The Astronomy Thread

pharmakos · Sep 13, 2019

that interstellar comet is going to be visible well into next year? mannnnnnn would be so damn cool if Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk throws a ton of money at a mission to get a probe to this thing before it leaves our solar system. obviously it'd have to be a private space program that does it, because NASA would never be able to get the bureaucracy cleared to start a mission before this thing is gone.

Oldbased · Sep 13, 2019

pharmakos said:
that interstellar comet is going to be visible well into next year? mannnnnnn would be so damn cool if Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk throws a ton of money at a mission to get a probe to this thing before it leaves our solar system. obviously it'd have to be a private space program that does it, because NASA would never be able to get the bureaucracy cleared to start a mission before this thing is gone.

Funny you say that.
I was telling someone yesterday out in that real life that in my opinion, we are a space planet when we have the ability to launch rockets with probes/crewed capsules on a days notice. As it is right now it takes years usually to build, design and prepare for each mission.
The day we have shit ready to go just for the fuck of it, is the day we are truly space age.

Gavinmad · Sep 13, 2019

pharmakos said:
that interstellar comet is going to be visible well into next year? mannnnnnn would be so damn cool if Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk throws a ton of money at a mission to get a probe to this thing before it leaves our solar system. obviously it'd have to be a private space program that does it, because NASA would never be able to get the bureaucracy cleared to start a mission before this thing is gone.

It's too far away/we spotted it too late even if we had a mission ready to launch today. It reaches perihelion in early December, will still be farther away than Mars, AND on the wrong side of the sun from us.

The closest thing to a viable launch window for a direct landing would have been back in like January or even somewhere in late 2018.

pharmakos · Sep 14, 2019

Gavinmad said:
It's too far away/we spotted it too late even if we had a mission ready to launch today. It reaches perihelion in early December, will still be farther away than Mars, AND on the wrong side of the sun from us.

The closest thing to a viable launch window for a direct landing would have been back in like January or even somewhere in late 2018.

yeah i almost instead posted saying i wish this thing showed up like a decade or four in the future because we'd be that much closer to the day's-notice-launch that

Oldbased is dreaming of. either way i was going to be guessing about whether or not a launch was possible (be that launch today or in 2050), but yeah my initial feeling was that give us a few more decades and it'd be a lot more possible

khorum · Sep 14, 2019

Olebass said:
Funny you say that.
I was telling someone yesterday out in that real life that in my opinion, we are a space planet when we have the ability to launch rockets with probes/crewed capsules on a days notice. As it is right now it takes years usually to build, design and prepare for each mission.
The day we have shit ready to go just for the fuck of it, is the day we are truly space age.

It's peacetime, so safety-engineering is why we can't have nice things. It's why new technology take decades to enter service.

Once we're in another global war that'll speed up real fast. If our adversary can project power in space, you bet your ass we'll be up there in a couple days' notice.

Gavinmad · Sep 14, 2019

khorum said:
It's peacetime, so safety-engineering is why we can't have nice things. It's why new technology take decades to enter service.

Once we're in another global war that'll speed up real fast. If our adversary can project power in space, you bet your ass we'll be up there in a couple days' notice.

That or profitability. I figure that within 10 years of someone sniffing out a good profit margin in space we'll have stations at every lagrange point in the entire solar system.

Lambourne · Sep 14, 2019

Think Scott Manley mentioned that the new systems are far more capable of detecting these interstellar bodies, so it's likely we're going to see more of them in the coming years. They might even be very common, we just haven't been detecting them.

Ukerric · Sep 14, 2019

Gavinmad said:
It's too far away/we spotted it too late even if we had a mission ready to launch today. It reaches perihelion in early December, will still be farther away than Mars, AND on the wrong side of the sun from us.

The closest thing to a viable launch window for a direct landing would have been back in like January or even somewhere in late 2018.

And it requires a shit-ton of delta-V if you want a rendez-vous rather than a simple pass.

Gavinmad · Sep 14, 2019

Ukerric said:
And it requires a shit-ton of delta-V if you want a rendez-vous rather than a simple pass.

Ackshually Earth and Borisov have really similar velocities so with a good launch window (long since past) the DV requirements for a one-way trip would be remarkably low when you also add in the lack of atmosphere or gravity.

khorum · Sep 14, 2019

You only need all the extra delta v for a rendezvous if you wanted to COME BACK. Lithobraking works fine if not.

meStevo · Sep 14, 2019

Avalanche on Mars. Avalanche Season on Mars

Gavinmad · Sep 14, 2019

khorum said:
Lithobraking

Even if KSP 2 never came out I would still cherish it forever for Lithobraking.

Oldbased · Sep 15, 2019

I thought this was posted here but maybe it wasn't. I got my name in and family.
Basically the rover launch next year is going to have a microchip with millions of names on it. If you don't mind giving NASA your name/email, which let's be honest, they already have way more than that probably, it is a neat thing. The idea of my name being on a chip on Mars for all eternity was a bit thrilling to me. A bit of immortality so to speak.

Nearly 11 Million Names of Earthlings are on Mars Perseverance - NASA Science

When the Perseverance rover safely touched down on the Martian surface, inside Jezero Crater, on Feb. 18, 2021, it was also a safe landing for the nearly 11 million names on board.

mars.nasa.gov

Brahma · Sep 16, 2019

Massive Neutron star.

This is close to the limit of how much mass a compact object can contain before it crushes itself into a black hole.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/16/world/massive-neutron-star-scn/index.html

meStevo · Sep 17, 2019

Here's Io transiting Jupiter from Cassini some time ago:

Now here's a similar event, from Juno's perspective:

More data/reprojections can be found here: JunoCam : Processing | Mission Juno

meStevo · Sep 19, 2019

New research suggests there are probably hundreds of billions of planets just in our own galaxy. This is based off a sample of red dwarfs that appear on average to have 2-3 planets per system.

Red dwarfs: Tiny, faint, and loaded with planets

A new study shows red dwarfs have, on average, 3 planets per star, and most are more like Earth than Jupiter.

www.syfy.com

khorum · Sep 20, 2019

That super-sharp penumbra is eerie.

pharmakos · Sep 22, 2019

meStevo said:

someone better than me at photoshop art should turn that into an eye. the pupil and iris would barely need to be touched, just add the sclera

Oldbased · Sep 22, 2019

pharmakos said:
someone better than me at photoshop art should turn that into an eye. the pupil and iris would barely need to be touched, just add the sclera

Done

iannis · Sep 22, 2019

khorum said:
It's peacetime, so safety-engineering is why we can't have nice things. It's why new technology take decades to enter service.

Once we're in another global war that'll speed up real fast. If our adversary can project power in space, you bet your ass we'll be up there in a couple days' notice.

Might not even take another war. Just a general willingness to accept risk.

War would for SURE do it. But if a little green man walked up to our rover on mars and waved at it, that would too I think. The public may or may not be aware of why there is suddenly a much higher tolerance for risk. If we find something worth the risk there are still plenty of men with more bravery than self preservation instinct who don't have to be persuaded.

Part of the problem is we know what's on the moon, now. And it ain't that much that we can't get more easily in other ways. I mean it sucks, but preservation of the species is not an argument. Preservation of your family is an argument.

Hopefully there's something valuable on mars to find.

The Astronomy Thread

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