The Astronomy Thread
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Anyone know of a decent article/whatever on what architectural engineering might look like in various gravity levels? Nothing too technical, just something for a layman.
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meStevo
I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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Mars imaged by a briefcase-sized cubesat for the first time.
News | NASA's First Image of Mars from a CubeSat
News | NASA's First Image of Mars from a CubeSat
NASA's MarCO mission was designed to find out if briefcase-sized spacecraft called CubeSats could survive the journey to deep space. Now, MarCO - which stands for Mars Cube One - has Mars in sight.
One of the twin MarCO CubeSats snapped this image of Mars on Oct. 3 - the first image of the Red Planet ever produced by this class of tiny, low-cost spacecraft. The two CubeSats are officially called MarCO-A and MarCO-B but nicknamed "EVE" and "Wall-E" by their engineering team.
A wide-angle camera on top of MarCO-B produced the image as a test of exposure settings. The MarCO mission, led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, hopes to produce more images as the CubeSats approach Mars ahead of Nov. 26. That's when they'll demonstrate their communications capabilities while NASA's InSight spacecraft attempts to land on the Red Planet. (The InSight mission won't rely on them, however; NASA's Mars orbiters will be relaying the spacecraft's data back to Earth.)
This image was taken from a distance of roughly 8 million miles (12.8 million kilometers) from Mars. The MarCOs are "chasing" Mars, which is a moving target as it orbits the Sun. In order to be in place for InSight's landing, the CubeSats have to travel roughly 53 million miles (85 million kilometers). They have already traveled 248 million miles (399 million kilometers).
MarCO-B's wide-angle camera looks straight out from the deck of the CubeSat. Parts related to the spacecraft's high-gain antenna are visible on either side of the image. Mars appears as a small red dot at the right of the image.
To take the image, the MarCO team had to program the CubeSat to rotate in space so that the deck of its boxy "body" was pointing at Mars. After several test images, they were excited to see that clear, red pinprick.
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meStevo
I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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RIP Kepler?
Nasa's Kepler space telescope might be dead
Overnight, Nasa said that it had attempted to get in touch with the telescope and found that it had gone into its sleep mode, during which it uses no fuel. Engineers are not clear why it has happened, though it might suggest that the telescope has finally run out of power.
"Following a successful return of data from the last observation campaign, the Kepler team commanded the spacecraft into position to begin collecting data for its next campaign," Nasa wrote on its page for the telescope. "On Friday October 19, during a regularly scheduled spacecraft contact using NASA’s Deep Space Network, the team learned that the spacecraft had transitioned to its no-fuel-use sleep mode.
Nasa's Kepler space telescope might be dead
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RIP Kepler?
Overnight, Nasa said that it had attempted to get in touch with the telescope and found that it had gone into its sleep mode, during which it uses no fuel. Engineers are not clear why it has happened, though it might suggest that the telescope has finally run out of power."Following a successful return of data from the last observation campaign, the Kepler team commanded the spacecraft into position to begin collecting data for its next campaign," Nasa wrote on its page for the telescope. "On Friday October 19, during a regularly scheduled spacecraft contact using NASA’s Deep Space Network, the team learned that the spacecraft had transitioned to its no-fuel-use sleep mode.
Nasa's Kepler space telescope might be dead
All the big space telescopes are messed up. Go figure. Coincidences suck.
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Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Real fucking idiotic we have zero capability to service those things. Went to the moon in god damn 1969 but cant put a person into orbit in 2018.RIP Kepler?
Overnight, Nasa said that it had attempted to get in touch with the telescope and found that it had gone into its sleep mode, during which it uses no fuel. Engineers are not clear why it has happened, though it might suggest that the telescope has finally run out of power."Following a successful return of data from the last observation campaign, the Kepler team commanded the spacecraft into position to begin collecting data for its next campaign," Nasa wrote on its page for the telescope. "On Friday October 19, during a regularly scheduled spacecraft contact using NASA’s Deep Space Network, the team learned that the spacecraft had transitioned to its no-fuel-use sleep mode.
Nasa's Kepler space telescope might be dead
But hey at least we can chop off dicks nowadays.
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Gavinmad
Mr. Poopybutthole
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...Do you have any fucking clue how far away Kepler is from Earth?
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Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Gavinmad
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Well you got the first two numbers correct, now try adding about six zeroes.
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Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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Unlike Hubble, which is in earth orbit and can (and was) serviced, Kepler is in deep space heliocentric orbit. So, to service it, we need to go beyond the Moon.
But yea. That's the main problem of space telescope: they cannot be expanded, upgraded or serviced, and they need to fit into a launcher. They're oneshot missions. I'm a big fan of the next generation of telescope: the lunar telescope which has the advantages of a space telescope (no magnetic field, no atmosphere) and those of a ground one (built to order, maintained, repaired, extended).
Plus you need a moonbase for that.
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Gavinmad
Mr. Poopybutthole
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It's also Earth-trailing, which means it gets farther away from us every year. Judging from my deep KSP experience, a manned mission to service Kepler probably isn't even possible and even if it were would probably more expensive than just launching 10 more Keplers.
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pharmakos
soʞɐɯɹɐɥd
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The aliens sabotaged them so that we can't see them coming for their mass invasion until it's too late.
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Gavinmad
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Kepler's primary mission ended in like 2013 due to reaction wheel failure, so since then it's just been on an improvised replacement mission anyway.
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LachiusTZ
Rogue Deathwalker Box
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Damnit, beat me to it.
Re: Kepler
Relevant, possible repost. Saw this a month or 2 ago.
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meStevo
I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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