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Thread: 3,2,1, Blast Off!

  1. #61
    Registered User Calidore's Avatar
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    I'm in the wrong area, but we did get a full-arc rainbow after a brief shower this evening. And you can look directly at rainbows.
    You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi

  2. #62
    Super papayahed's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf View Post
    Is it eclipsing right now? Stupid clouds.
    ya.



    s5cr
    Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda


  3. #63
    Clinging to Douvres rocks Gilliatt Gurgle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by papayahed View Post
    s5cr
    The view corridor fizzled out somewhere around Lubbock in west Texas, so no luck here on the eastern side.
    10Gbigtex45
    "Mongo only pawn in game of life" - Mongo

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKRma7PDW10

  4. #64
    Super papayahed's Avatar
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    NASA’s latest and greatest Mars rover, known as Curiosity, will attempt to land on Mars early Monday morning (or late Sunday night, depending on where you are on Earth). The landing is scheduled for 05:31 (UTC), which is Monday morning at 1:31am Eastern in the US, or 10:31pm Pacific time Sunday night. Because Mars is quite far from us, there will be a 14-minute delay before transmissions related to the landing will reach us — which will make the viewing party that much more of a nail-biter.

    Read the full text here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/arc...#ixzz22igsBNjQ
    --brought to you by mental_floss!
    Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda


  5. #65
    Clinging to Douvres rocks Gilliatt Gurgle's Avatar
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    Thanks for the reminder.
    This mission almost got by me due to work deadlines.


    Another reminder-August is Perseid Meteor shower month.

    http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essent...r-shower-guide

    August 11, 12 and 13th are the peak nights.

    excerpt
    August 11, 12 and 13. The moon will be a waning crescent then, and the meteors should be flying at a rate closer to their peak of 50 or 60 meteors per hour. As an added treat – on August 11, 12 and 13 – the moon will be sweeping past the brightest planets Venus and Jupiter in the eastern predawn sky. You can’t ask for more!
    "Mongo only pawn in game of life" - Mongo

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKRma7PDW10

  6. #66
    Registered User billl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by papayahed View Post
    NASA’s latest and greatest Mars rover, known as Curiosity, will attempt to land on Mars early Monday morning (or late Sunday night, depending on where you are on Earth). The landing is scheduled for 05:31 (UTC), which is Monday morning at 1:31am Eastern in the US, or 10:31pm Pacific time Sunday night. Because Mars is quite far from us, there will be a 14-minute delay before transmissions related to the landing will reach us — which will make the viewing party that much more of a nail-biter.

    Read the full text here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/arc...#ixzz22igsBNjQ
    --brought to you by mental_floss!
    Now about 40 minutes away from entry. After that, there'll be a delay, due to the need to bounce the info off a NASA satellite orbiting Mars (called [strike]Observer[/strike] Odyssey), and then the data travels for 7 minutes through space to Earth. Various unknown factors could make the whole thing a mystery for as long as a few days, but with luck they'll know tonight, before 2AM EST, I guess...

    you can "watch" live here:
    http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/nasatv/
    Last edited by billl; 08-06-2012 at 01:05 AM. Reason: 2AM, not 2 PM!! sorry

  7. #67
    Registered User billl's Avatar
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    Everything went great, and they even got a little photo of the horizon and sun with a rover wheel in the corner before the relay satellite's orbit went over the horizon and lost contact.

    http://twitter.com/NASA/status/23235.../photo/1/large

    it's a VERY small thumbnail, but it isn't bad if you expand it.

  8. #68
    BadWoolf JuniperWoolf's Avatar
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    Hahaa, they did it! According to reddit there was only a 30% chance of success. More photos + article here. Now let's see if the rock ever supported life, and conceivably could again.
    __________________
    "Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
    -Pi


  9. #69
    In the fog Charles Darnay's Avatar
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    It was a pretty intense few minutes, and then a wonderful space-nerd-hugfest!

    The only downside to this whole thing is that there will probably be a lot of poor, HG Wells did it better without the technology, sci-fi. Hopefully some good ones, but I see a lot of bad ones coming.
    I wrote a poem on a leaf and it blew away...

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