Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

Discussion on science, nature and technology across the globe.
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Nereus
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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

Post by Nereus »

What an incredible structure! A perfect example of just how much China has advanced in the last few short years.
..................................................................................................................
World’s largest radio telescope will search for dark matter, listen for aliens

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/ ... ten-aliens

DAWODANG, CHINA—In a stunning landscape of jagged limestone hills in southwestern China, engineers are putting the finishing touches on a grand astronomy facility: a half-kilometer-wide dish nestled in a natural depression that will gather radio signals from the cosmos. The world’s largest radio telescope will catalog pulsars; probe gravitational waves, dark matter, and fast radio bursts; and listen for transmissions from alien civilizations.

Yet the architect of the tour de force is blasé about what his telescope might capture. “I’m really not very interested in science, I’m sorry to say,” says Nan Rendong, chief scientist and chief engineer of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) here. Colleagues insist he is joking, but there is no question that what has consumed 2 decades of his life— and is now wowing other astronomers—is engineering. “As a civil engineering feat, FAST is obviously amazing,” says Fred Lo, former director of the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Charlottesville, Virginia.

It is not just FAST’s sheer size—it has more than twice the collecting area of the runner-up, the 305-meter dish in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. FAST is also breaking new ground in radio astronomy with a design that pulls a section of the spherical dish into a gradually moving paraboloid to aim at and track cosmic objects as Earth rotates, bringing the benefits of a tilting, turning antenna to a fixed dish. This innovation “is absolutely unique, nobody has ever done this before,” says Dick Manchester, a radio astronomer at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Sydney. 

photos and more at the link.........................>>>>>>>>>>.
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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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Stargeezer wrote: Tue Jun 06, 2017 5:41 am Is anyone coming to the USA for the August 21st 2w017, Solar eclipse. If so there will only be a few million of us other
people some where along the path. I may be spotted in Idaho or Wyoming along with a few hundred or so
other Canadians, in amongst the thousands of American amateur astronomers and sun eclipse chasers.
Geezer
I take it you got to see the event Stargeezer - how was the experience? Chaotic with the number of people I would assume! :wink:

Perhaps this would have been the way to see the event....... although a tad expensive I guess!!



:cheers: :cheers:
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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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Great article to read, who would have guessed technology now used in Mobile phones was developed for the Voyager program

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2017081 ... ce-mission
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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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Here's what the eclipse looked like from my back yard:

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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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A 4.4km-wide asteroid will whiz past Earth today

https://thewest.com.au/news/world/a-44k ... b88587364z

Saturday, 2 September 2017 9:35AM

As astrologers wait for an invisible planet to slam into Earth in October, astronomers are watching in awe as a 4.4km wide asteroid whizzes past our planet today.
Called Florence, NASA says the space rock became the largest to pass close (in celestial terms) to our planet - a mere 7 million kilometres - in more than a century.
That’s roughly 18 times more distant than the Moon is from the Earth.

So there’s really no chance it’ll make a sudden right-turn into oncoming traffic (us).
NASA says Florence is a typical asteroid: a bundled assortment of leftover starstuff from the time of the formation of our Solar System.

Exactly what that is not yet known -- though it’s bright. Florence is reflecting about 20 per cent of the sunlight that strikes its surface. The Moon, in contrast, bounces back just 12 per cent.
And it’s spinning fast -- rotating once every 2.4 hours.

But even its size -- based on observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope -- is uncertain. It may appear larger if it has a closely orbiting ’moonlet’.
It was first found by Australia’s Siding Spring Observatory in 1981. It was named after Florence Nightingale, who invented modern nursing and developed new statistical techniques.
Astronomers have been using space radar and ground-based telescopes to observe the size and shape of the asteroid. This should be able to map its surface down to a resolution of 3m -- outlining individual boulders and craters.

It is hoped figuring out its exact weight and shape could help refine calculations of its orbit.
While it orbits the Sun once every 2.35 years, it’s not expected to come anywhere near this close to Earth again until 2500.

Only about 10 similarly-sized asteroids are known to cross Earth’s orbit.
NASA has projected paths for all of them, and none are likely to hit -- at least for several centuries to come.
If it did hit, it would be cataclysmic. Asteroids only 1km across are capable of destroying civilisation as we know it. One 4km across would be dramatically worse.
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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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Cassini bids fiery farewell from Saturn

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general ... recent_box


The Cassini spacecraft on Friday sent out its final signal, ending a groundbreaking 13-year mission with a meteor-like plunge into the atmosphere of saturn, transmitting data until the last moment.

The first spacecraft to orbit Saturn ended its mission around 11.54 GMT shortly after it lost contact with Earth as it entered the gas giant's crushing atmosphere at about 113,000 kilometres per hour, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) said.

"Our spacecraft has entered Saturn's atmosphere, and we have received its final transmission," Nasa said in a post on Twitter, via its official @CassiniSaturn profile.

The end of Cassini's odyssey, which began with its launch in 1997 and a seven-year journey to the ringed planet, was met with applause, hugs and tears from Nasa officials after its final transmission was received.

Cassini's final transmissions are expected to include unprecedented data from the atmosphere's upper fringe about 1,915km above Saturn's cloud tops. The data took 86 minutes to reach Nasa antennas in Canberra, Australia.

"Not only do we have an environment that just is overwhelming with an abundance of scientific mysteries and puzzles, but we've had a spacecraft that's been able to exploit it," said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Cassini's final dive ended a mission that gave scientists a ringside seat to the sixth planet from the Sun. The craft's discoveries included seasonal changes on Saturn, a hexagon-shaped pattern on the north pole and the moon Titan's resemblance to a primordial Earth.

Cassini also found a global ocean on the moon Enceladus, with ice plumes spouting from its surface. Enceladus has become a promising lead in the search for places where life could exist outside Earth.

The spacecraft has produced 450,000 images and 635 gigabytes of data since it began probing Saturn and its 62 known moons in July 2004.

Cassini is a cooperative project between Nasa, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, and was launched in October 1997 from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Since the spacecraft was running low on fuel, Nasa crashed it into Saturn to avoid any chance the spacecraft could someday collide with and contaminate Titan, Enceladus or another moon that has the potential for indigenous microbial life.

Cassini started a series of 22 orbital dives in April, using Titan's gravity to slingshot itself into the unexplored area between the planet and its rings. The spacecraft studied Saturn's atmosphere and took measurements to determine the size of the planet's rocky core.

Nasa scientists have said Cassini's final photo as it heads into Saturn's atmosphere will likely be of gaps in the rings caused by tiny moons.
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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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Solar probe's mission to 'touch' the sun

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/1 ... recent_box

LAUREL, Maryland, USA: The unmanned Parker Solar Probe, which is slated for liftoff next year, will be mankind's first-ever visit to our nearest star. The probe "will travel through the sun's atmosphere, closer to its surface than any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions - and ultimately providing humanity with the closest-ever observations of a star," NASA said in a statement......
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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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Interesting stuff here:

"Groundbreaking gravitational wave discovery shows Einstein's brilliance yet again"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/groundbreaki ... 55007.html

"Scientists detect gravitational waves from a new kind of nova, sparking a new era in astronomy"

http://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world ... astronomy/

"The world looks different after today's big neutron star collision discovery"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/world-looks- ... 26610.html
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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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There was no shortage of threats facing Apollo astronauts on missions to the Moon. Like radiation. Specifically, the dense radiation environment of the Van Allen belts that surround our planet. ... And not one astronaut died from passing through the Van Allen Belts according to Nasa.

The Moon hoax conspiracy theorists believe that also, as they say no one crossed it as yet to go to the moon, as they did not have sufficient technology to protect them from the dense radiation fifty years ago, and some say even today same applies ? And why has no one gone back in fifty years, a space station should already have been set up and established by now.

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-the-Van-A ... -important
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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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"Dark Matter and Energy Don't Exist: Astronomer Claims to Solve Universe's Greatest Mysteries With New Model"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/dark-matter- ... 38754.html
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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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There is no doubt man will conquer space, but the dense radiation environment needs to be overcome first.

Dark matter they say is the future fuel of interstellar travel.

https://bruceleeeowe.wordpress.com/2010 ... -possible/
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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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How to get to Mars

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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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Super Full Moon treat this Sunday
November 28, 2017 10:26 By The Nation http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/ ... l/30332680

The biggest Super Full Moon this year will occur on Sunday, December 3, and will be visible from 6pm onward in Thailand, a leading astronomer said on Tuesday.

Saran Poshyachinda, the director of the National Astronomical Research Institute, said next month's phenomenon will occur when the moon's orbit is closest to the earth, and will be about 357,973 kilometres away.

He said the distance will be about 14 per cent shorter than the apogee phenomenon, when the moon is farthest from earth.

At that distance, the Supermoon on December 3 will be about 30 times brighter than normal.

Saran added that the biggest Supermoon for next year will occur on January 2 with the moon being about 356,595 kilometres from the earth.

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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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This thing is amazing; it's like the energizer bunny, keeps going, and going, and going!

"NASA turns to Voyager’s dormant thrusters for first time in 37 years – and they work!"

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nasa-tur ... 07049.html
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Re: Astronomy, cosmology and space thread

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The biggest Super Full Moon this year will occur on Sunday, December 3, and will be visible from 6pm onward in Thailand, a leading astronomer said on Tuesday.
Moons up! Clear sky in Bangkok.
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