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Space and Astronomy Thread
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gkec
07-06-2012
Originally Posted by jojo2008:
“Anyone watching "Destination Titan" on BBC4?
Wonders of the Solar System was listed as being on earlier this morning. I wonder why it's been replaced with this”

It has been on before. I watched it on iPlayer and was surprised to see that I was actually on it very briefly. Interesting and does show the sort of things that really happen on this sort of project but it is a bit don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. If you watch it bear in mind the project cost about £7 million.
fordj
08-06-2012
I watched this when it was on before, really fascinating, it captured the tension they felt at each vital stage of the mission. I can only imagine how anxious they were as they waited for a signal from Huygens to confirm its landing on Titan's surface. In the end it was great achievement for British and European science.

Saturn Moon Titan
TelevisionUser
08-06-2012
Astronomers have always believed our galaxy may collide with its cosmic neighbour Andromeda - and now the doomsday scenario has been confirmed. Nasa has spent years tracking the direction of the Andromeda galaxy through its Hubble Space telescope. The US space agency confirmed its precise observations "remove any doubt that it is destined to collide and merge with the Milky Way".
http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16239635

Jupiter Juice Mission Approved For Launch

Scientists from British universities including University College London and Leicester are to play a key role in a one billion euro (£812 million) space mission to explore the icy moons of Jupiter. The Juice (Jupiter icy moons explorer) mission will investigate the possibility of "waterworlds" that may harbour life.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012...n_1473346.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...t_Night_Juice/


In addition to the above news stories, I recommend the BBC Timeshift British Space Race episode below which covers the unsung pioneers of British space exploration. It's also a sad indictment of successive British governments which had no imagination or foresight because if things had turned out differently, Britain and Australia together could have been up there with NASA, the Russian Space Agency and the European Space Agency.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...sh_Space_Race/
afcbfan
10-06-2012
Originally Posted by Carlos_dfc:
“The next 'Great' comet....????

The Minor Planet Center have issued a details of a new comet discovered by the Pan-STARRS survey in Hawaii. Designated 'C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS)' it may be very bright in spring 2013!
Perihelion is currently forecast to be 0.36AU, and the comet could reach a magnitude between 0 and 2 in April 2013.
(the brightest stars are magnitude 0 - 1)
It's early days yet - it's still a long way out, and very dim - but with comet's brightness being notoriously unpredictable it might go even brighter.

Fingers crossed.”

I've only just heard about this; at first I thought you'd posted about it yesterday when I saw the search results Anyway, still on track to be a decent sight by all accounts: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/obser...147166535.html
HenryGarten
11-06-2012
Extremely large telescope approved. See report

Construction of world's biggest optical telescope has been approved.

The European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) will have a primary mirror some 40m in diameter, and will be built on top of a mountain in Chile.

Member states of the European Southern Observatory (Eso) organisation declared their support for the project on Monday at a meeting in Garching, Germany.
TelevisionUser
12-06-2012
Originally Posted by HenryGarten:
“Extremely large telescope approved. See report

Construction of world's biggest optical telescope has been approved.

The European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) will have a primary mirror some 40m in diameter, and will be built on top of a mountain in Chile.

Member states of the European Southern Observatory (Eso) organisation declared their support for the project on Monday at a meeting in Garching, Germany.”

Thanks for posting that link, Henry, and it's a welcome scientific development. The combination of very large telescope mirrors and adaptive optics means that ground-based telescopes can now surpass the Hubble Space Telescope in terms of capability.

And now for some news updates:

Ancient Galaxy Close Encounter Created Giant Gas 'Bridge'


Two galaxies near our own Milky Way may have had a close encounter billions of years ago that created a vast bridge of gas that links them together to this day, a new study finds. Observations from the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope, a massive radio instrument in Green Bank, W.Va., indicate that hydrogen gas may be streaming between the colossal Andromeda Galaxy, or M31, and its neighboring Triangulum Galaxy, or M33.
http://www.space.com/16104-andromeda...as-bridge.html

Martian methane might be due to meteorite breakdown rather than life

Here we show that methane is produced in much larger quantities from the Murchison meteorite (a type CM2 carbonaceous chondrite) when exposed to ultraviolet radiation under conditions similar to those expected at the Martian surface. Meteorites containing several per cent of intact organic matter reach the Martian surface at high rates9, and our experiments suggest that a significant fraction of the organic matter accessible to ultraviolet radiation is converted to methane.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ATURE-20120607
Assa2
12-06-2012
Originally Posted by HenryGarten:
“Extremely large telescope approved. See report

Construction of world's biggest optical telescope has been approved.

The European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) will have a primary mirror some 40m in diameter, and will be built on top of a mountain in Chile.

Member states of the European Southern Observatory (Eso) organisation declared their support for the project on Monday at a meeting in Garching, Germany.”

At the current rate scientists will run out of superlatives when designating new telescopes in around 2025! It all sounds a bit Douglas Adams. What's next, the stupendously large telescope (SLT), the unbelievably large telescope (ULT) and of course, the daddy of them all... the you-wouldn't-believe-how large telescope (YWBHLT).
TelevisionUser
12-06-2012
Originally Posted by Assa2:
“At the current rate scientists will run out of superlatives when designating new telescopes in around 2025! It all sounds a bit Douglas Adams. What's next, the stupendously large telescope (SLT), the unbelievably large telescope (ULT) and of course, the daddy of them all... the you-wouldn't-believe-how large telescope (YWBHLT). ”

...and they, in turn, will all be outdone by the HHT, the Humongously Huge Telescope with its 100 metre diametre mirror!
BeethovensPiano
15-06-2012
Originally Posted by Assa2:
“At the current rate scientists will run out of superlatives when designating new telescopes in around 2025! It all sounds a bit Douglas Adams. What's next, the stupendously large telescope (SLT), the unbelievably large telescope (ULT) and of course, the daddy of them all... the you-wouldn't-believe-how large telescope (YWBHLT). ”

There was OWL... Overwhelmingly Large Telescope
TelevisionUser
15-06-2012
Originally Posted by BeethovensPiano:
“There was OWL... Overwhelmingly Large Telescope”

...and that telescope really was going to have a 100m diameter mirror! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwhe...arge_Telescope

It's a shame that no one yet has looked into the possibility of putting large optical and radio telescopes on the far side of the Moon where there's no atmosphere, Earthglow or radio interference. That said, such things are decades away.

And now for some spaceflight news:

China to launch most ambitious space mission yet

BEIJING — China is due to embark on its most ambitious space mission Saturday with the launch of a spacecraft that will propel three astronauts -- including the nation's first woman -- to the final frontier. The Shenzhou-9 spacecraft is expected to take off on China's fourth manned space mission at 6:37 pm (1037 GMT) from the remote Gobi desert in the nation's northwest, in a bid to achieve the first manual space docking high above Earth.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...f92408151a.731

It looks like they're set to repeat the Soviets' Voskhod 1 mission which the Soviets accomplished 48 years ago! Take away the propaganda hype and the Chinese are five decades behind the Russians an Americans and talk of the Chinese having a moonbase is premature.
Dave5158
16-06-2012
Originally Posted by TelevisionUser:
“It's a shame that no one yet has looked into the possibility of putting large optical and radio telescopes on the far side of the Moon where there's no atmosphere, Earthglow or radio interference. That said, such things are decades away. ”

And the Moon has the advantage of a lower gravity level to deal with. Less likely for a very large mirror to distort under its own weight, I would presume.
TelevisionUser
16-06-2012
Liu Yang, a female pilot, is amongst the three member crew of the Shenzhou 9 mission, the latest step in China’s increasingly ambitious space programme. The 33-year-old major in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), earned her place in Chinese history shortly after 6.30pm on Saturday local time, when she and two other taikonauts, the Chinese word for astronauts, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China aboard a Long March rocket.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...henzhou-9.html (includes a video of the launch)

China's basically using 1960s American rocket technology (courtesy of experts forced out of the USA by McCarthy's insane purges) combined with Soviet era Soyuz capsule technology. At the risk of being controversial, you have basically got an American Titan II rocket with liquid-fueled strap on boosters and a Soyuz capsule perched on top.
Dan Fortesque
17-06-2012
It will cost you £125,000 for anyone interested in joining a Virgin Galactic trip.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserve...=FBCNETTXT9038
tiger2000
23-06-2012
Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror
TelevisionUser
23-06-2012
Originally Posted by tiger2000:
“Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror”

...and now for the reality . That skycrane landing system seems overly complex which means that there's much more to go wrong. Whilst I would very much like this mission to succeed, I fear that this one will be another victory for the Great Galactic Ghoul.

And now for some space news...

NuStar unfolds its unique mast

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has successfully deployed its lengthy mast, giving it the ability to see the highest energy X-rays in our universe. The mission is one step closer to beginning its hunt for black holes hiding in our Milky Way and other galaxies.
http://spacedog.eu/spaceflight/space...ique-mast.html

Ex-Spy Telescope May Get New Identity as a Space Investigator

It is to turn one of the telescopes loose on the cosmos, pointing in its rightful direction, outward, to investigate the mysterious dark energy that is speeding up the universe’s expansion. If the plan succeeds — and Congress, the Office of Management and Budget and the Academy of Sciences have yet to sign on — it could shave hundreds of millions of dollars and several years off a quest that many scientists say is the most fundamental of our time and that NASA had said it could not undertake until 2024 at the earliest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/sc...pagewanted=all

Small Planets Don't Need 'Heavy Metal' Stars to Form

The formation of small worlds like Earth previously was thought to occur mostly around stars rich in heavy elements such as iron and silicon. However, new ground-based observations, combined with data collected by NASA's Kepler space telescope, show small planets form around stars with a wide range of heavy element content and suggest they may be widespread in our galaxy.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0613141606.htm

Shenzhou-9 docks with Tiangong-1

China's Shenzhou-9 capsule, with its crew of three, has docked with the Tiangong-1 space lab. The coupling of the vehicles occurred at 14:07 Beijing time (06:07 GMT; 07:07 BST). The latest Shenzhou mission was launched on Saturday, taking the nation's first female astronaut into orbit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18481806
Bedsit Bob
28-06-2012
Bought a cheap telescope yesterday, intending to do a bit of moon viewing.

Last night was overcast, as is today.
afcbfan
14-07-2012
For anyone staying up late - or getting up early - tonight / tomorrow take a look at the partial occultation of Jupiter by the crescent Moon; should make for some excellent astrophotography work.

Venus isn't far behind so that'll make a lovely grouping in the pre-dawn sky.
TelevisionUser
22-07-2012
Astronomers have spotted the earliest known spiral galaxy, dating to just three billion years after the Big Bang. Theories of galaxy formation held that the Universe was still too chaotic a place to allow such a perfectly formed or "grand-design" spiral to form.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18891760

Impossible, record breaking orbits for red dwarfs

The United Kingdom Infrared Telescope has unveiled a puzzling set of binary stars that whiz around each other in time-scales that were thought to be impossible. These unexpected results could mean that its back to the drawing board for understanding red dwarf formation.
http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n12...possiblestars/

Toasty planet discovered in Earth's cosmic backyard

The infrared element of NASA's Great Observatory series, the Spitzer Space Telescope, has discovered a new planet just 33 light-years away that is the nearest world beyond our solar system, found thus far, that is smaller than our own.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1207/18planet/
tiger2000
01-08-2012
Only 4 days to go now until the Curiosity rover landing on Mars.

6:31am on Monday Morning.
HenryGarten
02-08-2012
Originally Posted by tiger2000:
“Only 4 days to go now until the Curiosity rover landing on Mars.

6:31am on Monday Morning.”

Hope it all goes well.
nisha29
02-08-2012
I love astronomy and anything about the universe
nisha29
02-08-2012
Cannot wait I hope it touches down and find life on the red planet
HenryGarten
02-08-2012
Originally Posted by nisha29:
“Cannot wait I hope it touches down and find life on the red planet”

This is about the most adventurous touchdown ever.
TelevisionUser
02-08-2012
Originally Posted by tiger2000:
“Only 4 days to go now until the Curiosity rover landing on Mars.

6:31am on Monday Morning.”

Originally Posted by HenryGarten:
“Hope it all goes well.”

I have two relevant links and the first of which is to the relatively new dedicated thread on this subject: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1695983

The second link is to Monday's Horizon programme on iPlayer about the Curiosity mission: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...ssion_to_Mars/
tiger2000
06-08-2012
They Did it!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19144464
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