Support NeoGAF

[The Librarian]

1. Warp Drive to bend space and time and travel within its own warp field, expanding and contracting space. At this point we don't know how that would really work. There are some interesting math and hypotheses to calculate it might be possible over time. Although I would wonder how to avoid the debris that space is littered with.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Deflector

 

[Neverender]

Discovery being rolled out to the launch pad for flight STS-128, planned to launch on or after August 25th.

I was just looking at this picture, and it made me imagine showing it to someone from say, 500 years ago, and explaining to them what it is capable of. We have really come a long away, god damn.

 

[DarkJediKnight]

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Deflector

How the fuck did I not remember that. :lol

 

[Teknoman]

we're going to the moon to mine for Helium 3.. to power nuclear fusion power plants?? O__o

I had no idea the moon had Helium 3 on it's surface, or that it could be used for clean energy. The fuck?

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/07/is-helium-3-exp.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTkojROg-t8 (end of video)

Guess thats our return trip reason?

 

[Zhuk]

The US Congress is too corrupt and incompetent to be taking care of NASA, their budget should be at least double what it is now. As for the strategies, we should be going to the Moon AND Mars at the same time!

 

[NotTheGuyYouKill]

Discovery being rolled out to the launch pad for flight STS-128, planned to launch on or after August 25th.

This is an amazing photo. I'm sort of in awe.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Discovery being rolled out to the launch pad for flight STS-128, planned to launch on or after August 25th.

Is there a high quality image for wallpapers anywhere?


I feel like an ass for making another astronomy thread... Oh well.

 

[Aegus]

List of Options for NASA

I'll take door number 7 please.

Bam zoom straight to Mars!

 

[Extollere]

Ok so apparently this Friday (The 14th) all four moons (The Galilean anyways) of Jupiter will be in alignment and visible. You can already see Jupiter in the sky, it's the brightest looking "star". Visible with a decent telescope or even a good pair of binoculars you should be able to see the four moons of Jupiter together this Friday.

I'm thinking of heading out to Palomar Mt this Friday to look. Any Gaffers with a telescope want to meet there? I only gots my eyes

 

[gofreak]

Kepler's doing good!

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/08/08/space.kepler.discovery/index.html

NASA's Kepler space telescope has already made a discovery, and its science operations aren't even officially under way yet.

NASA scientists who put the telescope through a 10-day test after its March 6 launch said this week that Kepler is working well. Its ability to detect minute changes in light has enabled scientists to determine that a planet orbiting a distant star has an atmosphere, shows only one side to its sun and is so hot it glows.

Kepler's ability to take measurements that precise at such a great distance "proves we can find Earth-size planets," William Borucki, Kepler's principal science investigator told reporters at a recent briefing.

The powerful scope is looking at thousands of stars in its vision field in the Milky Way on a 3½-year mission to find planets the size of Earth and to determine how common these planets are.

The planet used in the test, a giant gas planet about the size of Jupiter, orbits a star called HAT P-7 in just 2.2 days and is 26 times closer than Earth is to the sun, according to NASA.

Kepler detected the planet's atmosphere, demonstrating the telescope's capabilities and giving astronomers what NASA says is "only a taste of things to come."

"It learned that this planet is like 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That is so hot. And it's 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit just on one side only. The other side would be closer to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, " said Sara Seager, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Kepler science team member.

Awesomeness. Hopefully Kepler will find (relatively) lots of earth-like planets.

 

[Extollere]

Kepler's doing good!

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/08/08/space.kepler.discovery/index.html

Awesomeness. Hopefully Kepler will find (relatively) lots of earth-like planets.

Probably going to find some interesting things for sure

Most of the telescopes we build on the ground or we put in space, what we're trying to do is magnify things that are very far away and very faint, so we can get a very high-resolution look at what's going on in the distant universe. We have the opposite challenge with Kepler. We need a very large field of view so we can simultaneously look at a very large number of stars. So we've built a special kind of telescope called a Schmidt telescope, and the field of view is equal on the sky to two dips from the Big Dipper. So it's 100 square degrees of sky, or another way to look at it, our field of view is about 30,000 times larger than the field of view of the Hubble Space Telescope. So it's a very different kind of telescope, and it allows us to stare at a region of the Milky Way galaxy rich in stars and monitor 100,000 stars simultaneously for a period of years.

At the end of 3-1/2 yrs, we should know whether planets like the Earth are common or rare in the galaxy. We don't know whether Earths will be plentiful or whether the Earth is unique. And this is a question that has come down to us across a hundred generations of human history, and we stand on a technology finally that allows us to answer this question scientifically. So at the end of 3-1/2 years, we're going to know whether there can be Star Trek in our future or whether there's no place to go.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/podcast/content.cfm?content=837

 

[TehOh]

I wandered into an area that I hadn't been to at work on Friday and saw some awesome stuff. Thought you guys would like:

Miniature models (each still larger than a car) used in the wind tunnels. That model shuttle was actually used in the early 70s to test the real space shuttle's reactions to different wind speeds.

An old Titan rocket.

 

[Quazar]

Kepler's doing good!

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/08/08/space.kepler.discovery/index.html





Awesomeness. Hopefully Kepler will find (relatively) lots of earth-like planets.

Kepler is the best.

Comparison of ground-based and space-based light curves for hot exoplanet HAT P7b. Image credit: NASA

Larger size: http://www.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/hires/1-keplerspiesc.jpg

 

[UraMallas]

What the hell...

Not shown: Risk game board on table

I kind of hope Betelguese explodes. It would be awesome to have something so bright and visible in our sky.

 

[Windu]

Went to the Air and Space museum at Dulles Airport a couple weeks back. Damn, the Space Shuttle is Huuuuge. I knew it would be big but seeing it in person for the first time is awesome.

 

[Extollere]

Kepler is the best.

Comparison of ground-based and space-based light curves for hot exoplanet HAT P7b. Image credit: NASA

Larger size: http://www.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/hires/1-keplerspiesc.jpg

I wonder what will happen if we make a discovery of a habitable planet in the next few years?

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

I wonder what will happen if we make a discovery of a habitable planet in the next few years?

Well, NASA just a few hours ago let every newspaper, agency and TV network know they are holding this Thursday a news conference about the early results from Kepler.

First exoearth found already?

 

[Orgun]

Anyone read the latest issue of New Scientist? It has an interesting cover story
http://twitpic.com/de3x4

Havent had a chance to read it yet but at a quick glance it appears to be about space planes, it's not on their website yet either

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Everyone ready for the Perseid meteor shower tomorrow night? Should be cool.

 

[Quazar]

I wonder what will happen if we make a discovery of a habitable planet in the next few years?

From Michio Kakus book Physics of the impossible:

The first year in orbit scientists expect Kepler to find roughly
*50 planets about the same size of earth
*185 planets about 30 percent larger than Earth
*640 planets about 2.2times the size of Earth

 

[sarcastor]

Has anyone else read this?

I just got done with it and I found it pretty interesting. The stuff these guys have done to keep SETI going...

Just saw the author give a small lecture at a coffee shop in san francisco. he was very articulate and the lecture was great. but way too much time was spent answering the audience's lame questions

 

[DarkJediKnight]

Looking forward to the Kepler news.

And can't wait until James Webb is up there.

 

[ElectricBlue187]

anybody willing to waste their life on a seedship on the small chance that their children(children's children etc) will find out the planet we found that's about the same size as earth is habitable?

 

[Pandaman]

anybody willing to waste their life on a seedship on the small chance that their children(children's children etc) will find out the planet we found that's about the same size as earth is habitable?

as opposed to wasting your life on earth?

why not.

 

[MaximumX2]

Well, NASA just a few hours ago let every newspaper, agency and TV network know they are holding this Thursday a news conference about the early results from Kepler.

First exoearth found already?

This is the first I'm hearing about this. I'm hoping for a megaton!

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

This is the first I'm hearing about this. I'm hoping for a megaton!

Me too

Might be a rutinary "well it's up and running, taxpayer money well spent yadda yadda" tho.

 

[KillerAJD]

anybody willing to waste their life on a seedship on the small chance that their children(children's children etc) will find out the planet we found that's about the same size as earth is habitable?

Absolutely, no question. One of my dreams is to have a part in expanding our knowledge of the universe, and helping to find other hospitable planets would fit perfectly in that dream.

 

[Puck]

fuck yeah, space.

 

[Extollere]

Whaaa, I thought we hadn't discovered many (or any?) terrestrial planets yet...anyways this seems like it would be cool to look at.

Scientists have spotted the wreckage from a spectacular collision between two planets deep in space. Two rocky worlds the size of the Moon and Mercury slammed into each other recently in cosmic terms - within a few thousand years.

An artist's impression of the colliding planetsThe impact, at a combined speed of 22,400 mph, destroyed the smaller planet, causing vast amounts of rock to vaporise and flinging huge plumes of hot molten lava into space.

NASA spotted the aftermath of the cosmic car crash, 100 light-years away, using its Spitzer space telescope which picked up the heat from the impact and chunks of rock that have formed from the lava.

Experts say a similar collision about four billion of years ago between a planet the size of Mars with the Earth blasted out the rock and lava that collected together to form the Moon.

Geoff Bryden of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said: "This is about the same scale of impact we're seeing with Spitzer - we don't know if a moon will form or not, but we know a large rocky body's surface was red hot, warped and melted."

Chief investigator Carey M. Lisse, of the Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, said: "This collision had to be huge and incredibly high-speed for rock to have been vaporised and melted.

"This is a really rare and short-lived event, critical in the formation of Earth-like planets and moons. We're lucky to have witnessed one not long after it happened."

Lisse and his team observed an old star called HD 172555, in the constellation of Pavo, the Peacock. Spitzer showed unusual chemical fingerprints in the spectrum of the starlight - evidence of silica, or melted glass, from the heat generated by the collision.

Large amounts of silicon monoxide gas, created when the rock was vaporised, were also detected along with rocky rubble flung out from the planets' wreckage. The scientists will report their discovery in next week's Astrophysical Journal.

Earth-bound astronomers have previously observed evidence of planets colliding in the Pleiades, of Seven Sisters, a famous star cluster in the constellation of Taurus the bull.

Destructive impacts between worlds were common in the early history of our own solar system, say scientists. Three examples are thought to have stripped Mercury of its outer crust, tipped Uranus on its side and spun Venus backwards.

Fortunately for us, things are a lot quiter now, although there was evidence of an asteroid hitting Jupiter last month and a much smaller object struck the Earth last year. French scientists say that Earth and Mars may one day collide.

http://news.skymania.com/2009/08/space-telescope-sees-planets-collide.html

 

[Kettch]

The Kepler news conference was actually last week. Nothing spectacular, but as was mentioned earlier this was expected and it's all good news.

Kepler has already found hundreds of "interesting events". Kepler finds planets by measuring the dimming light of a star as a planet transits across it, blocking a bit of light. One problem is that several other events can also cause this. One example is a binary star system, where the object blocking light is another star. Another is dimming caused by sunspots (where magnetic activity reduces the temperature on the star's surface, resulting in a dark spot). These other cases must be separated out.

Another problem is that we're looking for Earth-like planets in particular. We could receive word of new planets being discovered in just a few months time, but these will be planets extremely close to their stars. Earth-like planets will have an orbit similar to ours, 1 year. Now in order to verify the transit of an Earth-like planet we need to see it make at least 3 orbits (NASA actually wants 4, just to be sure). With 1 transit, we have no idea what the orbit is. With 2 transits we could start making assumptions, but a second transit could be a sunspot or it could in fact be that of a different planet orbiting the star instead. That's why we need at least 3 transits to reliably determine whether a planet is in an Earth-like orbit. That means waiting at least 2 years or 3 years if you want to see 4 transits.

The interesting news released here is related to just how precise Kepler is. When it looked at a known Jupiter-like planet it not only saw the planet transiting in front of the star, but it also saw the planet going behind the star because of a very slight dimming as the light reflected off of the planet is removed. That's the type of precision it needs to find small, Earth-like planets.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

The Kepler news conference was actually last week. Nothing spectacular, but as was mentioned earlier this was expected and it's all good news.

BAUT is so slow goddamn I need to check the post date more often.

Anyways good news!

 

[noah111]

Everyone ready for the Perseid meteor shower tomorrow night? Should be cool.

I couldn't see much, it was really cloudy.. I should have gone out to a nearby desert or something, would have been an amazing sight with no light pollution.

Cool site I 'stumbled' across.

Top ten astronomy softwares

http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#1JLxNk/www.instantfundas.com/2007/08/top-ten-astronomy-softwares.html/

Nice, I use a few of those actually. Celestia is an amazing program when you get the hang of it. I run a pretty low spec machine but here are some shots I took with celestia;

Jupiter with two of its many moons, Europa up close and Io in-between.

Jupiter with a better look at Io.

Looking down at the great valles marineris of Mars with one of its two moons, Deimos close up. You can also see the three alligned ascraeus mons, tharsis montes, and arsia mons.

Saturn with a close up of one of its moon Hyperion, with several in the background that are hard to spot (Prometheus, Pandora, Mimas, Dione, Janus).

Ok so apparently this Friday (The 14th) all four moons (The Galilean anyways) of Jupiter will be in alignment and visible. You can already see Jupiter in the sky, it's the brightest looking "star".

Yup.

This is Earth (of course if you were on the dark side of earth there would be no ambient light like this)..

And if we turn around and start zoom in we see a bright blob aka Jupiter.

It'll be an awesome shot for astronomers. Obviously they're not really in an alligned orbit, it's just our viewpoint/angle that it looks as such.

 

[Extollere]

The Kepler news conference was actually last week. Nothing spectacular, but as was mentioned earlier this was expected and it's all good news.

Kepler has already found hundreds of "interesting events". Kepler finds planets by measuring the dimming light of a star as a planet transits across it, blocking a bit of light. One problem is that several other events can also cause this. One example is a binary star system, where the object blocking light is another star. Another is dimming caused by sunspots (where magnetic activity reduces the temperature on the star's surface, resulting in a dark spot). These other cases must be separated out.

Another problem is that we're looking for Earth-like planets in particular. We could receive word of new planets being discovered in just a few months time, but these will be planets extremely close to their stars. Earth-like planets will have an orbit similar to ours, 1 year. Now in order to verify the transit of an Earth-like planet we need to see it make at least 3 orbits (NASA actually wants 4, just to be sure). With 1 transit, we have no idea what the orbit is. With 2 transits we could start making assumptions, but a second transit could be a sunspot or it could in fact be that of a different planet orbiting the star instead. That's why we need at least 3 transits to reliably determine whether a planet is in an Earth-like orbit. That means waiting at least 2 years or 3 years if you want to see 4 transits.

The interesting news released here is related to just how precise Kepler is. When it looked at a known Jupiter-like planet it not only saw the planet transiting in front of the star, but it also saw the planet going behind the star because of a very slight dimming as the light reflected off of the planet is removed. That's the type of precision it needs to find small, Earth-like planets.

I wonder if we're just using the Kepler as a prerequisite for the TPF. It seems that Kepler can not see the terrestrial planets directly, or superficially. I wonder if TPF will be able to, afterward, if Kepler can provide it with accurate coordinates over the next few years.

 

[sarcastor]

30 second exposure at f/1.8 and 800 iso (and some enhancement in photoshop)

seriously, how can anyone think we're alone in the universe with all these stars/galaxies in the sky?

 

[Hootie]

30 second exposure at f/1.8 and 800 iso (and some enhancement in photoshop)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2462/3814541000_63e04e47c2_b.jpg[IMG]

seriously, how can anyone think we're alone in the universe with all these stars/galaxies in the sky?[/QUOTE]

I think by now the VAST majority of people believe we are not alone in the universe.

Then again, 12% of North Carolinian conservatives don't know or think Hawaii is a state...


Awesome pic by the way.

 

[Mystagogue]

Thanks to this thread, I've been DVRing "The Universe"...watched the episode on parallel universes last night and it broke my brain.

 

[Dr Zhivago]

Milky Way way have hidden neighbour

 

[Sibylus]

Milky Way way have hidden neighbour

Sunuva bitch pulled a hit 'n run.

 

[UraMallas]

Makes you wonder what the night sky would've looked like 300 million years ago.

 

[laserbeam]

The news everyone wanted to hear.

No Moon

A panel appointed by President Barack Obama reviewing NASA's current plans for human space flight will report that there is no realistic way to return to the moon by 2020 -- or even 2028.



They even go on to say landing people on Mars is not an option due to costs. Bush may have been a terrible president for the most part but at least he gave a shit about NASA.

 

[Hootie]

The news everyone wanted to hear.

No Moon

A panel appointed by President Barack Obama reviewing NASA's current plans for human space flight will report that there is no realistic way to return to the moon by 2020 -- or even 2028.



They even go on to say landing people on Mars is not an option due to costs. Bush may have been a terrible president for the most part but at least he gave a shit about NASA.

Damnit Obama. Damnit recession. Damnit.

 

[fallout]

The news everyone wanted to hear.

No Moon

A panel appointed by President Barack Obama reviewing NASA's current plans for human space flight will report that there is no realistic way to return to the moon by 2020 -- or even 2028.



They even go on to say landing people on Mars is not an option due to costs. Bush may have been a terrible president for the most part but at least he gave a shit about NASA.

 

[kkaabboomm]

: (

 

[Averon]

We need to realize that NASA in it's current form is a pale shadow of what it was in the 60's and 70's. We ain't getting out of LEO with the NASA we have now. Who we should be rooting for private companies like SpaceX. People like Burt Rutan and others like him are going to push manned space flight more than what NASA has done in the past 20 years.

 

[laserbeam]

We need to realize that NASA in it's current form is a pale shadow of what it was in the 60's and 70's. We ain't getting out of LEO with the NASA we have now. Who we should be rooting for is private companies like SpaceX. People like Burt Rutan and people like him is going to push manned space flight more than what NASA has done in the past 20 years.

Well the big issue just comes down to funding. We want so much from NASA without boosting budget accordingly.

As they say they could be moon ready but in order to do that they would not have any funding for actual moon equipment.

It doesn't help we have an administration that is hostile to NASA lets not forget thousands of jobs were gonna be shitcanned by Obama until he heard of the political ramifications and backpeddled on that.

By 2028 China will be doing its Moon stuff pretty frequent I would guess and we will still be floundering to get into space again and now they say it ss too expensive to land on Mars.

 

[siddx]

How did I miss this glorious thread? Beautiful.

 

[Windu]

Soo...do we have a need for Astronauts anymore after the ISS is gone? No moon, No mars. I guess that leaves flying around the earth. yay....

 

[Averon]

Well the big issue just comes down to funding. We want so much from NASA without boosting budget accordingly.

As they say they could be moon ready but in order to do that they would not have any funding for actual moon equipment.

It doesn't help we have an administration that is hostile to NASA lets not forget thousands of jobs were gonna be shitcanned by Obama until he heard of the political ramifications and backpeddled on that.

By 2028 China will be doing its Moon stuff pretty frequent I would guess and we will still be floundering to get into space again and now they say it ss too expensive to land on Mars.

China getting to the Moon before NASA is just what NASA needs to get the proper funding. The sight of seeing a rival doing what we couldn't may finally get the public and the politicians to give a shit about NASA and space. Remember, competition with the Soviets is what allowed NASA to advance so rapidly and become so successful in the 60s and 70s. Therefore, I'm actually rooting for the Chinese to advance their space program.

 

[Extollere]

Damnit Obama. Damnit recession. Damnit.

This sucks. At least we have our satellites though. Whoever mentioned China is right though. Their space exploration progress will over lap ours in the coming decades.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

The news everyone wanted to hear.

No Moon

A panel appointed by President Barack Obama reviewing NASA's current plans for human space flight will report that there is no realistic way to return to the moon by 2020 -- or even 2028.



They even go on to say landing people on Mars is not an option due to costs. Bush may have been a terrible president for the most part but at least he gave a shit about NASA.

Porco governo!

Shit if they are not gonna budget manned missions at least go all in, throw into the shitbin the shuttle and all the "general science" programs that are eating 70% of their budget and just launch robotic probes non-stop.

Let's get some goddamned science return =/