Any Astronomy Buffs Here?

[DevilHorse]

Perseids meteorite shower starts tonight.
Best viewing after midnight (without clouds or skyfall of course).

Larry
DevilHorse

[bundabergdevil]

Sorry, but I had to look it up. My investments were in comic books; they aged better.

Larry
DevilHorse

This is true. Burroughs did not age well. At all.

[DevilHorse]

So what is going on with Ingenuity?
https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/

Wow, about to take its 12th flight, and no longer mirroring Perseverance.

This is indeed the little copter that could.

Meanwhile, Persey is getting ready to collect its first sample that will eventually be returned to Earth.

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

Not something you see everyday. A transit of Venus:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1431389638292291584

Larry
DevilHorse

[-jk]

Not something you see everyday. A transit of Venus:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1431389638292291584

Larry
DevilHorse

Cool. Why so far apart? Out of our plane/ecliptic/whatever?

-jk

[DevilHorse]

Cool. Why so far apart? Out of our plane/ecliptic/whatever?

-jk

Venus's orbital plane relative to the ecliptic is 3.4 degrees. One would think that with Venus orbiting the Sun every 224 days, and Earth every 365, we would have an opportunity to see approximately 1.6 transits per year if the Venus/Earth ecliptics aligned. Since the Earth has to be in the exact right place when Venus crosses the plane to see the transit, it is a rare event. The 2012 transit took 6 hours 40 minutes (about the amount of time the Earth has to be in the right place +/- a couple of hours); seems a little shorter than a lunar eclipse and about as long as a full solar eclipse from start to finish.

I plan to be around for the next transit and celebrate Duke's 30th Basketball championship (coached by Cameron Plumlee III). Who's with me?!

Larry
DevilHorse

[CameronBornAndBred]

Good news!

NASA's long-delayed James Webb Space Telescope is close to entering service. The agency now plans to launch the telescope on December 18th, 2021, just a few months after testing completed in late August. The hardware will reach orbit aboard an ESA-supplied Ariane 5 rocket lifting off from French Guiana. NASA still has to ship the telescope to the launchpad, although much of the rocket has already arrived.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/n...145148575.html

I wonder why the ESA is handling the launch instead of NASA.

[DevilHorse]

Good news!



https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/n...145148575.html

I wonder why the ESA is handling the launch instead of NASA.

From what little I can extract from a few articles, the Webb is a cooperative venture between NASA(USA)/ CSA (Canada) / ESA (Europe). NASA is calling it the NASA Webb Telescope, (I presume NASA is contributing the lion's share based on key learnings from the Hubble) and it is being assembled at Northrup Grumman in California (Grumman has been assembling vehicles for space since the '60s - see the Lunar Excursion Module - Apollo). If Webb is a cooperative venture, then other countries would want to contribute, right? The Ariane 5 launch vehicle (ESA) has apparently been successfully launching satellites into orbit for decades, so why not let them contribute in this way?

I also found this tidbit:
Canada (CSA) contributed two key elements to Webb: the Fine Guidance Sensor ( FGS ) and the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS). In exchange for that contribution, Canadian researchers will have access to 5% of the observing time available to the international community.

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

Looks like Jupiter got hit with 'something' again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmac...h=70e866bd2edf

In general, I think it is more likely that it gets hit from behind (facing away from the sun) than in front. Not very entertaining for us, but perhaps safest.

Larry
DevilHorse

[OldPhiKap]

Looks like Jupiter got hit with 'something' again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmac...h=70e866bd2edf

In general, I think it is more likely that it gets hit from behind (facing away from the sun) than in front. Not very entertaining for us, but perhaps safest.

Larry
DevilHorse

“Jupiter: the pulling guard of the Solar System.”

[CameronBlue]

Just in case folks are more interested in projects closer to home:

www.gmto.org
www.tmt.org

two clients of mine.

[DevilHorse]

Just in case folks are more interested in projects closer to home:

www.gmto.org
www.tmt.org

two clients of mine.

Great to see advances in earth based optical telescopy. No replacement for light gathering power.
Ease of access to repair, attach detectors/equipment.

Better invest in primo coffee machines.

Thanks for sharing.

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

Two out of the Three Broadcast Networks tonight (ABC and NBC) ended with a version of this article:
https://www.commercialappeal.com/sto...ns/8382221002/

Kids from St. Judes hospital asking questions of the citizen/amateur astronauts on the SpaceX ship.
These kids were less than 10 years old, so their questions were pretty basic, but interesting none the less.

But I want to know what YOUR questions would be for these astronauts?

The question I came up with was:

What happens to your tear when you cry in space?

OK, I can imagine that they don't go anywhere; just build up in your eyes. But that was the first thing that came to mind.

Any takers with other burning questions that NASA hasn't gotten back to you on?

Larry
DevilHorse (No horses in space, except maybe in Notting Hill and Star Wars)

[DevilHorse]

Well Ingenuity had its first hiccup on its attempted 14th flight (wow, 14th):

https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/hel...t-conjunction/

Basically, they attempted to increase the speed of the propellers to compensate for a thinner atmosphere (due to seasons on Mars). They ran tests of the propellers and it seemed OK, but some in-line checks did not allow Ingenuity to take off. There are a couple of theories as to what happened and a couple of workarounds to it. Ingenuity will (hopefully) fly again, even though it is Waaaay past its expiration date and doing far more than originally intended.

Mars is going behind the sun now, so Ingenuity and Perseverance will be out of communication for a short bit of time. At least they will have each other to talk to (and they will).

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

Have you seen the Milky Way lately? Well neither have I.

But Percy has.
Here is a cool view of the Milky Way from Mars thanks to the Perseverance Rover:
https://www.facebook.com/SocialJunki...43315067435809

Don't forget to drag the picture and move it around.

Larry
DevilHorse

[CameronBornAndBred]

Have you seen the Milky Way lately? Well neither have I.

But Percy has.
Here is a cool view of the Milky Way from Mars thanks to the Perseverance Rover:
https://www.facebook.com/SocialJunki...43315067435809

Don't forget to drag the picture and move it around.

Larry
DevilHorse

As cool as that photo is, it is photoshopped. The cameras on the rover aren't designed for that kind of sensitivity.

[CameronBornAndBred]

A little info from the creator of the image.

"Disclaimer: the original photo does not have the full sky, I edited the sky to have a full 360 experience inside a VR headset like Oculus Quest 2. The sky does not represent the real sky from Mars. This is an art.
Thank you so much for all the love."

[DevilHorse]

A little info from the creator of the image.

"Disclaimer: the original photo does not have the full sky, I edited the sky to have a full 360 experience inside a VR headset like Oculus Quest 2. The sky does not represent the real sky from Mars. This is an art.
Thank you so much for all the love."

Thanks for the due dilligence.

Larry
DevilHorse

[Acymetric]

Thanks for the due dilligence.

Larry
DevilHorse

Still cool (probably cooler if I had an Occulus...), thanks for sharing. Also got me thinking (even though that turned out not to be the real sky) about whether the inability to really see the night sky (in many populated places, at least) might have negative impacts on the way we think, so there's that too.

[CameronBornAndBred]

I'm sure that Nasa does have the ability to include a camera to take long exposure night shots, but since they don't fly all the way to another planet to look up, it makes sense that they haven't.

Still, they outta, because it would be so cool!