Ongoing important Science news thread

[jammies]

If the target star isn't on the ecliptic plane, the probe will avoid most objects orbiting the Sun, including the majority of the Oort cloud. The third dimension - it matters.

[photon]

The Oort cloud is pretty much completely around the sun, I don't think there's a lot of difference in the density along the ecliptic, the distribution is mostly spherical I believe.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

So we're going to try to navigate a unguided sailing ship through this field of randomly movie ice bits that are influenced by the Suns gravity. And then we're going to try to shoot a laser through it to send back data.

I'm not a smart man, but this seems to be almost an impossible theory.

As mentioned while pictures of the Oort cloud make it look dense, the sizes of the objects are incredibly exaggerated. The mass in the Oort cloud is only maybe 6 earth's worth, while the volume it comprises is probably trillions of times larger than the volume of the earth's orbit. So while an artists's rendition looks like it's a mess (see below), in reality you could probably send millions of light sail ships straight through it and never hit anything. It'd be like if the earth was smooth, you spent your life driving a car on it, and you happen to hit the one telephone pole on the whole planet. You have to actually try to hit something.

[pseudoreality]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Sooo Question.

they want this thing to fly through the Oort cloud, which IIRC is the birthplace of comets a huge intergalactic ice field.

So we're going to try to navigate a unguided sailing ship through this field of randomly movie ice bits that are influenced by the Suns gravity. And then we're going to try to shoot a laser through it to send back data.

I'm not a smart man, but this seems to be almost an impossible theory.

You're just too much of a Star Wars fan. The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid are actually very good. Things just are not very close together. Your chances of hitting anything is very small.

The bigger concern is interstellar radiation. Nasty blasts knock intrastellar probes off course all the time. We don't really know what it's like in interstellar space, but I would guess its worse.

[OMG!WTF!]

Look! A new continent...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/lo...cean-1.3963303

Mauritia. If only Mitchner were alive. Mauritia!

I don't know if this is important science or not. But it does answer the question...what used to fill the gap between west African and India.

[Ozy_Flame]

Not new, per se, but construction begins this year.

[Snuffleupagus]

This is an image of large(140 meter or larger) near earth asteroids mapped by NASA. 1400 of them.
Good news is none of these are actually are expected to hit our planet in the next 100 years.



Bad news is they estimate they only found about 29% of large Earth-crossing asteroids so far.

[Krovikan]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

This is an image of large(140 meter or larger) near earth asteroids mapped by NASA. 1400 of them.
Good news is none of these are actually are expected to hit our planet in the next 100 years.



Bad news is they estimate they only found about 29% of large Earth-crossing asteroids so far.

What are they using to arrive at the 29% number, just the asteroid belt? Or are they including Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud objects? Also, how are they estimating the unknown?

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by Krovikan

What are they using to arrive at the 29% number, just the asteroid belt? Or are they including Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud objects? Also, how are they estimating the unknown?

I think it's an estimation of between how many big asteroids they have tracked and how many they have seen..something along those lines anyway.

Phil Plait says the smallish(60 ft) Chelyabinsk meteor actually was seen about a year before but was lost in the sun and forgotten before it exploded over Russian injuring 1500 people, he said many larger even more dangerous ones follow the same path and unless they can get a grip on a particular orbit most can't be tracked until it would be too late.

[Baron von Kriterium]

I'm not sure it is important news any more, but at the time it was quite fascinating. This past Valentine's Day marked the 27th anniversary of Voyager 1's last ever photos taken. On that day 27 years ago, Voyager 1 turned its camera inwards towards the Sun and took 60 pictures to capture the only portrait of our solar system.



If you want to know how far away Voyager 1 and 2 are, check here:

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/where/

20.6 Billion km +/-

[Swift]

Wooly mammoth on verge of resurrection, could be living within 2 years.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/...ion-scientists

That entire article reads like it's been taken from a science fiction novel. And yet, it's true. Amazing the world we live in.

[CaptainCrunch]

I mean its cool, but is it really de-extinction? I mean its basically a asian elephant with manipulated DNA to resemble a Mammoth, but they're not really creating a Mammoth.

I mean its cool from the extent of being able to design life. For example to take human embryo's and edit them so that they're all blond hair/blue eyed super beings. But it only would bear a passing resemblance to the original.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Baron von Kriterium

I'm not sure it is important news any more, but at the time it was quite fascinating. This past Valentine's Day marked the 27th anniversary of Voyager 1's last ever photos taken. On that day 27 years ago, Voyager 1 turned its camera inwards towards the Sun and took 60 pictures to capture the only portrait of our solar system.



If you want to know how far away Voyager 1 and 2 are, check here:

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/where/

20.6 Billion km +/-

So a radio signal would take about 20 minutes to arrive right?

[photon]

About 20 hours, missed an order of magnitude somewhere.

[CaptainCrunch]

bad math.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Krovikan

What are they using to arrive at the 29% number, just the asteroid belt? Or are they including Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud objects? Also, how are they estimating the unknown?

I would guess they are looking at how much and how often they have looked at the sky, then using simple math to say we've probably missed x % in this time. Then using standard deviation to estimate how many have such a massive orbit that they have not passed out orbit in the modern era.

There certainly are well established models for predict totals based on a partial sample.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I mean its cool, but is it really de-extinction? I mean its basically a asian elephant with manipulated DNA to resemble a Mammoth, but they're not really creating a Mammoth.

I mean its cool from the extent of being able to design life. For example to take human embryo's and edit them so that they're all blond hair/blue eyed super beings. But it only would bear a passing resemblance to the original.

I think the search for if Hitler survived may be over.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

I think the search for if Hitler survived may be over.

[ASP#26525]

Originally Posted by Baron von Kriterium

I'm not sure it is important news any more, but at the time it was quite fascinating. This past Valentine's Day marked the 27th anniversary of Voyager 1's last ever photos taken. On that day 27 years ago, Voyager 1 turned its camera inwards towards the Sun and took 60 pictures to capture the only portrait of our solar system.



If you want to know how far away Voyager 1 and 2 are, check here:

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/where/

20.6 Billion km +/-

Pictures from Voyager make the physicist in me cry tears of wonderment. I could stare at astronomy pictures all day. The first time I saw the Hubble Deep Field, I was speechless.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by ASP#26525

I could stare at astronomy pictures all day. The first time I saw the Hubble Deep Field, I was speechless.

I eagerly await your silence 18 months from now when the James Webb shows it's awesomeness

[Baron von Kriterium]

Originally Posted by ASP#26525

Pictures from Voyager make the physicist in me cry tears of wonderment. I could stare at astronomy pictures all day.

Me, too. I spend a lot of time on the Astrophotography subreddit.