Astronomy

[Dreamwoven]

Your comment on Boeing was spot on, though perhaps it was discussed locally, as it is based in Chicago.
http://www.universetoday.com/131316/...s-exploration/

There is a lot of interest in Mars, besides Boeing, Musk and other very rich private individuals, other countries are also getting into the race.

[Dreamwoven]

http://www.universetoday.com/131360/...pernovae-fail/.

Interesting post, including much that is speculative.

[YesNo]

I didn't realize that it was possible for no remnant to remain during a supernova. Not leaving a remnant would be a more efficient way to distribute heavier elements throughout the universe.

The author indirectly emphasized the problem with black holes. In a fraction of a second the star is just gone at least in terms of anything taking up space. All the matter must have been converted into a warping of space-time based on a gravitational theory that has mathematical singularities in it. If I recalled Moffat correctly, even Einstein didn't like that part of his theory and was looking for a way to avoid those singularities because their presence in the theory suggests there is something wrong with the theory at those points.

[Dreamwoven]

http://www.universetoday.com/131378/...system-family/

No name, just evidence that there is a previously unidentified planet in the Kuiper Belt.

[YesNo]

I wonder if this project to search for planets in the Kuiper Belt could be turned into a distributed computing project. Perhaps it already is. I have one of my old computers working on a distributed project at PrimeGrid that searches for primes in Sierpinski sequences.

[Dreamwoven]

I looked up the Sierpinski sequences and its those triangles that fit into each other. All beyond me that is. I only did maths to Ordinary Level General Certificate in school, and scraped a pass in it.

Back to astronomy, this post on http://www.universetoday.com/131403/...ngs-intrigues/ looks fascinating.

[prendrelemick]

I looked up the Sierpinski sequences and its those triangles that fit into each other. All beyond me that is. I only did maths to Ordinary Level General Certificate in school, and scraped a pass in it.

Back to astronomy, this post on http://www.universetoday.com/131403/...ngs-intrigues/ looks fascinating.

I notice it was discovered by the blink of a star. Yesterday I heard of a system being developed that will constantly monitor the whole of the sky, that's billions of stars all at once, and automatically detect any changes. These can then be checked out by astronomers. It is a simple and commonsensicle idea - let the computers do the boring meticulous stuff. If it all works properly, how much other stuff will be discovered.

So often the story of astronomical discovery starts with a lone astromoner sat on top of a mountain, just happening to notice something unusual.

[YesNo]

The computers should be doing the work, but there may be too much data to process and not enough funding for an institution to purchase the needed computing power to complete the tasks. And so one has distributed computing, a kind of crowd sourced research although it doesn't require knowing much about anything in particular to direct one's old computer to a project.

[Dreamwoven]

Back to astronomy, this post on http://www.universetoday.com/131403/...ngs-intrigues/ looks fascinating.

I am trying to imagine a planet with such huge rings. There is an image of it in the Universe Today link above.


Giant Rings. The rings around J1407b are so large that we could see in the dusk from the earth when they were placed around the planet Saturn. The rings can be seen above the Old Leiden Observatory. Credit: M. Kenworthy / Leiden University

[YesNo]

It is nice to know that planetary rings can get larger than we might expect based on the rings around Saturn.

[Dreamwoven]

This Giant Exoplanet is orbiting round star some 420 light years from Earth.It was discovered in 2012 and Astronomers were puzzled by the unusual pattern of eclipses it produced, so it was studied in more detail, and the conclusion was that it must be caused by a planet with large rings around it, a giant version of Saturn:

For example, in 2015, the same team concluded that the ring system is one-hundred times larger and heavier than Saturn’s (and may be similarly sculpted by exomoons). And in their most recent study, they have shown that these giant rings may last for over 100,000 years, assuming they have a rare and unusual orbit around their planet.

In their previous work, Rieder and Kenworth determined that the ring system around J1407b consisted about 37 rings that extend to a distance of 0.6 AU (90 million km) from the planet. They also estimated that these rings are 100 times as massive as our Moon – 7342 trillion trillion metric tons. What’s more, while J1407b’s existence is yet to be confirmed, they were able to rule out the possibility of it having a circular orbit around the star.

The study continues...

[YesNo]

So they aren't some alien megastructure.

[Dreamwoven]

I think we have know that for some time, this explanation, dating from 2012 is much more convincing.

[desiresjab]

So often the story of astronomical discovery starts with a lone astromoner sat on top of a mountain, just happening to notice something unusual.

It sure does. And starts is the right word. Newton was desperate for the meticulous observations of Flamsteed so he could work on the moon's orbit. But Flamsteed was as jealous as Newton when it came to his work. Newton had the official influence to basically requisition Flamsteed's work. This crushed poor Flamsteed.

Gauss was professor of astronomy at Gottengen, where he lived in the tower one floor below the observatory. Classic. I don't know how much time Gauss had for observational astronomy. But he was busy inventing instruments for it and improving the ones already on hand with a mighty ingenuity, in addition to devising better ways to mathematically interpret astronomical data.

When the data is in the hands of a good mathematical physicist, a theory becomes possible. Figuring out those rings was awful smart. Gauss is the kind who could have done it. If we had him today he might just solve the dark energy/matter conunndrum, or make a great deal of progress on it. He is at the top of the class for mathematical astronomy of all time. Dang it, I want Gauss or Newton back. Statistically, though, we should have a mind as great as theirs working on these problems today with our gigantic world population participating, while all of that pair's discoveries came about with only Europe participating when it had a paltry population of a couple of hundred million.

Some of the missing pieces will be provided by observational astronomy. Insufficient observation at first supported the idea that the expansion of the universe was slowing down. Presumedly better observation supports the idea that it is speeding up. Even better observation that accounts for something unaccounted for in present observations could well leave Einstein's theory of gravitation intact. The fruits of refined observation are the most frequent cause of new astronomical theories, as far as I can tell, and the most frequent cause of refinement to the ones that already exist.

[Dreamwoven]

http://www.space.com/34380-bizarre-p...n-reverse.html

This is worth reading!