The Astronomy Thread

meStevo

meStevo

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They've got telemetry for the ExoMars lander from the craft they successfully put into orbit:

The data have been partially analysed and confirm that the entry and descent stages occurred as expected, with events diverging from what was expected after the ejection of the back heat shield and parachute. This ejection itself appears to have occurred earlier than expected, but analysis is not yet complete.

The thrusters were confirmed to have been briefly activated although it seems likely that they switched off sooner than expected, at an altitude that is still to be determined.
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Schiaparelli descent data: decoding underway

Edit: an earlier presser seems to put that a little more plainly - The ExoMars Lander Malfunctioned Within 50 Seconds of Touchdown on Mars
 
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meStevo

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Emily posted this for comparison's sake.

CvUpuuIVYAARHcD.jpg


 
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spronk

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http://phys.org/news/2016-10-stars-strange-aliens-contact.html

article said:
The two astronomers used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and analyzed the spectra of 2.5 million stars. Of all those stars, they found 234 stars that are producing a puzzling signal. That's only a tiny percentage. And, they say, these signals "have exactly the shape of an ETI signal" that was predicted in a previous study by Borra.

The 234 stars in Borra and Trottier's study aren't random. They're "overwhelmingly in the F2 to K1 spectral range" according to the abstract. That's significant because this is a small range centred around the spectrum of our own Sun. And our own Sun is the only one we know of that has an intelligent species living near it. If ours does, maybe others do too?

The authors acknowledge five potential causes of their findings: instrumental and data reduction effects, rotational transitions in molecules, the Fourier transform of spectral lines, rapid pulsations, and finally the ETI signal predicted by Borra (2012). They dismiss molecules or pulsations as causes, and they deem it highly unlikely that the signals are caused by the Fourier analysis itself. This leaves two possible sources for the detected signals. Either they're a result of the Sloan instrument itself and the data reduction, or they are in fact a signal from extra-terrestrial intelligences.

To sum it all up, the two astronomers have found a tiny number of stars, very similar to our own Sun, that seem to be the source of pulsed signals. These signals are the same as predicted if a technological society was using powerful lasers to communicate with distant stars.
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IAJhEG6.jpg
 
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Tripamang

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A group of scientists has always been bothered by the viking lander results testing positive for life in one experiment for metabolism but failed another to detect organic compounds. So they spent years analysing all the possible explanations and came to the conclusion that life is the most likely culprit.

Did 40-year-old Viking experiment discover life on Mars?
 
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Tripamang

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So the universes expansion rate was calculated using about 70 type 1a super novas all over the observable universe which gave a sigma 5. (higher sigmas mean they're more likely to be real, the higgs boson was sigma 7 as an example) . Well they analysed 10x as many super nova in a recent study and it dropped to 3! This throws the concept of an expanding universe into question and might remove the necessity of dark energy. If it pans out we may be living in a very stable universe.

The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate—or is it?
 
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Sentagur

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Tripamang said:
So the universes expansion rate was calculated using about 70 type 1a super novas all over the observable universe which gave a sigma 5. (higher sigmas mean they're more likely to be real, the higgs boson was sigma 7 as an example) . Well they analysed 10x as many super nova in a recent study and it dropped to 3! This throws the concept of an expanding universe into question and might remove the necessity of dark energy. If it pans out we may be living in a very stable universe.

The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate—or is it?
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This might fuck with allot of theories if it turns out to be true in any way.
 
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Ukerric

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Moogalak said:
If Planet Nine Is Out There, It Tilts Our Solar System - The New York…
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Just be careful because most of the modalities in which a 9th massive planet is responsible for the axial tilt of the sun appear to be incompatible with the proposed 9th planet that explains the orbits of Oort Plutoids (that are also mentioned in the article).

Which is sad, because at the moment, both "Planet 9" are entirely based on simulations (you can't really solve equations over billion of years with very little data points to anchor them), and if they both pointed to the same planet, it would make a more compelling case.
 
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Tuco

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I got Tuco'd!
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Void said:
Sure, but as my fantasy goes, the ship is already built and at least seems like it has a reasonable chance of success, not "a comet is coming and we have to build it right now even if we aren't ready." In reality it is far more likely that a human element fucks it all up and kills everyone first, but either way, who cares? Statistically speaking I'm going to die in the next 10-40 years anyway, why not do it trying for something awesome?
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My guess is your trip would be terminated jn s few hundred years by some bro knocking on the door of your craft saying, "hey, you guys can keep going if you want but uh, we have warp 3 right now and we started feeling bad about leaving yall just crawling through the void."
 
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Zaara

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Tuco said:
My guess is your trip would be terminated jn s few hundred years by some bro knocking on the door of your craft saying, "hey, you guys can keep going if you want but uh, we have warp 3 right now and we started feeling bad about leaving yall just crawling through the void."
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83b.gif
 
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Void

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Zaara said:
View attachment 94402
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Hah! I'm not sure if he got his pun or not, but that gif cracks me up.

And you're probably right Tuco, but my answer is still that I'd go. At least I'd still be an actual bro when that xer knocked on our door, with both sets of genitalia (or none) and an inability to speak unless cleared by xer implant dictating safe speech.
 
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iannis

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Tuco said:
My guess is your trip would be terminated jn s few hundred years by some bro knocking on the door of your craft saying, "hey, you guys can keep going if you want but uh, we have warp 3 right now and we started feeling bad about leaving yall just crawling through the void."
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That's both true, but also not an unassailable reason to not bother.

Because if we don't bother you'll probably never get warp3.

What it will take, I think, is to find a habitable planet within the near stellar neighborhood. Raw materials will never be enough. What it will require is something colonizable. Because more and more what we are going to lack isn't material or industry but elbow room.

And we won't find one of those for a few generations. If one even exists.
 
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