The Outer Space Thread

[mistertim]

On 1/13/2022 at 9:17 AM, Mr. Sinister said:

Anybody still watch "How the Universe Works?"

 

Saw a good ep early this morning on the viability of an ark project to Alpha Centauri (sp?). I had no idea concepts like antimatter drives, hydrogen/water being used to absorb lethal levels of radiation, and blood cooling to simulate stasis were actually being studied.

 

Pretty cool to think about, regardless of ones opinion on interstellar space colonization vs planetary restoration/deep space mining. 

 

I think the radiation and stasis issues (among other things) will be solved once we ditch these ridiculous meat sack bodies and figure out how to fully emulate a human brain and we become digital. Then the distances and times won't even matter much because all you have to do is up your clock speed and it will take 5 minutes for you. Or you could basically pause yourself and it would be instant if you wanted.

[China]

Abandoned rocket 'hits the Moon' - scientists

 

A discarded part of a rocket should have crashed into the Moon's far side by now, say scientists who were expecting the impact at 12:25 GMT.

 

The three-tonne rocket part had been tracked for a number of years, but its origin was contested.

 

At first, astronomers thought it might have belonged to Elon Musk's SpaceX firm, and then said it was Chinese - something China denies.

 

The effects of the impact on the Moon should have been minor.

 

The rocket stage would have dug out a small crater and created a plume of dust.

 

Scientists hope to get confirmation in the coming days, or weeks.

 

The rocket part was first sighted from Earth in March 2015. A Nasa-funded space survey in Arizona spotted it, but quickly lost interest when the object was shown not to be an asteroid.

 

The rocket part is what's known as "space junk" - hardware discarded from missions or satellites without enough fuel or energy to return to Earth.

 

Some pieces are closer to us, just above the Earth, but others, like this booster, are thousands of kilometres away in high orbit, far from the Earth's atmosphere.

 

The European Space Agency estimates there are now 36,500 pieces of space junk larger than 10cm.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

 

 

New 83 Million Pixel Zoomable Image Of The Sun From Solar Orbiter

[The 12th Commandment]

Clearly, Elon Musk has begun construction on his moon base.  Wonder if he has any hot nazi chicks dressed in leather to staff it?

[China]

Rare 'Blood Moon' total lunar eclipse to be visible coast to coast in Canada in mid-May

 

On the night of May 15, a Blood Moon will rise, and it’ll be the longest total lunar eclipse that Canadians have been able to see in 15 years.

 

A total lunar eclipse occurs when the sun, Earth and moon line up so that the Earth blocks the sun and its shadow falls directly on the face of the moon.

 

The moon’s nightly glow comes from reflected light from the sun. During a lunar eclipse, as the moon crosses into the Earth’s umbra — the fullest part of the Earth’s shadow — its usually bright white shine will rust into a darker, redder colour, giving it the unofficial moniker of a Blood Moon. A little more than a third of all lunar eclipses are total eclipses.

 

According to NASA, the moon will start crossing into the Earth’s shadow shortly after 10 p.m. (EDT) on May 15, but will be entering the umbra around 11 p.m., marking the start of the eclipse.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

Spitzer at its best, vs. Webb calibrating:

 

[China]

On 5/4/2022 at 6:44 PM, China said:

Rare 'Blood Moon' total lunar eclipse to be visible coast to coast in Canada in mid-May

 

On the night of May 15, a Blood Moon will rise, and it’ll be the longest total lunar eclipse that Canadians have been able to see in 15 years.

 

A total lunar eclipse occurs when the sun, Earth and moon line up so that the Earth blocks the sun and its shadow falls directly on the face of the moon.

 

The moon’s nightly glow comes from reflected light from the sun. During a lunar eclipse, as the moon crosses into the Earth’s umbra — the fullest part of the Earth’s shadow — its usually bright white shine will rust into a darker, redder colour, giving it the unofficial moniker of a Blood Moon. A little more than a third of all lunar eclipses are total eclipses.

 

According to NASA, the moon will start crossing into the Earth’s shadow shortly after 10 p.m. (EDT) on May 15, but will be entering the umbra around 11 p.m., marking the start of the eclipse.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

What This Lunar Eclipse Looks Like

 

May 15–16, 2022 — Total Lunar Eclipse — Washington DC

 

The animation shows what the eclipse approximately looks like in Washington DC. Stages and times of the eclipse are outlined below. All times are local time (EDT) for Washington DC.

 

Click on the links for more

[Renegade7]

There are pictures floating around of the Supermassive Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way today that were jus taken.  Incredible stuff.

 

Supermassive black hole seen at the center of our galaxy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/05/11/black-hole-milky-way/

 

OT: Can someone please ELI5 how the radius of the observable universe is larger then 13.8 light-years?  Is "observable" the wrong word to use here? 

 

I've been reading online the last couple days, can't find the word for the limits of what we can see given a distance something is from us and the universe not being old enough for the light to have gotten to us yet (as that's what I thought the basis of the observable universe was, and thus no way in theory to see beyond 13.8 billion light years in any direction no matter what our actual location in the universe is)

 

 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

I believe 13.8 billion years is the estimated “beginning” of the universe, eg the Big Bang. You wouldn’t expect to see anything before the beginning 

 

i think this  is the answer to your question

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/02/23/if-the-universe-is-13-8-billion-years-old-how-can-we-see-46-billion-light-years-away/amp/

essentially the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light, sort of.

 

https://askanastronomer.org/bhc/faq/2015/11/09/is-space-expanding-faster-than-light/

Edited May 12, 2022 by CousinsCowgirl84

[Renegade7]

1 hour ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

I believe 13.8 billion years is the estimated “beginning” of the universe, eg the Big Bang. You wouldn’t expect to see anything before the beginning 

 

i think this  is the answer to your question

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/02/23/if-the-universe-is-13-8-billion-years-old-how-can-we-see-46-billion-light-years-away/amp/

essentially the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light, sort of.

 

https://askanastronomer.org/bhc/faq/2015/11/09/is-space-expanding-faster-than-light/

 

I can see that. Same time, I'm still concerned about the term "observable".

 

From the Forbes article:

 

Quote

In a non-expanding Universe, as we covered earlier, the maximum distance we can observe is twice the age of the Universe in light years: 27.6 billion light years. But in the Universe we have today, we’ve already observed galaxies more distant than that!

 

But the furthest thing I can confirm we can find is still inside the 13.8 billion light year range:

 

Quote

The massive object is a colossal 13.5 billion light-years away.

 

That age places this collection of stars, now dubbed HD1, between a time of total darkness — about 14 billion years ago the universe was a blank slate devoid of any stars or galaxies — and one of just-burgeoning lights as clumps of dust and gas were growing into their cosmic destinies.

 

https://www.livescience.com/farthest-astronomical-object-ever-seen

 

It comes across like the "Observable Universe" is closer to the possible size of the universe with respect to what we could see if technology allowed it (which it doesn't because anything currently more then 13.8 billion light years away hasn't had enough time for the light to get here yet, therefore we cant observe it).

 

Not challenging you in particular, I'm just not getting the logic of the definition or able to confirm Forbes claim that we have already seen things twice that distance from Earth.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Renegade7

[CousinsCowgirl84]

24 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

I can see that. Same time, I'm still concerned about the term "observable".

 

From the Forbes article:

 

 

But the furthest thing I can confirm we can find is still inside the 13.8 billion light year range:

 

 

https://www.livescience.com/farthest-astronomical-object-ever-seen

 

It comes across like the "Observable Universe" is closer to the possible size of the universe with respect to what we could see if technology allowed it (which it doesn't because anything currently more then 13.8 billion light years away hasn't had enough time for the light to get here yet, therefore we cant observe it).

 

Not challenging you in particular, I'm just not getting the logic of the definition or able to confirm Forbes claim that we have already seen things twice that distance from Earth

 

we aren’t the center of the universe…. Also we know the velocity of space objects. Where they were 13 billion years ago will give us an idea of where they are now, which is I think where estimated size of the universe is now comes from.

Edited May 12, 2022 by CousinsCowgirl84

[Renegade7]

6 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

 

we aren’t the center of the universe…. Also we know the velocity of space objects. Where they were 13 billion years ago will give us an idea of where they are now, which is I think where estimated size of the universe is now comes from.

 

Thats all well and true, but we can't see where it is now. 

 

Saying we can see where something was that is now further then we can currently see does not mean we can see something that is now more then 13.8 billion light years away.  We saw it when it was within the 13.8 billion light year range, not after.

 

The size of rhe universe is a completely different conversation to what's the furthest we can see in space.  My issue here is with the term "observable universe" and not knowing what to call the area of space we can actually see and observe from Earth or at any point in the universe with respect to the time it takes for light to get to whomever is doing the observing.

 

  That sounds like a completely different sphere of limited vision, have we actually found anything that is actually more then 13.8 billion light years away from us like Forbes claims?

[CousinsCowgirl84]

1 hour ago, Renegade7 said:

 

Thats all well and true, but we can't see where it is now. 
 

just because it isn’t currently observable doesn’t mean it isn’t observable.  I’m not sure what point you are tying to make really.

 

1 hour ago, Renegade7 said:

 

Saying we can see where something was that is now further then we can currently see does not mean we can see something that is now more then 13.8 billion light years away.  We saw it when it was within the 13.8 billion light year range, not after.

 

there are laws like conservation of energy and conservation of angular momentum which allow us to say with certainty where objects with very large masses are currently, based on previous observations. Like sometimes don’t see the moon but you still know it’s on the other side of the earth. 
 

1 hour ago, Renegade7 said:

That sounds like a completely different sphere of limited vision, have we actually found anything that is actually more then 13.8 billion light years away from us like Forbes claims?

 

yes. Because we can only see where it was 13.8 billion years ago and from that we know where it is now. We cannot see anything where it is now.  The second we see it we know it is further away from us that that because of redshift.

Edited May 12, 2022 by CousinsCowgirl84

[RemoveSnyder]

 

[China]

I think they just got a head on view of a babelfish.

 

[Renegade7]

1 hour ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

just because it isn’t currently observable doesn’t mean it isn’t observable.  I’m not sure what point you are tying to make really.

 

Observable by someone, maybe somewhere else in the universe because them being a different distance, but not us with respect to our distance.

 

If that's what it's called because someone where can see it, fine, what do we call what we can see from where are then?  That's my point.

 

1 hour ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

 

there are laws like conservation of energy and conservation of angular momentum which allow us to say with certainty where objects with very large masses are currently, based on previous observations. Like sometimes don’t see the moon but you still know it’s on the other side of the earth. 
 

 

Uh huh...

 

1 hour ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

 

yes. Because we can only see where it was 13.8 billion years ago and from that we know where it is now. We can see anything where it is now.

 

Assume you mean "cant" and that's my point.  Guessing where it is is not the same as observing it.  We cannot observe the edge of the universe (if there is one) from where we are right now in it.  I will let go the definition of Observable Universe, but doesn't answer my question to the definition of what we can see relative to where we are right now.

 

Maybe it doesn't have a name, closest I can find is this:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_horizon

Edited May 12, 2022 by Renegade7

[CousinsCowgirl84]

21 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

If that's what it's called because someone where can see it, fine, what do we call what we can see from where are then?  That's my point.

 

A current observation.

 

21 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

 

Assume you mean "cant" and that's my point.  Guessing where it is is not the same as observing it.

 

we are not guessing.  We are somewhere between guessing and knowing with 100 percent certainty, with all observations and math corroborating our “guess”
 

 

21 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

  We cannot observe the edge of the universe (if there is one) from where we are right now in it. 

 

we cannot, because the universe expanding faster than light is traveling.

I don’t think the particle horizon is the term you are looking for. As you can see from the wiki page, we current particle horizon is 45 billion light years (which is older than the 38 billion that is the start of Big Bang. 

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

38 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

Observable by someone, maybe somewhere else in the universe because them being a different distance, but not us with respect to our distance.

 

If that's what it's called because someone where can see it, fine, what do we call what we can see from where are then?  That's my point.

 

 

Uh huh...

 

 

Assume you mean "cant" and that's my point.  Guessing where it is is not the same as observing it.  We cannot observe the edge of the universe (if there is one) from where we are right now in it.  I will let go the definition of Observable Universe, but doesn't answer my question to the definition of what we can see relative to where we are right now.

 

Maybe it doesn't have a name, closest I can find is this:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_horizon

 

The theorized aged of the universe, and I emphasize the word "theorized" because science is all about presenting ideas, is 13.8 billion years because of studying the decay of the old relics in the universe - and the decay/molecular structure of **** that is old as hell.  The theory may be wrong.

Edited May 12, 2022 by d0ublestr0ker0ll

[Renegade7]

35 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

 

we are not guessing.  We are somewhere between guessing and knowing with 100 percent certainty, with all observations and math corroborating our “guess”
 

 

Fair, educated guess then, because if something is beyond 13.8 billion light years away from us there no way to prove it with existing technology.  I keep coming back to this being my main issue here.

 

I wouldn't go so far as to say it isn't where we predict it is, but our theories have been evolving with our discoveries (nice way of saying we were wrong based on what we "knew" or theorized at the time)

 

35 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

 

we cannot, because the universe expanding faster than light is traveling.

I don’t think the particle horizon is the term you are looking for. As you can see from the wiki page, we current particle horizon is 45 billion light years (which is older than the 38 billion that is the start of Big Bang. 

 

I agree, and for some reason it really bothers me.  We seem to have a word and day for everything except this. Strikingly odd.

[Renegade7]

40 minutes ago, d0ublestr0ker0ll said:

 

The theorized aged of the universe, and I emphasize the word "theorized" because science is all about presenting ideas, is 13.8 billion years because of studying the decay of the old relics in the universe - and the decay/molecular structure of **** that is old as hell.  The theory may be wrong.

 

To this day I've had to calm down from the glee I see in some astronomers on the idea of the universe ever expanding until everything runs out of fuel and jus dies.

 

No stars, nothing.  I don't find that cool or fascinating, and hope more research and evidence comes out to support the Big Crunch and Big Bounce theories.

 

That makes more sense to me even if the current science and math we have today don't support it as the more correct theory yet.  Infinity is a long time compared to what would be a split second of their being any stars in the sky to see and then never anymore once they all run out of fuel, it jus doesn't feel right.

 

Imagine what we'll "know" tomorrow...

Edited May 12, 2022 by Renegade7

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

44 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

To this day I've had to calm down from the glee I see in some astronomers on the idea of the universe ever expanding until everything runs out of fuel and jus dies.

 

No stars, nothing.  I don't find that cool or fascinating, and hope more research and evidence comes out to support the Big Crunch and Big Bounce theories.

 

That makes more sense to me even if the current science and math we have today don't support it as the more correct theory yet.  Infinity is a long time compared to what would be a split second of their being any stars in the sky to see and then never anymore once they all run out of fuel, it jus doesn't feel right.

 

Imagine what we'll "know" tomorrow...

 

I mean, it's the trend that looks like will happen.  It's not poetic, I know.  Galaxies still collide, so worry not 🤣.  Can't wait for Andromeda.  Basically a 45 degree angle collision of galaxies that is going to happen in extreme slow-motion.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

I’m waiting for the big rip….

 

 

 

[China]

36 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

I’m waiting for the big rip….

 

 

 

 

Been eating beans again?

[Simmsy]

5 hours ago, d0ublestr0ker0ll said:

 

I mean, it's the trend that looks like will happen.  It's not poetic, I know.  Galaxies still collide, so worry not 🤣.  Can't wait for Andromeda.  Basically a 45 degree angle collision of galaxies that is going to happen in extreme slow-motion.

Very poetic...we gone die, ya'll.

[RemoveSnyder]

https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/washington-dc

 

 

The animation shows what the eclipse approximately looks like in Washington DC. Stages & times of the eclipse are outlined below. All times are local (EDT) for Washington DC.

Time	Phase	Event	Direction	Altitude
9:32 pm Sun, May 15		Penumbral Eclipse begins  The Earth's penumbra start touching the Moon's face.	129°	14.0°
10:27 pm Sun, May 15		Partial Eclipse begins  Partial moon eclipse starts - moon is getting red.	141°	21.1°
11:29 pm Sun, May 15		Total Eclipse begins  Total moon eclipse starts - completely red moon.	154°	27.1°
12:11 am Mon, May 16		Maximum Eclipse  Moon is closest to the center of the shadow.	165°	29.6°
12:53 am Mon, May 16		Total Eclipse ends  Total moon eclipse ends.	176°	30.7°
1:55 am Mon, May 16		Partial Eclipse ends  Partial moon eclipse ends.	192°	29.5°
2:50 am Mon, May 16		Penumbral Eclipse ends  The Earth's penumbra ends.	206°	25.8°

Edited May 14, 2022 by RemoveSnyder