The Astronomy Thread
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Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Its just rather idiotic "they" "demoted" the thing.I know as a kid I always wanted to see what Pluto looked like and throughout the years I always used to here it'll be a boring chunk of frozen ice and today at 41 I'm glad all those fucks have been proven wrong. Pluto is turning out to be one of the most interesting planets in the system. It's moons are just as equally interesting. We can learn a lot from it's whole system. I really hope they re-classify planets because Pluto has it's own satellite system and I think that should qualify it as a planet. 5 moons? 1 or more satellites? Planet! Clearing it's own orbit is bullshit.
Was this posted already?
go to 6:45;
go to 2:30
Wish I could find the video of him talking about why I think the organizations like iau are dumb.
Furry
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In further pluto news:
Earlier in this thread I guessed that pluto's appearance was likely due to continued surface activity. As science starts to roll in, it appears that guess may be correct. Pluto has an atmosphere that is fairly considerable at over 100 miles thick, and has a considerable amount of haze, that this haze essentially cycles up into the atmosphere, is converted by sunlight and then slowly drifts down onto the surface of the planet. Essentially, it has a constant extremely slow motion light drizzle going on that gives the planet its brownish color and likely has worked to reduce or eliminate the appearance of craters over time. Incredibly cool to show this remote object has such a dynamic environment, when we were so sure that it was essentially just an ice ball.
Conversely, charon has no or nearly no atmosphere, making it a starkly different object than pluto.
Link to pic that makes the atmopshere quite obvious:http://i.space.com/images/i/000/049/...jpg?1437762161
Earlier in this thread I guessed that pluto's appearance was likely due to continued surface activity. As science starts to roll in, it appears that guess may be correct. Pluto has an atmosphere that is fairly considerable at over 100 miles thick, and has a considerable amount of haze, that this haze essentially cycles up into the atmosphere, is converted by sunlight and then slowly drifts down onto the surface of the planet. Essentially, it has a constant extremely slow motion light drizzle going on that gives the planet its brownish color and likely has worked to reduce or eliminate the appearance of craters over time. Incredibly cool to show this remote object has such a dynamic environment, when we were so sure that it was essentially just an ice ball.
Conversely, charon has no or nearly no atmosphere, making it a starkly different object than pluto.
Link to pic that makes the atmopshere quite obvious:http://i.space.com/images/i/000/049/...jpg?1437762161
Urlithani
Vyemm Raider
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Question about Kepler 452b, and sorry if this was already asked: how long will it take to determine its atmospheric composition?(if we even have technology/instruments that can do that) Also, are there any other hints in the data we receive from extrasolar planets besides oxygen in the atmosphere that can be gleaned to show evidence of life as we know it?
Furry
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It's very hard to give an exact answer to this question. Essentially, spectroscopy is very good and exact science that is limited by data sets. due to this, our information about the planet will grow in precision and certainty every time it transits across the surface of its star, which is once eery 385 days and by how many devices and to what precision they are pointed at this star. That said, detecting complex life is currently JUST beyond the limits of technology, but within the capabilities of what we could build. So basically, we could know fairly complex information about its atmosphere in a few years, but nothing complex enough to definitely answer the question of if life could exist at the moment, though that could and almost certainly will change.
Furry
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No idea on the capabilities of seta. My guess is no, they wouldn't be capable of measuring emissions in the specifically needed spectrums.
iannis
Musty Nester
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I think they basically abandoned any real maintenance of SETI in the 90's and repurposed it once even Carl Sagan admitted it was probably a complete waste of time.
Edit: I seem to remember reading somewhere that many of the dishes still exist and all that, but they're not just aiming it around randomly as a listening post. They're taking what methodical observations they can with the tool. They probably point it at quasars and shit... because what else are you really gonna do with it?
Edit: I seem to remember reading somewhere that many of the dishes still exist and all that, but they're not just aiming it around randomly as a listening post. They're taking what methodical observations they can with the tool. They probably point it at quasars and shit... because what else are you really gonna do with it?
Urlithani
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From what I understand, photosynthesis is the only natural occurrence that creates O2, since O2 usually bonds with carbon to make CO2. (I may be butchering this statement with my ignorance).
Would finding a planet with a rich oxygen atmosphere draw a probable conclusion of the presence of life, even simple life such as cyanobacteria that oxygenated our planet billions of years ago, or would it take more than that to get excited?
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Mudcrush Durtfeet
Hungry Ogre
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Furry
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Detection of elements is not sufficient to prove or disprove life. Complex molecules would need to be detected, which is substantially more difficult than detecting things like oxygen. I don't presume to know much about organic chemistry, but I can tell you that the spectroscopic methods used will ONLY detect atmospheric composition. There really wouldn't be an 'aha' smoking gun moment, rather a collection of data over time might slowly point us to the belief that the planet is indeed favorable or unfavorable to life. Don't expect a breakthrough anytime soon.