Starship Asterisk*

Distance on the illustration does not fit those of Hipparcos. The parallax of Alnilam on the catalog is 2,43 (under the entry 26311). This parallaxe correspond to a distance of (1/0.00243) pc = 411 pc or about 1350 light-year, not 1976 ly. Distance is what this APOD is all about, but there seems to...

Yesterday, I think today's APOD has been replaced. Yesterday's APOD said that tomorrow's APOD (that is, today's APOD of September 18) would be Orion in 3D. I groaned, because I just can't deal with 3D pictures. I kinda agreed, I don't much care for them either. But this isn't what we thought it migh...

The 2020 Atlantic Hurricane season doesn't even peak until September 10th, and Texas has already been affected by two. Granted, Texas has a long coastline, but there have been years when the entire US coastline wasn't hit by a single hurricane. Well, that used to happen occasionally. Don't bet on i...

The findings ... contradict common consensus

warms my contrarian heart.

Bruce

Apparently the two words are synonymous. When one looks up Wikipedia's disambiguation page for "biomarker" for this discussion's meaning you get Biomarker (astrobiology), any substance that provides evidence of past or present life , but then when you click on the link it takes you to the ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keehKz711Kc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MOauy4Bfyc Something most should be able to agree on is the need for more data. Things "known to exist"; all the chemicals there, their actual percentages, the true conditions (temperature, pressure, turbulence, ...

Something most should be able to agree on is the need for more data. Things "known to exist"; all the chemicals there, their actual percentages, the true conditions (temperature, pressure, turbulence, lightning, volcanic gases, etc.) and how these cycle over time is just not known in enou...

Something most should be able to agree on is the need for more data. Things "known to exist"; all the chemicals there, their actual percentages, the true conditions (temperature, pressure, turbulence, lightning, volcanic gases, etc.) and how these cycle over time are just not known in enou...

The title sure sounds like wishful thinking to me. We have no idea how habitable planets orbiting M dwarfs really are. Oh sure, some of them may be habitable. But we don't know of a single M-dwarf planet that is truly habitable. Life may find a way, would have been a much better title in my opinion...

Life finds a way (even on M dwarfs?) astrobites | Daily Paper Summaries | 2020 Sep 17 There are lots of stars out there in the Universe, and a large chunk of those are M dwarfs . These are the smallest and reddest stars, coming last in the sequence of spectral types (O, B, A, F, G, K, and last but ...

Last night, (2020-09-16 20:30 Local) I was walking the dog, I looked up at Jupiter and Saturn, and then at the stars to their West. For the first time in my life, I made out the "Teapot" asterism! The feeling was like I had checked off an item on my (non-existent) "Bucket List"....

I thought trolling was not allowed on here... Not sure that anyone is trolling here, but Chris' bold assertion does beg for evidence backing it up. "From scratch" is ill defined. Agreed, but I used it first in this thread, so what I meant by "from scratch" is from non living raw...

As a fan of how elements form this story is huge news to me. Here is much more of the above article, with key points highlighted: Half of all the elements that are heavier than iron – such as thorium and uranium – were thought to be made when neutron stars, the superdense remains of burnt-out suns, ...

hamilton1 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 9:54 am

Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:21 am Life has been created in the lab from scratch.

I thought trolling was not allowed on here...

Not sure that anyone is trolling here, but Chris' bold assertion does beg for evidence backing it up.

Bruce

Maybe I can submit another hypothesis for the ejecting gravel. There could be a civilization of tiny reptile or insect people living there in a medieval time period who are are at war with each other and flinging stones by catapults at their enemy on the other side of their world. Nice. Or maybe th...

I thought that the cameras in such a machine could resolve up to some-meters-wide objects. Should we conclude that what is shown as a ejection are big rocks? Could gravel-size objetcs (some centimetres) be seen? I would very much appreciate any coment coming from you to clarify this. Clicking on th...

And we look at how extreme conditions were on Earth when life formed here, it may also be easily started. If abiogenesis were easy, creating life from scratch in the lab should also be easy. Well, to some extent it has been done in labs, and it will be done regularly and easily in the next few year...

This from New Scientist: The most extreme acidophiles known are microbes of the genus Picrophilus. They thrive at a pH of 0.7, and can grow down to a drain-clearing pH of 0. Both Mars, Europa and the clouds of Venus are thought to be acidic environments, so Earthly acidophiles intrigue scientists l...

This from New Scientist: The most extreme acidophiles known are microbes of the genus Picrophilus. They thrive at a pH of 0.7, and can grow down to a drain-clearing pH of 0. Both Mars, Europa and the clouds of Venus are thought to be acidic environments, so Earthly acidophiles intrigue scientists l...

Most likely there is some as yet unknown abiotic process producing PH 3 in the Venusian atmosphere, just as some abiotic cause occasionally releases whiffs of CH 4 on Mars. Possible Marker of Life Spotted on Venus ESO Science Release | ALMA | 2020 Sep 14 ... The international team, which includes r...

I'm not denying this is an exciting finding, but everyone is jumping around saying, Life on Venus!!! I, for one, don't want to jump up and down and start screaming, " Life! Life! " because that's not what it's about. I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I ...

Finally had a couple of clear nights, without snow, without clouds, without smoke, without a Moon. So I thought I'd point the scope at something and make sure things were still working. Picked NGC 6951 for no particular reason, except it was high in the sky and looked kind of cool in pictures- a sl...

Don't panic, Capt.Mannering! Or rather, let's be properly scientific here. Is this an unique finding? No. Phosphine has been found in the cloud cover of Jupiter and Saturn. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0019103509001328 Why is it a game changer when it's found on Venus' clo...

The New York Times has a story out today reporting that Portland has the world's worst air quality.

Sorry, wasn't able to post a link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI8RZhhoBM0 NOAA taps David Legates, professor who questions the seriousness and severity of global warming, for top role By Andrew Freedman and Jason Samenow September 13, 2020 at 9:11 p.m. EDT <<The Trump administration has tapped David Legates, an academic who has...