The Astronomy Thread

Hi,

I've been very fascinated with space and the universe since as long as I can remember. Though I could not become an astronaut or astrophysicist, I still try to keep up with whatever NASA discovers. So, I am starting this thread as a one stop news reel for all things astronomy.

Let me kick off with:

Hubble Discovers a Fifth Moon Orbiting Pluto

*www.nasa.gov/images/content/666714main1_pluto-5th-moon-673.jpg

A team of astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is reporting the discovery of another moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto.

The moon is estimated to be irregular in shape and 6 to 15 miles across. It is in a 58,000-mile-diameter circular orbit around Pluto that is assumed to be co-planar with the other satellites in the system.

Source

I always thought that Pluto had only one moon - Charon. I cannot understand when the remaining were discovered, other than the fifth.

Nice Thread
good work

keep it up

this i like

Have you guys noticed anything like this on 30th June?

NASA Explains Why Clocks Will Get an Extra Second on June 30

If the day seems a little longer than usual on Saturday, June 30, 2012, that's because it will be. An extra second, or "leap" second, will be added at midnight to account for the fact that it is taking Earth longer and longer to complete one full turn—a day—or, technically, a solar day.

"The solar day is gradually getting longer because Earth's rotation is slowing down ever so slightly," says Daniel MacMillan of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
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"At the time of the dinosaurs, Earth completed one rotation in about 23 hours," says MacMillan, who is a member of the VLBI team at NASA Goddard. "In the year 1820, a rotation took exactly 24 hours, or 86,400 standard seconds. Since 1820, the mean solar day has increased by about 2.5 milliseconds."

By the 1950s, scientists had already realized that some scientific measurements and technologies demanded more precise timekeeping than Earth's rotation could provide. So, in 1967, they officially changed the definition of a second. No longer was it based on the length of a day but on an extremely predictable measurement made of electromagnetic transitions in atoms of cesium. These "atomic clocks" based on cesium are accurate to one second in 1,400,000 years. Most people around the world rely on the time standard based on the cesium atom: Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
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Normally, the clock would move from 23:59:59 to 00:00:00 the next day. Instead, at 23:59:59 on June 30, UTC will move to 23:59:60, and then to 00:00:00 on July 1. In practice, this means that clocks in many systems will be turned off for one second.

Source

Probability of a comet to hit Mars in 2014

A recently discovered comet will make an uncomfortably-close planetary flyby next year — but this time it’s not Earth that’s in the cosmic crosshairs.

According to preliminary orbital prediction models, comet C/2013 A1 will buzz Mars on Oct. 19, 2014. The icy interloper is thought to originate from the Oort Cloud — a hypothetical region surrounding the solar system containing countless billions of cometary nuclei that were outcast from the primordial solar system billions of years ago.

We know that the planets have been hit by comets before (re: the massive Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 that crashed into Jupiter in 1994) and Mars, in particular, will have been hit by comets in the past. It’s believed Earth’s oceans were created, in part, by water delivered by comets — cometary impacts are an inevitable part of living in this cosmic ecosystem.

Looks like Curiosity and Opportunity might end up as scrap metal.

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Looks like Curiosity and Opportunity might end up as scrap metal.

LOL I didn't get what you wrote there in the first time I read :lol:

BTW.. anyone having a telescope? i'm thinking of getting one and a moon filter, not sure if those 2-3 K ones in ebay will be of any good. moon filters are expensive

RCuber said:
LOL I didn't get what you wrote there in the first time I read

BTW.. anyone having a telescope? i'm thinking of getting one and a moon filter, not sure if those 2-3 K ones in ebay will be of any good. moon filters are expensive

Not me, I don't think you get good ones here in India at least.

I am also interested in Astronomy..Could you please recommend me a good telescope within 10k range like for watching moon craters etc

Dude, I ain't no salesman, I only post news here. Please research on the web and let us know what you find too.

^^

O sumit wot you done!!!

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Dude, I ain't no salesman, I only post news here.

Lol...He really thinks that youre the boss

! Btw nice work.

esumitkumar said:
I am also interested in Astronomy..Could you please recommend me a good telescope within 10k range like for watching moon craters etc

I have few Links for Telescopes providers / makers, most of them are around Mumbai
1. Telescope India | Telescopes India | Manufacturers of Telescope-INDIA | Tejraj & Co. | Mumbai Astronomy Telescopes | Amateur Telescopes India | Astronomical Binoculars, Largest Telescope Manufacturer India (I am still using one Telescope from this.)
2. sky_watcher-india

I will suggest STAR TRACKER, 114/900mm AZ , Reflector Telescope -india which costs you around 7.5K.

Nice thread. I am very much amused and curious about our solar system and what lies beneath. Must watch documentary for beginners. The definitive guide to the milky way galaxy - YouTube

There are couple of more gobrands
Telescopes, Telescope Accessories, Outdoor and Scientific Products by Celestron
sky_watcher-india
Orion Telescopes & Binoculars: Official Site - Telescope.com (Orion Telescopes) Tejraj is the official dealer for Orion in India.

okay.. as things are getting a little heated up in here and as we are noobs in telescope( atleast some of us) lets gather some information regarding star gazing and moon gazing.

for starting I want to look at our moon and if possible spot some craters, need to figure out what lens strength we have to look for. I know that one has to use a lunar filter to clearly see the moon. lets dig in

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Dude, I ain't no salesman, I only post news here. Please research on the web and let us know what you find too.

Man..calm down..My question was not intended to hurt you but to seek info..Since this was astronomy thread..I thought you might have some info on telescopes since I am a complete noob in this field..If I own a car, and someone asks me which car should I take in 5-6 L budget..I can advise him..But I dont become salesman of that car

I hope you got my point

Why all the butt hurt? I did not take any offense. I was suggesting that you research on the net and let its know what you find.

Jeez, flame wars...

Scientists discover that a Black Hole's edge spins at nearly the speed of light.

*www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/02/27/nustar_blackhole_accretiondisk568.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg

Astronomers have directly measured the spin of a black hole for the first time by detecting the mind-bending relativistic effects that warp space-time at the very edge of its event horizon. By monitoring X-ray emissions from iron ions (iron atoms with some electrons missing) trapped in the black hole's accretion disk, the rapidly-rotating inner edge of the disk of hot material has provided direct information about how fast the black hole is spinning. Astronomers used NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) — that was launched into Earth orbit in June 2012 — and the European observatory XMM-Newton measured X-ray radiation as a tool to directly infer the spin of NGC 1365's black hole. 'What excites me is the fact that we are able to do this for the very massive black holes at the centers of galaxies but we can also make the same measurement for black holes in our galaxy ... black holes that resulted from the explosion of a star ... The fact we can extend this from billions of solar masses to 10 solar masses is pretty cool,' Fiona Harrison, professor of physics and astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., and principal investigator of the NuSTAR mission, told Discovery News."

*news.discovery.com/space/galaxies/spinning-black-hole-nustar-x-rays-1302271.htm

*www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/...measure_supermassive_black_hole_rotating.html

*apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1303/tardigrade_eyeofscience_1024.jpg

-"Explanation: Is this an alien? Probably not, but of all the animals on Earth, the tardigrade might be the best candidate. That's because tardigrades are known to be able to go for decades without food or water, to survive temperatures from near absolute zero to well above the boiling point of water, to survive pressures from near zero to well above that on ocean floors, and to survive direct exposure to dangerous radiations. The far-ranging survivability of these extremophiles was tested in 2011 outside an orbiting space shuttle. Tardigrades are so durable partly because they can repair their own DNA and reduce their body water content to a few percent. Some of these miniature water-bears almost became extraterrestrials recently when they were launched toward to the Martian moon Phobos on board the Russian mission Fobos-Grunt, but stayed terrestrial when a rocket failed and the capsule remained in Earth orbit. Tardigrades are more common than humans across most of the Earth. Pictured above in a color-enhanced electron micrograph, a millimeter-long tardigrade crawls on moss."

-Source

Holy sh1t! That almost looks artificial....

are they real ??? :shock:

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Scientists discover that a Black Hole's edge spins at nearly the speed of light.

l

that thing must be putting out radiation shorter than gamma rays!!!
or wait, are we talking about the event horizon or the edge of the accretion disk?

desmond, i think we are long lost brothers, you like the same things i do

(wh40k, metal, space)

Dude, where you been hiding for so long. Only if I had real friends like you. <sniff>

Yes, I was talking about the accretion disc. See the link.

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Hubble Discovers a Fifth Moon Orbiting Pluto

How come hubble telescope can discover another moon orbiting pluto, but not another moon orbiting earth ? i thought hubble telescope is near to earth than pluto ..... >.<
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jk.

What second moon orbiting earth?

er, im about as confused right now as you are.

dude, you shouldnt drink and post.

What's the possibility of another moon orbiting the earth?

Like, is it beyond the dark side of the moon and takes the same time to revolve around the earth as the moon that's why no one saw it?

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
What's the possibility of another moon orbiting the earth?

Like, is it beyond the dark side of the moon and takes the same time to revolve around the earth as the moon that's why no one saw it?

further away you go beyond the moon, considering the revolution time is same, lower the mass cap we get. If a huge mass would have been there beyond moon, earths behavior to [moon & that hidden moon] would have been coupler like - i.e. center of rotation would have been a bit towards the edge of earth surface, or somewhere between earth and moon. :reading:

so, as earth and moon are not jumping around, its safe to imagine there is no big moon beyond our only moon *l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/39.gif , and since we no see any other moon in sky, there is no other earth moon in the sky and thus hubble can't discover it. :meditate:

anyways, we can image a few asteroid stuff orbiting earth here or there, but they can't be moon, since we cant see them in naked eye and neither there is any point for hubble to discover them. :thumbs:

puzzle solved. case closed. *l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/26.gif

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
What's the possibility of another moon orbiting the earth?

Like, is it beyond the dark side of the moon and takes the same time to revolve around the earth as the moon that's why no one saw it?

no other moon but there is possibility of dark matter presence I think...

dark matter has mass. we have insanely accurate acceleometers.
what icebags said in his reply above still applies.

tl;dr : if there was a moon, natural, or not, visible or not, we'd have detected it by now.

Of course, that's why I was wondering why that guy was saying that hubble could not discover another moon orbiting the earth.

Edit :

I have posted this in another thread earlier, but here goes nothing :

Asteroid-Mining Project Aims for Deep-Space Colonies

*i.space.com/images/i/000/025/341/original/deep-space-industries-wheel-construction.jpg?1358879524

A new asteroid-mining company launched Tuesday with the goal of helping humanity expand across the solar system by tapping the vast riches of space rocks.

The new firm, called Deep Space Industries, Inc., announced today (Jan. 22) that it plans to launch a fleet of prospecting spacecraft in 2015, then begin harvesting metals and water from near-Earth asteroids within a decade or so. Such work could make it possible to build and refuel spacecraft far above our planet's surface, thus helping our species get a foothold in the final frontier.

*www.space.com/19368-asteroid-mining-deep-space-industries.html

I can't believe that this is happening during my lifetime.

More pics :

*i.space.com/images/i/000/025/337/i02/deep-space-industries-archimedes-concept-2.jpg

*i.space.com/images/i/000/025/338/i02/deep-space-industries-archimedes-concept-3.jpg

real surprise dude real surprise........................if it is true..........

btw dark matter mass can't be accurately measured.........

it can't be detected.....

[size=+2]Astrobiologists Find Ancient Fossils in Fireball Fragments[/size]

Images-

*www.technologyreview.com/sites/default/files/images/Polonnaruwa%20meteorite.png

"The results of these tests, which the Cardiff team reveal today, are extraordinary. They say the stones contain fossilised biological structures fused into the rock matrix and that their tests clearly rule out the possibility of terrestrial contamination."

- Source

Offtopic (Sort of on topic)- Has anybody here read Dan Brown's Deception Point ?

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
I can't believe that this is happening during my lifetime.

not sure about asteroid mining by private companies, or how profitable it would be, but nasa expressed it interest in probing some asteriod soon. they are gonna collect some samples and bring those back from sky in coming years. hold ur patience man.

quagmire said:
[size=+2]Astrobiologists Find Ancient Fossils in Fireball Fragments[/size]

Images-

*www.technologyreview.com/sites/default/files/images/Polonnaruwa%20meteorite.png

"The results of these tests, which the Cardiff team reveal today, are extraordinary. They say the stones contain fossilised biological structures fused into the rock matrix and that their tests clearly rule out the possibility of terrestrial contamination."

- Source

Offtopic (Sort of on topic)- Has anybody here read Dan Brown's Deception Point ?

Yup, I have. And I know what you are thinking.

gta0gagan said:
real surprise dude real surprise........................if it is true..........

btw dark matter mass can't be accurately measured.........

it can't be detected.....

ummm somebody care to explain me what this dark matter is, in simple terms ?

NASA gets $75 Million for a mission to Europa.

*static.ddmcdn.com/gif/storymaker-top-10-places-to-find-alien-life3-1-660x433.jpg

There are few destinations in the solar system as enticing as Jupiter’s moon Europa. Below its icy crust a liquid water ocean is thought to exist, containing not only the necessary ingredients for life, but, according to scientists, potentially complex organisms. And now, despite a squeezed budget, it looks like NASA has been allocated the seed money for a mission to Europa.

Last week, President Barack Obama signed a resolution that was recently passed by the House and Senate outlining the extent of government funding for a range of science disciplines for the remainder of the fiscal year (until September 2013). But one line of the bill has drawn special interest from planetary scientists. On page 64, the bill (H. R. 933, PDF) says: “$75,000,000 shall be for pre-formulation and/or formulation activities for a mission that meets the science goals outlined for the Jupiter Europa mission in the most recent planetary science decadal survey.”
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Europa recently hit the headlines after planetary scientists, led by Caltech’s Mike Brown, uncovered the presence of magnesium sulfate salt — a.k.a. Epsom salt — on Europa’s surface. Through some clever chemistry detective work, the presence of magnesium sulfate is suggestive of a cycling of Europa’s salty ocean with the surface. This provides a tantalizing clue as the the cycling of nutrients through Europa’s crust, potentially supporting a sub-surface ecosystem.

Add that clue to the growing array of hints of the habitability of Europa and it becomes clear that more work needs to be done.

Source

I am anxiously waiting to find out what they'll find beneath the icy crust. Alien life perhaps :pray:

Big asteroid swinging by Earth has its own moon

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/random-news/174374-big-asteroid-swinging-earth-has-its-own-moon.html

saw this on youtube, if u see ultra bright meteorite /explosion flash outside, then stay away from windows for next few minutes till the aftershock is passed. or the glass will hit ur eyes.

Chelyabinsk meteor crash feb 2013:

*i.imgur.com/KhLthfE.jpg

Every time I read that,I laugh.

I almost forgot I wrote that.

icebags said:
ummm somebody care to explain me what this dark matter is, in simple terms ?

*en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

See this guys................
What if Other Planets Were as Close to Earth as the Moon? «TwistedSifter

The Voyager 1 has officially gone beyond the solar system into interstellar space. (Also a short informative video in the link.)

After streaking through space for nearly 35 years, NASA's robotic Voyager 1 probe finally left the solar system in August 2012, a study published today (Sept. 12) in the journal Science reports.

"Voyager has boldly gone where no probe has gone before, marking one of the most significant technological achievements in the annals of the history of science, and as it enters interstellar space, it adds a new chapter in human scientific dreams and endeavors," NASA science chief John Grunsfeld said in a statement. "Perhaps some future deep-space explorers will catch up with Voyager, our first interstellar envoy, and reflect on how this intrepid spacecraft helped enable their future." [Voyager 1 in Interstellar Space: Complete Coverage]

Source : Voyager 1 Has Left Solar System, Enters Interstellar Space | Space.com

New study suggests that Earth could have got the moon from Venus.

Did Venus Give Earth the Moon? Wild New Theory | LiveScience

Nice thread, keep it up.... ;-)

@ OP can you find a few remarkable images of universe as seen in discovery shows?? :chinscratch:

Also you can add a few basic definitions like a black hole, wormhole, space time fabric, relativity, Big bang etc to the first post..

quagmire said:
Offtopic (Sort of on topic)- Has anybody here read Dan Brown's Deception Point ?

Yes...
And Kind of feel that it can be applied here too :-D

Chaitanya said:
Nice thread, keep it up....
@ OP can you find a few remarkable images of universe as seen in discovery shows??

Also you can add a few basic definitions like a black hole, wormhole, space time fabric, relativity, Big bang etc to the first post..

Sure. Once I get home from office.

Hey friends , am an astronomy enthusiast as well. I want to begin exploring the night sky. Can anyone recommend any good binoculars which they have personally used to begin with? ( Dont want to buy telescope now as all astronomy websites recommend to get familiar with night sky using binoculars first and i concur its a wise idea)

^ read post no 8.

Ha ha. Ok i will research and update this thread

A Strange Lonely Planet Found without a Star

*www.ifa.hawaii.edu/info/press-releases/LonelyPlanet/ps1_lonely_planet-450.jpg

An international team of astronomers has discovered an exotic young planet that is not orbiting a star. This free-floating planet, dubbed PSO J318.5-22, is just 80 light-years away from Earth and has a mass only six times that of Jupiter. The planet formed a mere 12 million years ago—a newborn in planet lifetimes.

It was identified from its faint and unique heat signature by the Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) wide-field survey telescope on Haleakala, Maui. Follow-up observations using other telescopes in Hawaii show that it has properties similar to those of gas-giant planets found orbiting around young stars. And yet PSO J318.5-22 is all by itself, without a host star.

"We have never before seen an object free-floating in space that that looks like this. It has all the characteristics of young planets found around other stars, but it is drifting out there all alone,” explained team leader Dr. Michael Liu of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “I had often wondered if such solitary objects exist, and now we know they do.”

During the past decade, extrasolar planets have been discovered at an incredible pace, with about a thousand found by indirect methods such as wobbling or dimming of their host stars induced by the planet. However, only a handful of planets have been directly imaged, all of which are around young stars (less than 200 million years old). PSO J318.5-22 is one of the lowest-mass free-floating objects known, perhaps the very lowest. But its most unique aspect is its similar mass, color, and energy output to directly imaged planets.

Source : Institute for Astronomy Press Release:Found: A Strange Lonely Planet without a Star

How many planets may have exploded to create the asteroid belt?

^^do we see a melancholia any time ?

Cassini Photo: Stunning New Views of Saturn’s Hexagon Storm

*newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/files/2013/12/Saturn-hex-cassini-PIA17652-600x600.gif

i always wonder, whether those 4 gas planets actually have a solid core inside ?
what would actually be like to stand on that solid core, will it be heavy, super cold or super hot, streamy gluey flow of air all around ? will i ever come to know the reality ...... *l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/46.gif

icebags said:
i always wonder, whether those 4 gas planets actually have a solid core inside ?
what would actually be like to stand on that solid core, will it be heavy, super cold or super hot, streamy gluey flow of air all around ? will i ever come to know the reality ...... *l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/46.gif

are you a masochist?

_

dude ur choice of noun is absolutely improper, u know ? there is no such thing with astronomical planets. *l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/22.gif

icebags said:
dude ur choice of noun is absolutely improper, u know ? there is no such thing with astronomical planets. *l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/22.gif

I don't think it is improper. was just joking why you are so pleasantly wondering about encountering those extreme conditions that will make a pulp out of any human.

_

i was wondering how deep a modern day probe will go and how long will it survive if they are to be sent descending on those gas planets. we must know whats inside after all.....

on the side note, those russian probes managed couple of hours on venus surface in 70-80s.

icebags said:
i always wonder, whether those 4 gas planets actually have a solid core inside ?
what would actually be like to stand on that solid core, will it be heavy, super cold or super hot, streamy gluey flow of air all around ? will i ever come to know the reality ...... *l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/46.gif

yes, they have solid cores. jupiter has a solid hydrogen/helium core.

icebags said:
i was wondering how deep a modern day probe will go and how long will it survive if they are to be sent descending on those gas planets. we must know whats inside after all.....

on the side note, those russian probes managed couple of hours on venus surface in 70-80s.

Venus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
read this para and the next

Jupiter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia VV read below

An atmospheric probe was released from the spacecraft in July 1995, entering the planet's atmosphere on December 7. It parachuted through 150 km (93 mi) of the atmosphere, collected data for 57.6 minutes, and was crushed by the pressure to which it was subjected by that time (about 22 times Earth normal, at a temperature of 153 °C).[SUP][99][/SUP] It would have melted thereafter, and possibly vaporized.

since then nearly 2 decades have passed..... the unborn became adults and voted AAP for a win.

icebags said:
i was wondering how deep a modern day probe will go and how long will it survive if they are to be sent descending on those gas planets. we must know whats inside after all.....

on the side note, those russian probes managed couple of hours on venus surface in 70-80s.

The probe Galileo had dropped a probe down to Jupiter, it sent back some data before being destroyed by increasing pressure.

In case anyone is curious about the core of gas giants, I believe that they provably have a solid core since you need a rotating solid core in order to generate a gravitation field.

yup. and juno's on the way, passed earth last month or so on its way to jupiter.

meanwhile, chang'e 3 mooner landing successful.

landing video made up from stills :

*planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/3-moon/20131214_Chang_e3_landing.gif

with modern techs and computers, interplanetary explorations are becoming like cakewalk as it seems. :doublethumb:

right click -> full image .....

*planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/charts-diagrams/20131218_mars-exploration-family-portrait-V04-tps-cropped.png

Looks like China is stepping up its space program in response to India.

lander separation video from moon, in case anyone missed :

icebags said:
lander separation video from moon, in case anyone missed :

Amazing. These guys are providing video to prove that they were there.

I don't know why there are no videos of India's moon mission or for that matter the Mars mission, but we will have to wait for the probe to reach Mars first.

Good articles from io9

The Objects in Space That We Really, Really Can't Explain

Behold the Boötes void, the spookiest place in the cosmos

Scientists find the oldest star in the universe.

Source : ANU astronomers discover oldest star - News & events - ANU

A team led by astronomers at The Australian National University has discovered the oldest known star in the Universe, which formed shortly after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

The discovery has allowed astronomers for the first time to study the chemistry of the first stars, giving scientists a clearer idea of what the Universe was like in its infancy.

“This is the first time that we’ve been able to unambiguously say that we’ve found the chemical fingerprint of a first star,” said lead researcher, Dr Stefan Keller of the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

“This is one of the first steps in understanding what those first stars were like. What this star has enabled us to do is record the fingerprint of those first stars.”

The star was discovered using the ANU SkyMapper telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory, which is searching for ancient stars as it conducts a five-year project to produce the first digital map the southern sky.

The ancient star is around 6,000 light years from Earth, which Dr Keller says is relatively close in astronomical terms. It is one of the 60 million stars photographed by SkyMapper in its first year.

“The stars we are finding number one in a million,” says team member Professor Mike Bessell, who worked with Keller on the research.

“Finding such needles in a haystack is possible thanks to the ANU SkyMapper telescope that is unique in its ability to find stars with low iron from their colour.”

Dr Keller and Professor Bessell confirmed the discovery using the Magellan telescope in Chile.

The composition of the newly discovered star shows it formed in the wake of a primordial star, which had a mass 60 times that of our Sun.

“To make a star like our Sun, you take the basic ingredients of hydrogen and helium from the Big Bang and add an enormous amount of iron – the equivalent of about 1,000 times the Earth’s mass,” Dr Keller says.

“To make this ancient star, you need no more than an Australia-sized asteroid of iron and lots of carbon. It’s a very different recipe that tells us a lot about the nature of the first stars and how they died.”

Dr Keller says it was previously thought that primordial stars died in extremely violent explosions which polluted huge volumes of space with iron. But the ancient star shows signs of pollution with lighter elements such as carbon and magnesium, and no sign of pollution with iron.

“This indicates the primordial star’s supernova explosion was of surprisingly low energy. Although sufficient to disintegrate the primordial star, almost all of the heavy elements such as iron, were consumed by a black hole that formed at the heart of the explosion,” he says.

The result may resolve a long-standing discrepancy between observations and predictions of the Big Bang.

The discovery was published in the latest edition of the journal Nature.

New theory posits that there was no Big Bang

In a paper posted on the arXiv preprint server1, Christof Wetterich, a theoretical physicist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, has devised a different cosmology in which the Universe is not expanding but the mass of everything has been increasing. Such an interpretation could help physicists to understand problematic issues such as the so-called singularity present at the Big Bang, he says.

Cosmologist claims Universe may not be expanding : Nature News & Comment

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
China loses its moon rover. Cannot bring it to full functionality.

Loss of lunar rover - Headlines, features, photo and videos from ecns.cn|china|news|chinanews|ecns|cns

For some reason, I am not surprised.

I read it left a touchy note before it went offline. i posted the same somewhere in off-topic section.

quagmire said:
Good articles from io9
The Objects in Space That We Really, Really Can't Explain
Behold the Boötes void, the spookiest place in the cosmos

io9 and its sister sites are totally into sensationalism. i'd stay away from them if you want a "serious" read on any topic.

These are white dwarfs that are in an extremely close orbit around their companions — so close, in fact, that they are stripping the other star of all its gas. "The particularly odd thing about these objects is that white dwarfs are the cores of red giants, and the companion stars orbit so close that they must have once been deep inside the red giant!"

SUPERGENIUSES!!!!
do they not know that stars BLEEDING EXPAND when they get to red giant stage? our sun itself will expand to cover planets upto mars. breaking io9 story from AD 3,000,000,014 : OH MY GOOD, DID YOU KNOW, EARTH WAS ONCE INSIDE THE SUN?!?!?!?!?!

and the Bootes void theory :
compare this to a headline that reads like this :
"BREAKING NEWS!!! : spooky voids found in FOAM!!!"
well, DUH, foam IS 90% air. what did you expect?

did you know that there are clusters in the universe so dense that they look like one solid source? is this spooky as well?
i effing HATE these sites, which spread FUD. they are worse than microsoft, they are maligning science itself.

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Scientists find the oldest star in the universe.

Source : ANU astronomers discover oldest star - News & events - ANU

i call bull$hit. 6k lightyears away? nope. to find the oldest stars, you look in the "halo" regions of the galaxy, around ~20-40k lightyears away.
its just too close to be that old.

src for the "earliest star" ANU news *www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12990.html
the story is they found a star with no iron and that means it was a second generation star formed after the explosion of just one supernova. sure it could have been potentially formed the day before the astronomers looked at it, but it was formed from the remnants of a single and one of the very early supernovae.

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remember reading story long ago where iO9 explained planets surviving the red giant phase of their parent stars.

doomgiver said:
io9 and its sister sites are totally into sensationalism. i'd stay away from them if you want a "serious" read on any topic..

I did not know that. I'll have to be careful. I assumed that they were speaking about white dwarfs or black dwarfs when they said stars.

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Anorion said:
src for the "earliest star" ANU news *www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12990.html
the story is they found a star with no iron and that means it was a second generation star formed after the explosion of just one supernova. sure it could have been potentially formed the day before the astronomers looked at it, but it was formed from the remnants of a single and one of the very early supernovae.

A day before the astronomers found it? If the star is 6k light years away like the article says, it would take 6k years for the effects of it to reach earth, so I don't think its possible that the supernova was formed just one day before the astronomers found it.

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Anorion said:
remember reading story long ago where iO9 explained planets surviving the red giant phase of their parent stars.

They could survive, but the temperature would be so high that the oceans would evaporate and all life would be lost.

Also, when the Red Giant phase ends, the star would shrink and its temperature would lower, causing a extreme freeze period. Therefore, the only organisms that would survive will probably be such microorganisms as the water bears.

finding a 2nd generation star so close, either they got the distance wrong, or this is truly a massive find.

^ lol at water bears

Finally the mystery rock of Mars gets an explanation.

NASA solves mystery of jelly doughnut-shaped rock on Mars | Ars Technica

NASA Announces Discovery of First Earth-Size Planet With Potential for Life

NASA discovers Earth-sized planet that could be habitable

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doomgiver said:
io9 and its sister sites are totally into sensationalism. i'd stay away from them if you want a "serious" read on any topic.

SUPERGENIUSES!!!!
do they not know that stars BLEEDING EXPAND when they get to red giant stage? our sun itself will expand to cover planets upto mars. breaking io9 story from AD 3,000,000,014 : OH MY GOOD, DID YOU KNOW, EARTH WAS ONCE INSIDE THE SUN?!?!?!?!?!

and the Bootes void theory :
compare this to a headline that reads like this :
"BREAKING NEWS!!! : spooky voids found in FOAM!!!"
well, DUH, foam IS 90% air. what did you expect?

did you know that there are clusters in the universe so dense that they look like one solid source? is this spooky as well?
i effing HATE these sites, which spread FUD. they are worse than microsoft, they are maligning science itself.

i call bull$hit. 6k lightyears away? nope. to find the oldest stars, you look in the "halo" regions of the galaxy, around ~20-40k lightyears away.
its just too close to be that old.

Please name a few reliable good sources.

me

but seriously, 99% of the time any website says something like "New 'X' found!!! All old knowledge is useless!!! This will change everything!!!", its only doing it to get more clicks, and has only re-hashed the "real" news to make it sound more interesting.

just use common sense.

*www.astronomy.com/
*www.nature.com/
*www.skyandtelescope.com/
*www.jpl.nasa.gov/ <---- jpl is fricken badass

*www.polaris.iastate.edu/AstroWebSites.html more sources.

most of these sites carry research papers, mostly dealing with the cutting edge science, but depending on how much you know, they can either be very useful or totally useless.

or just subscribe to the relevant sub-reddits.

lyrids shower tonight... hope the clouds clear up

JPL has one of the most well designed and comprehensive websites I have seen regarding astronomy.

*spaceflightnow.com/2014/12/03/hayabusa-2-launches-on-audacious-asteroid-adventure/

Japanese H-IIA kicks off Hayabusa 2’s asteroid mission | NASASpaceFlight.com

Japan is the only country to have managed to return samples of an asteroid to Earth and they are doing it again. JAXA has overtaken NASA and ESA in asteroid exploration..

Wow. And almost no coverage of this.

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So glad this is happening during my lifetime. NASA officially announces manned Mars mission.: NASA's Orion Test Flight Gets Us Closer to Mars - Businessweek

Test flights begin tomorrow.

Just saw comet Lovejoy. It visits the sun once in 8000 years.
First spot orion, then betelguese nearby, it's a bright red star
then line up betelguese and aldebaran - both are red stars, pleiades and lovejoy should be side by side, roughly in a straight line to that.
this makes it easy : How To Spot Comet Lovejoy With The Naked Eye

WOw. And now you post?

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BTW, expect high quality images of Pluto after July 14th this year: *en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Pluto_approach

have been really unlucky in spotting lovejoy. Thanks for the link. Very useful.

*www.sciencenews.org/article/aurora-shift-confirms-ganymede’s-ocean

Aurora shift confirms Ganymede’s ocean

Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, has solidified its membership in the growing cadre of solar system locales where liquid water flows beneath the surface.

“The solar system is now looking like a pretty soggy place,” Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, said March 12 at a news conference.

The ocean showed itself not with plumes or pools but via subtle changes in Ganymede’s aurora, the moon’s version of the Northern Lights. Jupiter’s magnetic field should interfere with Ganymede’s, causing the moon’s aurora to rock back and forth by about 6 degrees. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope, however, showed that the aurora shifted by only about 2 degrees. Joachim Saur, a geophysicist at the University of Cologne, Germany, and colleagues deduced that an electrically conductive fluid beneath the surface — a saltwater ocean, for example — would create a secondary magnetic field that counteracted Jupiter’s interference.

Observations with the Galileo probe, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003, hinted at Ganymede’s ocean (SN: 12/23/00, p. 404), but the flybys were too brief to provide unambiguous evidence. Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus also hide subsurface oceans and researchers suspect that there may be water within Jupiter’s moon Callisto and the dwarf planet Ceres. “Every observation we make,” said Heidi Hammel, a planetary scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., “takes us one step closer to finding a truly habitable environment.”

for those keeping count, that is Europa, Enceladus and Ganymede now
maybe they have mermaids

I would love to see them send a probe to Europa. I am very confident there is life there under the surface.

Europa Report spoiler

*38.media.tumblr.com/89d48b6215b56f6da132925cd1c3bf55/tumblr_mr42jpFN5D1rcdliqo1_500.gif

Is that from the movie The Abyss?

nope. Europa Report.

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DeSmOnD dAvId said:
I would love to see them send a probe to Europa. I am very confident there is life there under the surface.

synopsis of the movie

When unmanned probes suggest that a hidden ocean and single-celled life exists on one of Jupiter's moons, six astronauts embark on an ill-fated exploratory mission.

annnd just realised that was a spoiler.

You could have deleted that before I read it

it was the .gif, not the synopsis. fixed it now.

I love these Astronomy topics.
Its amazing how small are humans compared to the objects present in the universe as per our limited knowledge.

*upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Comparison_of_planets_and_stars_(sheet_by_sheet)_(Jan_2015_update).png
(let me know if image doesnt show up)

I am curious about the long discussion over the internet about the so called Planet X. If any of you or OP can enlighten some knowledge on it will be great

AFAIK, everyone agrees that Planet X does not exist.

^well, they forgot to show burning scorching earth, with stuff being evaporating, not to mention furious seismic activies, for as long as there is liquid core in earth.

on an other important note, get ready for New Horizon's Pluto flyby mission this july, when Pluto landscapes, mountains, craters will be mapped and named.....

The Mapping of Pluto Begins Today | The Planetary Society
Pluto Science, on the Surface | The Planetary Society

*planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/9-small-bodies/2015/20150227_Pluto-Earth-for-PIP-2-26-15-lg.jpg
pic: pluto as seen by hubble ST (left), and picture of earth(right) with similar pixelization.

icebags said:
^well, they forgot to show burning scorching earth, with stuff being evaporating, not to mention furious seismic activies, for as long as there is liquid core in earth.

on an other important note, get ready for New Horizon's Pluto flyby mission this july, when Pluto landscapes, mountains, craters will be mapped and named.....

The Mapping of Pluto Begins Today | The Planetary Society
Pluto Science, on the Surface | The Planetary Society

*planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/9-small-bodies/2015/20150227_Pluto-Earth-for-PIP-2-26-15-lg.jpg
pic: pluto as seen by hubble ST (left), and picture of earth(right) with similar pixelization.

GG

A good time to be alive.

vote for naming Pluto's features
Vote - pluto

I vote Cthulhu.

Earth Tapestry
more voting, this is a disc engraved with the information about places on earth and what the planet thinks of them
it will be sent to the moon

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NASA wants to give the moon an artificial moon

Anorion said:
NASA wants to give the moon an artificial moon

Makes sense. We can observe the moon better. Also, a good step towards colonizing the moon.

meanwhile NASA's Dawn mission is a success, it has started circling around Ceres after spending some days with Vesta, and became a satellite to the dwarf planet Ceres between Mars and Jupi. it looks quite amazing how it entered into the orbit, reverse gravitational capture oO.

and for the first time in history humankind detected those two bright spots on Ceres, and left peoplekind guessing what these actually are ?

further details etc available here :

My guess is volcanos.

cryovolcanoes
or the eyes of an elder god

such small piece of astronomical object is unlikely to have such hot molten core, probably what they are saying is the case, internal icy stuff/cryovolcano got exposed due to asteroid impact or some radio active deposits from also asteroid impacts.
to say, Ceres is very much black like slate, and those bright sponts even though look so bright in picture, should not be much brighter than just being dull, probably just higher reflective materials.

*www.astro.virginia.edu/class/skrutskie/images/aster_ceres_size.jpg

Yes, it is smaller compared to other heavenly bodies. But it is still pretty large by asteroid standards.

@

Guys can you suggest me a telescope

I wanted to buy a Telescope and had kept postponing. Now PayTM has a offer going on, about 40% off, which makes it a sweet deal.

Looking for a beginner telescope. Can anyone suggest me something? It's mostly for astronomical viewing ( but terrestrial view wouldn't hurt. ) Don't need a smaller one or compact, it can be big as much it can.

Budget - 9-10K (so that post offer its 5-6K)

dancing duet !

*www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/1-opnav3_barycen_noano-1041.gif
[MENTION=89794]@vi[/MENTION] u ain't be seeing this with no telescope brother.

NASA and Dawn need some help on those Ceres lights
*www.jpl.nasa.gov/dawn/world_ceres/
Voted for other

^^ i guess nasa employees have voted for "other" option themselves as well.

I voted other as well.

It could be a volcano though not so likely.

@

[MENTION=44484]icebags[/MENTION] yo man what are those balls

Anorion said:
NASA and Dawn need some help on those Ceres lights
*www.jpl.nasa.gov/dawn/world_ceres/
Voted for other

I voted for Geyser

@vi said:
[MENTION=44484]icebags[/MENTION] yo man what are those balls

they are dual dancing balls, bouncing at the farthest end of our solar system..... :-D

*i.imgur.com/bZkttDU.png?1

It was April 30th. R.I.P.

*www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4582
Mystery of Ceres Lights solved. They are saying it was sun light reflecting on ice. Mostly. There were more of it.

1

Those are diamond mines.

Philae, the comet lander that was carried and deployed by the Rosetta probe has awoken 7 months after landing and makes contact with Earth.

*ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/83618000/jpg/_83618962_83618961.jpg

*ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/83619000/jpg/_83619241_83619240.jpg

Source: Philae comet lander wakes up, says European Space Agency - BBC News

Pictures from the surface of comet 67P

*ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/78999000/jpg/_78999684_78999683.jpg

14th july has started, the day of the closest approach in the flyby :

*pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/pics/Pluto%20Annotated%207-12-15.jpg

*pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/pics/Charon%20Annotated%207-12-15.jpg

*planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/9-small-bodies/2015/20150710_pluto_charon_150709_color_final.png

*planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/9-small-bodies/2015/20150713_nh-7-13-15_pluto_charon_image_nasa-jhuapl-swri.png

Wow, the size ratio seems pretty small between Charon and Pluto.

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Wow, the size ratio seems pretty small between Charon and Pluto.

yea, charon is 1/5 th of pluto as per the data given, and as new horizons is approaching from the top, and charon being nearer in the last pic, it seems bigger than usual.

also, to celebrate this event, there is this pluto time link :
Solar System Exploration: : Pluto Time

while sitting on pluto, scientists figured out it is not completely dark, light conditions on earth sometimes matches pluto. check it out, share your neighboring image of that time.

for me, just found out, before sunrise on july 14 at 4:56 am matches the light conditions of pluto noon time.

This is awesome. I never though we would get to see such clear images of Pluto ever.

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Looks like Pluto time from my location will be at 7:19 PM today.

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Here are some pics of Saturn and its moon taken by the Cassini probe: Cassini - Album on Imgur

yah they said there will be images with 10 times higher resolution and enormous amount of data from now on. so, we can expect the cassini - saturn like images soon.

check this qna if have not yet.
[YOUTUBE]4BmybiFW6_8?t=9m54s[/YOUTUBE]

Latest updated images

*i.imgur.com/ra38TRa.png

Neptune looks scary
*i.imgur.com/WWcJT21.jpg

That is Neptune, not Uranus.

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
That is Neptune, not Uranus.

Corrected.

i want all 9 marbles!

R

Yes that is neptune not uranus.

*i.imgur.com/QdehqOB.jpg
planets and moons

Whose moons are these?

Jupiter, and Saturn

Reimagined with water I hope.

terraformed

I wonder where you'd get all the water to terraform a planet or moon which does not have much water to begin with.

One possibility could be to crash a comet on it somehow.

yes
a lot of comets would be necessary
think there will have to be some kind of material relay pipeline across the solar system to get stuff from where it is abundant to where it is rare.

Anorion said:
yes
a lot of comets would be necessary
think there will have to be some kind of material relay pipeline across the solar system to get stuff from where it is abundant to where it is rare.

Not possible in practice. Even if it were possible, how would you account for the rotation and revolution of the source and destination planets? Both source and destination would have to be geosynchronous with one another.

Comets are the best bet.

not saying actual pipeline
maybe some kind of railguns or mass drivers at particular locations. It's not just water, like we may need to remove some of the nitrogen on Titan and move it to Mercury and Venus, then take metals from Mercury and dump it into Venus. Some of the greenhouse gasses on Venus can help melt down some of the ice on Europa, and then it would be useful to get rid of the extra water, which can be used on Mercury.
terraforming some of these (mercury, venus) would need large mirrors to simulate day/night cycle and/or create shade...

Can't imagine how much funds all that would require.

If only we could develop wormholes somehow. :chinscratch:

Oh no, that is just the ideal situation if we think and plan everything with a holistic approach
commercial interests on earth are going to pave the way, and we are bound to make many short sighted decisions... say just pumping the excess nitrogen on Titan into space, because it is not useful there

^^Terraforming.

I think best candidates are Moon, Mars, and Europa in the longer run (but it has jupiter radiation). Sun will expand as supernova so best bet then will be Europa.

Ganymede, Iapetus, Enceladus and Mimas good options as well
Jupiter radiation is a good thing. And Io can be energy station... geothermal converted to microwave beams for outer solar system.
and yeah, don't think we would bother with the inner solar system

Mountains could be formed due to tectonic shifts.

Anorion said:
not saying actual pipeline
maybe some kind of railguns or mass drivers at particular locations. It's not just water, like we may need to remove some of the nitrogen on Titan and move it to Mercury and Venus, then take metals from Mercury and dump it into Venus. Some of the greenhouse gasses on Venus can help melt down some of the ice on Europa, and then it would be useful to get rid of the extra water, which can be used on Mercury.
terraforming some of these (mercury, venus) would need large mirrors to simulate day/night cycle and/or create shade...

sounds quite nice, i wonder why they don't make a sim-solar system.

meanwhile, with higher res detailed images coming up, some new questions and features have emerged :

-> both pluto & charon are near kuiper belt objects and should get bombarded withobjects very now and then. still, charon shows more impact caters and pluto has them rare.
-> charons polar 2 o'clock area has a big long kilometers deep crater line, but very smoother places at other sides, how strange is that !
-> pluto has methane, a lot.
-> but methene & nitrogen don't form pointy mountains, so they are hard water ice mountains from eruptions ?
-> pluto has thin atmosphere, but showfall did not cause those mountains either.
-> their surfaces are quite active probably still today,
-> inside both, there is heat..... from radio active core probably ?

here is the link of comparative geological planetology of pluto and charon, go through it, if feel interested .
First look at New Horizons' Pluto and Charon images: "baffling in a very interesting and wonderful way" | The Planetary Society

these are found to be some interesting worlds unlike other planets / satellites observed so far, and expected scientists will probably get greedy and plan lander/orbiter missions to pluto system in future.

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DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Mountains could be formed due to tectonic shifts.

yah isnt that amazing ? such a small body is having tectonic shifts .... that means molten core, which in term means a lot of heat inside. when a small body is found to be holding heat that much , then it has to be that its comparatively new.

tectonic shift may also be caused by huge gravitational pull by something big, but no such thing is there near pluto. that effect is more normal in jupiter moons.

yes, surprise to know that that thing is geologically active

Some cool stuff from the Philae comet lander: All the Amazing Stuff We Just Learned About Philae's Comet

*pop.h-cdn.co/assets/15/31/980x490/landscape-1438277906-philae-crop.jpg

The comet's surface at a distance of 3km:

*pop.h-cdn.co/assets/15/31/1024x1024/gallery-1438278836-philae-2.jpg

^ that is still an interesting looking dumbbell shaped piece of rock. any idea if it may break into pieces or dive into the stormy jupiter anytime sooner or later ?

The course of the comet hasn't been reported anywhere. Therefore I have no idea.

However, the comet Shoemaker Levy crashed into Jupiter back in 1994.

Edit:

Shoemaker-Levy 9's collision with Jupiter in infrared (left of Jupiter):

*upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Max_Planck_Institute_Shoemaker%E2%80%93Levy_9.gif/220px-Max_Planck_Institute_Shoemaker%E2%80%93Levy_9.gif

NASA releases the closest close up of Pluto's surface:

[video]*i.imgur.com/1FMM1xa.webm[/video]

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
NASA releases the closest close up of Pluto's surface:

[video]*i.imgur.com/1FMM1xa.webm[/video]

that's one very soft and creamy surface indeed, looks like lots of soft ice there.

on the other side, there is Akatsuki mission update :

JAXA is trying out their final attempt to recover Akatsuki mission, with Venus orbit insertion. they missed Venus in 2010, now in 2015 the spacecraft has once again come close to the planet, to make them one last attempt.

here is the recovery procedural timeline :

Sunday, December 6 (Japan time): Akatsuki turns to orbit insertion attitude.
Dec 7 04:30 JST / Dec 6 19:30 UT / Dec 6 11:30 PST: Usuda Deep Space Center begins tracking Akatsuki.
Dec 7 08:22 JST / Dec 6 23:22 UT / Dec 6 15:22 PST: Akatsuki enters Venus' penumbra.
Dec 7 08:51 JST / Dec 6 23:51 UT / Dec 6 15:51 PST: Akatsuki fires one set of RCS thrusters for about 20 minutes to enter Venus orbit.
After the firing, Akatsuki will automatically rotate to prepare for a second attempt at orbit insertion with its opposite set of RCS thrusters. Akatsuki will wait for instruction from Earth to find out if the second attempt is needed.
Dec 7 12:00 JST / Dec 7 03:00 UT / Dec 6 19:00 PST: JAXA will hold a press briefing from Sagamihara. At the press briefing, they will only be able to say whether or not the attitude control system functioned as commanded. It will take until December 9 to confirm that the spacecraft successfully entered Venus orbit. Another press briefing is scheduled for that day.
December 7, afternoon (Japan time): Canberra Deep Space Network begins tracking Akatsuki.

more details here, here & here, and also here :

because pictures make posts more attractive sometimes :

*planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/charts-diagrams/20151205_20151109_akatsuki_traj-01.png

Why did it fail before? Bad calculation of trajectory?

Akatsuki has re-entered orbit BTW.

*mobile.twitter.com/NatureNews/status/673679718772797440

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Why did it fail before? Bad calculation of trajectory?

as per wikipedia it was a technical issue with main engine - either the communication speed was lower than expected and it went behind venus before full data upload, or the engine jammed and did not burn for the required time or something like that.

however, some failsafe instructions took over, and they could communicate with the craft later, but meanwhile it over shot venus, and went into a trajectory around sun. they main engine is not responding anymore, but they are trying stuff with altitude control thrusters.

hopefully this modern craft will send us some interesting analysis on veneran atmosphere, & our kind japan scientists will do humanity a favour by publishing some info in english.

on the orbital insertion success, you may leave a message of congrats or encouragement to jaxa team here :

JAXA | Messages for Akatsuki

Speaking of Venus, did you know that Soviet Russia had planned of setting up a colony on Venus? More like a space station observatory though.

they fantasized a lot about venus perhaps, from their earlier missions, they launched a mission every ear, and in some years more than one. but all they could find was acid.

space station observatory around venus may seem a decent idea, smaller size solar panel will produce enough electricity to power the systems & as well as the ion thrusters, so it may have a longer orbital life there.

but not sure what much to find there, soviet landing probes have already shown what is there, even if it had life or anything, they all got dissolved in acid by now.

on the other hand, earth itself becoming more venus day by day. :lol:

US signs first space mining law: New US space mining law to spark interplanetary gold rush

geminid shower, awesome

What time is it?

throughout the night, was new moon yesterday, clear skies.
very nice one to watch. today also should be there.

Wolf 1061c is the closest 'habitable' planet outside our solar system ever found

Super-Earth Wolf 1061c is the closest 'habitable' planet outside our solar system | Daily Mail Online

falcon9 launch & land :

Update from the Rosetta: Water ice found on the surface of comet 67P

never could understand why water would be so scarce out there, space is full of hydrogen, can't they just form some crystalline water molecules while bombarded to oxides ?

The JUNO probe reaches Jupiter - *www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36710768

The Juno satellite, which left Earth five years ago, had to fire a rocket engine to slow its approach to the planet and get caught by its gravity.

A sequence of tones transmitted from the spacecraft confirmed the braking manoeuvre had gone as planned.

Receipt of the radio messages prompted wild cheering at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"All stations on Juno co-ord, we have the tone for burn cut-off on Delta B," Juno Mission Control had announced. "Roger Juno, welcome to Jupiter."

Scientists plan to use the spacecraft to sense the planet's deep interior. They think the structure and the chemistry of its insides hold clues to how this giant world formed some four-and-a-half-billion years ago.

Engineers had warned in advance that the engine firing was fraught with danger.

No previous spacecraft has dared pass so close to Jupiter; its intense radiation belts can destroy unprotected electronics.

One calculation even suggested the orbit insertion would have subjected Juno to a dose equivalent to a million dental X-rays.

But the probe is built like a tank with titanium shielding, and the 35-minute rocket burn appeared to go off without a hitch.

"Nasa did it again," said an elated Scott Bolton, Juno's principal investigator. "That says it all to me. And I'm so happy to be part of the team that did that. I mean this team has worked so hard and we have such great people. And it's almost like a dream coming true right here."
.
.
.

Also, the name Juno is a joke with a 400 year old setup - When Galileo discovered Jupiter had moons each was named for one of Jupiter's mistresses. In an hour the Juno spacecraft, named for his wife, will arrive. A joke scientists have setup over 400 years. : spac

yes, we have been overlooking this important mission to the big jupiter here, even though this mission is a first of its kind.

to start with, whats going to happen, we may check out the juno trailer :

# this spacecraft is first one thats powered by solar panels, on a mission to exo-solar orbits. previous ones were powered by plutonium rod or something, but, scarcity of suitable radioactive stuff & advancement in solar cell technology made this happen.
the 3 tennis court long panels could have produced 14-15 kilowatts of power on earth, powering an entire office/school building (non-ac) or a few residential homes. but the same will make 400-500 watts @ jupiter's orbit, to power its instruments adequately.

# the mission orbit will be an elliptical orbit, designed to get into very close poisonous fields of jupiter for a relatively short period of time (14 hrs i guess), to collect the data, then rush out from the field by firing up the engine to a greater distance, to save itself from the radiation and transmit the data back to earth. it's described here :

nasa youtube channels have already started uploading information, science data and live streams, to keep us fans up to date (i wish isro did share science data and findings like nasa does, but all isro does, is share some pretty pictures and keep the science data mostly private, no matter what they find). we can have an audio visual experience of one of those here :

finally, as juno approaches, more and more pictures start to show up, here the approach video from junocam, over a time span of 48 hrs (fast forwarded ofc) : callisto is the farmost & dimmest, io is the closest fast mover, in between are gaynemede & europa :

i also hope, while moving so fast near jupiter, juno doesn't collide with some weird interplanetary objects.

osiris x mission is away with an atlas v rocket, to return some samples from nother world. this launch video is superb, and there is ice too at the end :

discussion :

Highest resolution shot of the Andromeda galaxy taken by Hubble:

Bandwidth warning:

*www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/hs-2015-02-a-hires_jpg.jpg

Path to be taken by Cassini before it will plunge into Saturn.

*i.imgur.com/v1emxyJ.gif

I didn't know NASA planned to dump it into the planet.

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

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According to the Cassini wikipedia page: Cassini–Huygens - Wikipedi

... it is currently going to be destroyed in 2017 by flying into Saturn, since is it is running out of fuel for orbital corrections. The probe will dive into the planet to avoid potential biological contamination of Saturn's moons.

^it will automatically get pulled into saturn's deep after consuming all the fuel. because it will not be able to correct its trajectory anymore.

The probe will dive into the planet to avoid potential biological contamination of Saturn's moons

Saturn moon is fine. What about Saturn, won't that get biological contaminated?? Or it doesn't matter as life on Saturn is impossible?

The probe will get destroyed pretty quickly due to all the pressure.

Saturn does not have any hard surface that you can stand on. Its basically a huge mass of gas. It is said that if Saturn were to be placed on a large body of water, it will float, so low is its density.

There might be a solid surface deeper, but there is no evidence so far.

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the day, when satellites were put into orbit, like carpet bombing in space !

This is something worth sharing. Scishow Space is really good YouTube channel that puts out quality content each week.

SciShow Space
- YouTub

Been following them for a year and a half now.. They really do some good research before making their videos.

and we are still struggling with a proper GSLV launch. *sigh*

on an other side, furthest star discovery by hubble scope happened after 900 crore years of light travel. thanks to some kind of galactic lens thing.

Hubble images farthest star ever seen
Hubble Uncovers the Farthest Star Ever Seen

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icebags said:
and we are still struggling with a proper GSLV launch. *sigh*

Rest assured no other nation in this world made as much space mission progress as India per dollar spent.It will take at least a dozen GSLV failures consecutively to justify the above statement.Space mission & Atomic program are the only two things done by India which are recognized by the world(as real scientific achievements).

Voyager and Hubble are awesome missions no doubt. However, the GSLV did not fail. The satellite failed to achieve the target altitude, the launch vehicle performed flawlessly. In the previous IRNSS launch, the deployment mechanism of the heat shield or nose cone failed. Despite these failures, ISRO rocket launches are the cheapest and most reliable in the world.

^ those may be true, but after 40 years of working in the field, the only reliable launcher is our hand is the 25 yrs old low payload launcher psalv. it has been long, and should have mastered medium payload launching by now and should have started planning for heavy launchers.

sometimes cost effectiveness is not the only measure to success, we need to run against the time too. :unsure:

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^^What you are saying holds true for a rich/developed nation,not India which is neither rich(like China) nor developed(like many EU nations). Nations like USA,Russia,China need to race against time because of their strategic & commercial goals.In India where almost half billion people are not even considered "properly literate"(in India definition of literate incl able to write own name & few other basic things) even a world class PSLV is a real achievement.Btw out of last 40 years only the period from 1995 onwards count as before 1991 economic reforms India was essentially a poor country.

Few days ago, japan landed rovers / landers / hoppers on asteroid ryugu, that can hop, float & move around on the asteroid surface.

one of the captured images from one of the rovers :

*planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/spacecraft/2018/20180922_minerva-ii1-rover-1a-2.jpg

Yeah mid hop, pretty epic

ye.

on the other hand, do we have any kind of first contact protocol ready ? :unsure:

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icebags said:
on the other hand, do we have any kind of first contact protocol ready ?

haha.

wut wut what lol

I doubt any kind of protocol would work. First of all, we don't even know what type of communication would extra-terrestrials use. It could be so outlandish that communication could be impossible.

Watch Andrei Tarkovskys' movie Solaris. It deals with a similar subject matter.

Edit: The movie is in public domain and available for free on youtube.

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Desmond David said:
I doubt any kind of protocol would work. First of all, we don't even know what type of communication would extra-terrestrials use. It could be so outlandish that communication could be impossible.

Watch Andrei Tarkovskys' movie Solaris. It deals with a similar subject matter.

Edit: The movie is in public domain and available for free on youtube.

More important issue :lol:

SETI institute has some general guidelines

Guys, I have a chance to ask questions to the team who developed the software for AstroSat, Chandra Telescope, GMRT and the upcoming Square Kilometer Array. Please let me know if you have any questions.

My direct email id is aditya.m [at] 9dot9.in

are those going to be published in digit mag ?

Honestly, I am not sure what questions to ask. What do they use the software for?

icebags said:
are those going to be published in digit mag ?

yes

Desmond David said:
Honestly, I am not sure what questions to ask. What do they use the software for?

I donno lol, anything the particular instrument is supposed to do, this is software on board. That itself is a good question haha.

lots of college students read the mag, asking questions about software career opportunities would be good. like - what kind of software are used there, to which roles, when they conduct interviews for those jobs, if preparing for those jobs, what kind of software skills are asked for and valued in the interviews. as well as job environment, stress of work etc.

lastly asking something like a story from his actual work experience what got used in those satellite operations would be great. like, what kind of challenge he faced, how he planned and sorted it out. and how his pieces of codes got executed in work functions of those satellite operations.

Desmond David said:
Honestly, I am not sure what questions to ask. What do they use the software for?

well, they use it from launching to setting up onboard computer, every thing. here is an workaround example of how apollo 7 computer worked during it's moon mission. this replica is build with more modern instruments by hobbyists, but they show the functions of the computer quite nicely.

(intersteller music included !)

this thread has been sleeping for long, but just to update some recent event to subscribers :

Japanese Hayabusa mission returned to earth with samples collected from asteroid ryugu.

jaxa mission livestream for retrieving sample from australian desert :

anton's analysis :