Starship Asterisk*

Martin, The disappearance of surface water and the atmosphere on Mars is *not* mysterious. A combination of low gravity and weak magnetic field results in molecules in the atmosphere being constantly 'sputtered' into space by the solar wind. Whatever surface water there was would evaporate (or surfa...

I'm sure the ring of stars is a coincidence. It would be simple (for astrophysicists) to determine if it is lensing: the spectra of all the stars in the asterism would be identical. I'm sure if any astrophysicist ever thought that lensing was a possibility, a check would have been done long ago, and...

Lucky, If I right click on today's APOD picture and choose "Save image as...", a 600 x 2195 pixel image is downloaded and saved. If I left click, a much-higher-res image downloads and displays, but it is not automatically saved). What exactly happens (or doesn't happen) if you right or lef...

jfgecik wrote:God bless you.

Wow... what a *scary* rant!

As for God blessing all of us, it might be best for you, jfgecik, if She doesn't exist!

fastartceetoo,
Humanist
(...oops! I meant 'Manist'!)

l3p3r wrote:Error 1:"yours is a remarkably inane post"

There are a great many varied opinions on the worth and merit of this thread

Hmm... how do you define "a great many"? Two?

"jfgecik", yours is a remarkably inane post ...a waste of time for one and all. (I have lots and lots of time to waste; hence this reply.) By the way, my Unabridged Webster's Dictionary (which, I think, might be a higher authority on the English language than you) contains this definition,...

But, HelenW, consider: If you were to take several water molecules from Enceladus, concatenate them, use a suitable enzyme to excise duplicates, sever a bit of the tail, then use a clever device to chop it up... HOHHOHHOH HOHOHOH HOHOHO HO HO HO! So, maybe it's just that JPL believes that *there is ...

sklipper, would the calving of ice masses this large be the result of a normal, ongoing process? Or might the ice stream involved be accelerating? Just wondering...

All science is theory until proven. To not ponder, is to not achieve. The point is, marges90, any 'multiverse theory' *cannot* be tested, hence it *cannot* be proven. This kind of 'pondering' will achieve exactly nothing. People have every right to theorize anything; astrologers have every right to...

This stuff belongs on some mystic page, not APOD! It goes right along with such heady stuff as the long-running theological debate 'how many angels can fit on the head of a pin?' All 'parallel universe' theories are absolutely untestable, and hence unverifiable, and hence have nothing whatsoever to ...

Thanks, kovil... you're right, I read it wrong. I was looking for a pinpoint source within the inset, not the larger field. After I cleaned my glasses I could clearly see the pinpoint source (ie, the neuton star) near the top left corner of the Chandra close-up inset. Also, the pre-existing interste...

Maybe! Not only do I not see a jaguar or tiger, but I don't see the Virgin Mary or Elvis, either! I find the description of this image to be very confusing. It would help my understanding of the image if someone were to provide some labeling. A few questions: - Is the whole 'cloud' the supernova rem...

I expect more of the moderator than this nonsense. Like I'm the one who makes pictures. I would actually use this kind of stuff to make those pictures. Nobody has said, or even implied, that you *made* the picture, makc. But who *chose* the picture for use in APOD, and was it a *good* choice? [/list]

This is the least realistic, most misleading artistic rendition that APOD has ever published! How many casual viewers are going to get a completely wrong 'understanding' of the outer regions of the solar system?

I expect more of the moderator than this nonsense.

If we were considering all nova & supernova, maybe. But we are talking here about just one particular supernova, so the odds... are very very low. But we do talk about "all nova & supernova", "odds" do not exist at all for "just one particular supernova". You w...

I don't think the 'hourglass' explanation works. Yes, it can result in multiple circles, but in order for such circles to appear in a 'target' pattern, the axis of the hourglass would have to be pointing directly at the earth ...which is extremely unlikely. why? it's really big universe. so that nu...

I don't think the 'hourglass' explanation works. Yes, it can result in multiple circles, but in order for such circles to appear in a 'target' pattern, the axis of the hourglass would have to be pointing directly at the earth ...which is extremely unlikely. And the other posited explanation -- back ...

Thanks for all the links, Harry... I looked at each and every one. A single (not a binary or a triple) star's planetary nebula is roughly spherical. I'm wondering if this star went through several cycles of casting off its outer layers, forming a set of nested spheres. Then, when it went supernova, ...

Hi Wolf, Thanks for the reply... but no 'cold one' yet! If you project a sphere of some thickness (like a bubble with a thick membrane) on a plane, you would get a ring, most dense at the 'edge' of the sphere (as we see it), and less dense as you move toward the center, with the lowest density at th...

I don't understand the 'target' appearance of the reflecting light echos. Why doesn't the reflecting echo appear as a *single* expanding ring?