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Old 12-08-2016, 12:19
Mia_Fine
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For all space lovers who are looking for a live video feed from the outside of the International Space Station then welcome here http://solarstory.net/webcams/. I also like to watch NASA TV too. It brings the latest news and educational programs, a must see for everyone.
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Old 13-08-2016, 01:02
Keyser_Soze1
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For all space lovers who are looking for a live video feed from the outside of the International Space Station then welcome here http://solarstory.net/webcams/. I also like to watch NASA TV too. It brings the latest news and educational programs, a must see for everyone.
Thanks for that and welcome to the forum.

Some recent stories.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...rth-180960077/

http://www.livescience.com/55727-all...-20-years.html

http://www.seeker.com/did-ligos-blac...965924507.html

http://www.seeker.com/new-nearby-ear...970197349.html

http://phys.org/news/2016-08-compani...orseshoes.html
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Old 17-08-2016, 03:04
Keyser_Soze1
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Several articles.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...lds-180960074/

http://phys.org/news/2016-08-brown-d...s-secrets.html

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...ned-180960136/
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Old 20-08-2016, 17:32
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While much of recent attention has focused on the Curiosity rover, we still shouldn't forget the Opportunity rover which has been live and active on Mars since 2004. That is one hell of an achievement considering the hostile environment that it operates in.

Report: http://www.planetary.org/explore/spa...lley-tour.html

NASA just released 1,000 weirdly beautiful photos of the incredible landscapes on Mars

NASA Successfully Test Fires Mars Mega Rocket Engine
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Old 20-08-2016, 19:18
WhatJoeThinks
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I'm not sure that Mars' environment is particularly hostile. To terrestrial life, perhaps, but Earth's extremes are arguably more hostile to machines. For one thing, it's nice and dry up there. In fact there's very little weather at all.

John Grant - I Wanna Go To Marz
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Old 21-08-2016, 22:43
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I'm not sure that Mars' environment is particularly hostile. To terrestrial life, perhaps, but Earth's extremes are arguably more hostile to machines. For one thing, it's nice and dry up there. In fact there's very little weather at all.

John Grant - I Wanna Go To Marz
Well, when compared to the roasting oven that is Venus that is true but Mars has widely fluctuating temperatures, low temperatures, dust storms and fine dust all of which can damage robotic equipment to some extent or other.

Meanwhile further out at Jupiter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB1w1-YFO08

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mk7h/clips
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Old 23-08-2016, 16:36
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If you happen to come across a report anywhere of a red alert for aurora today, ignore it. It was a false alarm caused by interference to a magnetometer in Lancaster.

http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/aurorawatchuk/...ert-cancelled/
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Old 24-08-2016, 22:49
WhatJoeThinks
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“A habitable, rocky planet around Proxima would be the most natural location to where our civilization could aspire to move after the sun will die, five billion years from now,” says Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and an adviser to the Breakthrough Starshot project.
It always amuses me when people talk in these terms. 'Our civilization' is unlikely to exist just a few millennia from now (assuming it will even survive the next century or so), but in billions of years - read that; billions, not millions - our species will have undoubtedly evolved to the point that it may be unrecognisable. There will no longer be any Homo sapiens on Earth even if 'we' never face extinction. To put it another way, around five billion years ago 'our civilisation' was a disparate network of several different species of single-celled organisms. To hear such nonsense from such a highly regarded astrophysicist is a bit embarrassing if you ask me.

Great news about Proxima b all the same.
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Old 24-08-2016, 23:15
atg
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It always amuses me when people talk in these terms. 'Our civilization' is unlikely to exist just a few millennia from now (assuming it will even survive the next century or so), but in billions of years - read that; billions, not millions - our species will have undoubtedly evolved to the point that it may be unrecognisable. There will no longer be any Homo sapiens on Earth even if 'we' never face extinction. To put it another way, around five billion years ago 'our civilisation' was a disparate network of several different species of single-celled organisms. To hear such nonsense from such a highly regarded astrophysicist is a bit embarrassing if you ask me.

Great news about Proxima b all the same.
I agree that talking in those timescales is pretty meaningless, but whatever our descendents look like then, they would still need somewhere to live. One thing though, proxima centauri is already a red dwarf, how long does it have and would that planet still be in a habitable zone, as planetary orbits are essentially chaotic anyway and this one is very close to the star and you would think would be easily perturbed? Also, it would probably be a better idea to move there before our sun dies, not after.

I wonder if Hawking and his colleagues knew about this when they suggested the micro probe mission earlier this year.

And, how close would the JWT be to being able to image this directly?
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Old 25-08-2016, 13:11
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Of course it's ridiculous to talk about humans moving to this prospective new home when the sun eventually makes the Earth uninhabitable, but for a news cycle that's exactly what everyone wants to be talking about in order to get noticed.

That said if humanity survives the next couple of centuries and figures out how to live off Earth and colonise the solar system then there's no limiting factor to suggest our sepcies or what ever we become cannot survive indefinitley so finding these planets is crucial so that we know that eventually, when the solar system becomes over-crowded and resources start to run low there's somewhere else 'close' by to go.

I personally think this is great news right now as there's long been a deficiency in funding towards next-generation propulsion systems for deep-space exploration. While we're happy sending probes out to the planets we're happy with long-duration missions but if we want to take a probe mission to this new planet seriously we're going to need a new way of accelerating it to a reasonable proportion of c. The by-product being hopefully faster inter-planetary missions which would suit manned missions much more.
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Old 25-08-2016, 14:19
WhatJoeThinks
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Well exactly. 'Our civilisation' ought to be thinking about spreading to other star systems in the next few centuries, or at least establishing one or more stable, off-world colonies within the Solar System, if we're to survive planetary-scale disasters, any number of which could otherwise wipe out the human race thousands of millennia before the Sun finally consumes the Earth.

My money is on the Earth being largely populated by whale-like creatures and algaeplankton during its final productive years, with mankind not even a distant memory, and no trace of anything we ever did left, having been subsumed by plate tectonics.
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Old 25-08-2016, 14:28
WhatJoeThinks
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...One thing though, proxima centauri is already a red dwarf, how long does it have and would that planet still be in a habitable zone, as planetary orbits are essentially chaotic anyway and this one is very close to the star and you would think would be easily perturbed?
I thought that smaller stars last much longer than larger stars. Fair point about chaotic orbits though, especially on those timescales.

...And, how close would the JWT be to being able to image this directly?
Great question.

Anyone know the answer?
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Old 25-08-2016, 17:51
SaddlerSteve
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The JWT is due to launch in 2018.

There are much bigger earth based telescopes being built in Chile and Hawaii which are scheduled to operate from 2022.
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Old 25-08-2016, 19:21
atg
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The JWT is due to launch in 2018.

There are much bigger earth based telescopes being built in Chile and Hawaii which are scheduled to operate from 2022.
On reflection I fear the planet is far too small and close to the star to be imaged by a single scope, you would need some advanced interferometry to catch it. What an earth shattering image that would be for mankind though!!!
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Old 25-08-2016, 19:24
atg
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I thought that smaller stars last much longer than larger stars.
This is true, but I was thinking that a red dwarf is already at a much later stage in its lifetime. However, I may have been thinking about red giants Was my three years getting a Bsc in astronomy completely wasted?
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Old 25-08-2016, 19:28
atg
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I personally think this is great news right now as there's long been a deficiency in funding towards next-generation propulsion systems for deep-space exploration. While we're happy sending probes out to the planets we're happy with long-duration missions but if we want to take a probe mission to this new planet seriously we're going to need a new way of accelerating it to a reasonable proportion of c. The by-product being hopefully faster inter-planetary missions which would suit manned missions much more.
We also need to find a way of keeping people in suspended animation, because I can't believe it will ever be possible for normal people, as opposed to trained astronauts, to live 'normal' lives for what would be decades in the confines of any conceivable spaceship.
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Old 25-08-2016, 19:34
atg
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My money is on the Earth being largely populated by whale-like creatures and algaeplankton during its final productive years, with mankind not even a distant memory, and no trace of anything we ever did left, having been subsumed by plate tectonics.
Go a bit further and all the atoms that make up our world, solar system, even galaxy, will be completely and irrevocay scattered throughout the massively bloated future universe, and nothing will ever actually have mattered at all.
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Old 25-08-2016, 20:16
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Thank you for all those informative links - much appreciated.

While the Proxima Centauri travel video was interesting, a part of it was potentially misleading. A planet that close to its parent star would in all probability be tidally locked so that one hemisphere would permanently face the star while the other hemisphere would be in total darkness. Given that planet's mass, it could very well be geologically active like Venus and Earth are although lack of fast rotation may not bode well for a strong and protective magnetic field (compare the Earth & Jupiter fas rotators)

If the conditions on the surface are clement and favourable for life, then things can start to get interesting. The star's spectrum and emission peak and atmospheric absorptivity all help to determine the best photosynthetic colour for maximum efficiency and in the case of a dim red star, any plant leaves are likely to be black in colour. The nearest Earth equivalent is 'purpurea' plants, shrubs and trees (I don't like them at all!).

I agree that talking in those timescales is pretty meaningless, but whatever our descendents look like then, they would still need somewhere to live. One thing though, proxima centauri is already a red dwarf, how long does it have and would that planet still be in a habitable zone, as planetary orbits are essentially chaotic anyway and this one is very close to the star and you would think would be easily perturbed? Also, it would probably be a better idea to move there before our sun dies, not after.

I wonder if Hawking and his colleagues knew about this when they suggested the micro probe mission earlier this year.

And, how close would the JWT be to being able to image this directly?
Basically, the smaller and redder a star is, the longer it lives. Theoretically, a small red dwarf M class star might potentially live for hundreds of billions of years and even in the trillions range (Proxima Centauri itself might possibly last 4 trillion years). Orange K class stars (like Alpha Centauri B) might live from 15-30 billion years (I like them) while larger G class stars like Alpha Centauri A and our Sun live for about 10 billion years. There appears to be trend that the smaller the star is the more likely it is to flare up and flaring is more common in young stars.

Of course it's ridiculous to talk about humans moving to this prospective new home when the sun eventually makes the Earth uninhabitable, but for a news cycle that's exactly what everyone wants to be talking about in order to get noticed.

That said if humanity survives the next couple of centuries and figures out how to live off Earth and colonise the solar system then there's no limiting factor to suggest our sepcies or what ever we become cannot survive indefinitley so finding these planets is crucial so that we know that eventually, when the solar system becomes over-crowded and resources start to run low there's somewhere else 'close' by to go.

I personally think this is great news right now as there's long been a deficiency in funding towards next-generation propulsion systems for deep-space exploration. While we're happy sending probes out to the planets we're happy with long-duration missions but if we want to take a probe mission to this new planet seriously we're going to need a new way of accelerating it to a reasonable proportion of c. The by-product being hopefully faster inter-planetary missions which would suit manned missions much more.
The exoplanets in the habitable zones around Proxima Centauri (4.2 light years away) and Wolf 1061 (14 light years away) provide an excellent incentive for humanity to get out of the solar system even if only by robotic probes initially such as the Starshot Project and I very much hope that other similar nearby planets are found.

In terms of human exploration, the VASIMR and NERVA engines are credible ways of getting around within the solar system but as for travel to the stars, the only half way decent attempt is the Bussard Ramjet and variants thereof.
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Old 25-08-2016, 22:12
PyRoMaNiAc
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Thank you for all those informative links - much appreciated.

While the Proxima Centauri travel video was interesting, a part of it was potentially misleading. A planet that close to its parent star would in all probability be tidally locked so that one hemisphere would permanently face the star while the other hemisphere would be in total darkness. Given that planet's mass, it could very well be geologically active like Venus and Earth are although lack of fast rotation may not bode well for a strong and protective magnetic field (compare the Earth & Jupiter fas rotators)

If the conditions on the surface are clement and favourable for life, then things can start to get interesting. The star's spectrum and emission peak and atmospheric absorptivity all help to determine the best photosynthetic colour for maximum efficiency and in the case of a dim red star, any plant leaves are likely to be black in colour. The nearest Earth equivalent is 'purpurea' plants, shrubs and trees (I don't like them at all!).



Basically, the smaller and redder a star is, the longer it lives. Theoretically, a small red dwarf M class star might potentially live for hundreds of billions of years and even in the trillions range (Proxima Centauri itself might possibly last 4 trillion years). Orange K class stars (like Alpha Centauri B) might live from 15-30 billion years (I like them) while larger G class stars like Alpha Centauri A and our Sun live for about 10 billion years. There appears to be trend that the smaller the star is the more likely it is to flare up and flaring is more common in young stars.



The exoplanets in the habitable zones around Proxima Centauri (4.2 light years away) and Wolf 1061 (14 light years away) provide an excellent incentive for humanity to get out of the solar system even if only by robotic probes initially such as the Starshot Project and I very much hope that other similar nearby planets are found.

In terms of human exploration, the VASIMR and NERVA engines are credible ways of getting around within the solar system but as for travel to the stars, the only half way decent attempt is the Bussard Ramjet and variants thereof.
25 trillion miles away from earth. It would take New Horizons 78,000 years to get there!
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Old 26-08-2016, 18:50
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25 trillion miles away from earth. It would take New Horizons 78,000 years to get there!
...and that only goes to show that chemical propulsion is one hell of a crude lemon technology. It's only fit for getting into Earth orbit and going to the Moon and it's useless for everything else because it takes so long.

For example, it takes 9 months to get to Mars (and that's even with favourable orbits) and 9 years to get to Pluto. It's about time that humans abandoned this wretched technology and looked to plasma and nuclear propulsion systems for getting round round the solar system and then magical things will start to happen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?annota...&v=YH3c1QZzRK4

Meanwhile, Stephen Baxter's novel Proxima about a theoretical planet orbiting around Proxima Centauri is looking rather prophetic: https://www.google.co.uk/#q=proxima+...axter&tbm=shop
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Old 26-08-2016, 18:56
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...and that only goes to show that chemical propulsion is one hell of a crude lemon technology. It's only fit for getting into Earth orbit and going to the Moon and it's useless for everything else because it takes so long...
PMSL! Yeah, what a piece of sh*t! Pffft..
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Old 26-08-2016, 19:03
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PMSL! Yeah, what a piece of sh*t! Pffft..
Yes, and glorified fireworks, which is what they really are, will only get humanity so far (and that's not been very far at all).
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