Space In General

[Grand Prix]

A deeply pessimistic assessment of the future of manned missions beyond low Earth orbit:
http://spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=47821

It was always going to be an insanely ambitious program.

If they decide that manned missions to Mars are unfeasible, perhaps this will give added incentive to use probes to explore the outer planets and their moons some more. The last time we visited Neptune was in 1989. No one seems to care about Uranus much (belittled by toilet humour? Maybe they should rename it to Caelus, the Roman equivalent. That would give some more consistency to the planet names as well), although I read once that they could send the Cassini probe to Uranus from Saturn, a lengthy journey. They will be crashing it into Saturn instead however. Juno is on its way to see what exactly is in the core of Jupiter after all this time, but landing missions to Europa, Enceladus and Titan are still way off in the future when they really shouldn't be.

There is still so much we do not know about our solar system. It's a shame that space agencies do not receive more funding than they do.

 

[squadops]

But, the earth is flat silly

 

[Robin]

But, the earth is flat silly

According to my spirit level it is... 100% confirmed.

 

[BobK]

The floor underneath me slopes downhill right to left. So by extrapolation, so does the rest of the world. That's why the Pacific, which is to my left (at somewhat of a distance), has more water in it than the Atlantic off to my right.

 

[unit-one]

A small meteorite in India killed 1 and injured 3 people.

LINK

 

[DK]

A brief Google search for "meteorite kills person" suggests this might be the first recorded case of a human being killed by a meteorite.

 

[Dennisch]

There is going to be a press conference Thursday, possibly about the discovery of gravitational waves.

 

[CodeRedR51]

SpaceX's next launch is targeted for February 24th.

 

[BobK]

SpaceX's next launch is targeted for February 24th.

Cool! Any chance they'll be able to do what Blue Origin has already demonstrated (reusing the booster) after this launch, do you think?

 

[CodeRedR51]

Cool! Any chance they'll be able to do what Blue Origin has already demonstrated (reusing the booster) after this launch, do you think?

The first booster they landed is a museum piece, and we all know the landing attempt after that didn't go so well. Reading that article, it looks like they are going to try and land on the barge in the ocean again, so only time will tell. If it lands upright, I don't see why not. The inspection process after landing may take a little longer than BO simply due to the nature of the launch.

 

[prousonhairy]

Einstein was correct:

Scientists discover gravitational waves

http://usat.ly/1Xlr4WU

 

[tarnheld]

LIGO black hole merger signals converted to sound.
Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger

 

[Akira AC]

Even if they actually detected the gravitational waves and distortion in spacetime, I still believe the hypothetical elemental particle "Graviton" does not exists, not to mention that the behaviour of these two black holes closely resemble the behaviour of two merging Neutron Stars.

Is an important breakthrough, alongside the boson at 750 GeV they can corelate to a more practical field theory for for the spacetime framework.

To think that one person predicted all of this 100 years ago, and there are still religious nutjobs fighting over for what can be soon considered as lies.

 

[Dennisch]

Philae is dead, or eternal hibernation as ESA calls it.

There hasn't been a response for quite some time now and the ESA decided to stop the mission.

Mjeh.

 

[Dan]

Could someone explain why all of these colors appear like this?

 

[Dennisch]

Instagram.

 

[tarnheld]

Could someone explain why all of these colors appear like this?

Looks like a super color enhanced view of the terminator/twilight zone. Must have been an amazing view both on and above earth.

 

[FoolKiller]

Anyone wanting an explanation of gravity waves explained on a very basic level should listen to the interview with Lawrence Krauss on the podcast Penn's Sunday School. It starts a little after an hour in.

 

[Dennisch]

Ehm, I, ehm. Want them all. Especially Pluto and Charon.

 

[niky]

Ehm, I, ehm. Want them all. Especially Pluto and Charon.

They made Saturn a bro.

Everyone knows that's a skirt/kilt, not a hat.

-

Also, Uranus has a ring around their... uh...

 

[Thematic]

I might have space for Earth and Moon. Depends on the scale.

 

[wfooshee]

Mercury has track shoes....

 

[polysmut]

Mercury has track shoes....

Neptune has been in a fight.

 

[tarnheld]

Hopefully the Jupiter and Saturn moons expansion pack arrives soon:

 

[FoolKiller]

They missed an opportunity with Comet. It needs a tail, not a Flock of Seagulls haircut.

 

[tarnheld]

💡

 

[prousonhairy]

The Hubble Telescope has discovered one of the biggest black holes scientists have ever found. 21 billion times larger then the sun.



Hubble spots 'supermassive' black hole

http://usat.ly/1XzEpLl

 

[Touring Mars]

And here's a close-up...

 

[wfooshee]

They seem to confuse size with mass. They say the super-massive is 21 billion times the size of our sun, then they compare the Milky Way's black hole as having a mass 4 million times that of our sun.

So is it bigger, or more massive?

(Obviously both, I'm sure, but isn't it fun when "journalists" do science?)

A CNN article says the black hole measures 130 billion km diameter. That makes it about 90-95 thousand times as big. So the 21 billion WAS mass, not size! Pthpthpthpthpth on USA Today.

 

[Touring Mars]

A CNN article says the black hole measures 130 billion km diameter. That makes it about 90-95 thousand times as big. So the 21 billion WAS mass, not size! Pthpthpthpthpth on USA Today.

90000 times larger diameter... that corresponds to around a quadrillion times the volume.

But... a quadrillion times the volume and 'only' 21 billion times more mass means it must be about 1/50000th of the density of the Sun... Presumably supermassive black holes vary wildly in density across their diameter and/or the quoted diameter is more theoretical than tangible.