I liked how they tracked the first stage for the whole flight with cameras instead of the payload. I don't give a shit about some satellite, but it was cool seeing the first stage do its entire return procedure on camera. It's also crazy that we have cameras so powerful now that they can track and see clearly things that are miles up.
A new movie sequence of images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the view as the spacecraft swooped over Saturn during the first of its Grand Finale dives between the planet and its rings on April 26. The movie comprises one hour of observations as the spacecraft moved southward over Saturn. It begins with a view of the swirling vortex at the planet's north pole, then heads past the outer boundary of the hexagon-shaped jet stream and beyond. "I was surprised to see so many sharp edges along the hexagon's outer boundary," said Kunio Sayanagi, an associate of the Cassini imaging team based at Hampton University in Virginia, who helped produce the new movie. "Something must be keeping different latitudes from mixing to maintain those edges," he said. Toward the end of the movie, the camera frame rotates as the spacecraft reorients to point its large, saucer-shaped antenna in the direction of the spacecraft’s motion. The antenna was used as a protective shield during the crossing of Saturn’s ring plane. › DOWNLOAD VIDEO Cassini's First Fantastic Dive Past Saturn As the movie frames were captured, the Cassini spacecraft's altitude above the clouds dropped from 45,000 to 4,200 miles (72,400 to 6,700 kilometers). As this occurred, the smallest resolvable features in the atmosphere changed from 5.4 miles (8.7 kilometers) per pixel to 0.5 mile (810 meters) per pixel. "The images from the first pass were great, but we were conservative with the camera settings. We plan to make updates to our observations for a similar opportunity on June 28 that we think will result in even better views," said Andrew Ingersoll, a member of the Cassini imaging team based at Caltech in Pasadena, California.
We've been doing a solar system unit in my class and this thread has been huge for me with videos and awesome clips to share.
Don't watch the entire documentary I posted previously. It's actually some pretty bad physics, though that one bit is good to pull people into the ~mystery~ of it. If you want a little more about the existence of superposition (that is, the particular existing in many different state at any particular instant), also have them watch this
Saturn's hexagonal polar jet stream is the shining feature of almost every view of the north polar region of Saturn. The region, in shadow for the first part of the Cassini mission, now enjoys full sunlight, which enables Cassini scientists to directly image it in reflected light. Although the sunlight falling on the north pole of Saturn is enough to allow us to image and study the region, it does not provide much warmth. In addition to being low in the sky (just like summer at Earth's poles), the sun is nearly ten times as distant from Saturn as from Earth. This results in the sunlight being only about 1 percent as intense as at our planet. This view looks toward Saturn from about 31 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 22, 2017 using a spectral filter which preferentially admits wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 939 nanometers. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 560,000 miles (900,000 kilometers) from Saturn. Image scale is 33 miles (54 kilometers) per pixel.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/10/14886570/nasa-space-launch-system-rocket-ula-blue-origin-spacex NASA IS LOSING THE RACE TO BUILD A BETTER ROCKET
I think it has something to do with the size of the payload and type of orbit the first stage is putting the second stage into. The satellite is going into geostationary which is usually really high up there which I guess requires a further launch from the first stage making it impossible to boost back. "The 230-foot rocket will need all its fuel and 1.7 million pounds of liftoff thrust to deliver the spacecraft larger than a double-decker bus on its way to an orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator. As a result, SpaceX will not attempt to land the rocket’s first stage either at Cape Canaveral or at sea, and the Falcon 9 booster is not equipped with landing legs." https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech...g-13500-pound-commercial-satellite/101713488/
It'll be a cold day in hell when I start getting my news about the cosmos from the NY Post; still, that's pretty interesting. If it was a Dyson Sphere like they are suggesting, the whole star would be shrouded no? That's quite a leap for a star occasionally winking, to suggest an alien mega-structure.
Preston Dyches @AstroPresto 1h1 hour ago Comparison of the latest color views of Jupiter and Saturn poles from Juno and Cassini. So different! What a difference Saturn's haze makes!
Multiple images taken with the JunoCam instrument on three separate orbits were combined to show all areas in daylight, enhanced color, and stereographic projection. A Whole New Jupiter: First Science Results from NASA’s Juno Mission This image shows Jupiter’s south pole, as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers). The oval features are cyclones, up to 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) in diameter. Multiple images taken with the JunoCam instrument on three separate orbits were combined to show all areas in daylight, enhanced color, and stereographic projection. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/...irst-science-results-from-nasa-s-juno-mission More information on the Juno mission is available at: https://www.nasa.gov/juno http://missionjuno.org
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-telescope-idUSKBN18M2JX Construction began in Chile on Friday on the European Extremely Large Telescope, which when completed will be the world's largest optical telescope, some five times larger than the top observing instruments in use today. The size of the ELT has the potential to transform our understanding of the universe, say its backers, with its main mirror that will measure some 39 meters (43 yards) across. Located on a 3,000 meter-high mountain in the middle of the Atacama desert, it is due to begin operating in 2024. Among other capabilities, it will add to and refine astronomers' burgeoning discoveries of planets orbiting other stars, with the ability to find more smaller planets, image larger ones, and possibly characterize their atmospheres, a key step in understanding if life is present. "What is being raised here is more than a telescope. Here we see one of the greatest examples of the possibilities of science," said Chilean President Michelle Bachelet in a speech to mark the beginning of construction at the site. The dry atmosphere of the Atacama provides as near perfect observing conditions as it is possible to find on Earth, with some 70 percent of the world's astronomical infrastructure slated to be located in the region by the 2020s. The ELT is being funded by the European Southern Observatory, an organization consisting of European and southern hemisphere nations. Construction costs were not available but the ESO has said previously that the ELT would cost around 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) at 2012 prices. ($1 = 0.8949 euros) (Reporting by Jorge Vega, Writing by Rosalba O'Brien; editing by Diane Craft)
NASA is set to release new details Wednesday about the agency's "unprecedented" mission to "touch the sun." The mission, Solar Probe Plus, will launch in summer of 2018 and marks the agency's first mission to fly into the sun's atmosphere. Data collected during the mission is expected to improve forecasting of space weather events that impact life on Earth and the lives of astronauts, NASA said in a statement. "Placed in orbit within four million miles of the sun’s surface, and facing heat and radiation unlike any spacecraft in history, the spacecraft will explore the sun’s outer atmosphere and make critical observations that will answer decades-old questions about the physics of how stars work," NASA said in a statement. NASA will make the announcement live on NASA Television and the agency's website at 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
This video shows Juno’s trajectory from Perijove 6, and is based on work by Gerald Eichstädt, compiled and edited by Seán Doran. “This is real imagery projected along orbit trajectory,” Doran explained on Twitter. Animation of six images acquired by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on March 27, 2017. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Jason Major.
This is amazing. 360 degree views of Martian surface in 4 billion pixels. https://www.360cities.net/image/mars-gigapixel-panorama-curiosity-solar-days-136-149
What's even more crazy is that we have extension cords long enough so someone can be out there recording it.
Wow! mystery signal from space finally explained June 7, 2017 by Bob Yirka report The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5". Credit: Big Ear Radio Observatory and North American AstroPhysical Observatory (NAAPO) (Phys.org)—A team of researchers with the Center of Planetary Science (CPS) has finally solved the mystery of the "Wow!" signal from 1977. It was a comet, they report, one that that was unknown at the time of the signal discovery. Lead researcher Antonio Paris describes their theory and how the team proved it in a paper published in the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences. Back in August of 1977, a team of astronomers studying radio transmissions from an observatory at Ohio State called the "Big Ear" recorded an unusual 72-second signal—it was so strong that team member Jerry Ehman scrawled "Wow!" next to the readout. Since that time, numerous scientists have searched for an explanation of the signal, but until now, no one could offer a valid argument. Possible sources such as asteroids, exo-planets, stars and even signals from Earth have all been ruled out. Some outside the science community even suggested that it was proof of aliens. It was noted that the frequency was transmitted at 1,420 MHz, though, which happens to be the same frequency as hydrogen. The explanation started to come into focus last year when a team at the CPS suggested that the signal might have come from a hydrogen cloud accompanying a comet—additionally, the movement of the comet would explain why the signal was not seen again. The team noted that two comets had been in the same part of the sky that the Big Ear was monitoring on the fateful day. Those comets, P/2008 Y2(Gibbs) and 266/P Christensen had not yet been discovered. The team then got a chance to test their idea as the two comets appeared once again in the night sky from November 2016 through February of 2017. Credit: The Center for Planetary Science The team reports that radio signals from 266/P Christensen matched those from the Wow! signal 40 years ago. To verify their results, they tested readings from three other comets, as well, and found similar results. The researchers acknowledge that they cannot say with certainty that the Wow! signal was generated by 266/P Christensen, but they can say with relative assurance that it was generated by a comet. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-wow-mystery-space.html#jCp
So my wife believes in all of this Nibiru stuff and is adamant that there are going to be cataclysmic events. She claims that the government is hiding it to prevent hysteria and that if you really dig into it you can find the proof. She's pissed at me because I don't believe her and won't help her prepare. Normal TMB advice aside, any actual evidence one way or the other? I know there have been multiple claims about it in the past, I'm only asking because my wife is going down the rabbit hole and I don't want to be married to Shu.
Tell her that it is not going to happen. There is essentially 100% scientific consensus it won't happen and it's all made up (but that usually doesn't work with people who already believe ridiculous things). But, as for preparation, there's no need. If we collide with a giant planet we're all toast.
Remind her that she has been wrong about everything she has ever said in the past. Specifically, it was supposed to happen in 2003 and... Plus like Bo said, where does she plan to hide?