The Astronomy Thread

LachiusTZ

LachiusTZ

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Arecibo might be losing its funding, cause they didnt want money from Russians to find aliens.

Magellan has a new target 32 lightyears from earth, should be able to get details about its atmosphere (when launched).

There was something else, oh, they found a new exo planet with an orbit nearly out to the Oort cloud.

Big day apparently.
 
iannis

iannis

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How did the find an exoplanet with an orbit that far away?

Around a different star I assume, not our own? Because from what I know the way that they actually find exoplanets would preclude them from finding one within our own system.
 
LachiusTZ

LachiusTZ

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I be damned, didnt think anything had ever landed on Venus (admittingly I never took the time to look, Lol). Coolbeans.
 
gogusrl

gogusrl

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There's a very interesting article somewhere about the hardware and how they took those pictures. I'll see if I can find it.
 
Szlia

Szlia

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When I saw the pictures, the thing that surprised me the most, given the short time the module could stay on Venus before melting, is how they managed to transfer the data fast enough.
 
Cad

Cad

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The environment there is just crazy, the pressure combined with the heat is just insane. Also0, the russians build some bullshit.

The Venera 9 lander operated for at least 53 minutes and took pictures with one of two cameras; the other lens cap did not release.

The Venera 10 lander operated for at least 65 minutes and took pictures with one of two cameras; the other lens cap did not release.

The Venera 11 lander operated for at least 95 minutes but neither camera's lens cap released.

The Venera 12 lander operated for at least 110 minutes but neither camera's lens cap released.
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LOL. 4 fucking space probes to venus and 75% of the lens caps don't release.

The Venera 13 lander survived for 127 minutes, and the Venera 14 lander for 57 minutes, where the planned design life was only 32 minutes. The Venera 14 craft had the misfortune of ejecting the camera lens cap directly under the surface compressibility tester arm, and returned information for the compressibility of the lens cap rather than the surface.
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Wonder if they tortured the lens cap guy for like 20 years after these incidents.

rrr_img_116256.gif
 
LachiusTZ

LachiusTZ

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I remember mercury being more hospitable than Venus. My fault was thinking the environment was what kept us off mercury. Apparently going there takes a ridiculous amount of energy since the craft would gain so much speed (kinetic energy) falling towards the sun.

Should be a point where you can send a craft around the sun then use the sun and mercurys gravity to brake it. But I guess not.

Anyway, the 75% failure rate is impressive. I wonder if they all failed for the same reason (maybe they kept tossing the guy into a Siberian prison and so the design flaws were never fixed. Lol)
 
Eomer

Eomer

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LachiusTZ_sl said:
I wonder if they all failed for the same reason
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I would imagine they did. Think about it for a second: Venus has extremely high atmospheric pressure. If the lens caps on the cameras were outright sealed for space travel, there would be a huge amount of pressure holding them in place that would need to be overcome. It actually makes perfect sense that they had a fair amount of trouble with them. And depending on when each mission was designed, launched, landed and had problems they may well not have been able to change the design of later probes in time to fix the issue.
 
Cad

Cad

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Eomer_sl said:
I would imagine they did. Think about it for a second: Venus has extremely high atmospheric pressure. If the lens caps on the cameras were outright sealed for space travel, there would be a huge amount of pressure holding them in place that would need to be overcome. It actually makes perfect sense that they had a fair amount of trouble with them. And depending on when each mission was designed, launched, landed and had problems they may well not have been able to change the design of later probes in time to fix the issue.
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rrr_img_116262.jpg


??
 
LachiusTZ

LachiusTZ

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Dunno, Russians are pretty good at solving problems.

It's why they had a jet that could land on a dirt road (Fulcrum?).

It's interesting.
 
Eomer

Eomer

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Cad_sl said:
??
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I'm sure hundreds of Soviet scientists and engineers overlooked such a simple solution due to incompetence, despite the fact that they otherwise designed probes that successfully accomplished a very difficult and technically challenging mission.
 
Cad

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Eomer_sl said:
I'm sure hundreds of Soviet scientists and engineers overlooked such a simple solution due to incompetence, despite the fact that they otherwise designed probes that successfully accomplished a very difficult and technically challenging mission.
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Yea I think they greatly underestimated the actual conditions on Venus. I'm just being funny with the sliding cover.
 
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