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Old 13-03-2016, 21:09
TelevisionUser
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OMG - It's so huge !

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Old 13-03-2016, 23:31
Keyser_Soze1
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Wow!

What a whopper!
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Old 17-03-2016, 04:16
Rich Tea.
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3.15am this morning, 17th March, possible significant meteor "fireball" lights up the night sky across UK.

There seems to have been a noticeable possible meteor sighting in the sky across the UK this morning at 3.15am, and I saw it myself, brightly lighting up the sky for a brief moment, so turned the radio on to hear it being widely reported on Radio 5 Live for 15 minutes who as I write are attempting to get more official details. Plenty of callers mention seeing a blue or green flashing "fireball" of light across the whole sky before seeing something streaking off. Has a large meteorite grazed the atmosphere or burnt up entirely on impact? It was quite impressive and seems to have been noticed from the west to east coast of England and right up to Southern Scotland too.

Just been hearing about "fireball season" which is prominent around the spring equinox. Never heard that term before, but it would appear that we night owls, insomniacs and drivers out and about have tonight had a really great sighting nationwide.
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Old 17-03-2016, 12:22
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Video of the event here:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...uk-skies-video
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Old 23-03-2016, 19:30
Keyser_Soze1
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Is the answer to Life the Universe and Everything 42?

No - but this very interesting (and long) article explores our current theories about reality and everything in it.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160...esides-our-own
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Old 23-03-2016, 19:37
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Is the answer to Life the Universe and Everything 42?
Depends how good you are at math.
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Old 23-03-2016, 19:39
swingaleg
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Did anyone watch the latest Jim Al-Khalili documentary on BBC4 last night ?

It was quite good.......a run through of the major discoveries along the road to the Big Bang Theory

I knew pretty much all of it but it was well put together........as usual in Jim's documentaries he tells the story episodically by looking at a different person every 10 minutes or so

The only one I wasn't aware of was the woman who discovered the composition of the Sun and by extension all the other stars and the Universe

I'd never heard of her......and she was British !.........Cosmology is a boy's game !......
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Old 23-03-2016, 19:51
Keyser_Soze1
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Did anyone watch the latest Jim Al-Khalili documentary on BBC4 last night ?

It was quite good.......a run through of the major discoveries along the road to the Big Bang Theory

I knew pretty much all of it but it was well put together........as usual in Jim's documentaries he tells the story episodically by looking at a different person every 10 minutes or so

The only one I wasn't aware of was the woman who discovered the composition of the Sun and by extension all the other stars and the Universe

I'd never heard of her......and she was British !.........Cosmology is a boy's game !......
I have such a lot of telly to catch up on that I will record the repeat or watch it on I-Player later on in the week (Jim is always an excellent watch)

Horizon on shortly about Gravity which I will record as well.
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Old 23-03-2016, 19:56
swingaleg
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Horizon on shortly about Gravity which I will record as well.
I'm going to watch it now.........
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Old 23-03-2016, 20:28
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I'm going to watch it now.........
I hope you are enjoying it.

David Bowie asked the question.

This article discusses how we may finally find the answer.

http://www.airspacemag.com/space/lif...3ca8950&no-ist

Did Ceres once have an ocean?

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....n-ocean-world/
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Old 27-03-2016, 20:04
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It's time for an astro news update:

The Moon used to spin on a different axis and show a slightly different face to the Earth, a new study suggests. Using data collected by Nasa's Lunar Prospector mission in the late 1990s, scientists spotted two hydrogen-rich regions near the Moon's poles, probably indicating the presence of water ice.

Earth's gravity is so strong we only see one side of the orbiting moon. Modern exploration to the mysterious dark side revealed dramatic surprises and revised theories about the moon's formation.

Comet LINEAR (formally designated 252P) is coming into view for observers in the Northern Hemisphere during the last few days of March. The comet's arrival has skywatchers excited because this icy space rock is 100 times brighter than expected. From the Southern Hemisphere, observers have recently been able to spot the comet with the naked eye in very dark areas.


Astronomers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst report that they have observed the most luminous galaxies ever seen in the Universe, objects so bright that established descriptors such as "ultra-" and "hyper-luminous" used to describe previously brightest known galaxies don't even come close.

Magnetar could have boosted explosion of extremely bright supernova. Super-luminous supernovae (SLSNe) are a relatively new and rare class of stellar explosions, 10 to 100 times brighter than normal supernovae.
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Old 28-03-2016, 20:53
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The huge hidden galaxies

Here's the Milky Way and very pretty it is. However, what the planar disc of the Milky Way Galaxy does do is obscure the things that are behind it.

That includes hundreds of new to science hidden galaxies - see http://www.space.com/31862-hidden-ga...aze-video.html

Two of those galaxies, Maffei 1 and Maffei 2 are relatively close by at around 10 million light years away and the links are below:

Maffei 1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maffei_1

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ma...w=1024&bih=658

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qsoLAL7Ops

(that one would be a great sight in the sky were it not for all the obscuring matter)

Maffei 2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maffei_2

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ma...w=1024&bih=658
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Old 28-03-2016, 21:22
Keyser_Soze1
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The huge hidden galaxies

Here's the Milky Way and very pretty it is. However, what the planar disc of the Milky Way Galaxy does do is obscure the things that are behind it.

That includes hundreds of new to science hidden galaxies - see http://www.space.com/31862-hidden-ga...aze-video.html

Two of those galaxies, Maffei 1 and Maffei 2 are relatively close by at around 10 million light years away and the links are below:

Maffei 1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maffei_1

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ma...w=1024&bih=658

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qsoLAL7Ops

(that one would be a great sight in the sky were it not for all the obscuring matter)

Maffei 2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maffei_2

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ma...w=1024&bih=658
Great stuff.

A computer model explains the sustained eruptions on Enceladus.

http://phys.org/news/2016-03-sustain...on-saturn.html
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Old 29-03-2016, 22:17
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A comet or asteroid has just been captured smashing into Jupiter by amateur astronomers.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astro...arch_2016.html

http://news.discovery.com/space/astr...ock-160329.htm

http://www.livescience.com/54224-jup...mer-video.html
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Old 29-03-2016, 23:18
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That must have been a tremendously powerful collision and I hope that large professional observatory telescopes will now be trained on Jupiter to see if there are any remnant after effects just as there were following the impact of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 when it hit Jupiter in 1994 if l recall correctly.
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Old 30-03-2016, 01:52
Keyser_Soze1
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That must have been a tremendously powerful collision and I hope that large professional observatory telescopes will now be trained on Jupiter to see if there are any remnant after effects just as there were following the impact of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 when it hit Jupiter in 1994 if l recall correctly.
I am sure they will be.

We can expect more news in the near future I think.
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Old 30-03-2016, 17:54
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The Mystery of Dark Energy

Horizon looks at dark energy - the mysterious force that is unexpectedly causing the universe's expansion to speed up.

The effects of dark energy were discovered in 1998 but physicists still don't know what it is. Worse, its very existence calls into question Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity - the cornerstone of modern physics.

The hunt for the identity of dark energy is on. Experiments on earth and in space generate data that might provide a clue, but there are also hopes that another Einstein might emerge - someone who can write a new theory explaining the mystery of the dark energy.
Tonight, BBC2 @ 8pm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0761llv
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Old 30-03-2016, 19:42
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I am sure they will be.

We can expect more news in the near future I think.
It's certainly been generating a lot of news (see https://news.google.com/news/story?n...dODnoQqgIIKTAA ) but there's no sign of any follow up yet.

Jupiter has its good and bad points:

Pro

It acts as a gravitational magnet for any dangerous rubbish coming from the outer solar sytem

Con

Its powerful gravity prevented a proper planet from forming where the asteroid belt is thus leaving a pile of dangerous celestial planetary rubble floating around in the inner solar system.

The Mystery of Dark Energy

Tonight, BBC2 @ 8pm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0761llv
...which is why I'll be logging out at 7.55pm this evening or thereabouts. Which reminds me, the two programmes of The beginning and end of the universe can be seen below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b075...pisodes/player
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Old 31-03-2016, 01:42
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I will be catching up with all three programmes in the near future.
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Old 31-03-2016, 21:00
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The Mystery of Dark Energy

Tonight, BBC2 @ 8pm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0761llv
Having seen that documentary now, my verdict is below:

Pro

It was really good to see more women involved in high level science.

Con

The upshot of that programme was basically "We still don't have a feckin clue".

That said, they should have gone and asked the real brains on the planet in the Perimeter Institute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perime...etical_Physics (Interesting story - they were set up with megafunds from Blackberry before they went belly up)

New!

More evidence for Planet Nine as odd celestial alignment emerges. A small world leads the way. There’s another tantalising hint that an undiscovered ninth planet lurks in the outer reaches of the solar system.
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Old 02-04-2016, 23:48
Keyser_Soze1
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White Dwarf with an almost pure oxygen atmosphere.

http://phys.org/news/2016-04-white-d...tmosphere.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...re-oxygen.html

http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/31/11...-stellar-death

http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/wh...ere-03751.html
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Old 06-04-2016, 20:05
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There's an interesting planetary new update from the Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla including an excellent picture of Comet P67 backlit by the Sun: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily...pril-2016.html

In other news, Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown have now gone on record as saying that they think that the proposed new Planet Nine could be found within just 2 years. There are some links to more Planet Nine news below:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...d-planet-nine/

http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1...t-nine-040616/

https://www.newscientist.com/article...en-by-the-sun/
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