Astronomy

[Dreamwoven]

This view of Comet LINEAR shows it to be 100 times righter than expected. See http://www.space.com/32376-how-to-se...ekly_2016-3-25. See the post on Space.com for more information.

[YesNo]

It has been overcast, but I am hoping to see this before it fades away. Also I was expecting to see this in the evening, but it looks like the morning is the best time.

Here's a new video on Ceres: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtLdprhvtVE

[Dreamwoven]

This post on multiverses is interesting: http://www.space.com/32452-can-scien...ultiverse.html. I like ideas that turn to dominant theories of the day on their heads.

[Dreamwoven]

EarthSky reports that Cassini which has been orbiting Saturn for over 10 years cannot detect any effects of the 9th planet that can't be explained by what they know already: http://earthsky.org/space/planet-9-n...sini-at-saturn.

[YesNo]

EarthSky reports that Cassini which has been orbiting Saturn for over 10 years cannot detect any effects of the 9th planet that can't be explained by what they know already: http://earthsky.org/space/planet-9-n...sini-at-saturn.

It is easy to believe everything we hear and that's why it is good to hear arguments against an hypothesis. We can't check all this ourselves.

[YesNo]

This post on multiverses is interesting: http://www.space.com/32452-can-scien...ultiverse.html. I like ideas that turn to dominant theories of the day on their heads.

These are interesting. At the moment I think I agree with Bas van Fraassen's strict empiricism as a limit for science. When one gets to speculations, the philosophers should take over. This might help the rest of us when we assess what actually has data to back it up and what only has logic.

[Dreamwoven]

http://www.space.com/32523-keplers-n...an-worlds.html. Quite an interesting discussion of orphan worlds.

[YesNo]

I noticed that the K2 project searching for orphan planets is only going to last three months. I guess if they don't find something using the microlensing technique in that time, the technique may need to be refined before continuing. There may be some other reason the project is so short.

[Dreamwoven]

That is probably the case.

[Dreamwoven]

This is interesting, how a star can strip away a planet's atmosphere.
http://earthsky.org/space/stars-stri...f-super-earths

[YesNo]

These exoplanets are likely close to their stars.

[Dreamwoven]

Certainly they are, the comparison can still be made to Mercury or even Venus. They may well have had life-encouraging atmospheres in their early days.

[Dreamwoven]

This post suggests there have been problems with Kepler, which may account for the uncertain nature of the observations, as Kepler was not working for about a week: http://earthsky.org/space/kepler-is-...from-emergency

[YesNo]

The K2 mission using gravity sounds like an interesting way to detect these exoplanets. I guess the previous technique was to see if planets made a transit of their stars.

[Dreamwoven]

Thee is a lot happening right now. See this project to launch postage-stamp sized probes to our nearest galaxy, Alpha Centauri. Sure, its all just hype and publicity, only taking 10 years to make the journey. The comments are more informed and interesting than the article!

http://www.space.com/32546-interstel...-starshot.html

Or 3 days to Pluto: http://www.space.com/32558-starshot-...ar-system.html