Science: Space - the final frontier (Misc.)

[Ole Man Dan]

A world first. New footage from Mars rendered in stunning 4K resolution. We also talk about the cameras on board the Martian rovers and how we made the video. The cameras on board the rovers were the height of technology when the respective missions launched. A question often asked is: ‘Why don’t we actually have live video from Mars?’ Although the cameras are high quality, the rate at which the rovers can send data back to earth is the biggest challenge. Curiosity can only send data directly back to earth at 32 kilo-bits per second. Instead, when the rover can connect to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, we get more favourable speeds of 2 Megabytes per second. However, this link is only available for about 8 minutes each Sol, or Martian day. As you would expect, sending HD video at these speeds would take a long long time. As nothing really moves on Mars, it makes more sense to take and send back images. Credit: NASA Music from Epidemic Sound

One of my favorite classes I took in college was Geology, so I love looking at these pictures of Sedimentary rocks and Clay. The photography was excellent and the music was good too. The landscapes were scrubbed and color added to enhance the visual quality. 4K is fantastic for this application.

I look out across the land and nary a Dollar General in sight.

 

[crimsonaudio]

Timelapse of The Sun Shannon Norton shot 160,000 frames over a 3-hour period and then used the best 25% of those frames to create this mesmerizing timelapse.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1756432073022185638

 

[day-day]

Timelapse of The Sun Shannon Norton shot 160,000 frames over a 3-hour period and then used the best 25% of those frames to create this mesmerizing timelapse.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1756432073022185638

Seeing the sun like this gives us a glimpse of how active it actually is and makes it seem more vulnerable to me. There is something spooky about this; especially since we pretty much depend on the sun for our existence.

 

[NationalTitles18]

865,000 miles in diameter.

The light only takes 8 minutes to reach Earth, but for a single photon to first escape the interior of the sun to be able to make that journey takes between 10,000 and 170,000 years.

 

[crimsonaudio]

 

[crimsonaudio]

Astronomers have made a groundbreaking discovery: a quasar with a voracious black hole at its core, devouring the equivalent of a sun every day.

This record-breaking quasar shines an astonishing 500 trillion times brighter than our sun, powered by a black hole more than 17 billion times more massive. Led by Christian Wolf of Australian National University, the team reported their findings in Nature Astronomy.

Despite appearing as a mere dot in images, this quasar represents a ferocious cosmic phenomenon. The swirling disk of luminous gas and matter surrounding the black hole resembles a cosmic hurricane. Wolf describes it as “the most violent place that we know in the universe.”

Initially spotted as a star during a 1980 sky survey by the European Southern Observatory, the object, named J0529-4351, was later identified as a quasar. Yale University’s Priyamvada Natarajan notes the excitement of discovering that it was “hiding in plain sight” and had been misclassified previously.

Further observations and computer modeling revealed that the quasar consumes the equivalent of 370 suns annually, approximately one per day. The black hole’s mass is estimated to be 17 to 19 billion times that of our sun. Located 12 billion light-years away, this quasar offers insights into the early universe, although more observations are needed to fully understand its growth rate.

 

[B1GTide]

Astronomers have made a groundbreaking discovery: a quasar with a voracious black hole at its core, devouring the equivalent of a sun every day.

This record-breaking quasar shines an astonishing 500 trillion times brighter than our sun, powered by a black hole more than 17 billion times more massive. Led by Christian Wolf of Australian National University, the team reported their findings in Nature Astronomy.

Despite appearing as a mere dot in images, this quasar represents a ferocious cosmic phenomenon. The swirling disk of luminous gas and matter surrounding the black hole resembles a cosmic hurricane. Wolf describes it as “the most violent place that we know in the universe.”

Initially spotted as a star during a 1980 sky survey by the European Southern Observatory, the object, named J0529-4351, was later identified as a quasar. Yale University’s Priyamvada Natarajan notes the excitement of discovering that it was “hiding in plain sight” and had been misclassified previously.

Further observations and computer modeling revealed that the quasar consumes the equivalent of 370 suns annually, approximately one per day. The black hole’s mass is estimated to be 17 to 19 billion times that of our sun. Located 12 billion light-years away, this quasar offers insights into the early universe, although more observations are needed to fully understand its growth rate.

View attachment 40943

The more that we learn, the more that we realize that we are almost totally ignorant.

 

[Tidewater]

Lunar lander landing on the lunar south pole
Live.

 

[Bazza]

7.5 minutes away........

 

[Bazza]

Apparently AT&T was involved in the communications system......

 

[Bazza]

Congrats to Elon, NASA, and the entire Intuitive Machines team!

 

[Bamaro]

Odysseus moon lander tipped over on its side during historic mission.

Odysseus, the first U.S.-built spacecraft to land on the moon since 1972, got tripped up just before touchdown and now rests horizontally on its side on the lunar surface.

Steve Altemus, CEO of the Houston-based company Intuitive Machines that build the lander, said the team initially thought the unmanned six-footed lander had reached the surface upright. But data being sent from Odysseus revealed its horizontal resting situation.

At this point, Odysseus has "quite a bit of operational capability, even though we're tipped over," Altemus said. The lander was approaching the surface faster than the team had hoped and may have possibly fractured one of the legs of its landing gear as it "tipped over gently," he said.

 

[CrimsonNagus]

How is this considered a success when they landed it on it's side? If a pilot lands a plane on it's side, he's not getting high fives. All these mishaps recently make this all seem like amateur hour compared to the 60s.

I know these companies will get there but, it just seems like all the milestones recently have asterisks, a "we did it but..." ending. As much as I loved watching shuttle launches, it does kind of suck that NASA took a 30 year break from really pushing the boundaries space travel. Based on where we were in the 70s, we should have walked on Mars by now.

 

[crimsonaudio]

 

[Bamaro]

Odysseus Powers Down

Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander, the first-ever commercial spacecraft to land on the moon, stopped transmitting yesterday, several days earlier than intended. The historic mission returned US spacecraft to the moon after a 50-year hiatus but likely did not meet some goals after it tipped onto its side while landing near the lunar south pole last week. Analysts believe a leg of the hexagonal, 14-foot-tall lander snagged the surface and tipped while approaching diagonally, tilting its antennas and solar arrays in the wrong direction. The craft was reportedly able to deliver some scientific data payloads in addition to an image of itself during descent. Results from several of NASA's instruments aboard the craft remain unknown, and an ejectable camera had not yet been deployed at this writing.

I

 

[CrimsonNagus]

A crashing return to the moon after 50 years!

They should bring in some old scientists from the 60s and 70s (the ones still around) to show them how to do it without tipping over your spacecraft.

 

[Elefantman]

NASA wrote the book on how to go to the moon back in 1971. Today's engineers should go back and read it.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19720005243/downloads/19720005243.pdf

 

[crimsonaudio]

This is cool, if not ever so slightly outdated:

Video: Spacecraft on Mars, a comparison

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1762856691639398864

 

[crimsonaudio]

 

[crimsonaudio]