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Space: The Final Frontier

F

fallout

Member
KarmaCow said:
Bah no one wants to make a thread of about the Venus transit? :(

Does anyone have any good sites to link to for more info about it? I just using http://www.transitofvenus.org/ because that's the first thing that popped up in google. I was just planning of just linking to that and a countdown to the start of the transit.
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I'm probably not going to have time to make one, but my best recommendation is to see if your local astronomy club is doing anything. They'll have scopes setup with filters for safe viewing.
 
P

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
Naked Snake said:
This is beautiful. Neil kills it

New video: Neil deGrasse Tyson - We Stopped Dreaming. Episode 2 of the Penny4Nasa campaign.
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1. I'm convinced, he'll be perfect for Cosmos. I never quite realized until this moment that it's not just the sense of wonder required (see: Dr. Bryan Cox), but the ability to translate that awe of science as a whole into a stinging political commentary. Reminds me of Sagan's "rants" (in which he never raised his voice or swore) on creationists and other charlatans.

2. We need a very large, very public project for a manned flight to Mars. NOW.
 
P

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
346719main_image_1353_516-387615.jpg

Hey, Brother, Can You Spare a Hubble? DOD: Sure! Have Two
That's right. Our military had two, unflown, better-than-Hubble space telescopes just sitting around. And now they're NASA's.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...-you-spare-a-hubble-dod-sure-have-two/258061/

NASA's been wracked by budgetary concerns as it tries to figure out how to do research into the origins of everything *and* loft human beings into orbit with big rockets. In particular, the space agency has been dealing with cost overruns on the next-generation Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope, which have been eating up the science budget.

Now, we get word from the Washington Post that the Department of Defense has gifted two better-than-Hubble telescopes to NASA. That's right. Our military had two, unflown, better-than-Hubble space telescopes just sitting around. This story is almost unbelievable; it feels like a hoax. But it's not.

The U.S. government's secret space program has decided to give NASA two telescopes as big as, and even more powerful than, the Hubble Space Telescope. Designed for surveillance, the telescopes from the National Reconnaissance Office were no longer needed for spy missions and can now be used to study the heavens.
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Three thoughts here.

  • First, hooray! NASA needs all the help it can get, especially around its scientific missions, which get dwarfed by the space-travel components of its work. Plus, Hubble's quality is going to start deteriorating in the coming years, so these are nice to have.
  • Second, if the DOD didn't need these two birds, which are both better than any civilian telescope, what *do* they have? Are drones replacing space telescopes? Are there much better telescopes already up there?
  • Third, how did this happen? Were two satellite scientists out at brunch and the military lady turns to the civilian guy and says, "You know, we have a couple telescopes in the shop, if you guys need them."

Of course, like any good gift, these telescopes do come with a catch. NASA has to outfit them with cameras and instruments. NASA also has to come up with the money to pay the scientists to run them. To get that done could take until 2020, the Post says.

This is the state of our military-industrial-scientific complex in miniature: The military has so much money that it has two extra telescopes better than anything civilians have; meanwhile, NASA will need eight years to find enough change in the couches at Cape Canaveral to turn these gifts into something they can use. Anyone else find anything wrong with this state of affairs?
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C

Clevinger

Member
I just hope that doesn't encourage them/politicians to defund/cancel James Webb.

"What do you guys need James Webb for? We just gave you TWO new telescopes!"
 
M

McNei1y

Member
Why do politics avoid space? I get that its expensive and junk but come on! I mean its fucking space! Let's look at all the stars and create moonbases and find Prothean artifacts on Mars already dammit!
 
W

WeAreStarStuff

Member
McNei1y said:
Why do politics avoid space? I get that its expensive and junk but come on! I mean its fucking space! Let's look at all the stars and create moonbases and find Prothean artifacts on Mars already dammit!
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1. Money; their electorate at home is largely not employed in the aerospace industry.

2. Space gets people thinking outside the box, and governments need myopic little drones seeing differences in every nation; not a united humanity reaching for the heavens.
 
P

Prez

Member
PantherLotus said:
346719main_image_1353_516-387615.jpg

Hey, Brother, Can You Spare a Hubble? DOD: Sure! Have Two
That's right. Our military had two, unflown, better-than-Hubble space telescopes just sitting around. And now they're NASA's.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...-you-spare-a-hubble-dod-sure-have-two/258061/
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Two thoughts here:

- You'd expect the writer of the article to know what the military telescopes were used for. The article quotes a sentence saying it was used for spy missions, yet the writer compares it to "civilian telescopes". Clearly the writer failed to deduct that these telescopes were aimed towards Earth.
- These telescopes were designed for objects at close range (ie Earth). They probably don't have much purpose for deep space observation. In that regard they're likely not better than Hubble after all.
 
L

Log4Girlz

Member
Stabbie said:
Two thoughts here:

- You'd expect the writer of the article to know what the military telescopes were used for. The article quotes a sentence saying it was used for spy missions, yet the writer compares it to "civilian telescopes". Clearly the writer failed to deduct that these telescopes were aimed towards Earth.
- These telescopes were designed for objects at close range (ie Earth). For all we know they don't have much purpose for deep space observation, so they might not be better than Hubble after all.
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It probably only "sees" in the visible spectrum.
 
P

Prez

Member
Log4Girlz said:
It probably only "sees" in the visible spectrum.
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I'm not even sure about that. These military telescopes are very close to Earth, so they're likely designed for just that. It's like comparing a microscope to binoculars. They both magnify but at very different ranges. A microscope magnifies a lot more than binoculars, so you could say the microscope is better, but it won't give you a clear view of anything that's further away than a few cm.
 
E

endre

Member
Stabbie said:
Two thoughts here:

- You'd expect the writer of the article to know what the military telescopes were used for. The article quotes a sentence saying it was used for spy missions, yet the writer compares it to "civilian telescopes". Clearly the writer failed to deduct that these telescopes were aimed towards Earth.
- These telescopes were designed for objects at close range (ie Earth). They probably don't have much purpose for deep space observation. In that regard they're likely not better than Hubble after all.
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You guys need to read the article that was referenced in The Atlantic article.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...or-astronomy/2012/06/04/gJQAsT6UDV_story.html

It is much better explained.

The telescopes were built by private contractors for the National Reconnaissance Office, one of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. The telescopes have 2.4-meter (7.9-foot) mirrors, just like the Hubble, but they have 100 times the field of view. Their structure is shorter and squatter.

They’re “space qualified,” as NASA puts it, but they’re a long way from being functioning space telescopes. They have no instruments — there are no cameras, for example. More than that, they lack a funded mission and all that entails, such as a scientific program, support staff, data analysis and office space. They will remain in storage while NASA mulls its options.
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“This is going to be top-quality hardware,” said the analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic. “They’re not state-of-the-art spy satellites, but they are probably still state-of-the-art optics.”
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The spy telescopes have a feature that civilian space telescopes lack: a maneuverable secondary mirror that makes it possible to obtain more-focused images, said David Spergel, a Princeton University astrophysicist and a co-chair of the National Academies of Science committee on astronomy and astrophysics.

The new telescopes are “actually better than the Hubble. They’re the same size, but the optical design is such that you can put a broader set of instruments on the back,” he said.
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The bad news:

“NASA does not have in its current budget the funding necessary to develop a space telescope mission using these new telescopes,” Hertz, the astrophysics director, said in a conference call.
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“We don’t at this point in time anticipate ever being rich enough to use both of them, but it sure would be fun, wouldn’t it?” Hertz said.
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W

Windu

never heard about the cat, apparently
PantherLotus said:
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/346719main_image_1353_516-387615.jpg
Hey, Brother, Can You Spare a Hubble? DOD: Sure! Have Two
That's right. Our military had two, unflown, better-than-Hubble space telescopes just sitting around. And now they're NASA's.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...-you-spare-a-hubble-dod-sure-have-two/258061/
Click to expand...
makes you wonder what else the military has in use that they can just give away a couple of them like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6-rQ6Jay6w
 
L

Lucky Forward

Member
Scientists to hold bake sale for NASA Saturday

Scientists are trading telescopes for aprons this week to sell Milky Way cupcakes, Saturn cake, and chocolate chip Opportunity cookies in an effort to salvage U.S. planetary science projects.

The 2013 budget proposal submitted by the Obama administration earlier this year would cut funding for NASA's planetary science projects by about $300 million. While Congress is still deliberating over the federal budget, groups of scientists are planning a series of demonstrations — in the form of bake sales, car washes and other events — for Saturday to plead their case.

Though planet-studying spacecraft usually cost millions, or even billions, of dollars, every penny helps. That's the reasoning behind the Planetary Exploration Car Wash and Bake Sale to be held by University of Central Florida students and professors who hope to sway lawmakers into providing more money for studying the solar system. It is one of nearly 20 planned demonstrations for Saturday at sites across the country, organizers said.
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B

BetterThanNothing

Member
Hootie said:
this is actually one of the saddest, most depressing things i've ever read. has it really come to this?
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Just in case you think it's about raising money, the article states that it's a collaboration by various universities/organizations in order to 'sway' politicians. It's a statement: "We need more ****ing money!"
 
C

Chris R

Member
American Astronomical Society's 220th meeting is next week, and it happens to be in my city! Going to attend 3 talks that are open to the public and I have tickets to see Space Junk 3D as well. Should be a fun week!
 
H

Hootie

Member
BetterThanNothing said:
Just in case you think it's about raising money, the article states that it's a collaboration by various universities/organizations in order to 'sway' politicians. It's a statement: "We need more ****ing money!"
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Oh no I realize it's not about raising money, but it's still incredibly sad that they need to do this to try to get NASA more money.
 
W

WeAreStarStuff

Member
Hootie said:
Oh no I realize it's not about raising money, but it's still incredibly sad that they need to do this to try to get NASA more money.
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It's beyond sad. It's really quite a poignant statement about our society as a whole. We'll throw trillions at killing people though..
 
L

Lucky Forward

Member
Large Hadron Collider Data Skewed by Moon’s Pull

The Large Hadron Collider may be the fussiest machine ever used by the scientific community.

It shuts down for months at a time. We don’t know for sure if it will create a black hole or a Big Bang when we shoot particles through it. And now, we think the moon’s gravitational pull is messing with its experiments.

Dr. Pauline Gagnon was conducting one of the main ongoing experiments run by the 17-mile particle accelerator recently when she and another scientist discovered fluctuations in the data they were collecting. The culprit: The nearly-full moon, which was pulling part of the giant machine on Earth, deforming the tunnel through which proton beams were shooting ever so slightly.

The good news? This giant physics project’s experiments won’t be fully disrupted, because operators are aware of the moon’s impact and can adjust.
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E

endre

Member
PantherLotus said:
wait 'til you hear about how far away from earth it'll be. it's quite badass:

719px-L2_rendering.jpg


it'll be in a halo orbit just inside langrangian point 2.
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Yeah, they said that this is the reason why it cannot be repaired if something fails, like the Hubble and its defect mirror. As far as I know the reason for this orbit is to keep it in constant shielding from the sun rays, since the JWST must be kept very cold. IIRC its operating temperature is around 40K.

EDIT: Just some facts. The Moon's distance to Earth is around 384,400 km and the Apollo mission took 3 days, 3 hours, 49 minutes to reach lunar orbit.

http://www.universetoday.com/13562/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-the-moon/
 
M

Maklershed

Member
I woke up at 4:30 EST this morning and looked out my window and I think I saw the ISS go overhead. Looked like a star and moving faster than a plane. From where I'm positioned (mid-atlantic US) it looked like it was going from southwest to southeast.
 
E

endre

Member
Maklershed said:
I woke up at 4:30 EST this morning and looked out my window and I think I saw the ISS go overhead. Looked like a star and moving faster than a plane. From where I'm positioned (mid-atlantic US) it looked like it was going from southwest to southeast.
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Considering your location, the current location of the ISS and its orbital period of 93 minutes, I'd say it wasn't the ISS you saw.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/index.html

At 4:30 Houston time i think it was somewhere above the Caspian sea, or at least that region.
 
M

Maklershed

Member
Hmm I wonder what it was then. Definitely wasn't a plane because it was one single bright light and looked like it was incredibly high up. Like in upper atmosphere or even out of the atmosphere. Plus it moved across the sky pretty fast.
 
E

endre

Member
Who knows, plus you cant reliably judge altitude, and I have seen airplanes flyby with only one light visible. Sometimes the illusion is they move very fast or are to bright etc. Occasionally I check on http://www.flightradar24.com/ to see if it a plane flyby is listed there. (My apartment is on the top floor of the building with roof windows, occasionally i just glare at the stars with Stellarium running on the computer). From my experience, in the most cases satellites appear as a faint dot, get very bright and dim very fast as they move. Ofc this is not a rule, there are exceptions.


As of 2008, the former Soviet Union and Russia had nearly 1,400 satellites in orbit, the USA about 1,000, Japan more than 100, China about 80, France over 40, India more than 30, Germany almost 30, the UK and Canada 25, and at least ten each from Italy, Australia, Indonesia, Brazil, Sweden, Luxembourg, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea.
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http://www.wisegeek.com/how-many-satellites-are-orbiting-the-earth.htm

The Space Surveillance Network has tracked a total of more than 24,500 objects in space. And of those, it’s currently watching about 8,000 objects currently in orbit. So, you could say that there are currently 8,000 satellites in space. Approximately 560 of those objects in space are actually operational satellites, and the rest are dead satellites, or pieces of space debris. The SSN tracks objects as small as about 10 centimeters in diameter (about the size of a basketball). So there are many objects even smaller out there.
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http://www.universetoday.com/42198/how-many-satellites-in-space/
 
T

ThaneKrios

Banned
Oldest galaxy discovered so far in the Universe is 12.91 billion years old

sxdf-nb1006-2.jpg


Using the Subaru and Keck optical/infrared telescopes on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, a 4,200 metre-high summit which houses the world’s largest observatory for optical, infrared and submillimeter astronomy, a team of Japanese astronomers claim in a recently published paper that they’ve discovered the earliest galaxy found thus far in the known Universe – it is 12.91 billion years old or 12.91 billion light years away.

A light-year is the distance that light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles – don’t multiply this by the estimated distance from above; it might give you headaches.

At the beginning of the year, scientists at Hubble discovered, what they claim was, the oldest galaxy cluster ever found, at 13.1 billion years, while last year a California team using Hubble said they saw a galaxy from 13.2 billion light-years ago. However, neither of the two teams managed to prove their calculations through other methods.

The Japanese claim for the oldest galaxy found thus far, dubbed “SXDF-NB1006-2″, is more “watertight,” according to other corresponding scientists, since it uses methods that everyone can agree on. Current theory holds that the universe was born of an explosion, called the Big Bang, about 13.7 billion years ago. Using top-notch infrared and optical telescopes, astronomers peer right through the early days of the Universe.

The astronomers are also claiming their research has verified that the proportion of neutral hydrogen gas in the 750m-year-old early universe was higher than it is today. Thus, some 200 to 500 million years after the Big Bang, the dense parts of neutral hydrogen clouds contracted under their own gravity, forming the first stars and galaxies.

“These findings help us to understand the nature of the early universe during the ‘cosmic dawn’, when the light of ancient celestial objects and structures appeared from obscurity,” indicated an NAOJ statement.

“The radiation from this first generation of stars started to heat and reionise the hydrogen in nearby space, eventually leading to the reionisation of the entire universe. This was the era of ‘cosmic reionisation,’” said the NAOJ.
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