Starship Asterisk*

Aren't they usually rounder than this? The shapes of the corona and the cloud give the impression Someone just lifted the lid on the outer crystal sphere so They could have a look inside...

I was wondering why the search was for planets around cool red and brown dwarfs — hardly prime real estate. The ESO website link has more details; it didn't occur to me that it's easier to detect facts and figures about the planets when their sun is nice and cool, so it's easier and faster to charac...

I can't shake the impression the Fishhead at top right is actually a big chunk of the Heart that got tossed thataway after an Earth(and lots of other stuff) shattering kaboom. Almost definitely an illusion, I know, but the apparent ring of dark nebulosity — maybe a swirl of interstellar dust? — just...

Very nice; I think this is the deepest image of M31 I've seen. I remember the first photos I saw in astronomy books still had M32 visually distinct from the main disk, with none of the faint detail of the arm fringes seen here. It's tantalising, I can almost see detail in the core since we've got su...

Ah, thanks, that helps explain my uncertainty — never could quite wrap my head around the twiddly bits of fluid dynamics.

A spectacular image. How sure are we that the filamenty look is due to an actual stringy filament structure, as opposed to perspective effects of seeing shocked dollops of high- v gas edge-on? This also makes me curious about the SN1987A remnant, considering it's a bit further away, but much more re...

However, the scientists needed to determine how long those cores can survive after being stripped of their outer layers. Their modelling revealed that in a number of cases, planetary cores can survive for over 100 million years and as long as a billion years. This bit. I was trying to visualise som...

THX1138 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 08, 2019 1:42 am Ok, what if we put enough rocket motors on the moon and got the moon to start spinning on its axis

Twenty years too late...

Something struck me as odd in that quote. Why wouldn't a stripped planetary core last as long as any other planet? Could the release of pressure from the removed mantle layers cause the whole thing to disrupt? Is there something about the weird environment around a white dwarf that would cause a sol...

Interesting; I can see a good few craters with a deep bowl shape and a flat mass of fill at the bottom, unlike the sort of craters seen on the Moon or Mercury. Could there be any significance to this, like unusually low velocity impacts, or low surface gravity? Wild idea; does anyone else think they...

That's an interesting snippet upthread about this being an asymmetric supernova. That's something else new I've learned; I thought by definition a supernova reaction has to light up in the middle of the star's core, so where is the asymmetry coming from? Unless... could the progenitor have been part...

I get that the clouds would look so different, but what I find surprising is that you see what to me looks like two almost completely different sets of stars. It's as if visible light and infrared light stars are each invisible in the other light range. And yet the visible and IR bands are side by ...

Smaller engines and more efficient, but longer time. I believe the better efficiency is obtained from using the Oberth Effect which is different from the gravity assist scheme. Yeah, this is a "rocket scientist" kind of thing. <wiki-wiki-wiki-wiki> Ahah — I've come across the Oberth Effec...

Interesting to see more members joining the Moon club. And a spectacular moment caught perfectly. I notice it's getting there by a series of orbit raisings; anyone know what the advantage is of doing this, as opposed to a single TLI burn? Surely it ought to be the same total Δv requirement no matter...

(Just rediscovered the box that the "Best Of..." box set was in — way past time to play it again.)

Heh — since I'm transatlantically challenged, I've never watched a single episode of Seinfeld. My inspiration was, of course, the "Bruces Sketch" from Monty Python.

An interesting "illumination" effect here. It looks as if the red outflow is being lit up by the bright galactic core, but the plumes of gas and dust are wider than the light cones shining out to galactic north and south, leaving some of the red stuff lit only by the dimmer spiral arms. I ...

Thanks for the info — didn't know they could build these things so tiny.

One thing I can't quite visualise, particularly from the Mission Highlight video upthread; how is the sail steered? I didn't realise something as small as a cubesat could have anything inside capable of controlling its attitude.

I'm still mystified that with no atmosphere, the sky should be ablaze with stars, even in the daytime ? Keep in mind that with no atmosphere, the sunlight is much brighter than you could find anywhere on earth. How much brighter? On the wikipedia page for the Moon, it's mentioned that the albedo (a...

What I consider one of the most significant files I've ever downloaded is a 10-minute sound clip. Gene Kranz on the Flight Director's loop in one ear, and Charlie Duke on the CAPCOM loop in the other. From a few minutes after PDI to just after landing. Gives me chills every time I play it. A close s...

Come to think of it (the famous "big footprint" photo), where does it come in the sequence of outside photos? I remember a few years ago I came across a list of all the photos in each of the film cartridges used on the Apollo missions, but I can't remember now where that list is. All the ...

Come to think of it (the famous "big footprint" photo), where does it come in the sequence of outside photos? I remember a few years ago I came across a list of all the photos in each of the film cartridges used on the Apollo missions, but I can't remember now where that list is.

That's okay. The energy must be absorbed by the atmosphere then, so there should be warming at solar max. The energy would mostly be absorbed by stratospheric ozone resulting in a warmer (and dynamically modified) stratosphere. Isn't this the cause of the expansion of the upper atmosphere that took...

http://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8uu3xRam51qgselpo1_250.gif looks like something way to the right & above the crater! I can't make it out! You need to see the entire sequence :arrow: I always get confused when I see the original movie — which sparkly bit is the "low fuel warning" li...