318_600x450.jpg

(Image: John Goldsmith,
TWAN)
Next year comet 2012 S1 might outshine the moon.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/09/120927-new-comet-2012-s1-ison-science-space-moon/
Click to expand...

Assuming the comet doesn't disintegrate and the orbital mechanics don't change, planet Earth will begin a pass through the tail of comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) on about January 1, 2014. http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=c/2012 s1;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=0#orb

At this point, the nucleus will be about .449 AU (about 67 million kilometers, or 46 million miles) from Earth, and going away. The record length of a comet tail is 311 million kilometers.

There are several flavors of comet tails. First is the dust tail, which is a fine soot. Then there are the ion tails, which can be several kinds of charged particles.
 
I am waiting for it to show up a little bit earlier in the night so that I can point my telescope at it and try to take some pictures.
 
Dennisch
I am waiting for it to show up a little bit earlier in the night so that I can point my telescope at it and try to take some pictures.
Click to expand...
It's visible now to the naked eye, and easily visible with binoculars, but very soon it will disappear in the glare of the sun as it goes into perihelion.

Get viewing tips at spaceweather.com
 
Visible to the naked eye does not work where I live. :(


But it seems I just have to get a couple of kilometers out of the city to see it. But that needs to be very early in the morning... That will be tough. :lol:
 
Dennisch
I am waiting for it to show up a little bit earlier in the night so that I can point my telescope at it and try to take some pictures.
Click to expand...
Right now it appears really early in the morning where I am at, but it's supposed to be cloudy and rainy all weekend so I can't stumble out of bed at 4am to see it. :(
 
Forget that comet. I just sat down to eat my lasagna when I looked trough my back window and noticed a very bright spot just above the horizon. My backyard points dead south. Ran upstairs, set up the telescope, opened the window and got my first close up of Venus. And it is an eclipsed version of Venus. :D

Also, due to lack of filters I had to put on sunglasses!

Awesome!
 
Those damned clouds would probably block my view. :grumpy:
 
Dean
NASA's live hangout of Comet ISON vs the Sun is coming right up: :)
Click to expand...

Sounds like the Sun won. Ison hasn't emerged on the other side yet, so chances are it got toasted and broke apart during the approach.
 
Goddammit, I was really hoping to see ISON as dawn broke. :(
 
So at least one small piece survived, or the remnants of the comet tail.

How bright it'll be in the December skies is unclear and probably won't match the best-case scenario predictions earlier in the week. But here's hoping we might get something out of it after all.
 
So, China is on the moon now.

At some point, it'll almost certainly lead to a manned mission.

Mining will be the expected outcome, if there's anything worthwhile to mine. It'll also almost inevitably result in China attempting to claim some sort of ownership to bits of the moon, because that's what China is like.

However, the politics and practicalities aren't what concern me here. Instead, I've been bamboozled by the sheer number of people on social media sites who still believe man has never set foot on the moon.

So instead I'd like to do a quick straw poll: Has man been to the moon before, or not?

I don't want to influence the responses, but so far everyone I've seen who has denied such a thing tends to be either illiterate, likes taking photos of themselves with their shirts off and wearing a backwards-turned baseball cap, or is a teenage girl with a duckface profile picture and about eight names interspersed with mixtures of upper- and lower-case Xs. Several are a mixture of one or more of the above. But shoot, we won't judge. Much.
 
Yes - but I'm not totally sure the Chinese have. The full colour photos look, for some reason, really fake.
 
It's landed in the "Bay of Rainbows"...which is nothing but shades of grey. :lol:
 
homeforsummer
So, China is on the moon now.

At some point, it'll almost certainly lead to a manned mission.

Mining will be the expected outcome, if there's anything worthwhile to mine. It'll also almost inevitably result in China attempting to claim some sort of ownership to bits of the moon, because that's what China is like.

However, the politics and practicalities aren't what concern me here. Instead, I've been bamboozled by the sheer number of people on social media sites who still believe man has never set foot on the moon.

So instead I'd like to do a quick straw poll: Has man been to the moon before, or not?

I don't want to influence the responses, but so far everyone I've seen who has denied such a thing tends to be either illiterate, likes taking photos of themselves with their shirts off and wearing a backwards-turned baseball cap, or is a teenage girl with a duckface profile picture and about eight names interspersed with mixtures of upper- and lower-case Xs. Several are a mixture of one or more of the above. But shoot, we won't judge. Much.
Click to expand...

To answer your question, yes man has been there. It's obvious now that the flags (whats left of them) and lunar rovers have been found.

As for China claiming ownership of the moon, it would violate the Outer Space Treaty of 1966-1967:

The Outer Space Treaty provides the basic framework on international space law, including the following principles:
  • the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind;
  • outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States;
  • outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means;
  • States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner;
  • the Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes;
  • astronauts shall be regarded as the envoys of mankind;
  • States shall be responsible for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental entities;
  • States shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects; and
  • States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies.
 
Ah, thanks for posting that - I recall reading about it at one point.

That said, this is China we're talking about...

Glad to see everyone here is sane though. I was beginning to wonder about humanity after reading through Facebook comments.
 
Yeah, China doesn't always play by the rules. If they want to violate an international treaty that is their business. They'll find themselves in big trouble if they do.
 

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