Astronomy

I guess overcast skies will mean you will beat me to the starting line. November went out with a record in the Stockholm area for a grey November, with just 5 hours of sun in the entire month. Nights have been the same, grey skies making for nil space observing. And here in Southern Norrland its been especially bad.

I have been exploring your links to various issues, the two people you mention and dark energy and dark matter. I feel a bit of a fool, I didn't realise NASA had such an extensive website, so I have begun to investigate it. It's a mine of information.

Another cloudy night. Five hours of sunshine seems like too few.

In trying to sort through the dark stuff, I found a book, "In Search of Dark Matter", by Ken Freeman and Geoff McNamara in the library. They are true believers in dark matter even though they claim that the disk of the Milky Way is "more or less free of dark matter".

The NASA link you referenced has this: "The first property that Einstein discovered is that it is possible for more space to come into existence." If more space can come into existence, perhaps more matter-energy can come into existence as well. Maybe it didn't all have to be compressed together just before the big bang.

Or maybe there is not just one unique universe. We alway used to think our sun was unique, never realising that the countless stars in the sky are also suns. Shock, horror: they are indeed! Nor is our planet earth so unique. It seems the universe has countless billions of them. And what if our universe is also just one of many? We have not "found" any others, of course, but exploring "our" universe is still only a pipe dream. The mind boggles at the immenseness of this our universe, just like our foremothers' minds boggle at thinking our sun was not unique.

It occurred to me last weekend that the morning sky might be clearer than the evening sky. That means I will have to get up earlier so there is time to look. Also I am about a 15-minute drive from a park on Lake Michigan where I could see the sun rise, but I have never done so. It is always the setting sun that is in my mind.

I think you are right about our universe not being unique. If it had a beginning, other universes probably had beginnings as well. That means there is an "outside" to our universe and the space and time we experience within our universe is separate from it.

I've been trying to find out what optical telescopes (as distinct from radio telescopes, used to pick up signals like SETI) there are that can be used for visually exploring space. This is a list. Its a very complex issue, more so than I bargained for.

I've also been exploring the NASA website. There is a project called Orion which in several stages will send humans into space, perhaps ultimately onto Mars. But I doubt if I'll see any results, in 2021 I will be 69 but that is planned as the first flight with humans on board, and all it will do is go in orbit round Earth (if it gets that far!). there are no concrete plans for flights beyond this, not yet anyway. That may come in later stages.

I can't really see the point, as there are already several wheeled robots on Mars collecting data, rock samples and carrying out mapping.

There are many other projects covering a wide range of types of goals, a vast list of them in alphabetic order.

I'll be 70 in 2021. It looks like we're both over some hill.

That Orion mission puzzles me as well. If all we will be able to do fifty years after going to the moon multiple times is set humans in orbit around the earth, well, it makes me wonder.

Orion is intended to develop well beyond 2021, ultimately leading to astronauts on Mars. But I think putting a man on the moon was a political issue, after sputnik 1, Laika, the first dog in space and Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. Yuri Gagarin visited Britain in 1961, I remember in the summer before going to university seeing him at Earls Court in London (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12993533). It was the time of the Cold War, the US felt the Soviets had stolen a march on them and the first astronaut on the moon in 1969 was a way of redressing the balance.

Nice article about Yuri Gagarin. I can see why he would be so popular, but I didn't know of that event.

I still haven't had a chance to look for the constellations. I forget when the opportunity is right or get busy with something else.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Nice article about Yuri Gagarin. I can see why he would be so popular, but I didn't know of that event.

I still haven't had a chance to look for the constellations. I forget when the opportunity is right or get busy with something else.

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I've also to do some sky-watching with my binoculars. It is very cold to be standing outside, even well-wrapped. I'll have to look for a dark night sky towards spring.

I now have a bit more news on Project Orion. The 2021 end point is only for the first stage. Work needs to be done on the accommodation section of the module, to create and test it, I guess. So there is a long way to go to the astronaut flight to Mars, if it ever happens.

They should probably go back to the moon as a test before going to Mars. There are people who think we didn't go there in the first place, at least, not with manned missions.

I've checked up about the moon, there is Wikipedia posts on the Great Moon Hoax, meaning that in 1835: here. NASA has also come out with a denial. As far as I remember the race between the USSR and USA to get to the moon first was what lay behind the modern version. Moon rock was brought back by a later Apollo and I think by the Soviets eventually.

I don't think there is any doubt but the sort of story was stimulated by the competition itself.

Project Orion has no dates set for the Mars visit, and anyway it will be long after I will be around. The next major task is to create a human service module. Still can't see the point, unless there is something there like vast mineral wealth (iron?) to be won:but at what cost in human life? Mars is now crawling with mechanical samplers and even a satellite (artificial moon), measuring and examining.

I didn't know about 19th century moon hoaxes. I remember reading something about Herschel believing there were people on the other planets of the solar system, but now I will have to be careful. He probably didn't believe such things.

When I first heard about the Apollo hoax a couple years ago, I remember being skeptical about it for the first day and then wondering the second and being left with a sense that it could have all been a TV show I watched as a child. I don't see the point in humans going to these other planets either. We should show our technical abilities by making AI that can do that for us.

Good chance to see comet Lovejoy : http://www.eagleseye.me.uk/Sky/Wordpress/?p=3503
Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2 is heading northwards. Currently located in the constellation pf Puppis, it is heading towards Columba and Lepus.By the 22nd of the month it should just about be visible from the UK. Currently estimated at just under 6th magnitude, it is almost a naked eye comet already, and should get brighter.

I was able to find Orion a couple days ago and identified Aldebaran and the Pleiades in Taurus. Lepus is just below Orion, so hopefully, I'll be able to see that comet.

Hope you do. My health is not good enough to be outside with binoculars on a cold night. You may also see the Geminid meteor shower, a good one this year it seems.