Astronomy and space exploration

It is quite something. Launching two humans and landing the first stage on a boat. Space has changed.

(also great to see The Orange One lionising a company run by an illegal immigrant, and their success in fulfilling the goals set by the Obama administration).

Fixed that for you. Musk visa allowed him to study in the US, not to work (he founded Zip2 back then). Also, I'd say that this is finally happening thanks to different admins, Bush administration paved the way for commercial cargo missions, Obama started the crew program, and Bridestine is hiring private companies to develop lunar landers. Space is probably one of the few fields where there is a lot of bipartisan agreements.

BTW, I don't wanna spam or anything but I did a little montage about the mission. The video is not monetized or anything, I just like space thingies.

 
Fixed that for you. Musk visa allowed him to study in the US, not to work (he founded Zip2 back then). Also, I'd say that this is finally happening thanks to different admins, Bush administration paved the way for commercial cargo missions, Obama started the crew program, and Bridestine is hiring private companies to develop lunar landers. Space is probably one of the few fields where there is a lot of bipartisan agreements.

BTW, I don't wanna spam or anything but I did a little montage about the mission. The video is not monetized or anything, I just like space thingies.

Nice! ^_^
 
PROMO.5e8c9a1e68de4.png

Peidong Yang and Getty Images

Bioreactor for Mars Converts CO2 into Organic Building Blocks
Those building blocks could be combined to make food or fuel, both critical for Martian colonists.

Stephen J. Mraz
APR 07, 2020




If humans ever hope to colonize Mars, settlers will need to manufacture a range of organic compounds, from food to fuels to drugs, that are too expensive to ship from Earth.

Chemists at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have a plan for that. For the past eight years, they have been working on a hybrid device that combines bacteria and nanowires to capture sunlight’s energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into building blocks for organic molecules. Nanowires are thin silicon wires about one-hundredth the width of a human hair, used as electronic components, as well as sensors and solar cells.
https://www.machinedesign.com/mecha...ars-converts-co2-into-organic-building-blocks

There are a few other experimental projects out there trying to convert CO2 into oxygen. This could have uses here on Earth, as well.
 
Rocketlabs failed in 2nd stage at or maybe a bit before battery hotswap.
Doesn't necessarily mean anything but significantly more glitchy feed than other launches.
 
Nuclear blast sends star hurtling across galaxy
July 15, 2020
A star has been sent hurtling across the galaxy after undergoing a partial supernova, astronomers say.

A supernova is a powerful explosion that occurs when some stars reach the ends of their lives; in this case, the blast was not sufficient to destroy it. Instead, it sent the star hurtling through space at 900,000 km/hr.

Astronomers think the object, known as a white dwarf, was originally circling another star, which would have been sent flying in the opposite direction.



_113397032_ejected_star_-_v2b.jpg

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53415294
 
https://www.theguardian.com/science...comet-neowise-spectacular-journey-in-pictures
comet.jpg

Ive looked a couple of nights, and could bearly see it with the naked eye (much worse than the above photo)
Speaking as someone who remembers the great disappointment of haley's comet back in 87 ........ this was even more disappointing :p

Take the following foto, shot close to where I was looking the next day. WTF theyre not even using a super long exposure, what I bearly saw was about magnitude 4-5

5541.jpg
 
Last edited:
I looked for it last night, which was the first non-cloudy evening here for nearly two weeks. I couldn't see anything.

Some of my colleagues have managed to take some decent photos though over the past week or so. The combination of light pollution and a light cirrus or haze can play havoc with visibility of such things.
 
The combination of light pollution and a light cirrus or haze can play havoc with visibility of such things.
True but the thing is I could easily see all 7 stars of the big dipper (least bright 3.3) and a lot of stars of magnitude 4.0+ quite clearly, shows the magnitude was between 4-5. The only thing I could see of it was out of the corner of my eye a little bit of a smudge, If I had no idea it was there I would never of noticed it
 
Multiplanet system around sunlike star photographed for 1st time ever
By Mike Wall 2 days ago

missing-image.svg


The two newly imaged planets are huge — 14 and 6 times more massive than Jupiter.

For the first time ever, astronomers have directly imaged multiple planets orbiting a sunlike star.

The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile photographed two giant planets circling TYC 8998-760-1, a very young analogue of our own sun that lies about 300 light-years from Earth, a new study reports.
https://www.space.com/multiplanet-system-sun-like-star-first-photo.html

Amazing!

And now one of my questions: if they can directly image planets from a system 310 light years far away from us, why can't they do it in more detail with Proxima Centauri or other planetary sistems way closer to us?
 
Maybe this is why
"The two newly imaged planets are huge — 14 and 6 times more massive than Jupiter."
Yes, I took that into account. However, mass =/= size (even though yes, of course it usually means bigger), and so many other variables.

At any rate, if you can image a planet 10 times bigger than Jupiter, so to speak, can't you image one the size of Jupiter at a 90% closer distance?

I'm way too impatient for these things. :D:D:D
 
Maybe this is why
"TYC 8998-760-1b is about 14 times more massive than Jupiter and orbits at an average distance of 160 astronomical units (AU), and TYC 8998-760-1c is six times heftier than Jupiter and lies about 320 AU from the host star. (One AU is the average Earth-sun distance — about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers. For comparison: Jupiter and Saturn orbit our sun at just 5 AU and 10 AU, respectively.)"
 
Maybe this is why
"TYC 8998-760-1b is about 14 times more massive than Jupiter and orbits at an average distance of 160 astronomical units (AU), and TYC 8998-760-1c is six times heftier than Jupiter and lies about 320 AU from the host star. (One AU is the average Earth-sun distance — about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers. For comparison: Jupiter and Saturn orbit our sun at just 5 AU and 10 AU, respectively.)"
Yes, I know. I'd like to know better, though. :mrgreen:
 
This is amazing!
Imagine what we could find if we had this sort of telescope on the Moon or in space where there is no atmosphere!

Can't wait to buy my ticket to the Moon when they start selling them for under $1k :D
 
This is amazing!
Imagine what we could find if we had this sort of telescope on the Moon or in space where there is no atmosphere!

Can't wait to buy my ticket to the Moon when they start selling them for under $1k :D
I don't know if we will go to the Moon, but I'm sure we'll live to witness the birth of tourism there, as well as telescopes, etc. :love:
 
The size of the planet is only one factor in the feasibility of direct imaging. The main drivers are the contrast ratio (brightness difference) between the planet and its host star, and their angular separation on the sky as seen from Earth.

Basically what you are trying to do is image something extremely faint which is very, very, very close to something extremely bright. Think ... staring at the floodlights of your local sports stadium, then holding up a cigarette lighter in front of it and trying to see the flame. As you move the cigarette lighter out of the direct line of sight to the floodlight, it becomes easier to see. The coronagraph helps, in that it massively reduces the amount of light we see from the host star. This would be the equivalent of, say, holding up your hand to block most of the light from the floodlights. It improves the observed contrast ratio, but nevertheless this is still only partially effective, as you can see from the image in the article,

The planet orbiting Proxima Cen is orbiting at 0.04AU, compared to 160 and 320 for the planets in that system. This is well within the pattern of residual light from the host star in that image, and hence impossible to detect.

There are fundamental physical limits to the resolution of any telescope, driven mostly by the size of the mirror. Interferometry can dramatically improve spatial resolution, as the effective aperture is then determined by the separation of the individual telescopes. I think that interferometry is being used in this study (sorry, I've not read the paper!) as that is one of the unique capabilities of the VLT. Likewise the atmosphere gets in the way, so adaptive optics are also a benefit. A space-based interferometric array of very large telescopes equipped with coronagraphs would probably have a chance of imaging an Earth equivalent, but as I'm sure you can imagine funding for anything like that is a long way off (2040+).

One last note is that direct imaging is more or less orthogonal to other techniques for detecting exoplanets (eg. radial velocity and the transit method). Direct imaging is most sensitive to planets very distant from their host star, whereas the other techniques are most sensitive where the planets are very close in. With current technology it is more or less impossible to directly image RV/transiting planets, and impossible to use RV/transits to say anything about planets such as these. The point of this being that as things stand it's not really possible to image planets that we have prior knowledge of. It's more of a fishing expedition using a lot of telescope time.

Anyway that's my brain dump. Sorry if it's none too coherent, I'm hungover and haven't had my coffee yet this morning!
 
The size of the planet is only one factor in the feasibility of direct imaging. The main drivers are the contrast ratio (brightness difference) between the planet and its host star, and their angular separation on the sky as seen from Earth.

Basically what you are trying to do is image something extremely faint which is very, very, very close to something extremely bright. Think ... staring at the floodlights of your local sports stadium, then holding up a cigarette lighter in front of it and trying to see the flame. As you move the cigarette lighter out of the direct line of sight to the floodlight, it becomes easier to see. The coronagraph helps, in that it massively reduces the amount of light we see from the host star. This would be the equivalent of, say, holding up your hand to block most of the light from the floodlights. It improves the observed contrast ratio, but nevertheless this is still only partially effective, as you can see from the image in the article,

The planet orbiting Proxima Cen is orbiting at 0.04AU, compared to 160 and 320 for the planets in that system. This is well within the pattern of residual light from the host star in that image, and hence impossible to detect.

There are fundamental physical limits to the resolution of any telescope, driven mostly by the size of the mirror. Interferometry can dramatically improve spatial resolution, as the effective aperture is then determined by the separation of the individual telescopes. I think that interferometry is being used in this study (sorry, I've not read the paper!) as that is one of the unique capabilities of the VLT. Likewise the atmosphere gets in the way, so adaptive optics are also a benefit. A space-based interferometric array of very large telescopes equipped with coronagraphs would probably have a chance of imaging an Earth equivalent, but as I'm sure you can imagine funding for anything like that is a long way off (2040+).

One last note is that direct imaging is more or less orthogonal to other techniques for detecting exoplanets (eg. radial velocity and the transit method). Direct imaging is most sensitive to planets very distant from their host star, whereas the other techniques are most sensitive where the planets are very close in. With current technology it is more or less impossible to directly image RV/transiting planets, and impossible to use RV/transits to say anything about planets such as these. The point of this being that as things stand it's not really possible to image planets that we have prior knowledge of. It's more of a fishing expedition using a lot of telescope time.

Anyway that's my brain dump. Sorry if it's none too coherent, I'm hungover and haven't had my coffee yet this morning!
Thank you for your detailed explanation! :smile2: I'm familiarised with all that stuff but I'm not an expert and sometimes it's difficult to put it all together.

I hope your coffee did you well, by now. :LOL:
 
Space Warp Dynamics changed its name to Quantum Electro Dynamics and announces they have more than doubled their previous results. They'll post some videos this weekend.
---Update: July 31, 2020---
Hello World, we are back! You will notice that we have changed the name of our company, Space Warp Dynamics, to Quantum Electro Dynamics(QED). Our goal for the new company is to finalize a station keeping drive for space. Since the drive does not use propellant, no moving parts, the life cycle of this drive will go way beyond any other space engine. Relative cost for an ION drive is over 40 million US dollars. Our drive will be between 15 and 20 million US dollars. We are currently excited about our product development and future design which eliminate the semi-rigid cables.
Our latest experiment over the summer with the 3D printed VEM drive lifted 3.37lbs which is 15N, combining the weight of the drive (1.18lbs) and the cables (2.19lbs) measured with hanging digital scale. This was done at 1500W for 30 seconds and showed 4mm of lift. This test showed lift and axial movement (horizontal and vertical). Wherever you point the drive, it will move in that direction. The empirical results correspond to our prediction chart. We have more than doubled our best results from last year which was 6.26N (1.5lbs). These result results are groundbreaking!
We are currently seeking funding for the advanced VEM drive. We are going to the stars come hell or high water!
(We have produced videos to document and show our results. Based on some suggestions from all of you, we have multiple camera views of the experiments. We will be releasing the new videos this weekend.)
https://www.facebook.com/QEDNebraska/
 
Back
Top