Off topic discourse and banter encouraged.
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bystander
- Apathetic Retiree
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by bystander » Thu Aug 11, 2016 2:23 pm
1967 Solar Storm Nearly Took U.S. to Brink of War
University of Colorado |
American Geophysical Union | 2016 Aug 09
A solar storm that jammed radar and radio communications at the height of the Cold War could have led to a disastrous military conflict if not for the U.S. Air Force’s budding efforts to monitor the sun’s activity ...
On May 23, 1967, the Air Force prepared aircraft for war, thinking the nation’s surveillance radars in polar regions were being jammed by the Soviet Union. Just in time, military space weather forecasters conveyed information about the solar storm’s potential to disrupt radar and radio communications. The planes remained on the ground and the U.S. avoided a potential nuclear weapon exchange with the Soviet Union ...
The storm is a classic example of how geoscience and space research are essential to U.S. national security ...
The May 1967 Great Storm and Radio Disruption Event:
Extreme Space Weather and Extraordinary Responses - Delores. J. Knipp
et al
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk. — Garrison Keillor
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starsurfer
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by starsurfer » Sat Aug 20, 2016 8:46 pm
And people complain about money being spent on astronomy a waste.
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Chris Peterson
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by Chris Peterson » Sat Aug 20, 2016 9:02 pm
starsurfer wrote:And people complain about money being spent on astronomy a waste.
One of the reasons meteor science has received public funding is because of the very real concern that a large meteor exploding in the atmosphere could be mistaken for a nuclear explosion (it's happened).
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geckzilla
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by geckzilla » Sat Aug 20, 2016 10:46 pm
We could get absolutely nothing of utility out of astronomy and it'd still be more valuable to me than, say, any random sports event that people spend some order of magnitude more on per year.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.
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starsurfer
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by starsurfer » Tue Aug 23, 2016 4:45 pm
geckzilla wrote:We could get absolutely nothing of utility out of astronomy and it'd still be more valuable to me than, say, any random sports event that people spend some order of magnitude more on per year.
Exactly, I totally agree with you! Even if nothing of direct use is obtain, the knowledge gained would be valuable and priceless. And don't get me started on the stupid newspaper stories saying that the Large Hadron Collider creating a black hole! Do newspaper journalists know more than scientists?
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starsurfer
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by starsurfer » Tue Aug 23, 2016 4:45 pm
Also wasn't there a Cold War related story about the detection of gamma rays from a pulsar?
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Markus Schwarz
- Science Officer
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by Markus Schwarz » Thu Aug 25, 2016 7:33 am
starsurfer wrote:And don't get me started on the stupid newspaper stories saying that the Large Hadron Collider creating a black hole! Do newspaper journalists know more than scientists?
Unfortunately, these stories were fuelled by scientists. Before the LHC started, I visit the CERN website and it was full with the possible creation of black holes and extra dimensions that may hide. Then they had to spend quite some effort to put the djinn back into the bottle.
