The Official Space and Astronomy Thread v. Well, this is weird.

[Phoenix87x]

The article mentions "a perfectly circular dark hole" and "The edge of the dark circle".  Shouldn't it be spherical?  Circles are two-dimensional.  This object is clearly three-dimensional and is therefore a sphere, not a circle.

That's an interesting dynamic that I never considered. black holes being 3 dimensional as opposed to more of a flat circle. And I guess at the center would be a singularity? or something of that nature.

I had thought of them before as possible wormholes connecting to other parts of the universe, or possibly even their center singularity creating new universes, bubbling off.

Who knows, but I find this stuff pretty fascinating.

[cramx3]

Who knows, but I find this stuff pretty fascinating.

Yup, the "who knows" is what makes it so fascinating.  What's going on in a black hole is pretty much the universes biggest mystery (to me) and the idea that maybe time is warped inside is just such a ridiculous concept to wrap my head around.

[Chino]

Yeah, a black hole is a hole in three dimensions. Freaking wild, man.

In one of his "Wonders" series, Brian Cox talked about how it's possible that a black hole may do this to space/time, basically creating a "worm hole" through space and time. But even looking at this illustration too long makes my head hurt. In the pic below, we're still looking at the black hole from a two dimensional perspective, as if we were representing space/time with a sheet of paper. That fold would happen an infinite number of times from an infinite number of angles if we recognize the "hole" as a sphere.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

In this case I don't think a "simple" image of black hole really do it any justice for what it really is. Most people including me can't comprehend what the image actually tells other than: "scientists are saying that's a black hole", if you know what I mean. It's so far out maaaan!

[Dublagent66]

"Singularity" is just another way of scientists saying, "We don't know WTF it is." 

[El Barto]

Some pictures Scott Kelly took during his 1 year stint upstairs have been released and they're really something else. People should check them out.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/science/scott-kellys-photos-space.html

This one really interested me, albeit for strange reasons. It demonstrates an interesting thing that I only learned not too long ago flying over DFW. Check out LGA and EWR. The picture is flipped vertically, so it's a little hard to get your bearings, but once you do it's easy to navigate.

[Azyiu]

Breathtaking photos... and this one reminds me of the opening sequences in 2001 : A Space Odyssey 

[MirrorMask]

El Barto, I assume that's New York, right? I recognized the shape of Manhattan and the huge rectangular "hole" of Central Park 

[El Barto]

El Barto, I assume that's New York, right? I recognized the shape of Manhattan and the huge rectangular "hole" of Central Park 

It's New York, but it's rotated 180°. I just find it interesting that all of the runways are "blacked out" from this angle. I spent several minutes trying to orient myself with that picture and the airports would usually be key reference points. I'd forgotten that happens.

[cramx3]

That is a cool picture, but it just needs to be rotated 90 degrees clockwise right?  It is interesting that the airports are dark, you can't see the runway lights from this picture, but is this by design to actually make it easier to see in the plane?  I wouldn't know, but being this area is local to me, it is a really cool picture.  You can see Metlife Stadium pretty well too and that whole dark space between the stadium and EWR is the secaucus swamp, right near where I work with the two lines through it being the turnpike extensions.

[El Barto]

Needs to be rotated 180°. That's what threw me at first.

And runway lights are louvered so that they're only visible to an aircraft between certain angles X and Z. I just didn't realize they were so dark outside of those angles. I figured you'd still see the runway area, but LGA is as dark as the water around it.

https://youtu.be/qaFe-MH6D3g?t=59

[Lonk]

Probably the greatest Deep Space image we have from the Hubble Telescope, Hubble Legacy Field. I would recommend downloading the larger files (atleast 672MBs).

http://hubblesite.org/image/4492/news

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Researchers at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering have developed an ultra-sensitive light-detecting system that could enable astronomers to view galaxies, stars and planetary systems in superb detail.

The system works at room temperature — an improvement over similar technology that only works in temperatures nearing 270 degrees below zero Celsius, or minus 454 degrees Fahrenheit. A paper detailing the advance is published today in Nature Astronomy.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/light-sensing-distant-galaxies-unprecedented-detail

This sounds exciting, will be cool to see how it will be used and what comes out of it.

[El Barto]

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/18/739934923/meet-john-houbolt-he-figured-out-how-to-go-to-the-moon-but-few-were-listening

Not enough people know who this man was. I pay attention to these things and I never even noticed that he'd died. It's unlikely the Apollo program would have succeeded without him, yet he had to badger people to even get them to listen to him because he was an outsider. His plan was so much simpler than what NASA was proposing, and none of them could really imagine his plan happening until they really dug in and started thinking about it. Nowadays, and considering the challenges we've seen landing a rocket back here on Earth by throwing massive amounts of computation at it, it's laughable to even think about them landing an actual rocket on the moon in 1969.

[Azyiu]

Speaking of the Apollo mission, I purposely watched Apollo 11 the documentary on bluray on the 16th for the first time. The majority of the documentary consists of never-before-released footage shot on 65mm film, and was scanned using a prototype 16K film scanner for the digitization. The result is a documentary looking as clean and as sharp as if it was shot only recently! If you have not seen it, I urge you to go check it out.

[jasc15]

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/18/739934923/meet-john-houbolt-he-figured-out-how-to-go-to-the-moon-but-few-were-listening

Not enough people know who this man was.

There is one episode of the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon that features him pretty well.  Also, my company had an Apollo 11 anniversary event with Tom Stafford as a guest speaker, and he mentioned him with great praise, too.

Speaking of the Apollo mission, I purposely watched Apollo 11 the documentary on bluray on the 16th for the first time. The majority of the documentary consists of never-before-released footage shot on 65mm film, and was scanned using a prototype 16K film scanner for the digitization. The result is a documentary looking as clean and as sharp as if it was shot only recently! If you have not seen it, I urge you to go check it out.

I saw it in a theater and was floored.  I love how it was simply the mission sequence and how that was more than enough drama without superlatives and people talking about how many elephants weigh as much as the Saturn V, or how many olympic swimming pools worth of propellant are fed to the engines.

[Azyiu]

I saw it in a theater and was floored.  I love how it was simply the mission sequence and how that was more than enough drama without superlatives and people talking about how many elephants weigh as much as the Saturn V, or how many olympic swimming pools worth of propellant are fed to the engines.

Before I watched it (though I have heard many good things about it) I was a little skeptical. For one thing, I thought I've seen most (if not all) of the footage on Apollo 11. Also, I thought it would turn out more or less like the 2009 release of "For All Mankind" bluray (https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/For-All-Mankind-Blu-ray/5271/), in which I didn't really like the editing, and the grainy TV footage just bugged the hell out of me. All in all, I am glad it is not produced in that fashion, and I too feel impressed by the presentation.

By the way, have you guys watched the BBC's recent documentary The Planets? I love it, and I would so totally buy it when it comes out on bluray.

[El Barto]

I saw it in a theater and was floored.  I love how it was simply the mission sequence and how that was more than enough drama without superlatives and people talking about how many elephants weigh as much as the Saturn V, or how many olympic swimming pools worth of propellant are fed to the engines.

Before I watched it (though I have heard many good things about it) I was a little skeptical. For one thing, I thought I've seen most (if not all) of the footage on Apollo 11. Also, I thought it would turn out more or less like the 2009 release of "For All Mankind" bluray (https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/For-All-Mankind-Blu-ray/5271/), in which I didn't really like the editing, and the grainy TV footage just bugged the hell out of me. All in all, I am glad it is not produced in that fashion, and I too feel impressed by the presentation.

I honestly just assumed it was a more modern version of FAM. What's the difference?

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Did anyone know that the six Apollo missions left 96 bags of human feces on the Moon? I didn't but now I know and so do you.

[MirrorMask]

Did anyone know that the six Apollo missions left 96 bags of human feces on the Moon? I didn't but now I know and so do you.

The best trivia I knew was that they immediately knocked out the american flag planted by Apollo 11 and so they had to put the other ones more distant with following landings  (and they're all bleached white by radiation anyway)

[The Walrus]

Did anyone know that the six Apollo missions left 96 bags of human feces on the Moon? I didn't but now I know and so do you.

I've spent countless hours reading about the Moon - was just doing this the other night actually - and this is 100% new information to me. Hilarious. Even better, you should read about what a pain in the ass (badum pish) it was to use those fecal collection bags. They even had little finger inserts so you could, er, remove any troublemakers manually. Also hilarious.

EDIT: found it - https://jalopnik.com/i-took-a-dump-the-same-way-the-apollo-astronauts-did-an-1836637152

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Did anyone know that the six Apollo missions left 96 bags of human feces on the Moon? I didn't but now I know and so do you.

I've spent countless hours reading about the Moon - was just doing this the other night actually - and this is 100% new information to me. Hilarious. Even better, you should read about what a pain in the ass (badum pish) it was to use those fecal collection bags. They even had little finger inserts so you could, er, remove any troublemakers manually. Also hilarious.

EDIT: found it - https://jalopnik.com/i-took-a-dump-the-same-way-the-apollo-astronauts-did-an-1836637152

That's glorious! 

Apollo Fecal Collection Bag:

[cramx3]

 

Now why don't they sell those instead of the space food at the souvenir shops?

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaX6BK66v9A&feature=youtu.be

Seeing videos like that I sometimes wonder if we would even notice if alien lifeforms had infiltrated Earth? Whatever strange alien creature you could think of, i'll bet there's some version of it already in the depth of our oceans.

[Chino]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaX6BK66v9A&feature=youtu.be

Seeing videos like that I sometimes wonder if we would even notice if alien lifeforms had infiltrated Earth? Whatever strange alien creature you could think of, i'll bet there's some version of it already in the depth of our oceans.

Assuming creatures in the oceans of other planets/moons require speed to survive and/or replicate them themselves, odds are they'd look extremely similar to what we have on Earth.   


That thing in the video is wicked. I want one in a home aquarium.

[Adami]

Looks like they accidentally killed it at the end there.

[Chino]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYb3bfA6_sQ

SpaceX completed their 150M test hop of Starhopper yesterday  Not only did it hover flawlessly, but they shifted pads as well.

I can't wait to hear 35 of these things singing in unison when Super Heavy launches.

[Lonk]

Black holes generate sound

http://news.mit.edu/2019/ringing-new-black-hole-first-0912

[gmillerdrake]

I know the majority of you who frequent this thread don't need an explanation as to 'how big' the universe is.....BUT.....I've watched this video about ten times now. It's one of the better one's I've seen out there that gives a quick, concise....clear picture of the magnitude of this Universe. It's pretty impossible to perceive.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy7NzjCmUf0

[1upmushroom]

It's pretty impossible to perceive.

This made me think of the Total Perspective Vortex in the Hitchhiker's Guide.

[Dublagent66]

I know the majority of you who frequent this thread don't need an explanation as to 'how big' the universe is.....BUT.....I've watched this video about ten times now. It's one of the better one's I've seen out there that gives a quick, concise....clear picture of the magnitude of this Universe. It's pretty impossible to perceive.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy7NzjCmUf0

Cool!  I've always been fascinated with the vastness of the universe.  A place so big that even the speed of light is insignificant. 

[Lonk]

I saw a video a few months ago. It was not specifically about the size of the universe, but travelling through space with a constant acceleration and the effects of time dilation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_TkFhj9mgk&list=LLVozSErCdnL2uH0dEHmkmIQ&index=8&t=0s

It's a long video but really interesting nonetheless.

[MirrorMask]

I remember once a website had a very horizontally long page that showed the solar system in scale. You'd scroll relatively a bit for the terrestrial planets, and then from Mars onwards you'd have to scroll..... and scroll..... and scroll.... on and on and on before finally, eventually, at long last, stumbling upon Jupiter and then after a loooooooooooong scroll Saturn and so on.

The space was occupied by random writings, either some information about the solar system or stuff like "hang on, we're almost there".

EDIT: Found it! https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html

[Dublagent66]

^Fascinating!!  This metaphor was absolutely mind blowing.

"If the proton of a hydrogen atom was the size of the sun on this map, we would need 11 more of these maps to show the average distance to the electron." 

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Venus could have supported life for millions of years

I thought this was an interesting video and it's a fascinating thought that maybe there once was a human civilisation on Venus long before us on Earth that got wiped out. The thought of finding ruins of man made structers or even citys on another planet so close by is a cool and scary thought imo. Straight out of an apocalypse movie.