I keep trying to imagine what it would be like to be in there. I keep thinking of Six Flag rides. First, the sudden drop. Then, extreme acceleration. Then, I poop my pants
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WeaverWho are you?What do you want?Registered Userregular
I hope the pilot yelled "Punch it Chewie!" right before the rocket kicked off.
Comets are among the most beautiful and least understood nomads of the night sky. To date, half a dozen of these most heavenly of heavenly bodies have been visited by spacecraft in an attempt to unlock their secrets. All these missions have had one thing in common: the high-speed flyby. Like two ships passing in the night (or one ship and one icy dirtball), they screamed past each other at hyper velocity -- providing valuable insight, but fleeting glimpses, into the life of a comet. That is, until Rosetta.
NASA is participating in the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, whose goal is to observe one such space-bound icy dirt ball from up close -- for months on end. The spacecraft, festooned with 25 instruments between its lander and orbiter (including three from NASA), is programmed to "wake up" from hibernation on Jan. 20. After a check-out period, it will monitor comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it makes its nosedive into, and then climb out of, the inner solar system. Over 16 months, during which old 67P is expected to transform from a small, frozen world into a roiling mass of ice and dust, complete with surface eruptions, mini-earthquakes, basketball-sized, fluffy ice particles and spewing jets of carbon dioxide and cyanide.
"We are going to be in the cometary catbird seat on this one," said Claudia Alexander, project scientist for U.S. Rosetta from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "To have an extended presence in the neighborhood of a comet as it goes through so many changes should change our perspective on what it is to be a comet."
@Chimera why is there no such thing as weather machines? I need it to not get super cold again.
Where have all the mad scientists gone?
Despite Fox's claims to the contrary, there's fuck-all money in Climatology, so they all went and got jobs in the finance industry instead.
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ChimeraMonster girl with a snek tail and five eyesBad puns, that's how eye roll. Registered Userregular
edited January 2014
So there is this church by my house called "The Church of Christ, The Scientist." I am not sure what that means.
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ANYWAYS..... I have been very busy this weekend with fire weather coverage but tomorrow I will post to answer your question about the cold weather and the return of the dreaded "polar vortex" (as well as what the polar vortex is and why it isn't something new or rare). I will also talk about some geoengineering that does exist or was attempted at one point in time.
Christian Scientists are very much not scientists. They may not even be Christian (that's a more nebulous concept though). They believe that medical problems are in reality spiritual problems and so the real way to get fixed is to fix your spiritual problems. They are anti-vaccine, anti-medicine in general.
Does anyone know of a religious group with 'science' in their name that isn't crazy and anti-science?
Astronomers have discovered a new class of solitary runaway stars. These hypervelocity bodies are moving incredibly fast- about a million-plus mile-per-hour relative to the motion of Milky Way. This speed enables them to break away from the grasp of the galaxy
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+2
AntimatterDevo Was RightGates of SteelRegistered Userregular
Ooh, that's a super fun article right there. I love reading about the superstructures in the universe. Gives me that wibbly feeling of astronomical terror that I love so much. I think my favourite of which is the billion light year void of nothingness. So. Godamn. Metal.
Comets are among the most beautiful and least understood nomads of the night sky. To date, half a dozen of these most heavenly of heavenly bodies have been visited by spacecraft in an attempt to unlock their secrets. All these missions have had one thing in common: the high-speed flyby. Like two ships passing in the night (or one ship and one icy dirtball), they screamed past each other at hyper velocity -- providing valuable insight, but fleeting glimpses, into the life of a comet. That is, until Rosetta.
NASA is participating in the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, whose goal is to observe one such space-bound icy dirt ball from up close -- for months on end. The spacecraft, festooned with 25 instruments between its lander and orbiter (including three from NASA), is programmed to "wake up" from hibernation on Jan. 20. After a check-out period, it will monitor comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it makes its nosedive into, and then climb out of, the inner solar system. Over 16 months, during which old 67P is expected to transform from a small, frozen world into a roiling mass of ice and dust, complete with surface eruptions, mini-earthquakes, basketball-sized, fluffy ice particles and spewing jets of carbon dioxide and cyanide.
"We are going to be in the cometary catbird seat on this one," said Claudia Alexander, project scientist for U.S. Rosetta from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "To have an extended presence in the neighborhood of a comet as it goes through so many changes should change our perspective on what it is to be a comet."
Near the Big Dipper, this one is yet another astronomical event that is obstructed to me down under, but that doesn't much matter because this one is going to remain all but invisible to the naked eye anyway.
However!
It has been caught pretty early in its lifecycle and will continue to brighten for another couple weeks yet, at which point it will be visible with a decent pair of binoculars (provided, once again, that you're in the northern hemisphere, and also not buried under 3 feet of snow). Plus, Supernova! It's a star that has exploded, quite possibly because it has collided with another star!
Near the Big Dipper, this one is yet another astronomical event that is obstructed to me down under, but that doesn't much matter because this one is going to remain all but invisible to the naked eye anyway.
However!
It has been caught pretty early in its lifecycle and will continue to brighten for another couple weeks yet, at which point it will be visible with a decent pair of binoculars (provided, once again, that you're in the northern hemisphere, and also not buried under 3 feet of snow). Plus, Supernova! It's a star that has exploded, quite possibly because it has collided with another star!
If that shit isn't cool, I don't know what is.
I know it won't happen in my lifetime, but I'd love to see Betelguese go. I hear it is predicted to be pretty bright when it does. If some unknown star did the same thing, that'd be fine with me too.
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
edited January 2014
Phil Plait did a column about just that not that long ago. Well, mostly about another star (or four) that could explode located within eyeshot in the Milky Way. There's a reasonable chance something inside the Milky Way will explode sometime in our lives, which could make for a pretty impressive light show.
EDIT: There's also this thing from last year, where some astronomers ran some calculations to predict how likely it was that a visible Supernova would occur in the next 50 years.
The probability of a galactic supernova being visible with the unaided eye from somewhere on Earth within the next 50 years is approximately 20-50 percent, with people in the southern hemisphere getting the best of those odds, since they can see more of our galaxy in the night sky. The odds worsen as you go north.
Considering how awesome Kepler's Supernova sounds, I'd be down for some of that.
Visible to the naked eye, Kepler's Star was brighter at its peak than any other star in the night sky, and brighter than all the planets other than Venus, with an apparent magnitude of −2.5. It was visible during the day for over three weeks.
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Where have all the mad scientists gone?
Despite Fox's claims to the contrary, there's fuck-all money in Climatology, so they all went and got jobs in the finance industry instead.
--
ANYWAYS..... I have been very busy this weekend with fire weather coverage but tomorrow I will post to answer your question about the cold weather and the return of the dreaded "polar vortex" (as well as what the polar vortex is and why it isn't something new or rare). I will also talk about some geoengineering that does exist or was attempted at one point in time.
You can see some of the stills from one of the fires I was at here: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/28926446/#Comment_28926446
Does anyone know of a religious group with 'science' in their name that isn't crazy and anti-science?
I think it's sorta stupid that religion and scientist keep getting pitched together like this
there's more than a few dinguses championing either camp making it WAY more of a conflict than it needs to be
however
creationism and intelligent design is fucking terrible and should not be taught like it's a scientifically viable explanation
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Ooh, that's a super fun article right there. I love reading about the superstructures in the universe. Gives me that wibbly feeling of astronomical terror that I love so much. I think my favourite of which is the billion light year void of nothingness. So. Godamn. Metal.
Found a live update on the mission over at the guardian. Plenty of filler to read through there if you're interested as well.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
I read that link as giant-fleshlight at first.
I was very intrigued.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/01/donut-sized-rock-suddenly-appears-in-front-of-mars-rover/
WHY ARE YOU NOT TELLING US ABOUT THE SENTIENT ROCKONOIDS
Maybe... maybe ACSIS WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG?! :O
my new background
i ask, after i put it into my rotation
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
unless the last one is Niburu
How can you even read that
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/mer/rock-pinnacle-island-pia17761/index.html#.Ut9lfRDn_Z4
I left my lunch on mars sorry
Nah, it's definitely a martian lunch. They're messy buggers, always throwing leftovers out of their magnetocrafts.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
Near the Big Dipper, this one is yet another astronomical event that is obstructed to me down under, but that doesn't much matter because this one is going to remain all but invisible to the naked eye anyway.
However!
It has been caught pretty early in its lifecycle and will continue to brighten for another couple weeks yet, at which point it will be visible with a decent pair of binoculars (provided, once again, that you're in the northern hemisphere, and also not buried under 3 feet of snow). Plus, Supernova! It's a star that has exploded, quite possibly because it has collided with another star!
If that shit isn't cool, I don't know what is.
I know it won't happen in my lifetime, but I'd love to see Betelguese go. I hear it is predicted to be pretty bright when it does. If some unknown star did the same thing, that'd be fine with me too.
EDIT: There's also this thing from last year, where some astronomers ran some calculations to predict how likely it was that a visible Supernova would occur in the next 50 years.
Considering how awesome Kepler's Supernova sounds, I'd be down for some of that.
Stars!
Launch in about five minutes