I looked for "This may seem dumb, but..." but... I couldn't find it (so I didn't look too hard).
Anyway, I have an astronomy question.
Look up at Orion. Draw a straight line from his right foot (as we see it -- I think it's Rigel) through the middle star of his belt, through his left shoulder (as we see it -- I think it's Betelgeuse), and keep going north. You come upon a really bright object that looks (to my naked eye) as though it might even have a visible disk. What is it?
It's bright yellow, isn't it? That's Jupiter!
Thanks!
This May Seem Dumb, But...? has been moved to the new Questions, Questions, Questions Folder. (It was under Misc. Nits & Comments, under Media, but nobody could find it.)
Also ScottN your wording was confusing. Was it HIS right or OUR right?
From our POV Betelguese is the upper left star, Bellatrix is the upper right.
Saiph is the lower left star, Rigel is the lower right.
IIRC the belt stars from left to right are Alnilam, Alnitak, & Mintaka. (Although I sometimes get Alnilam & Alnitak confused.)
KAM, I specifically said "As we see it", meaning OUR right.
So the line is from Rigel through the middle of the belt through Betelgeuse.
In such confusing cases Heavens-Above is quite useful.
You wrote "his right foot (as we see it" & "his left shoulder (as we see it". Those seem to me to be contradictions.
If you had written 'THE right foot (as we see it' & 'THE left shoulder (as we see it' it would not have been contradictory.
OK... you nitpicked me!
I checked the sky last night and got to see Jupiter. Cool! It must be really bright considering I don't see much other than the brightest stars where I live.
(By bright I mean reflecting a lot of light-I know it doesn't have any light of its own.)
Yes, Jupiter is curently much brighter than the other planets and stars around here.
Look at Jupiter through a telescope or binoculars (as low as 30x will suffice) and you may see one to four of the Galilean moons (the number depends upon their position around the planet). The farther away from any artificial light source you are, the better your view.
By the way, several years ago I was at a park in New Orleans, Louisiana, where someone had aimed a large telescope at Jupiter...I could see Jupiter's cloud bands, even from right there in the city. Cool!
10x binoculars are in fact enough to see the four main moons. People with good eyesight even can spot them in clear nights without any instrument!
To see the cloud bands you only need a small 3" mirror telescope (like my toy 
). It works even in big cities with lots of light pollution (baaaaaad!)
Another thankful target is of course Saturn with his rings. Heavens-Above (link was posted) shows you his position, not very far from Jupiter. Saturn's main moon Titan is usually visible too!
Fortunately I live in a rural area and have a good view of the night sky so Jupiter and Saturn are putting on a great show. Anyone know how far you can see with the naked eye? About 2 million (give or take) light years any guesses as to what it is? Clue: It is visible in early evening right now.
M31 (Andromeda).
M33 is sometimes a naked-eye object too, but only under the best weather and light conditions. I was lucky twice yet.
Any of you guys ever go to http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov? My friend Chris showed me an index of photos there, and I downloaded almost 300 photos of the planets, nebulae, galaxies, meteor showers, craters, etc. There were far more, but those were the ones I downloaded that day.
Whoops. Shouldn't have put the question mark so close to the end of that link. NitC incorporated it into the url, which is wrong. It should be:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov
Another interesting task is watching the ISS with a telescope and trying to spot details. It works, even with my small supermarket tube at 35x. You can easily recognize the big solar panels and the modules.
It should already work from around 16x. With binoculars you should use some kind of mount or one of those fabulous things with image stabilizer like those from Canon.
Many people have captured pictures of the Mir and ISS this way but I don't have an URL right now.
Ok, a short search with Google gave me this link: ISS Tracking.
Yeah i was thinking of andromeda as we see it quite often from here. I haven't seen the ISS as from my location its usually at a bad time for me to see it when it is highest. I have seen M33 but it usually takes a bit of work as Ohio has some really moody weather. Not to mention being on the flight path for an airport and at the northwestern reaches of the air national guard training zone. So if aliens ever did wanna buzz around I'd never tell the difference.
News here is that NASA will be building a space railroad. I wonder if they'll number the engine with a "999"?
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/04/12/shuttle.iss/index.html
Luigi, you can avoid problems like you had in your Feb 8 post by using an explicit link, thus:
\link{URL,text}
Note that any commas in the URL must be escaped with a backslash (\) as well, i.e.:
\link{url\,with\,commas,text}
Personally, I prefer to use \newurl{URL,text}. it opens the reference link in a new window free from the Discus frames, and keeps the original discussion window intact and open.
Me too. I was just helping Luigi (he complained that Discus grabbed the question mark).
I understand.
Thanks guys. I was wondering how you guys make links like that. I'm still not sure I get it. Do you have to type the comma? Is it under Formatting on the left hand column?
Yes, search there for "escape".
Don't want to alarm you all, but...
A recent interview with Dr. Arnon Dar, an Israeli scientist reopened the discussion of lethal waves from the supernovas of supermassive dying stars. Once such a star goes supernova and then collapses into itself as a black hole, it could unleash a narrow gamma radiation wave, followed by a blast of muon radiation, that, if it reaches Sol, could wipe out the protecting solar wind and literally "sterilise" our planet of all life. One such star may be the so-called "doomed star" Eta Carinae, about 9000 light years away in the constellation of Carina, and embedded within the mysterious Eta Carinae nebula (a.k.a. the Keyhole Nebula) which, from looking at pictures from the HST on the web, looks like huge conical clouds of gas streaming from the star itself. That star is predicted to go supernova quite soon. This in theory may happen at any time in the next couple of thousand years, maybe not today, or tomorrow, or even until after our grandchildren die, but then again, the chance of this wiping out all life on Earth is about one in a hundred million years (roughly the same as the incidence of an extinction-level event on Earth) because of the expanse of Space around us - and it seems Eta Carinae may not affect us at all, but another undiscovered star might.
What I want to know is that, assuming all radiation travels at the speed of light (or thereabouts), and that Eta Carinae was going to put us at risk, could this mean that when we see this supernova go off in the night sky, we could in theory be exposed to the lethal gamma radiation wave at the same time? And die a particularly nasty death if we're unlucky?
When Alvarez came up with the impact theory, he looked at supernova bursts first. But there was no isotopic evidence at the K-T layer, or at any other of the mass extinction layers to support it.
Also, the question of periodicity is a problem
Further, supernova gamma ray bursts would essentially wipe out all land-based life forms, but leave deep sea life forms intact (water is an excellent shield). Why were the trilobites wiped out at the Permian extinction event?
Then again, the burst can expose Earth to the dangers of muon radiation and other rays, which *can* penetrate water, as well as the rest of the planet, due to the weakened EM fields protecting our planet from such harmful rays. I'm no expert on paleontology or other prehistoric zoology (or astromony for that matter), but it sounds like bad news if it happens.
My understanding is that muon radiation wouldn't penetrate water past about 200 meters.
Slightly off-topic, but since it was mentioned: Alvarez and the KT Impact...
While there is enough evidence to support THAT an impact occurred around the end of the Cretaceous Period, I've always had a problem with the EXTENT of damage such an impact made. (The impact of the impact? Ha!) Many have jumped on the bandwagon... "The impact caused alot of debris, dust & soot to block sunlight, wiping out much plantlife, thus in turn wiping out herbivorous dinosaurs, which in turn wiped out the carnivorous dinos. So, the impact wiped out the dinosaurs (and, conveniently enough, the dino-like reptiles), thus clearing a path for mammals to fill the void and devlop into what we have today."
Isn't this line of thinking WAY too simplistic? If the impact was that devastating, how did ANYTHING survive? While sunlight blockage would affect plant growth and could conceivably cause temperatures to drop at least for a while, why would dinos be affected, but not crocodiles, which co-existed with dinos and are still around today? How about frogs, which were also around back then, and to this day are usually one of the first creatures to flee or die when their environment changes drastically. And if so many plants died, what did the herbivorous MAMMALS eat?
I think nature rarley has one Big Event that changes things; usually there is a combination of factors. The impact was simply one of them, most likely the "finishing touch" that made Earth unihabitable for dinos, but hbitable for our ancestors.
I know I've oversimplified a bit, too, but I'm not a biologist, nor is this the place for pages of research to be posted.
It wasn't a page of research, it was a news report. Dammit. 
By the way, that doesn't mean an impact that WOULD be big enough to decimate the entire planet (and all life on it) couldn't happen at any time...
Oh, relating back to the radiation thing...
Hey, let the polar caps melt and inundate the planet, so we can safely live under 200 meters or so of water to protect us from radiation!
OK, just kidding, I know there's not that much water contained in the ice caps.
Guess I should have linked to the story that started this whole thing first. Then again, yeesh, what a downer of a report.
While cosmic devastation is possible, even probable, I sometimes wonder if some scientists preach "doom and gloom" just to get attention that scientists seldom get. It's too bad, IMO, that the positive aspects of science (and scientists) aren't given as much attention--we only seem to hear about the mistakes, misuse or gloomy things beyond our control.
Sorry about that misunderstanding, Craig. As far as I'm concerned, it's the media who spread the doom and gloom just to get the viewers and the money (yes, Mr. Murdoch, I know where you live). And of course the shallow people like us, who think the word "gullible" doesn't exist in the dictionary, who fall for it.
Suppose we built a structure in the outer solar system, to catch any radiation coming from Betelgeuse in case it goes supernova. I wonder how big it would be? It depends on the distance from us to the structure, of course; and it would have to be moving to stay between us and the star it's shielding us from. Any thoughts on that idea?
Doesn't matter, because the notification would get here at the same time as the gamma burst.
Remember, gamma rays travel at the speed of light, too!
Wow. Thanks for answering my original question, ScottN (at long last!). But cheer up everyone, as they say in Lahndahn "it'll never 'appen, eh guv?"
We still know it's likely, and can get started on the project before the star actually blows up. We'd have several, one for each of the likely supernova candidates.
What I mean is that the radiation waves might miss us because they are so narrow, the stars are so far away, and there's a lot of space to cover. I don't know my astronomy well enough to see if a mere supergiant like Betelgeuse could be a candidate for such a supernova to send out lethal waves - it would have to be a very supermassive star like Eta Carinae (which is pretty unstable last time I checked - it could collapse in on itself if astrophysics theory is correct) to do just that. The star believed to have gone supernova in 1054 to form the Crab Nebula, as well as the 1987 Dorado supernova, came and went - the world shrugged.
And that is why I tend to ignore doomsayers... events such as supernovae are likely to be too small and/or distant to make a difference, and if they're close enough to do so, there's virtually nothing (at this time) we'd be able to do about it.
So, when's someone going to figure out how to make real warp/ftl drive, so we can evac if the need arises?
IMHO, IF a hyper/warp/ftl/jump drive CAN be developed, applied research toward that end will not get anywhere near enough funding or other essentials until AFTER there is at least one human-populated city in at least one other star system. In other words, AFTER someone puts a small town, and its populace, into a metal can, and AFTER that can is accelerated to ten PERCENT of light speed, and AFTER the children or grandchildren of the original townspeople stop and build an O'Neill colony (or whatever) in another star system, THEN, AND ONLY THEN, will the socio-political powers-that-be decide that a stardrive MIGHT be worth developing. Oh, I WISH that a Tom Swift Jr. or a Dr. Hans Zarkov or a Zephraim Cochrane would announce to the world that he was testing a prototype stardrive TODAY, but realistically, I don't visualize that happening anytime soon.
Bad news from the sun: According to the respected science magazine Weekly World News The Sun Will Explode In Less Than Six Years! Prepare yourself.
But will it take Rupert Murdoch with it? That's what I want to know!
So now astronomers have found another world/planet past Pluto. Does this mean our solar system really has 10 planets? And what's the name of this new one going to be? Aries? Artimis?
No, it's some wierd Indian name.
"Quaoar"
Quaoar is the latest in a number of Kuiper Belt Objects to have been discovered in the last few years. It's one of the largest yet found in this area of the Solar System near Pluto. Another one found two years ago was last year renamed Varuna. There will probably be several others which will be made known. Indeed, perhaps Pluto may be the largest of these Kuiper Belt Objects yet found...
News from the center of the Milky Way: Surfing a Black Hole.
"Star Orbiting Massive Milky Way Centre Approaches to within 17 Light-Hours"
Let's hope for clear skies this week.
Although, to be fair, they did say that the events last year and the year before would be super-spectacular too.
But how'd they get the milk(y way) inside the doughnut?
There is in fact a chocolate bar called a "Milky Way" - anyone tried to put one inside a doughnut yet?
(Snickers at the last couple of jokes, which reminds me, Snickers is also a candy bar...Snickers satisfies you!)
I think this belongs here, since it's real science, not Trek science. But one thing I think they could do is--since they're going faster than light, they could outrun the TV signals, stop, and sit and watch the original broadcasts of old-time TV shows.
Some, like many Hollywood Squares episodes, weren't preserved; only about a hundred of the original Hollywood Squares episodes are available.
So my question is, how good would the reception be a hundred lightyears out? Would the interstellar medium cause the TV signal to be staticky? How far out could they expect to get good reception?
And will this nitcentral.com site still be active 200 years from now?
I just watched Contact last night and one of the comments on the audio track said something like Carl Sagan predicted we would be %100 digital in the next 100 years, meaning that in the scope of the Universe's history, we would only have broadcast for about 200 years, creating a very small window for ETI's to detect us.
And imagine some alien civilization getting ticked off because there was never a rescue episode during the inital broadcast of Gilligan's Island. (Futurama did a take on this with I Love Lucy, I think.)
No, it was with Ally McBeal (though they called it "Single Female Lawyer"). Our intrepid heroes had to come up with a closing episode fast.
There *was* a TV movie where they got rescued; then they got stranded at the end. A second TV movie had them rescued and they turned the island into a resort; the last movie had the Harlem Globetrotters vs. robots controlled by mad scientists.
Then there was Gilligan's Planet which we shall ignore because it was even more awful. But we can assume the castaways were rescued but stayed on the island anyway, and are immensely wealthy from running a resort for rich people.
"Love Boat" actually had an episode where they took people to Fantasy Island; they shoulda had a "Gilligan's Island" crossover too.
What this has to do with science is, the science on Gilligan's Island was about the same level as on "Lost In Space" or ST: Voyager.
Star search spots a new neighbor
"Astronomers have stumbled onto a previously unknown star in Earth’s stellar neighborhood, a red dwarf that could be the third-closest star system to our own."
I can see my house from here!!!!!
Maybe this is what that Latvian song was all about.
This message was moved here from the NextGen board. Hope you don't mind Kerrie.
Just for the heck of it and because there's no Science board I thought I'd pass on this story about a new planet that's twice Jupiter's size and almost 13 billion years old, and located 5,600 lightyears away.
NASA: Oldest Planet Formed 13 Billion Years Ago.
Goodbye Galileo. One reportand another. Sorry these links only get you to a couple of home pages and not the specific articles (I tried), but once there, you can find the appropriate headlines (for now) or conduct searches about the Galileo probe.
Too bad they couldn't have crashed it onto a dead moon... would have made an interseting archeological find in the distant future.
There might be signs of primitive life on said moons, & they wanted to avoid "Contamination" by the probe on said lifeforms !
markvthomas is correct. Especially regarding Europa. They wanted to avoid any potential contamination with terrestrial microbes, so that any future expeditions would have a pristine environment to examine.
Please note that I specified dead moons, not the ones with ice (and thus, possibly, life forms). I realize Galileo hadn't enough fuel for any big course corrections required to fight Jupiter's gravity and aim at a fairly tiny iceless moon, let alone actually hit one. I was just musing that it would have been neat to recover the debris sometime in the future.
I eagerly await the next mission to the Jovian moons due to launch within a few years... the Galileo pics of Europa are still stunning to me, so I can't wait to see what the next probe reveals!
Meanwhile, Cassini arrives at Saturn next year, to conduct detailed studies of the mysterious atmosphere-shrouded moon, Titan. I've been waiting for this one, too!
Speaking of moons, does anyone else think that Neptune's moon Triton is way cooler than expected? (No puns about "cooler" having to do with distance from the sun, please!) It also has an atmosphere (albeit a tenuous one), active geysers and very interesting terrain. It's too bad it'll be a long time before we get another look at that one.
I agree with CR on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn.
The Huygens lander should provide
interesting data on Titan's atmosphere & Surface (If it survives the landing) indeed...
Check this out:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/977607.asp
It's a hard-to-grasp concept, but it it does make perfect sense.
Also, has anyone else heard yet that China will be sending someone into space next week?
Yep. Launch is scheduled for 15 October. Last I heard, it was to be roughly a 21 hour mission (14 orbits). Crew size is still not publicized.
I think the Chinese space program is over rated because the PC media want the yellow man to suceed.
If I was exposed to gamma rays would I become like the thing or the hulk? (Iassume becoming like Sue Richards is not an option to be discussed here on a family friendly board.)
Yes, this post is "". Yes, I'm going away now.
The answer to ScottN's queation is 1 (according to Thursday's Independant newspaper)
The Launch of Shenzhou 5 (Heavenly Boat/Vessel) is expected from the Jinquan launch facility,located in North-West China, on Wendesday, Oct 15th, will last for only 1 orbit (90 Minutes),according to the article,& will be controlled from the Bejing Mission Control.
(Mind you, this could all change, depending on circumstances...)
The Shenzhou capsule is based on the Russian
Soyuz-T design, but slightly modified for Chinese manafacture.
The Launcher, I think's, a Long March 4 ,with 4 extra boosters attached to the first stage.
One possible reason for the launch being on Wednesday, is that the Chinese Communist Party's (current) Congress is due to finish the day before....?
Ok I think I saw somethign but I am not sure what it was last night and was wondering if anyone else has seen this. Last night I went out after everyone was asleep and looked at the sky to see if there was any northern lights as our local news said there might be some. I live in south central Ohio and the weather was crystal clear. So after letting my eyes adjust I was looking up to the north when i saw something I can only describe as a negative meteor. In the same way that a regular metor is a bright streak of light this was a streak of blackness. I have seen these on occasion before now and wondered if I was seeing things or what. I live under the brushy fork ANG training area so am familiar with night manouvers of aircraft (When they drop flares and go into burner it is really awesome!) I have also grown up in the country and am used to seeing bats and other night birds and such moving around. And these negative meteors dont match any of that. So has anyone else seen/expereienced anything like this?
Are we as a nation concerned for the same reason Sputnik scared the hell out of us. Namely a nuclear state demostrated it can produce ICBMs? (Yes, I know an orbit booster is a Rube Goldberg ICBM at best, so? It still can be done.)
R,
Define black. No I'm serious. How did you see it if it absorbed visible light at night? Since ANG is involved my first guess is some strange new military hardware that we don't know about. (Before anyone claims it is hard to keep secrects in an open democracy, let me point to the 1950's orgin of the SR-2 that we did not know existed until the 1990's or so [It was cigar spaped, BTW.])
mmm. Ok how to define black. Well in the country the sky isnt really black. On a clear night its kinda like a dark blue. real dark blue. The thing I saw looked like a very fast darker streak moving across the sky. Kinda like a shadow moving fast but since I was looking almost straight up at the time I doubt it was a shadow. Also at the time I was standing out in the barn yard with trees and outbuildings between me and most of the neighborhood's lights. and I didnt hear any machinery noise like a car on the road or a tractor in the fields. I mentioned the ANG because I didnt think it was anythign they was playing with for two reasons: 1) it moved too fast, more like a meteor than a plane. and 2) To show that I am somewhat familiar with human made vehicles and such after having watched them. I also live in the flight path for Airborne Express so have seen DC8 and 9s all my life. So to sum up imagine looking basically straight up into a deep kinda dark royal blue sky and seeing a dark blackish indigo streak move across the sky in a north to south direction. I called it a shadow or a negative meteor because thats the best way i can describe it. i have seen it happen before at other elevations and directions as well as its direction of travel and always it seems like a darker streak of not light moving across the sky as fast as a meteor. Oh BTW I do wear glasses but am otherwise in great physical shape.
So anyhow thats what I saw and have seen before. So I dont know, if anyone else has seen anythign like that. I am willing to chalk it up as either a hallucination or maybe something strange is in the sky over southern Ohio. We did get a couple of crop circles near serpent mound (No Joke) Go to Yahoo news and search for it. Oh well thanks for the help.
R,
I believe you are familiar with what we have. I doubt everyone is familiar with everything we are developing.
Crop circles? The skeptics say guys with boards. UFO believers say space aliens. It is either weird weather phenomenon we don't know about yet or NSA spooks experimenting with a corn (or wheat, or barley, etc.) virus.
Same idea with cattle mutilations NSA spooks (or section 6, or section 31, or agents from Control, etc.) doing weird experiment with stuff that dissolves eyes (or tongues, or kidneys, etc.)
There is no need to look skyward for a sentient race more concerned with it own unfathomable ends because there is one already here.
I leave someone else to quote Occham's razor (or toothbrush, etc.)
Do I sound awful blasé about it? That is because I am awful blasé about it? The TRUTH is out there, so? If I could do anything about it I might not after learning all the facts. (If getting a serum that saves millions means we have to make the disease before the terrorist [or commies, or neo-fascists, etc.] and it will cost us a few cows [or corn stalks, or sheep, etc. -- or PETA activists ** running out of parenthesis things**--] so? )
My advice to you about this, R, since I know nothing like what you describe, is tell everyone (secrets can kill) but believe no one if they say they know exactly what it was. They know as much as you or it is a trap and be glad you told everyone so they can’t plug the leak just by killing you.
Uh, Blue, this isn't the TDEMG board!
R, what you describe sounds interesting, but I wonder if it might have been physical/neurological... mind you, I'm only saying so, so that that possibility can be considered and ruled out if it's not the case. To give you a personal example, though the circumstances were completely unrelated, I once tried with some success to see if one could sneeze without blinking. Unfortunately, doing so caused a bit of discomfort, and I immediately saw a bunch of little white streaks in my field of vision that resembled meteor streaks (that's honestly the very first thing I thought of), only they were all travelling in paths random to each other (unlike a real meteor shower which originates from the same relative area of the sky). After a few moments (a couple seconds at most), the effect passed. BTW, I was inside a well-lit bakery at the time looking into a donut display case. (Mmmm, donuts...)
I'm obviously not saying that's what happened to you, but I'm just wondering if there couldn't be a physical thing causing your effect... maybe you craned your neck strangely and pinched a nerve or something? Since you're in good health I'll assume there was no dizziness or anything associated with your sight, nor that you've received any head injury or have a history of stroke in your family. (I'm no MD, but as I said, I'm just trying to rule out the possibility of this being related to the body.)
Do I think what you saw is extraterrestrial? No. Doesn't mean I don't believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial life, I simply don't think that's what you saw. I don't know what you saw, of course, and have never experienced such a sighting myself.
Speaking strictly for myself, I have seen many unidentified objects in the night sky over my lifetime, and I know some of them were spacecraft, but not one of those was of otherworldly origin. (I think I actually saw Mir during one of it's orbits, but was unable to confirm it.)
The weirdest thing(s) I saw was while driving through the middle of nowhere in Wyoming late one summer night (a few years ago)... On a clear, moonless night, I was distracted by a very bright object in the sky, roughly 50 degrees or so above the horizon, kind of below and to the left of the constellation Casseopia. (I saw it out the driver's side window, which in America is on the left side of the vehicle.) My first thought was that it was a meteor, as I've seen them that bright (and brighter) before, but this one didn't leave a telltale streak. As I slowed the car down, I thought I was seeing a satellite catching sunlight just right (on a solar panel or some other flat surface), but the object did not appear to be moving relative to the stars around it. I completely stopped the car, and continued to watch the object as it slowly and steadily dimmed, until I could just barely pick it out from the dimmest stars in that area of the sky. I finally lost it altogether.
The whole event lasted about 35-40 seconds, and the thing didn't appear to move, but bear in mind I was in a mostly moving vehicle, and the object started fading about the time I finally came to a complete stop. I doubt it was a shuttle or the ISS (which was just getting started back then), though I believe it could have been (and probably was) a slow-moving satellite. I've seen slow and fast moving satellites (fast being relative--even the slowest moving airplane appears to move faster than the fastest-looking satellite), but never before one so bright and slow.
I happened to see a similar thing a couple years later (two years ago) while driving through rural Wisconsin, this time stopping the vehicle immediately on a side road that happened to be right there, and called someone on my cell phone to try to get a coroborating witness. (She didn't see the thing from her location about 30 miles or so from where I was at the time, but her eyes weren't dark-adjusted and she wasn't sure of the exact part of the sky to look at once she got outside.) I noticed the same effect and duration, only this time the object was near Pegasus, IIRC.
I really believe the objects I saw were slow-moving satellites that just happened to reflect sunlight as they orbited/turned. They were both in areas of the sky where I've seen countless satellites orbit before (and since), and had I been able to notice movement, I'm sure they'd have been following a typical orbital path (as opposed, say to a polar orbit.)
Forgot to mention a couple of things... the "mystery objects" I saw were bright white, and as they faded, stayed white. Some meteors I've seen are bright white, but fade to a yellow-ish color. I've seen a couple meteors that were green... traces of copper, perhaps?
Hey, that brings up a possibilty... are there elements that burn darkly? Don't laugh too much, I'm serious. I've seen copper create green flames (I even took photos of that), and I know there are elements that burn with different colors (red, orange, yellow, white, varying shades of blue, etc.) So, could there be something that burns black?
I can't think of anything, but my knowledge in metals & elements is pretty limited.
CR, it could have been an Iridium flare. They are sometimes very bright but that depends very much on your exact location. 30 miles can make a big difference there.
Go to Heavens-Above, find your location the their huge database and try to spot a flare or the ISS next time.
R, did the mysterious object block the light of stars?
Thank you, Electron! Looks like I figured correctly about the 'reflection from a satellite' thing. Even though I can't confirm the exact timing and location of the objects I saw, the iridium flare description matches. (And now I can actually try to see the next one in my area, and observe what should be similar results.) Thanks again!
R, I'm curious about what gets found out about your thing, and will check back often. (Sorry I can't offer more help at this point, and I don't even know if what I posted before is really helpful, either!) Good luck!
Ok no problem thanks all. I suppose it might be something physical but since I have seen it at different elevations that does make a pinched nerve a bit difficult to see. No it didnt block any stars. It travelled close to some but not directly over any that I saw. I love Heavens above I got to see the ISS thanks to them. I think I've seen an iridium flare before too then as you described somethign I've seen once or twice and came to the same conclusion you did CR although i did wonder if I saw a meteor head on. Ie one that was coming straight at me from my angle. I guess it would be possible with enough watching, people win the lottery dont they? But anyhow I dont know Berry There was crop circles but I doubt they had anything to do with anything other than some beered up Adams county teens. Dont worry everyone has been rather helpful, or at least entertaining about this and I just asked because I had finally gotten my curiosity up enough. I did go to yahoo and see if I could find anythign like that but I wasnt able to either get the search down right or figure out what exactly to describe it. I did get a few cool Babylon 5 pages though :-) So thanks all. BTW I have some good news I am going to post over on the bragging board.
R you live in southern Ohio? I live in Middle Ohio not far from Dayton. Very interesting. I have not seen what you are describing before myself and I have seen the various lights of aircraft as well as many meteors, northern lights, a satellite re-entry, the shuttle, mir and ISS. Would you say it looked like a photo negative of a meteor? From your descriptions that is what it sounds like. Good Fortune to you on finding an answer to your question.
Spirit, the new Mars rover, is about to land on Mars! If all goes well, it should land in a little over a half hour from now (as I type this). Spirit's twin, Opportunity, should land about twenty days from now in another region of the red planet.
Both rovers are going to examine rocks up close--very close--for evidence of water & other things. New cameras & equipment on each are much improved since the Pathfinder/Sojourner mission of 1997, offering us unprecedented views both close up and far.
I remember the Viking landings in 1976 & the 1997 mission... these new missions are rather exciting for me, too.
Landing has occurred; waiting for confirmation signal from Mars...
...aaand it's confirmed, and appears to be right side up!
Good night!
Nope. It's not there. There's no Mars probe. It was all a hoax, filmed by NASA on a sound stage.
Shhhh! That's just what THEY want you to think!
Fnord!
All right, I'm only going to say this once:
Beings of Earth, please stop sending us your annoying little probes! It's getting too expensive to destroy them all, and clearly you're not getting the message anyway.
That is all.
Earthlings, if you ever send a probe to Venus, let me know. I've always wanted to see it. Pictures of Venus would be just peachy!
Actually, if you could send some to the Cydonia region, please do so. It gets kinda lonely here. The most interaction I've had with humans here are the perverts who like to take my picture from above.
Since nobody mentioned it yet...
They've found a planetoid about 3 billion miles past Pluto. It's less than 2000km across. They're naming it "Sedna".
So why is it considered a planetoid and not a moon or asteroid or comet or sth. like? What are the exact definitions on planetoid? (I've recently read on how astronomers are uneasy about Pluto itself, since everything about it is weird and way off, compared to the rest, most of all the size, and they would like much more to classify it as "caught" comet/asteroid/moon than a real planet.)
And who's Sedna?? The discoverers' name? Why not stick to the Roman-Greek gods naming scheme used so far for the solar system?
I don't believe there are any exact definitions for a planetoid. The term was originally used to mean small planet. Also synonomous with asteroid. However the largest known asteroid is IIRC 300 miles wide, Sedna is, I believe, 1,100 miles wide. That's a pretty wide gap if you ask me.
A moon, of course, must orbit a planet & can be any size, just not larger than the planet it's orbiting. ;-)
A comet is a ball of ice and usually crosses several planets' orbital paths in it's orbit.
Sedna is the Inuit goddess who rules over the water animals according to Goddesses In World Mythology.
According to Myths, Gods And Fantasy she is the mother of the sea. She was originally a disobedient little girl whose father threw her overboard & chopped off her fingers when she clung to the side of the boat. Each finger turned into a shoal of whales, seal or fish thus populating the sea. What a chipper little tale to tell to kids who ask about the new planet's name.
I think the Greek/Roman naming convention applies only to planets, not "planetoids." Besides, maybe someone wants a more international flare to the names.
I bet that blows astrology all to hell...
What a chipper little tale to tell to kids who ask about the new planet's name.
So the moral is: if you are disobedient, your father might throw you out of the boat, and if you then turn into a goddess, you'll get a planetoid named after you. (Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere ;-))
But thanks very much for the info, KAM.
I just read the message from The Face, which I'd like to respond to--a while ago a Mars probe got a larger and clearer photo of The Face on Mars, and of course the tabloids ignored it, but it didn't look anything like the more distant telescopic photos.
The odd thing is, it looked to me just like Abraham Sofaer, the guy who played the Thasian in "Charlie X" and Mr. Atoz in "All our Yesterdays."
Actually, Ian Wolfe played Mr. Atoz (and Septimus in "Bread and Circuses"). - Nitpicky Nove.
CR - I think the Greek/Roman naming convention applies only to planets, not "planetoids."
Possibly. It's even possible that they have come up with some new definitions for planetoids that I'm not aware of. Heck, I just realized that all my astronomy books are from the last millennium. ;-)
Influx - I bet that blows astrology all to hell...
Not necesarily. Pluto was discovered in 1930 and Astrologers worked it into the whole system.
A few years from now someone may hear this from an astrologer, "The problem is when you were born, Pluto, while ascendent, was ecliped by Charon, meanwhile Quaoar was in the Seventh House, but Sedna was at zenith thereby negating her power over water." Pause. "That'll be $50 please."
That's the beauty of astrology: not only can stuff in it be selectively applied to fit whatever circumstances are being discussed, stuff in it can be retroactively selected!
Maybe astrologers can use that to explain why they get things wrong:
"Well, there's obviously some planetoid we haven't discovered yet that's throwing off my readings."
If they used that as an excuse, then they would have to deal with the consequences of that which would be the prediction of the location of such a planetiod: if an undiscovered celestial body caused them to be wrong, then they should be able analyze what did occur and use that to figure out where this unrecorded object should be. This object could then be searched for by astronomers.
I'm for that. Maybe NASA can do something contructive for a change.
And maybe if they discovered oil on uranus Bush would cut loose some of the funding so they can do something constructive.
So, Anonymous, what did you have in mind?
I made the remark because NASA seemed to be a better organization when their missions or goals were created outside NASA.
Kennedy said, we're going to the moon in 10 years, and NASA managed to do that. Now I know there were still accidents and mishaps... I just think that when the overall goal is mandated outside NASA, reaching those goals seems...
I don't know... Better.
Look at it this way, I think NASA learns from its mistakes better when its goals/missions are created from the outside. Self-improvement for NASA appears to be kind of low. Lately, it appears that the blunders are only fixed because the national/international media loves stories of tragedy. I believe that NASA wouldn't fix any of its problems if the media didn't report it.
NASA is an organization without purpose right now.
Sure its got the ISS, but NASA isn't breaking new ground. Apollo 13, and its solutions are a good example of how NASA was able to get a job fixed and be ingenious about it.
Good points! (I'm glad you weren't just being sarcastic.)
Whether people like it or not, Bush made the directive to go back to the moon; maybe that'll get NASA in gear. Of course, two things are against that: (1) NASA is being very safety conscious now, since the Columbia disaster, and (2) Bush may have made his directive more for political reasons than for actually getting humans back on the moon.
Regarding safety, I hope NASA does all it can to ensure crew safety, but not to the point where no missions get launched! There's an old saying that goes something like this: A ship is safe in harbour, but that's not what a ship is for.
As for politics & space exploration, Kennedy's directive was also politically miotivated, in a sense, in that he wanted the US to beat the USSR (which had been winning the "space race" at that point) to the moon. Bush's political motivations for going to the moon are a little less defined than that; someone had suggested that he's doing a favor to aerospace companies (which also have a hand in the manufacture of military aircraft).
NASA's not completely without purpose right now, as witnessed by the various unmanned probes to the inner & outer planets. Aside from the current Mars landers/rovers, Cassini will arrive at Saturn in July, and Messenger is due to launch for Mercury later this year. In spite of a few failures (the late 1990's Mars missions), NASA's had great success with the unmanned probes, which have furthered our understanding of our neighboring planets.
But the direction of NASA's manned space program is fairly undefined, essentially relegated to maintenance tasks in low orbit.
To paraphrase Anonymous, NASA needs to break new ground.
Off Topic, What does CR stand for?
I was feeling rather lazy earlier so I just clicked Anonymous instead of typing in "Torque, Son of Keplar" if you were curious who I was.
...I just clicked Anonymous instead of typing in "Torque, Son of Keplar"...
Oh, that was you? I understand feeling lazy, hence my use of my initials instead of typing out my full name. (Besides, I figured most people knew who I was/am by now.)
Trying to get back on topic, maybe CR could stand for Comet Rover! OK, maybe not!
Well I firmly believe Bush made his goal of a moon landing for political and business purposes. Doing somethign to try and rum p support in a political year. And Like CR said NASA is not totally goaless but right now they have been concentrating on unmanned missions for expense and they have been rather gun shy as the shuttles have been starting to show their age a bit too much recently and Columbia just ran out of time and luck unfortunately causing NASA o have to do something to trya nd proove that the safety of the crew is still viable and that the investment in the Shuttle back in the seventies was not wasted. A totally new spaceshuttle would cost quite a bit and I dont recall hearing Bush say anythign about that. Maybe if he was making his comments totally for the aerospace industry that would have been a better thing to say since it would have given the companies a lot more work but a lunar landing will still require a lot of new equipment and that would help the companies. Oh and sorry for being a smartalek earlier as I thought that was what the comment i was responding to was. That and I had just watched armageddon again.
Oh and one more positive comment about things goign on in the sky. Right now if you go out under the right conditions just at dark you can see 6 of the 9 planets with the naked eye. Startign low on the western horizon look low and you shouold be able to see Mercury if you are lucky and away from lights. Looking up the really bright silver Venus is very obvious. About a palm's width up is the dull red planet Mars. Still nice but not as bright as it was. Almost overhead is the dull gold beacon known as Saturn. Shinging brightly to the east is the golden globe of Jupiter with his four bright moons dancing around him. And to see the 6th of 9 planets look straight down between your feet and there it is. The good earth. :-)
The good earth. :-)
That was by Pearl Buck, wasn't it?
One of the consequences of NASA's sudden interest in safety first (and I apologize for being somewhat off topic here) is that the Agency is not sending anyone to repair or upgrade the Hubble telescope for the time being. This, of course, means that the telescope could become disfunctional in the near future. Many astronomers are upset at the impending loss, to the extent that many have protested it and demanded that the decision be made by a committee of scientists and engineers to determine if it can be done within acceptable safety parameters. I believe such a committee has been set up.
"Space, the final frontier..."
To add to what Benn brought up, I believe several astronauts are also willing to take the risk to make the repairs to the Hubble 'scope. (Forgot where I read that; probably at Space.com.)
R, silly or not, your Bush commment actually prompted me to post my remarks about Bush's space directive; it got me thinking. I wonder if this topic has come up on one of the Political Musings boards.
A miscellaneous note... one of the rovers on Mars has taken a picture of Earth. This photo is the first ever taken of Earth from the surface of another planet. (Earth's moon was the first extraterrestrial body from which Earth was photographed, but our moon isn't a planet. Picky, I know.)
Our home planet appears as little more than a speck in the dusky Martian sky, much as Mars looks like a tiny dot to us when viewed from Earth. (As I took a walk in the country a few nights ago, I saw Venus and mused about how hot it was right then, even though on Earth I was fairly cold in the chill of the night. Tracking upward, I picked out Mars, and thought about how awesome it was that at that very moment, as I gazed at that little dot, two rovers from Earth were there traversing soil and rocks and discovering who knows what?)
Anyway, seeing that photo of Earth in the Martian sky and knowing that everyone I know, every place I've been, are there on that little speck really gets me to appreciate how tiny and fragile Earth actually is on a cosmic scale. Also, as I see the latest awful news headlines about the wars being fought and people hating each other, I wonder if the little scraps of that little speck are worth fighting over.
Humanity might never leave behind its animalistic ways, but science and space exploration, discovering new frontiers, gives us a chance to rise above our bad side, and gives me hope for our future. I hope we last long enough in spite of ourselves to see what else is out there...
Is this message board only for steller phenomena, or can people discuss space missions -(past present and future), The ISS, NASA, emerging space agencies of other nations?
I didn't want to digress into the other areas if this is not the board to do it on.
There's a board over in PM, but that's discussing the politicial side of things. We might want to open one here...
Ah, to heck with asking the mod... I created a borard under "Science Related" called "Space Missions". Have fun, Torque.
I read about several astronauts wanting to volunteer for the repair mission too. I think it was on Yahoo but I think it was a Space.com attribution. That is really sad that the managers and all are willing to let Hubble die in favor of the ISS. I know the funding and safety issues are major but one last shot when Hubble is still rocking and you hav eastronauts willing to fly the mission should caount for something. And the one argument where they said it was designed for 11(?) years and have already passed that is kinda cheesy in that chevy designed my car to last 10 years and it is old enough to drink if it where a human. I know what you mnean about looking up into a night sky and wondering what anyone who is out there might be thinking about us. Its a shame more people dont look at the pictures of earth from space and realzie that there arnt borders in the world for real like on a globe. And as for talking about other space missions sicne I'm not the moderator I cant make an officail comments other than to say i dont mind talking about them but maybe another board/topic for them might be cool.
R, I'm not the moderator, but I made a board for Space Missions next door to this one. But let's try to keep politics out of that one. There's a NASA board over in PM for those who want to discuss the politics of space.
Good show, ScottN, making a seperate board for space missions. And good call about going to PM for the political stuff (barring the occasional point that will inevitably cross over to both boards).
Ok. Good. Last time I tried to make a new discussion in the sink I got an authorization error. That and I dont wanna step on any toes I do enough of that as it is sometimes. And I will try and keep the politics out of that one except for those areas where politics and missions unfortunately crossover or entwine.
News that's better late than never... Cassini has successfully reached Saturn & is in orbit. So far, it's returned awesome pics of Saturn's rings, several pics of one of its tiny outer moons (Phoebe), and some interesting pics of the huge, atmosphere-shrouded moon, Titan, including weather patterns on Titan's south pole.
I believe January 2005 is when Cassini will launch the Huygens drop probe to actually enter Titan's atmosphere for analysis & landing.
In a nutshell, what the Galileo probe did for the Jupiter system, Cassini/Huygens will do for the Saturn system. Pretty exciting stuff (to me anyway)!
I just stumbled onto this:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050729224136.htm
They found a new planet.
I hope they call it Rupert.