The Astronomy Thread

Sentagur

Sentagur

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spronk said:
that weird star system ~1500 light years away that possibly has a dyson sphere under construction is back in the news

[1608.01316] KIC 8462852 Faded Throughout the Kepler Mission
No known or proposed stellar phenomena can fully explain all aspects of the observed light curve

gION8Jq.jpg


The light dropoffs, from our POV, are like this

FgxdSJb.jpg
Click to expand...

So IT IS a dyson orbital cluster!

gION8Jq.jpg


FgxdSJb.jpg
 
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Ukerric

Ukerric

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Cad said:
Clearly we need to start working on an interstellar mission to visit that system immediately.
Click to expand...
1500 LY away. Can't expect the results soon.

Btw, this dim-out resurrects the first dim-out paper. An astronomer did a study using old Harvard photographic plates and concluded to a dimming of close to 20% over a century. People looked at the paper, and found lots of holes, and essentially said "no way this star dimmed that much".

The Kepler study extrapolates to a 10% dimming over a century, which is not the 20% initially suggested, but means the paper was probably sound after all.

I still think it's the On-Off Star
 
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Mudcrush Durtfeet

Mudcrush Durtfeet

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khorum said:
So Moon Express finally got FAA and NASA approval for their private moon mission and their shot at the Google Lunar Xprize. They're gonna be the first private company to leave earth orbit. Which kinda explains why they'd pick someone other than spaceX to make their first two stages:

Click to expand...


Last I checked, the moon itself is in Earth orbit, so anything going there is not also leaving Earth orbit. :p
 
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khorum

khorum

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NASA's new HDR Stereo camera designed specifically to capture the dynamics within the booster plume:

 
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Borzak

Borzak

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Shits hot, I could have told them that for a fraction of the price.
 
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Daelos

Daelos

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I like how SpaceX have changed how we perceive the challenge of relanding boosters from "that's stupidly impossible" to "oh, yeah, they did it again" in less than a year.
 
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Jysin

Jysin

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Daelos said:
I like how SpaceX have changed how we perceive the challenge of relanding boosters from "that's stupidly impossible" to "oh, yeah, they did it again" in less than a year.
Click to expand...

Basically.. the moon landings for 2016.
 
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Siddar

Siddar

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Daelos said:
I like how SpaceX have changed how we perceive the challenge of relanding boosters from "that's stupidly impossible" to "oh, yeah, they did it again" in less than a year.
Click to expand...

The reason for this is because for everyone besides space X it is.

Space X can land its first stage because it uses nine small engines instead of one to three larger engines like other rockets. Those nine engines allow them to scale thrust downward enough by shutting down engines to allow first stage to land. Other rockets simply cant reduce their thrust enough to safely land.
 
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khorum

khorum

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They just stuck their sixth first stage landing yesterday. They're actually running out of storage space for all the recovered first stages now. Their own assessments didn't anticipate this much success so soon.

I think most people know that spacex actually plans for the ENTIRE mission stack to be reusable----so the first, second and even the dragon capsule is meant to land eventually.

Here's the abort test for the dragon capsule, but the motors on it are actually designed to eventually allow the capsule to land on earth or mars:

 
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pharmakos

pharmakos

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googled some other articles... its actually around Proxima Centauri, the Centauri system has three stars in it... Proxima is a red dwarf, which tend to be pretty violent, so the planet might be fucked from solar activity despite being in the habitable range. but, life, uh.... finds a way. (jeffgoldblum.jpg) our closest neighbors for sure having a planet in the habitable range is huge.
 
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