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Space: The Final Frontier

B

BLAZER

Member
I really wish i could be alive when humans space travel. Why has is been so stagnate for so many years?

Whats everyone's best/favorite space documentaries?
 
B

Bowdz

Member
BLAZER said:
I really wish i could be alive when humans space travel. Why has is been so stagnate for so many years?

Whats everyone's best/favorite space documentaries?
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- With any luck, you will be. We are at the dawn of a second space age with US commercial space flight and increased space competition from China, India, and Russia. I would bet good money that we will be back orbiting/on the moon within the next 5-10 years.

- When We Left Earth is the single greatest space documentary IMO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu6UrXEhbzY&playnext=1&list=PL1CB1341AE0BDB641&feature=results_main

Also, the SpaceX launch was amazing as expected. It sounds like they lost one engine just before max Q and still managed to make a perfect orbital insertion with Orbcomm's payload being successfully delivered as well. Amazing design all around.
 
S

Smokey

Member
Really dig all things space. What's a good telescope to use for a beginner? I'm assuming some in here own one or have experience with one.
 
Melchiah

Melchiah

Member
I don't remember whether this has already been posted.

Quoted for size.
helix03_hst_bigpbqfp.jpg


SxZ5c.jpg


4hh6Q.jpg
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http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030510.html
NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula

Explanation: Will our Sun look like this one day? The Helix Nebula is the closest example of a planetary nebula created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star. The outer gasses of the star expelled into space appear from our vantage point as if we are looking down a helix. The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so energetic it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce. The Helix Nebula, given a technical designation of NGC 7293, lies about 650 light-years away towards the constellation of Aquarius and spans about 2.5 light-years. The above picture is a composite of newly released images from the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope and wide-angle images from the Mosaic Camera on the WIYN 0.9-m Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. A close-up of the inner edge of the Helix Nebula shows complex gas knots of unknown origin.
Click to expand...
 
S

Smokey

Member
Dunno if it's been posted, but did you guys hear about Voyager possibly being out of our Solar System? Read it the other day. Something about the particle measurements from the sun taking a drastic fall, indicating that the probe is possibily out of the system.
 
Chittagong

Chittagong

Gold Member
Smokey said:
Dunno if it's been posted, but did you guys hear about Voyager possibly being out of our Solar System? Read it the other day. Something about the particle measurements from the sun taking a drastic fall, indicating that the probe is possibily out of the system.
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Yeah that made me wonder, what is the force that creates such a hard boundary for the solar system. One would imagine that the effects would gradually taper off rather that being defined by an edge. Really cool that there is one though.
 
P

Partial Gamification

Banned
Chittagong said:
Yeah that made me wonder, what is the force that creates such a hard boundary for the solar system. One would imagine that the effects would gradually taper off rather that being defined by an edge. Really cool that there is one though.
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I think that is a topic of study. Maybe something from being in an outer arm of a rotating spiral galaxy. The sun also ocillates "up" and "down" with respect to the galatic plane.
missionImage_top.jpg

[edit:] and the sun has a gravity well that is defined by its mass.
 
microtubule

microtubule

Member
Super-Earth Planet Likely Made of Diamond

The alien planet, a so-called "super-Earth," is called 55 Cancri e and was discovered in 2004 around a nearby star in our Milky Way galaxy. After estimating the planet's mass and radius, and studying its host star's composition, scientists now say the rocky world is composed mainly of carbon (in the form of diamond and graphite), as well as iron, silicon carbide, and potentially silicates.

At least a third of the planet's mass is likely pure diamond.
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55-cancri-e-diamond-planet.jpg


The first things that came to mind were....
Minecraft
Dead Space
 
M

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
Partial Gamification said:
I think that is a topic of study. Maybe something from being in an outer arm of a rotating spiral galaxy. The sun also ocillates "up" and "down" with respect to the galatic plane.
missionImage_top.jpg

[edit:] and the sun has a gravity well that is defined by its mass.
Click to expand...

I was watching a documentary on mass extinctions the other day. Bad things seem to happen around about when we are at the extremes of that oscillation and likely bombarded with abnormal amounts of cosmic rays.
 
P

Partial Gamification

Banned
The Universe is a cruel, nasty, and beautiful place. It is rather unnerving to think some blast of energy could sterilize the planet. This mass ejection from a black hole looks like a torch (Hubble Image):
Hubble%27s+view+of+the+jet+being+emitted+by+M87.jpg


...and to that other gem [edit:] another diamond object:
"Of course, this also means that it could well have been around for a long time, just waiting for us to find it. Since it's likely to last for longer than the Earth or the sun, I would say that in this case, a diamond really is forever," Keith said.

The diamond planet was found as part of an ongoing search for pulsating stars, known as pulsars, which scientists like to use as probes.

"We'd like to find a pulsar with a black hole companion," Michael Kramer, director of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, told Discovery News. "It's the exotic case that tell us most about the laws of physics and what's going on in the universe."
 
F

fallout

Member
Mario said:
I was watching a documentary on mass extinctions the other day. Bad things seem to happen around about when we are at the extremes of that oscillation and likely bombarded with abnormal amounts of cosmic rays.
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Last I checked, there were some pretty massive error bars on those oscillations. There could be some correlation, but I don't think there are enough data points, nor are the data points accurate enough to really make any strong claims. Interesting idea, though.
 
M

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
fallout said:
Last I checked, there were some pretty massive error bars on those oscillations. There could be some correlation, but I don't think there are enough data points, nor are the data points accurate enough to really make any strong claims. Interesting idea, though.
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Yeah, I did some Wikipedia surfing after I made that post to learn a little more, and learned the data around it is not as solid as suggested.

In my travels on Wikipedia, I diverged into learning a lot more about Nemesis, the hypothetical companion star to the sun. Intriguing to think that such a thing so "close" could actually be out there given how hard it can be to actually detect certain things.
 
P

Partial Gamification

Banned
I was at a local NSF Office and happened to be browsing some materials and came across a quarterly report from the History Division at NASA, with some neat profiles of people, facilities, and missions (Russian too). Anyway, NASA rocks; here, a thread about Bill Nye asking for people to email the President about restoring the Planetary Exploration Budget. I went to NASA's history site and saw this upcoming event:

“SOLAR SYSTEM EXPLORATION @ 50” CONFERENCE:
On 25-26 October 2012 our office is cosponsoring a symposium to mark the 50th anniversary planetary exploration, along with NASA's Science Mission Directorate, the National Air and Space Museum, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The event will be held at the Lockheed Martin Global Vision Center, 2121 Crystal Drive, Arlington, VA (in the Crystal City complex). Participation is free and open to the public, although registration will be required. Registration is now open at this site and closes on October 26.

[edit:] Live Web streaming will be available.

Free stickers to slap on otherwise boring computers too:
dawn_zps30ec997b.png
Click to expand...
 
O

owlbeak

Member
Planet discovered orbiting Alpha Centauri B!

http://www.space.com/18089-earth-size-alien-planet-alpha-centauri.html

Astronomers detected the alien planet around the sunlike star Alpha Centauri B, which is part of a three-star system just 4.3 light-years away from us. The newfound world is about as massive as Earth, but it's no Earth twin; its heat-blasted surface may be covered with molten rock, researchers said.

The mere existence of the planet, known as Alpha Centauri Bb, suggests that undiscovered worlds may lurk farther away from its star — perhaps in the habitable zone, that just-right range of distances where liquid water can exist.
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P

Prez

Member
eravulgaris said:
Yes, probably. With the naked I guess you'd still see more than the usual stuff I see in my backyard. Goddamn light pollution.
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I was going to say I live in one of the most light-poluted countries in the world, but so do you apparantly. Also did you know that according to a 2010 study each one of our neighbouring countries is in the top 20 of cleanest countries in the world but we're in 88th place?
 
H

Hootie

Member
it sucks living Boston with regards to light pollution, i cant see ANYTHING even on a perfectly clear night.

this summer I vacationed in northern New Hampshire and I was absolutely astonished at how incredible the night sky looked. I had never seen so many stars in the sky at one time.
 
M

McNei1y

Member
SniperHunter said:
yea I agree with this, if there is an ancient alien civilization out there, they probably made some sort of gigantic monolithic structure in space, so people for other worlds could see their greatness.

reading on dyson sphere's right now, seems very interesting!
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I want to believe that things like this exist in space. It would be so cool and Mass Effect-like. I want to know space lore, dammit! It stinks we have to go at such a slow pace and that we may never know of such things.
 
W

WeAreStarStuff

Member
eravulgaris said:
Yes, probably. With the naked I guess you'd still see more than the usual stuff I see in my backyard. Goddamn light pollution.
Click to expand...

Prez said:
I was going to say I live in one of the most light-poluted countries in the world, but so do you apparantly. Also did you know that according to a 2010 study each one of our neighbouring countries is in the top 20 of cleanest countries in the world but we're in 88th place?
Click to expand...

Hootie said:
it sucks living Boston with regards to light pollution, i cant see ANYTHING even on a perfectly clear night.

this summer I vacationed in northern New Hampshire and I was absolutely astonished at how incredible the night sky looked. I had never seen so many stars in the sky at one time.
Click to expand...

Light%20Pollution%20Comparison.jpg
 
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