This comment sent me down a rabbit hole. The more I read about James Webb the cooler and cooler it is. The James Webb Space Telescope will not be in orbit around the Earth, like the Hubble Space Telescope is - it will actually orbit the Sun, 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) away from the Earth at what is called the second Lagrange point or L2. What is special about this orbit is that it lets the telescope stay in line with the Earth as it moves around the Sun. This allows the satellite's large sunshield to protect the telescope from the light and heat of the Sun and Earth (and Moon).
Getting above and below the ecliptic should get it some interesting data too. I wonder if the north/south difference gets it better triangulation.
So Lagrange points are freaking cool. The laws of orbital mechanics say that the farther out from a gravity well an object is, the slower the revolution (see my previous post about highly elliptical orbits) but by putting an object in line with the earth and sun, it uses the combined gravity of both larger objects to counteract normal orbital mechanics. Steely eyed missile men, these guys.
The new rocket “Starship” is the largest ever built and has twice the payload of the previous largest rocket. Pretty cool chart. Has payload size and success/failures for each.
Ok here’s a key: SSO - Sun-Synchronous Orbit LEO - Low Earth Orbit TLI - Trans-Lunar Insertion GTO - Geostationary Transfer Orbit Suborbital - Suborbital
I didn't think this sounded possible so I googled and IDK if I like this video because he confirms my thoughts or if this is just more misinformation.
Look, I stay up late anyway, and often times for the express purpose of going outside to look and/or photograph the night sky, but I ain’t staying up to see a 5 hour eclipse at like 3am. Get your shit together moon. You are better than this
Just watched the SpaceX Dart mission launch at Vandenberg from our vantage point in Santa Cruz. Full rocket plume visible from 180 miles away
Yeah I saw that there was a launch tonight. I was super excited because it has been a while since the last night launch where it is relatively clear. I was going to take my DSLR out and take a cool ass picture of the launch; a fiery streak through the night. Went outside, turned off all the lights, put the tripod on the back of my truck and framed up a really cool shot. Then about the time nothing was happening I realized that the launch was in fucking California. Fuck me
So my youngest and I were out on the front deck watching the rocket plume and I was telling him that this was a mission to test a way to alter asteroid trajectories to protect Earth from being hit, and he said "But don't they know about Jupiter?"
Just to put that into a little better perspective, this is the tallest building mankind has created so far. It would stop just below the part where the cliff starts curving off vertical.
Not sure if I should put this in here or the Global Warming one. Sounds like we're going to get 2" higher tides from the moon wobble and then 2" from global warming. https://wsvn.com/news/investigation...out-decade-long-flood-surge-in-coastal-areas/ Ben Hamlington, NASA scientist: “Areas that are already seeing flooding, like Miami, you’re just going to see that more much flooding.” Ben Hamlington leads NASA’s team that analyzes sea levels. He says, in the 2030s, the moon will go through what’s commonly called a “wobble.” That’s when the moon’s orbit slightly tilts, leading to an increase in its gravitational pull on Earth. The stronger that pull, the higher our tides. Ben Hamlington: “This is a very near-term thing. I mean, 2030 is really not far away. We’re 10 years away from when we are going to see this rapid increase.” Imagine the worst high-tide flooding you have seen in your neighborhood. Now, let’s fast forward to about 15 years from now. Add two inches of floodwater. That’s how much higher the tides could get with the additional pull from the moon. Now, add two more inches on top of that. Projections show that’s how much higher the sea level will be as a result of climate change. Ben Hamlington: “It’s kind of a stacking effect. You start to stack these things up, and you get longer duration of flooding, and you get more severe flooding as well.”
As someone living on an island known for rain in an area that was entirely swamp until about 200 years ago, hooray!
Last chance to see comet Leonard, after 35,000 years its on a trajectory to finally leave the solar system. https://www.wsbtv.com/news/trending...isappears-forever/P7W63JOAPRBS3IZ5AYTDQ3ZOZQ/ Should be visible after Dec 17, just between Venus and the horizon
Do whatever you gotta do to get it right, it would be fucked for a 25 year in the making $10 billion project to be fucked by some oversight on the launch vehicle
Well they're launching it from the fucking Amazon in French Guiana, so I'm sure there will be more days of weather delays