The Space Thread

[DanH]

"That is critical because the shutters on the cameras will be open for long periods of time to collect enough light to produce sharp images of distant objects. Any movement will result in blurry, useless pictures."

similar to the hubble deep field? if so, why can't hubble just focus on that one star for a week?

One thing is, the Hubble doesn't have the same ability to control it's direction so accurately - there is a certain amount of drift, so the data collected over a week would be messy (depending of course on how far away the target is), as each minute of data would be looking at a slightly different image. Also, the range (purely in terms of magnification), I believe, is significantly better with JWST.

[Miekenstien]

One thing is, the Hubble doesn't have the same ability to control it's direction so accurately - there is a certain amount of drift, so the data collected over a week would be messy (depending of course on how far away the target is), as each minute of data would be looking at a slightly different image. Also, the range (purely in terms of magnification), I believe, is significantly better with JWST.

so this telescope is accounting for the orbits? is that what they mean by drift and it simulates us and the star as being stationary objects?

[Apollo]

With current technology however, it would apparently take approximately 700,000 years to reach the Trappist-1 system.

Hopefully humanity will see major breakthroughs in physics in the next few decades which allows us to reach these worlds in a small fraction of the time. Wormholes are only fantasy at present time but that's not to say they've been ruled out or we won't make a discovery that opens the cosmos to us in a ways unimaginable right now.

In 1930 the idea of going to the moon was fantasy. Seemingly an impossibility.

[DanH]

so this telescope is accounting for the orbits? is that what they mean by drift and it simulates us and the star as being stationary objects?

The FGS locks onto the star/system that the telescope is looking at, and uses it's location as a fixed point - so if the distant star is moving relative to absolute, the telescope will continuously change it's direction to keep the star fixed in the same location in the field of view. Constant microcorrections.

[Joey]

That's some really cool stuff there Dan. If you don't mind my asking, what is it that you studied post-secondary? Obviously some sort of engineering?

[DanH]

That's some really cool stuff there Dan. If you don't mind my asking, what is it that you studied post-secondary? Obviously some sort of engineering?

Mechanical Engineering.

[Joey]

Mechanical Engineering.

Sending stuff into space has to be the summit of that field I would think? Lol

[DanH]

Sending stuff into space has to be the summit of that field I would think? Lol

Depends who you ask. I'm pretty happy with it.

[Miekenstien]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDhHK8nk_V0

2.5 hours of lawrence krauss with joe rogan. i put it here because physics and space are pretty closely related.

[Nilanka]

Liquid water on Saturn's moon?

NASA just released evidence that a liquid water ocean that could support life lies beneath the icy surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The agency reports that the world has many of the “ingredients needed for a habitable environment.”

Thanks to Cassini, organic chemicals—carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur—which are the basic building blocks of life, were seen spraying forth from the “tiger stripe” cracks on the cold surface of the moon.

Additionally, in the paper published in Science, which comes from researchers on the Cassini mission, it was revealed that molecular hydrogen, which NASA notes, “could potentially provide a chemical energy source for life,” is pouring into the ocean on Enceladus via hydrothermal vents on the seafloor.

https://futurism.com/5-nasa-says-sat...e-environment/

[rocwell]

Liquid water on Saturn's moon?



https://futurism.com/5-nasa-says-sat...e-environment/

Perfect. We might need liveable planet soon

[Bendit]

Saturn pics taken by spacecraft Cassini.......

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...mepage%2Fstory

[rocwell]

With 219 potential new worlds out there, some could be habitable & 10 of them like our own. Here's things to know: https://t.co/DIGV6HOEDR pic.twitter.com/QRUBrQuUkg

— NASA (@NASA) June 19, 2017

[Nilanka]

With 219 potential new worlds out there, some could be habitable & 10 of them like our own. Here's things to know: https://t.co/DIGV6HOEDR pic.twitter.com/QRUBrQuUkg

— NASA (@NASA) June 19, 2017

Kepler doing Kepler things. Pretty frickin' amazing.

[Apollo]

The tech is amazing but really when we consider how large the Universe is its not all that shocking. This made me think back to what Hawking said in 2010:

"To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," he said, according to The Sunday Times.

"The real challenge is working out what aliens might actually be like."

"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet," Hawking said.

"If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the American Indians."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/scie...ist-warns.html