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Space and Astronomy Thread |
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#1801 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Newcastle Upon Tyne
Posts: 53,213
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Quote:
Excellent, tvqueen1905, but here in the south west it's been generally quite cloudy so l've missed this year's display
.And now for some astro news... Darkest exoplanet spotted by astronomers A dark alien world, blacker than coal, has been spotted by astronomers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14476411 Mars rover Opportunity now at vast Endeavour crater At the crater, Opportunity will travel south across the rim to perform a geological assessment of the location, examining the clay minerals formed under wet conditions at the oldest of the four craters it has visited. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...d-2334921.html ETA thanks for the links |
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#1802 |
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Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Sherwood forest
Posts: 1,459
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Out for a walk, just before 10 last night in West Suffolk, I saw an orange object burning up in the sky, heading virtually from due south to north, then 5 more fairly equally spaced apart burning up - was this some late Perseids ?, thanks.
Bob |
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#1803 |
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Storbritannia
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Quote:
Out for a walk, just before 10 last night in West Suffolk, I saw an orange object burning up in the sky, heading virtually from due south to north, then 5 more fairly equally spaced apart burning up - was this some late Perseids ?, thanks.
Bob I guess only something like detailed spectrographic analysis showing what elements are in the burning body would help to identify it's not exactly readily available or portable. And now for some more news... Boeing selects Atlas V rocket for space taxi service But Boeing is designing a commercial crew capsule of its own, called the CST-100. And on Thursday, it announced that the CST-100 will launch on the Atlas V rocket, assuming NASA chooses to buy space taxi service from Boeing. http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/sh...-v-rocket.html UK's University of Exeter team uses Hubble Space Telescope to study Hot Jupiters The team, led by the University of Exeter in Devon, says that securing nearly 200 hours' use of the telescope makes its project one of the biggest ever. The research will focus on "Hot Jupiters", exoplanets which are similar in size to Jupiter but with temperatures of 1,000 degrees or more because they orbit so close to their respective stars. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukp...1313749082096A |
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#1804 |
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Stoke-On-Trent
Posts: 7,158
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Russian space freighter lost
The lastest supply run to the ISS has ended in failure. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14653371 |
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#1805 |
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Under your bed...
Posts: 15,706
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Quote:
Russian space freighter lost
The lastest supply run to the ISS has ended in failure. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14653371 Maybe they forgot the chocolate
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#1806 |
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Lichfield, Staffs
Posts: 8,642
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Quote:
Russian space freighter lost
The lastest supply run to the ISS has ended in failure. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14653371 |
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#1807 |
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 9,976
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Been loving spotting the ISS over the past week. I've gotten all my neighbours in on the act as well and we all pop out into our respective back gardens to peek this amazing light spread over the sky!
Link here for the next few days sighting times for the UK http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata...United+Kingdom |
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#1808 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 19,567
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Quote:
Been loving spotting the ISS over the past week. I've gotten all my neighbours in on the act as well and we all pop out into our respective back gardens to peek this amazing light spread over the sky!
Link here for the next few days sighting times for the UK http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata...United+Kingdom |
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#1809 |
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Stoke-On-Trent
Posts: 7,158
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NASA Spacecraft Images Offer Sharper Views of Apollo Landing Sites Quote:
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. Images show the twists and turns of the paths made when the astronauts explored the lunar surface.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LR...llo-sites.html
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#1810 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 1,876
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Quote:
NASA Spacecraft Images Offer Sharper Views of Apollo Landing Sites
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LR...llo-sites.html |
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#1811 |
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Stoke-On-Trent
Posts: 7,158
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Quote:
Hooray, maybe now the moon landing conspiracy theorists will STFU. But, I won't hold my breath...
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#1812 |
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Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 851
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Anyone been watching Jupiter? Got up at 4am for a toilet break and had a look out. Incredibly bright and was due south at the time. Rises in the east about 9.30pm. Didn't know what it was at the time so fired up stellarium. According to the sunday times column it's 3 times brighter than the brightest star. Oh , and then we also have this supernova , better find out where the plough is.
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#1813 |
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Osaka
Posts: 2,007
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Quote:
Hooray, maybe now the moon landing conspiracy theorists will STFU. But, I won't hold my breath...
Anyway good pictures....
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#1814 |
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Storbritannia
Posts: 28,927
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Quote:
I thought Photos would be proof....
Anyway good pictures.... ![]() And now for and an Astro news roundup... Russia pins Soyuz failure to production line defect A Soyuz launch from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, The Russian space agency says a rocket that failed while carrying cargo to the International Space Station on 24 August had a production line defect. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14852534 It's good news that the fault has been discovered and that should mean that launches can now continue from central Asia and start up from Kourou in South America. Nasa's Grail probes to make lunar gravity maps A Delta rocket sent the Grail twins on their way. Its launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station occurred at 09:08 EDT (13:08 GMT; 14:08 BST). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14825641 Rover begins 'whole new mission' at Martian crater Opportunity arrived at the 13.7-mile-wide Endeavour crater in early August after a 13-mile drive since climbing out of the much smaller Victoria crater in August 2008. http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1109/02opp/ |
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#1815 |
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Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Northern Ireland
Posts: 2,638
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I seen this a while back and thought it was very good. Saturn fly-through using several thousand images from Cassini.
http://vimeo.com/11386048 |
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#1816 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Solihull
Posts: 7,274
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NASA has unveiled plans for it's shuttle-replacement launcher, cleverly called the Space Launch System or SLS!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14915725 Basically it's the Ares launcher design from several years ago re-hashed - complete with the Orion capsule on top. I seriously wonder sometimes.
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#1817 |
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: northwest
Posts: 9,566
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lets hope its better than the shuttle ,well it should be
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#1818 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Stoke-On-Trent
Posts: 7,158
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Quote:
NASA has unveiled plans for it's shuttle-replacement launcher, cleverly called the Space Launch System or SLS!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14915725 Basically it's the Ares launcher design from several years ago re-hashed - complete with the Orion capsule on top. I seriously wonder sometimes. ![]() http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14906539 |
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#1819 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 2,049
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Quote:
NASA has unveiled plans for it's shuttle-replacement launcher, cleverly called the Space Launch System or SLS!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14915725 Basically it's the Ares launcher design from several years ago re-hashed - complete with the Orion capsule on top. I seriously wonder sometimes. ![]() |
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#1820 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Stoke-On-Trent
Posts: 7,158
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Quote:
Looks like an old Saturn V rocket with a couple of Space Shuttle booster rockets bolted onto it. Are NASA raiding their spares parts cupboard?
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#1821 |
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Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: in yo' mamma
Posts: 19,358
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There was some chat a few years back that this new booster would use the recycled SSMEs - any mention of that today?
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#1822 |
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Solihull
Posts: 7,274
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Quote:
There was some chat a few years back that this new booster would use the recycled SSMEs - any mention of that today?
There is something to be said for re-using old technology, especially if it's been proved to be very reliable. However there is an obvious limitation to how far you can push that technology. Russia has made some fantastic advances in rocket technology which the US has 'purchased' but seems reluctant to aid Russia in pushing that forward at the expense of their own designs. Still a 2017 launch isn't too bad, although as the Ares 1 was already into it's launch tests 2 or 3 years ago I'm not quite sure why it'll take that long to get this 'new' system to the pad. |
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#1823 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Derby
Posts: 27,583
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That's a clunky old rocket! If NASA wants to move freight into space then it needs to get itself a a Corellian XS Light Freighter or two!! Ok, a Millenium Falcon type craft to the non geeks!!
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#1824 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Solihull
Posts: 7,274
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Not sure why there hasn't been much exposure to the last raft of exo-planets but it included a real gem out of the 600 or so new candidates. A super-Earth with 3.6 times the mass of Earth and lieing just on the inside edge of the habitable zone around it's star which means if it has a dense atmosphere (likely) it will have liquid water. It has an orbital period of just over 50 days and best of all, it's a mere 30 or so light years away. That's important because within a few years there will be telescopes which can actually observe a planet that close and analyse it's atmosphere for tell-tale signs of life.
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#1825 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Derby
Posts: 27,583
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Exciting news indeed. As you say, we're just waiting for the next gen telescopes - light and radio.
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