Dorky stuff about the Universe

hedonist

Haha - we're on the 9th floor so should be OK. Either way, to quote Elton, "and I'm gonna be hiiiiigh as a kite by then"

brianlux

I was looking forward to this rare event but we're getting a lot of cloudage that looks to be too high and thin for rain but probably enough to obscure the view. I think I'll need to be Eight Miles High if I want to see the moon but I'm not sure I'm up to going there, haha!

oftenreading

Up here so high the sky I scrape....

Waiting for the eclipse in my house amongst the trees.

dignin

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/mars-nasa-science-finding-1.3246527

Mars study finds evidence of liquid, salty water

Jason P

15 year old kid located a lost Mayan city based on the constellations:

A 15-year-old boy believes he has discovered a forgotten Mayan city using satellite photos and Mayan astronomy.

William Gadoury, from Quebec, came up with the theory that the Maya civilization chose the location of its towns and cities according to its star constellations.

He found Mayan cities lined up exactly with stars in the civilization's major constellations.

Studying the star map further, he discovered one city was missing from a constellation of three stars.

Using satellite images provided by the Canadian Space Agency and then mapped on to Google Earth, he discovered the city where the third star of the constellation suggested it would be.

businessinsider.com/teenager-discovers-ancient-mayan-city-in-the-yucatan-jungle-2016-5

hedonist

How very cool is that, Jason? Not just the discovery itself, but also that a 15-year-old had the curiosity and drive to pursue this.

Go, William!

Jason P

Tonight will be the darkest night of the past 500 years

The Earth's shadow will begin to blot out the moon at 1:32 a.m. EST (10:32 p.m. PST). During totality, when the Earth is directly between the moon and the sun, the moon will turn a rusty orange-red for 72 minutes from 2:41 a.m. to 3:53 a.m. EST (11:41 p.m. to 12:53 a.m. PST).
Europe and Africa will only get a partial view of the eclipse, but for those of us here in the Americas the best times to watch are during those 72 minutes of totality.

io9.gizmodo.com/5715413/tonight-will-be-the-darkest-night-of-the-past-500-years

oftenreading

Jason P said:

Tonight will be the darkest night of the past 500 years

The Earth's shadow will begin to blot out the moon at 1:32 a.m. EST (10:32 p.m. PST). During totality, when the Earth is directly between the moon and the sun, the moon will turn a rusty orange-red for 72 minutes from 2:41 a.m. to 3:53 a.m. EST (11:41 p.m. to 12:53 a.m. PST).
Europe and Africa will only get a partial view of the eclipse, but for those of us here in the Americas the best times to watch are during those 72 minutes of totality.

io9.gizmodo.com/5715413/tonight-will-be-the-darkest-night-of-the-past-500-years

Wow!

But it will probably be cloudy and rainy here as usual, obscuring any view.

HughFreakingDillon

HesCalledDyer said:

The light area of Pluto at the bottom kinda looks like Snoopy's head from a profile view.

I actually thought it looked like Pluto the disney dog. how fucking weird is that?

Jason P

If a Star Destroyer going at warp speed set it's coordinates to slam into a planet, wouldn't it cause global extinction and negate the need to build a Death Star?

Think about it. Man, the empire could have used a guy like me.

tbergs

oftenreading said:

Jason P said:

Tonight will be the darkest night of the past 500 years

The Earth's shadow will begin to blot out the moon at 1:32 a.m. EST (10:32 p.m. PST). During totality, when the Earth is directly between the moon and the sun, the moon will turn a rusty orange-red for 72 minutes from 2:41 a.m. to 3:53 a.m. EST (11:41 p.m. to 12:53 a.m. PST).
Europe and Africa will only get a partial view of the eclipse, but for those of us here in the Americas the best times to watch are during those 72 minutes of totality.

io9.gizmodo.com/5715413/tonight-will-be-the-darkest-night-of-the-past-500-years

Wow!

But it will probably be cloudy and rainy here as usual, obscuring any view.

Anyone else notice the article date is from 2010?

eddiec

Jason P said:

If a Star Destroyer going at warp speed set it's coordinates to slam into a planet, wouldn't it cause global extinction and negate the need to build a Death Star?

Think about it. Man, the empire could have used a guy like me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/32xkh1/star_warswould_a_planet_survive_a_star_destroyer/

Jason P

A spectacular shot of Jupiter

http://www.businessinsider.com/juno-images-of-jupiter-2017-1

Jason P

Below is a link to JunoCam which took that picture. You can actively participate in the mission

https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam

g under p

Jason P said:

Below is a link to JunoCam which took that picture. You can actively participate in the mission

https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam

That was pretty cool.

https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing?id=527facebooktwitter

https://missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing?id=527facebooktwitter

Jason P

New pic of Jupiter's north pole

oftenreading

Jason P said:

New pic of Jupiter's north pole

If I squint I think I can see Santa....

Jason P

Very interesting.  If it is from an advanced civilization, they are probably long gone by now.

A mysterious object in a galaxy 500 million light-years away is confusing scientists with its signals. It appears to be transmitting signals that reach Earth in a repeating, 16-day pattern, but researchers have no idea why.

According to a recent study, this marks the first time astronomers have detected a reliable pattern in the signals, known as fast radio bursts, or FRBs. It's an important step in figuring out where the bursts originate from.

Before now, such pulses appeared to be random in timing. That changed when the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst Project (CHIME/FRB) discovered a repeating pattern.

The recently detected FRB, known as FRB 180916.J0158+65, sends out bursts that last for four days before stopping for 12 days and then repeating. The first 28 cycles were observed between September 2018 and October 2019 using the CHIME radio telescope in British Columbia.

"We conclude that this is the first detected periodicity of any kind in an FRB source," the study's authors said. "The discovery of a 16.35-day periodicity in a repeating FRB source is an important clue to the nature of this object."

...

https://www.wibw.com/content/news/A-mysterious-deep-space-radio-burst-is-sending-signals-to-Earth-every-16-days-567811321.html

myoung321

NASA released an updated version of the famous "Pale Blue Dot" image of Earth taken by Voyager to celebrate the photograph's 30th anniversary.

(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)

On Feb. 14, 1990, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft captured one of the most iconic photographs of the space age; to commemorate the moment's 30th anniversary, NASA has digitally dusted off the image.

Known as the "Pale Blue Dot" photo, the original image showed Earth as a tiny speck within a band of brightness caused by sunlight striking the spacecraft's instrument. The photograph was the result of a campaign led by scientist Carl Sagan to convince NASA to turn Voyager 1 around and take a photo of the planet where its story began. Just 34 minutes later, according to NASA, the spacecraft's camera shut down so the probe could save power.

mysticweed

Please explain: do the trillions of neutrinos that pass through our bodies each day go through us and the earth and come out the other side and vice versa?